National Hero’s Day is a holiday in the Caribbean nation of Nevis and St. Kitts, which takes place each 16th of September.

It was established, along with several other awards, in 1998 by the St. Kitts and Nevis Federal parliament with the passage of the National Honours Act. So which hero is being celebrated!?!?

The first holiday was held on September 16, 1998, and the first National Hero was Robert Bradshaw, the first Premier of the Associated State of St Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla. No one else has received the honor since!

Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw (16 September 1916 - 23 May 1978) was a labour activist, Chief Minister and Premier of the island of Saint Kitts in the Caribbean Sea. It was his dream to see the country an independent nation.

Bradshaw was born in the village of Saint Paul Capisterre on the island of St. Kitts, and attended school in the same village.

He supported the cause of the sugar workers, and was one of the political stalwarts of the country. He entered politics in 1946 and won a seat in the Legislative Council and later became a member of the Executive Council. In 1956 he was Minister of Trade and Production for St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla. During in the short-lived West Indies Federation (from 1958 to 1962), Bradshaw was elected to the Federal House of Representatives and held the post of minister of finance for the Federation.

After the break-up of the Federation, Bradshaw returned to St. Kitts from Trinidad. In 1966 he became Chief Minister, and in 1967 the first Premier of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, now an associated state of Britain.

Under his leadership, all sugar lands as well as the central sugar factory were bought by the government. Opposition to Bradshaw’s rule began to build, especially by the families of former estate owners, who founded the People’s Action Movement party in 1964, after frustration over a failed demonstration against a raise in electricity rates. Opposition was especially great in Nevis, where it was felt that the island was being neglected and unfairly deprived of revenue, investment and services by its larger neighbour. Bradshaw mainly ignored Nevis’ complaints, but Nevisian disenchantment with the Labour Party proved a key factor in the party’s eventual fall from power.

In 1977 he went to London for independence talks with the United Kingdom government.
He died in May 1978 of prostate cancer, and was succeeded by his former deputy, Paul Southwell. The country’s Robert Bradshaw International Airport is named in his honour. In 1997 he was named the first national hero of St. Kitts and Nevis, and National Heroes Day is celebrated on his birthday.

Read more on the Nevis Hero from the Google Archives HERE!

If you are curious about the potical development of Nevis Island… read about Politics of Saint Kitts and Nevis HERE

~ Becca Briley ~

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