Nicholson Ducreay

Nicholson Alexander Nathaniel Ducreay (20 December 1930 – 1 July 2017) was a Dominican politician.

Early life Ducreay was born on 20 December 1930 in Wesley. His mother, Enid Matilda Ducreay, was from Cochrane and her family owned the Stewart Hall Estate. His father, Nicholson Thomas, was headteacher of Wesley Primary School. Ducreay attended Dominica Grammar School in Roseau between 1944 and 1949. After graduation, he worked as a teacher at the Cochrane Primary School for three years, before establishing his own lumber business in Roseau.

Political career There was a turning point in Dominican politics on 24 May 1955 when Emmanuel Christopher Loblack and Phyllis Shand Allfrey established the new Dominica Labour Party (DLP). Ducreay was by this time well known in Roseau, particularly for his public speaking. Allfrey approached him in 1957 to ask him to join the DLP and run as a candidate for the Roseau North constituency in the 1957 Dominican general election. Ducreay won his election on 15 August and took his place in the legislature with two other DLP members: Edward Oliver LeBlanc and R. P. St. Luce. There were only eight constituencies at the time and the other five seats were held by the governing party, Frank Baron's Dominica United People's Party (DUPP).

Ahead of the 26 October 1970 general election, Ducreay and two other ministers, W. S. Stevens and Mabel Moir James, formed a new bloc to remove LeBlanc from the DLP on the basis that he was an autocrat. In response, LeBlanc established the LeBlanc Labour Party and beat all of his opponents in the election, with the exception of Stevens. Having lost the election, Ducreay left politics to return to his business. He later spoke favourably about the formation of the United Workers' Party in 1988. Prior to his death, he had suffered from kidney complications and hypertension.