Vere Bird - Life and Career

Life and Career

Bird was born in a poor area of St John's, the capital. Unlike most of his giant political contemporaries - such as Manley and Adams, who were distinguished lawyers, and Trinidadian Sir Eric Williams, a scholar - Bird had little formal education. He received only a primary education at the St John's Boys School.

In 1939, when the Antigua Trades and Labour Union (ATLU) was formed Bird was an executive member. By 1943 he had become president of the union and was leading a battle for better working conditions and increased pay against the white sugar barons. The union entered electoral politics for the first time in 1946 and Bird won, in a by-election, a seat in the legislature and was appointed a member of the Executive Council.

When universal adult suffrage was introduced here in 1951, the ATLU, under the banner of the Antigua Labour Party, won all seats in the legislature, a feat it repeated until 1967, making Antigua a country with a multi-party system but a freely voted one-party control.

The ministerial system was introduced in 1956 and the Governor gave Bird the trade and production portfolio, and when further constitutional advancement came in 1960, he was named Chief Minister.

In 1967, Antigua became the first Eastern Caribbean island to receive the associated statehood constitution from Britain that gave internal self-government but with London remaining responsible for foreign policy and defence.

Bird, radical in his younger days, had been shifting to the right, and in the face of severe social unrest that forced a split in the ATLU in 1967 and rioting in 1968, the ATLU lost its tight hold of Antigua and Barbuda politics.

Out of the split, the Antigua Workers Union was formed and later the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM), and Bird decided to resign because he felt it was not right to hold both positions.

In 1968 the PLM won four seats in a by-election and by 1971 Bird was out of power having not only lost the government to the PLM but also the parliamentary seat he had held for 25 years.

A former Lieutenant, the PLM's George Walter, became the island's new premier.

But Vere Bird's political exile was to last for only five years and by 1976, he regained the government, having campaigned against independence on the grounds that Antigua was not yet psychologically ready. He won the election again in 1980, this time with independence being a major campaign plank. With his powerful family, he ruled Antigua and Barbuda up to 1994, when he quit politics, having paved the way for one of his sons, Lester, to take over as Prime Minister.

• Chief Minister of Antigua from 1 January 1960 to 27 February 1967
• Premier of Antigua from 27 February 1967 to 14 February 1971
• Premier of Antigua from 1 February 1976 to 1 November 1981
• Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda from 1 November 1981 to 9 March 1994.

He died in St. John's on 28 June 1999.