Adams, Grantley Herbert (1898–1971)

Grantley Herbert Adams (April 28, 1898–November 28, 1971) served as the first premier of Barbados and as the prime minister of the West Indies Federation. Adams was born to a middle-class family and returned from England as a barrister and soon entered politics. Given that Adams was faced with the most racially exclusive and politically entrenched white plantocracy of the British West Indies, his political victories were nothing short of monumental. His political philosophy was that of the British Labour Party, Fabian democratic socialism; his initial political vehicles were the Barbados Workers' Union (BWU) and the Barbados Labour Party (BLP). He was first elected to the House of Assembly in 1934. He agitated for universal adult suffrage, instituted in 1950, and full ministerial government, granted in 1954. In 1957 he became the first and only prime minister of the ill-fated West Indies Federation. After the demise of the federation in 1962 he returned to Barbadian politics as leader of the opposition as his island was led to full independence under Errol Barrow, leader of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP). When he resigned from the BLP in 1970, his son, J. M. G. (Tom) Adams succeeded him as president of the party and be-came prime minister in 1976. Grantley Herbert Adams is honored in Barbados for his dedication to social justice and for his probity and fair-mindedness.

See alsoBarbados; West Indies Federation.

                                   Anthony P. Maingot