Errol Barrow
Errol Walton Barrow PC QC (21 January 1920 – 1 June 1987) was a Barbadian statesman and the first prime minister of Barbados. Born into a family of political and civic activists in the parish of Saint Lucy, he became a WWII aviator, combat veteran, lawyer, politician, gourmet cook and author. He is often referred to as the "Father of Independence" in Barbados.[1]
Errol Walton Barrow
Lloyd Erskine Sandiford
Elizabeth II
James Cameron Tudor (1966-1971)
Cuthbert Edwy Talma (1971-1976)
Position Established
Elizabeth II
John Montague Stow
James Cameron Tudor
Position Abolished
21 January 1920
Saint Lucy, British Windward Islands (present day Barbados)
1 June 1987 (aged 67)
Bridgetown, Barbados
Democratic Labour Party (1955–1987)
Barbados Labour Party (before 1955)
Lesley Barrow
David O'Neal Barrow
Eric Wayne Padmore
- Lawyer
- Jurist
- Academic
- Professor
- Author
- Member of Parliament
- Politician
1940–1947
Early life[edit]
Errol Walton Barrow was born on 21 January 1920 in Saint Lucy, Barbados, the fourth of five children born to the Rev. Reginald Grant Barrow (1889–1980) and his wife Ruth Albertha (née O'Neal) (1884–1939). Ruth was the daughter of a prosperous blacksmith whose success allowed him to purchase the plantation at Saint Lucy, where Errol would later be born.[2]
Reverend Barrow, an Anglican priest, had been appointed headmaster of the Alleyne school after his sermons as curate of St Lucy parish church brought him into conflict with the island's ruling class and church hierarchy. His removal from the pulpit did not succeed in curtailing his advocacy and agitation on behalf of poor black labourers on the island. In 1919 after he challenged the financial misappropriations of the white planters who oversaw the school's endowment, the church summarily transferred him to the island of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands (USVI) leaving his wife alone to give birth to their second son at her family home, before she could join her husband with their four infant children.[3]
As parish priest at Holy Cross Episcopal Church, Rev. Barrow's brand of what was later termed "liberation theology", was no better received by church authorities there than it had been in Barbados. By late 1920, he was forced out of Holy Cross and he founded St. Luke AME, the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in the USVI. Although he found a home for his values in the AME Church, his theological freedom made him all the more dangerous in the eyes of the island's authorities, and in 1922 he was deported by order of the Governor as an "undesirable".[2]
Rev. Barrow eventually made his way to New York and became a Bishop in the AME church. Unfortunately, he never reunited with his wife and it was thus that Errol Barrow spent the first six years of his life in St Croix and began his education at the Danish Preparatory School there. He would not see his father again until years later.
Ruth Barrow returned to Barbados to raise her five children with the help of her extended family, living with their grandmother Catherine O’Neal in Bridgetown. Her older brother, Dr. Charles Duncan O’Neal, was a prominent physician and activist (later a National Hero of Barbados) who founded the Democratic League and Workingmen's Association, the first socialist organization in Barbados.[4] Under his fatherly influence, Dr. O'Neal's philosophies formed the core of the young Errol's political and social beliefs. Among Errol's playmates at his grandmother's house on Crumpton Street was his cousin Hugh Springer, later Sir Hugh, Governor General of Barbados and the third member of the family to be named a National Hero.
In Barbados, Errol first attended Wesley Hall Boys School before winning a scholarship to Combermere School, which he attended for one year before being admitted to Harrison College, then the most prestigious boys school on the island. It was during his schoolboy days that Barrow acquired the nickname "Dipper", ostensibly for his awkward cricket batting style.[2] It was a moniker that would follow him as an affectionate brand well into his political career. After graduating from Harrison Barrow spent a year working as a legal clerk while studying to earn a scholarship to Codrington College, the school from which his father had emerged as its youngest ever graduate in 1919.[3] His mother died in 1939, and he won the Island Scholarship in 1940, but by December of that year he had chosen a different path.
Personal life[edit]
Errol Barrow was a son of the Rev. Reginald Grant Barrow (1889–1980) and Ruth Albertha O'Neal (maiden; 1884–1939). His sister, Dame Nita Barrow, also became a social activist, humanitarian leader and later Governor General of Barbados. He had three other siblings, and two half-siblings from his father's second marriage.
Errol Barrow married Carolyn Marie Plaskett, the daughter of a prominent American Baptist minister in Orange, NJ, on 18 November 1945. Their union produced two children: Lesley (1949–2008) and David (born 1953). Despite their eventual estrangement the couple never divorced.
In the late 1950s, his relationship with union activist Thelma Padmore produced a son Eric (born 1960).[13]
In her autobiography, the American singer Nina Simone claimed to have had an affair with Barrow (whose first name she misspells) during the brief period that she lived in Barbados.[14]
During the last thirteen years of his life until his death, Barrow lived with socialite Jeanine Leemans.
Errol Barrow Centre For Creative Imagination
The Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination, at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus, promotes the making, study and appreciation of the arts. It is "a hub for creative expression and the creative cycle: creation, production, distribution, appreciation and preservation of art".[15] He is also one of the namesakes of the island's ABC Highway.