BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THIS year, 20 16, marks the 100th birth anniversary of the twin-island Federation’s first National Hero and first Premier, the Rt. Excellent Sir Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw, and former Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas has signalled his intention to call on the Unity Team Government to support some of the planned activities in celebration of his life.
Speaking yesterday (Jan. 6) on Freedom FM’s ‘Issues’ programme, Dr. Douglas announced that the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party and the St. Kitts-Nevis Trade and Labour Union would be hosting a year-long series of activities to commemorate the event under the theme: “Strength of a Man, Triumph of a People, Forever Fearless.”
“The Labour Party, together with the St. Kitts-Nevis Trade and Labour Union, we are very proud to pursue one year of activities starting in January and we, of course, will have a core committee, centenary committee. Central to this will be members of his family and others who had known him, others who had worked with him, others who had lived with him, marched with him, toiled with him and those of us who are the beneficiaries of what he stood for,” Dr. Douglas said.
Turning back the pages of time, Dr. Douglas, who is the Leader of the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party, reflected on his early years under the Bradshaw Administration.
“I am a proud beneficiary of Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw. At age 12 in 1965, I was granted the opportunity to go to Grammar School on a scholarship, the Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw Scholarship, offered to the first male child in Newton Ground and in St. Paul’s. My good friend Warren Leader in Newton Ground also won that scholarship back in 1965. Both of us went on to the Grammar School.”
In defence of Bradshaw’s integrity as a politician, the Opposition Leader used the opportunity to rebuke two Government Ministers for statements made during that last sitting of Parliament.
“Again, just in December, last month in the Budget Debate, we heard him being vilified. None other than Hamilton and Mark himself vilifying this great man, almost trying to sully his name, because some people seem to be fixed in the past, never wanting to be visionary as Bradshaw was and going into the future. And, of course, it went into the future!
“And so what we had is, nevertheless, attempts being made just during the Budget Debate to vilify him, to almost again give him an image that we know he does not have. But for political reasons PAM found it expedient for several years, for generations I would say, to put him and cast him in a very dark and bad light.”
He said the planned activities would once again demonstrate who Bradshaw was and that some of them would need the Government’s input for success to be achieved.
“The St. Kitts and Nevis Labour Movement of today and his family will showcase again to the world who this great man really was. And so activities will abound! We will have lectures, essay writing competition, we will have debating competition and, of course, these activities, although being pursued, would need to be supplemented by those that the Government should provide.”
Dr. Douglas outlined what the centenary committee would be requesting from the Government.
“We are going to ask, for example, that the park that hosts his name, that is the Bradshaw Memorial Park in St. Paul’s, be upgraded to Phase Two as was planned by the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party Government when it formed the Administration of this country. We also would have, specifically, request a special commemorative issue of stamps to mark the centenary of his birth. And also, we will request of the Government to pursue what we had set in train as a Labour Administration; that is the Harris’ Home converted entirely into a museum.”
He explained that while his party was in Government, its plan to convert the Harris’ Home was supported by both the Cuban Government and the then Venezuelan Government through their respective Embassies.
The Former Prime Minister also stated that while in Government, his party had secured “a lease from the persons on the entity that are responsible for his estate, leasing his property to be converted a museum”.
He continued: “I therefore use this opportunity to call on the Government, if it really believes in what Bradshaw was, who he was and what he stood for, to lend support by pursuing an activity that has already been started by the Labour Administration. We have secured a lease of the property. We beg that this be continued into the next phase of turning that property into a museum.”
The official launch of the Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw Centennial Celebration activities is slated for Friday, January 15.
Robert L. Bradshaw was born in St. Paul’s Village on September 16, 1916 to Mary Jane Francis, a domestic servant, and William Bradshaw, a blacksmith. Following his father’s migration to the US when Bradshaw was nine months old, his grandmother took him under her wings.
He attended St. Paul’s Primary School, where he completed the seventh grade, the highest level of primary education at that time in St. Kitts. At the age of 16, he started working at the sugar factory as a machine apprentice, where he became interested in the Labour Movement.
Eight years later, Bradshaw left the sugar estate following a strike for higher wages and joined the St. Kitts-Nevis Trades and Labour Union as a clerk. In 1944 he succeeded Joseph Matthew Sebastian as president of the Union and had married Millicent Sahaley in 1963.
Following the 1966 elections, Bradshaw became Chief Minister and on February 27, 1967 the first Premier of the Associated State of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla.
The Rt. Excellent Sir Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw died on May 23, 1978.
