John Michael Geoffrey Manningham Adams (September 24, 1931 -March 11, 1985) known better as "Tom" Adams, he was the only son of Grantley Adams (a lawyer and the first and only Prime Minister of the Federation of the British West Indies) and Grace née Thorne.
He was educated at Harrison College, Barbados, from which he won a Barbados Scholarship to Magdalen College of the University of Oxford. He served as the Prime Minister of Barbados between 1976 and 1985. His party, the Barbados Labour Party (BLP), had capitalized on the population's desire for a change from Errol Barrow's Democratic Labour Party (DLP), which had governed the island since independence in 1966. Tom Adams moved the island in the direction of Thatcher's Britain and Reagan's USA, reflecting the conservatism of the early 80's. This alliance found its greatest expression when Tom Adams was the leading proponent in the grouping of Eastern Caribbean states which asked Reagan to intervene in overthrowing the Cuban-backed communist regime of Maurice Bishop in Grenada. Barbados was used as a staging point for some of the U.S. forces, and a nominal contingent of the Barbados Defence Force accompanied in the invasion force's wake, not least to allow (as Barrow claimed) Reagan to gild the statistics. The Bajan population was of two minds about Adams's move, generally conceding that Bishop had moved Grenada too far, but being uneasy with Reagan's US heavy-handedness. Nevertheless, Adam's BLP was tipped to win the upcoming elections, but he died of a heart attack at Illaro Court, the Prime Minister's official residence, on March 11th 1985. His deputy-PM, Bernard St. John, succeeded him but the Bajan population was dissatisfied and turned back to the other political giant of those years, Errol Barrow, and his DLP in the subsequent election in 1986. Ironically, Barrow too would die in office shortly after his election victory.
The six-story building in Bridgetown which houses the Central Bank of Barbados is today known as the Tom Adams Financial Centre in his honour
source: www.wikipedia.com |
