Charles Duncan O'Neal
Charles Duncan O'Neal(30 November 1879 – 19 November 1936) was aBarbadianphysician, politician andworkers' rightsactivist. He founded the radicalDemocratic Leaguein 1924 and influenced the shift towards party-focused politics still seen in Barbados to the present day.[1]
Early life
[edit]O'Neal was born inSaint Lucy, Barbados,to Joseph O’Neal and Kathleen O’Neal (formerly Pinnie Kathleen Prescod). His father was a blacksmith turned shopkeeper. O’Neal studied atHarrison College,and in 1899 went to study medicine at theUniversity of Edinburgh,graduating with anMBChBon 23 July 1904.[1]
Political career
[edit]While still at university, O’Neal became an active member ofKier Hardie'sIndependent Labour Party.After his graduation, he served on the County Council of Sunderland, where he was influenced by his surgical work with coal miners and workers inNewcastle.
When O’Neal returned to Barbados, progressive forces had already begun to agitate for greater rights for the labouring underclass against what had continued to be aplantocratic government.[2]He founded the Democratic League in 1924, along withClennell Wickham.
Prior to 1942, voters were required by the Representation of the People Act to have a minimum income as well as at least an acre of land or land that produced a minimum profit. This restricted democratic participation to the wealthy elite, many of them owners of the plantations that still dominated Barbados’sugar caneeconomic landscape. However, in the 1920s, villages began to expand, resulting in the rise of a newly enfranchised electorate, mostly from the working class class and of colour. The League's early focus was the increased registration of these new voters, in an effort push through legislation that had been widely opposed by the elite. These included compulsory free education, the abolition of child labour and expanded worker protections. As a part of this and with his background in Labour anddemocratic socialism,O’Neal also worked towards the organization and unionization of the workers, including representing them during strike action.
O’Neal was elected to the constituency of the city of Bridgetown in 1932, a seat he held until his death on 19 November, 1936.
Legacy
[edit]The Democratic League shifted Barbadian politics away from a paradigm that focused on voting for individual to where the current system, where support of a party over the individual tends to guide voters. Some of the goals of O’Neal's Democratic League were taken up by his opponents in the Barbados Labour Party after his death and some, such as free education, were later to be accomplished by the Democratic Labour Party.[3]
One of the two main bridges over the Careenage in the capital-cityBridgetownis named theCharles Duncan O'Neal Bridge.
By an act ofParliamentin 1998, O'Neal was named as one of theNational Heroes of Barbados.[4]He is on the $10 Barbados banknote.[5]
References
[edit]- ^abSean Creighton and Peter Freshwater,"Charles Duncan O'Neal"Archived2 April 2015 at theWayback Machine,North East Slavery & Abolition Group ENewsletter,No. 8, April 2010, p. 15.
- ^David V.C. Browne, The 1937 Disturbances and Barbadian Nationalism, The Empowering Impulse, Canoe Press, 2001
- ^Emancipation III: Aspects of the Post-Slavery Experience of Barbados, 1988
- ^Parliament of Barbados(2009)."Parliament's History".Archived fromthe originalon 23 May 2007.Retrieved15 November2011.
- ^Barbados, Central Bank of."$10 Note".www.centralbank.org.bb.
