Hugh Lawson Shearer- A Very Successful Prime Minister

Jamaica’s most successful Prime Minister Hugh Lawson Shearer, born and grew up in the little village of Martha Brae, near Falmouth, Trelawny on May 18, 1923. His father James Shearer was a World War One ex- serviceman and his mother Esther Lindo, a dressmaker.

He attended the Falmouth Primary School where he excelled and St. Simon’s College on a parish scholarship. He graduated in 1940 from St. Simon’s.

Mr Shearer’s first job was working as a trainee journalist on the weekly publication called ” Jamaica Worker,” the newspaper of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (B.I.T.U.). While understudying the paper’s editor Lynden G Newland who became General Secretary of the B.I.T.U and continued working on the paper, he eventually became its editor.

Not satisfied, Mr Shearer started his trade union career as an apprentice while still working as a journalist. He  was now under the wings of Alexander Bustamante.  He won a Government  Trade Union scholarship to Barbadoes in 1947.

Mr Shearer was appointed Island Supervisor if the B.I.T.U and later elected Vice- President of the Union. He sat beside Bustamante as a negotiator and organizer in many industrial disputes.

He contested and won the Western Kingston constituency in the 1955 elections that swept the PNP to power under Norman Manley, where he sat on the opposition benches. He lost his seat in the 1959 elections.

The JLP was swept into power in the newly independent Jamaica and Mr Shearer was appointed a Senator (1962-1967). He was Leader of Government Business in the Senate and Minister without Portfolio. He also served as Deputy Chief of Missions at the United Nations where he presented a proposal in 1963 and was accepted to have the year 1968 declared “Human Rights Year.”

In the 1967 elections Mr Shearer won the Southern Clarendon seat which was held by Bustamante before his active political retirement. Hugh Shearer was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Donald Sangster became Jamaica’s second prime minister.

Mr Shearer was now the luckiest man on earth as in less than three months he was chosen prime minister of Jamaica, after the sudden death of Donald Sangster. Clement Tafares Finson and Robert Lightbourne wanted to become party leader and prime minister, but the still all powerful Chief, Alexander Bustamante, was having none of it and decided Hugh Shearer was his choice. That sealed the deal for Mr Shearer, who was chosen and appointed Prime Minister on April 11, 1967.

Prime Minister Hugh Shearer was well liked by the people mainly because of his trade union roots. Jamaica saw unprecedented growth in the 1960’s under his watch. Three new alumina refineries and three large hotels were built. Jamaica embarked on a period of economic development particularly in the areas of tourism, mining and agriculture, and saw per capita income at US$2300. By all accounts with a sense of independence pride Jamaica was well on its way to becoming an industrial nation. He took education very seriously with the building fifty new schools.

Through negotiations at the Commonwealth Conference in Zambia he managed to win concessions for a market for Caribbean bananas. In 1972 the JLP lost badly when Michael Manley’s PNP swept to power.

Mr Shearer served as Leader of the Opposition and made way for Edward Seaga, who took over as both party and Opposition Leader in 1974. Mr Shearer went back to trade union and was elected President of the B.I.T.U. In 1980 when the JLP returned to power, he became deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign trade. He lost his seat in 1993 by a razor thin margin. Hugh Lawson Shearer was Jamaica’s third Prime Minister and by accounts a very successful one.