Cyrus Prudhomme David

Cyrus Prudhomme David (November 1867 – October 1923) was a Trinidad and Tobago lawyer, reformer, and member of the Legislative Council of Trinidad and Tobago. Born in Cedros in southwest Trinidad, David was mentored by author John Jacob Thomas and educated at Queen's Royal College in Port of Spain. He was one of the first non-white students to win an Island Scholarship, which allowed him to read law in Britain. After being called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1889, David returned to Trinidad where he practiced law and became the secretary of the Legislative Reform Committee.

After being rejected for the position of stipendiary magistrate in Couva by the Colonial Office, David was appointed to the Legislative Council by Governor Cornelius Alfred Moloney as an unofficial member in 1904. As a member of the council David opposed the importation of indentured labour from India, and worked for local government reform. He resigned from the council in 1911 after he was appointed Commissioner of the Port of Spain Petty Civil Court.

Early life and education David was born in Cedros, in southwest Trinidad, in November 1867, the son of Ernest David. In 1869, John Jacob Thomas was appointed Clerk of the Peace in Cedros. Thomas became friends with Ernest David, and when he left Cedros in 1874, he took the younger David with him and enrolled him in Queen's Royal College in Port of Spain in 1882. David won an Island Scholarship in 1885, David travelled to Britain, where he read law at Gray's Inn and was called to the bar in 1889, after which he returned to Trinidad and practiced law as a barrister.

Political career After returning from Britain, David became involved with the Legislative Reform Committee, a radical group which campaigned for elected government and a semi-representative franchise. Froude's views were embraced by the Secretary of State for the Colonies Joseph Chamberlain who argued that West Indian whites and "half breeds" were "always incapable and frequently corrupt" while Black West Indians were "totally unfit for representative institutions".

In 1898 Chamberlain designated the commander of the local military forces an official member of the Legislative Council. This change gave official members a majority on the council, where previously there had been an unofficial majority. Chamberlain's actions weakened the already limited power of local residents. Although the primary beneficiaries of the system were a relatively small number of large sugar planters, one third of the cost of immigration was funded by the government. In a council debate in 1904 he raised the issue, pointing out that while sugar planters insisted that there was a labour shortage in the colony, other sectors including public works and certain cocoa planters, did not report any shortage. David suggested that the cost of immigration should be covered in full by the sugar planters, or that the subsidy should be distributed to all planters, who could then use this to pay increased wages to their workers. David received little support on the council for his efforts, but he continued to campaign for the abolition of the government subsidy until 1911, when he resigned from the Legislative Council.

Although he was a reformer and was appointed to the Legislative Council to represent the interests of the Black population, David and other reformers like Alcazar and Lazare were unable to mobilise the working class. Historian Jerome Teelucksingh attributes this to their view of the working class as "irresponsible, unprepared, and uneducated". Although he was conscious of the needs of the Black population, David was also the product of an educational system that sought to impart a European classical education. He emphasised the connections to British culture, saying in a 1906 address to the Legislative Council "Our wants, few as they are, are British; our ideals, such as they are, are British in the best sense of that word." He saw aspects of African and Asian culture in the population as something to be replaced with British culture.

David was a mentor to Charles Henry Pierre, who served as mayor of Port of Spain in the 1920s and was among the first people elected to the Legislative Council in 1925.