Errol Barrow

Errol Walton Barrow was born in the parish of Saint Lucy, Barbados, on the twenty-first of January 1920, the son of an Anglican rector, Reginald Grant Barrow. He came of a family already marked by civic and political conviction, a lineage of service that would shape the whole arc of his life.

When the Second World War came, Barrow crossed the ocean to serve. He trained as an air navigator, earned his wings in 1943, and flew forty-eight bombing operations over occupied Europe and Germany with the Royal Air Force, later serving as personal navigator to the commander of the British zone of occupied Germany. He then read economics at the London School of Economics and studied law before returning home in 1950.

In 1955 he helped found the Democratic Labour Party, pressing for social reform and self-rule. Leading it to victory, he became Premier and, on the thirtieth of November 1966, the first Prime Minister of an independent Barbados. Among his first and most enduring acts was the establishment of free secondary education for every child, opening the door of learning to a whole nation.

He served two long periods in office, returning to power in 1986, and died in office on the first of June 1987. Remembered as the Father of Independence, Errol Barrow gave his people both a nation and the schooling to inherit it. May his name be honored among the builders of freedom.