Ebenezer Joshua

Ebenezer Theodore Joshua (23 May 1908 – 14 March 1991) was a Vincentian politician and the first chief minister of Saint Vincent from 1960 to 1967. He was the Leader of the Legislative Council from 1956 to 1961.

Early life and career

Joshua was born in Kingstown, Saint Vincent, British Windward Islands. As a young man in the 1920s, he went to work on the nearby island of Trinidad. There he became involved in trade unionism with Buzz Butler, and was an official of the Oilfields Workers' Trade Union from 1938 until 1950, when he tried unsuccessfully to be elected to the Trinidad legislature. Returning to Saint Vincent, Joshua entered politics, and was elected to the island's assembly in 1951 as a member of the Eighth Army of Liberation. The party was staunchly against colonialism and the plantocracy.

Politics In 1957, Ebenezer and Ivy became the first married couple to be elected to a parliament of the British West Indies. In 1961, upon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gaining increased autonomy, Joshua became chief minister. He held the additional portfolio of minister of finance. His PPP saw continued success in subsequent elections. Joshua supported the unsuccessful Federation of the West Indies. He then travelled to Barbados for a regional meeting on agricultural problems; a misunderstanding of this sequence of events and Vincentian history by American musician Eric von Schmidt became the basis for the song "Joshua Gone Barbados".

In 1967 the PPP lost their parliamentary majority and Joshua was succeeded by Robert Milton Cato, leader of the Saint Vincent Labour Party. He was appointed leader of the opposition from 1967 to 1972. After the 1972 elections, Joshua was appointed Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance in the cabinet of James Fitz-Allen Mitchell. He resigned in 1974.

Joshua remained in parliament, but the PPP began to decline as the New Democratic Party emerged as political competition. In 1979 the PPP lost all parliamentary representation. Joshua resigned as party leader in 1980, and the party was dissolved in 1984. He served for a time in the presidency of the LDS Church's Kingstown Branch, then the only congregation of the church in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Death and legacy Joshua died in Kingstown, Saint Vincent, on 14 March 1991.

The Arnos Vale Airport was renamed as the E. T. Joshua Airport in his honour. After the closure of this airport in 2017, the former passenger terminal building was renovated and now houses a shopping plaza known as The Joshua Centre.