On 1 January 1915 a new newspaper appeared on the streets of St George's. Its masthead carried a phrase that would echo through Caribbean politics for decades: "The West Indies must be West Indian." The paper was The West Indian, and its co-founder and long-time editor was Theophilus Albert Marryshow, a self-taught journalist who would spend the next forty years arguing that Britain's scattered Caribbean colonies should govern themselves, together.
Marryshow lived to see his idea become reality, briefly. The West Indies Federation was inaugurated in 1958, and he sat in its Senate, but he died that same year, and the Federation itself collapsed in 1962. Understanding why it failed explains a lot about the Caribbean today, including why Grenada belongs to both the OECS and CARICOM rather than a single regional state.
Who Marryshow was
Marryshow was born in St George's in 1887 and grew up in modest circumstances. He entered journalism young, working on local papers before founding The West Indian with C.F.P. Renwick. Through its pages he campaigned against Crown Colony government, under which Grenada had been ruled since 1877 by a British-appointed governor and an appointed council with no elected members, after the old planter-dominated assembly had voted itself out of existence.
His campaign had two linked goals. The first was representative government: elected Grenadians in the legislature, and eventually the right of ordinary people to vote. The second was federation: the belief that small colonies could only gain real self-government, economic weight and international respect by joining together. He helped found the Representative Government Association and travelled to London to press the case. Partial reforms in the 1920s brought a few elected seats to Grenada's Legislative Council, and Marryshow won one of them, serving for many years.
Why federation seemed logical
To its supporters, the case for federation was obvious. The British colonies of the Caribbean shared a language, legal system, colonial history and many cultural ties. Individually most were tiny; Grenada had fewer than a hundred thousand people. Together they would form a country of several million, large enough to run a university, a shipping line, a currency and diplomatic missions. Britain, too, favoured federation as a tidy way to move the colonies towards self-government without creating many micro-states.
Grenada already had experience of regional administration. From 1885 until 1958 it served as the seat of the governor of the Windward Islands, a grouping that also included St Vincent, St Lucia and, from 1940, Dominica. Regional conferences through the 1930s and 1940s, including a major meeting at Montego Bay in 1947, kept the idea alive. Labour leaders across the islands, who had come to prominence after the unrest of the 1930s, also saw federation as a path to independence.
How the West Indies Federation worked
Members. Ten territories joined: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Grenada, St Vincent, St Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla and Montserrat. British Guiana and British Honduras stayed out.
Structure. A federal parliament sat in Port of Spain, with an elected House of Representatives and an appointed Senate. Grenada sent its own members, and Marryshow was appointed one of its senators when the Federation was inaugurated in 1958.
Limited powers. The federal government had a small budget and could not levy income tax at the start. Customs union and freedom of movement were promised but not fully achieved, and each territory kept most of its own government.
Not independent. The Federation remained a British colony while it existed. Independence was the expected next step, which is part of why the arguments over its design became so heated.
Why it collapsed
The Federation lasted barely four years. The most direct cause was Jamaica, the largest member, where many people felt the island would pay more than its share and be outvoted by the smaller territories. In a 1961 referendum Jamaicans voted to leave. Trinidad and Tobago's leader Eric Williams then famously summed up his position with the arithmetic that one from ten leaves nought, and Trinidad also withdrew. Both went on to independence alone in 1962.
Deeper problems lay underneath. Distances between members were large and travel expensive. Economies competed rather than complemented each other. The richer territories feared open migration from the poorer ones. The federal capital was weak, and leading politicians such as Norman Manley and Williams preferred to stay in their home territories rather than lead from the centre. The Federation was formally dissolved in May 1962.
For Grenada, the collapse triggered a brief, now little-remembered episode: talks on a possible unitary state with Trinidad and Tobago. Herbert Blaize's Grenada National Party fought the 1962 election partly on this prospect. The talks went nowhere, and Grenada instead moved, with the other smaller islands, to associated statehood in 1967.
What Marryshow's idea left behind
Although the Federation failed, the impulse behind it survived in other forms. The University of the West Indies, founded in 1948, remained a regional institution. The smaller islands created a common currency, now the Eastern Caribbean dollar, a shared central bank, a shared supreme court and, in 1981, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. CARICOM, founded in 1973, became the wider community. Each is a partial answer to the problem Marryshow identified: how small states can act with more weight together.
In Grenada, Marryshow is remembered as the Father of Federation. Marryshow House in St George's, his former home, has served as a cultural and educational centre linked to the University of the West Indies, and the national community college, the T.A. Marryshow Community College, carries his name. He died on 19 October 1958. A frequent mistake is to describe him as a pre-independence head of government; he never led an elected government, and his influence came through journalism, the Legislative Council and regional advocacy.
The federation story in sequence
Marryshow's lifetime covered almost the whole arc of the federation idea, from fringe proposal to brief reality. The key steps:
- 1877: Grenada becomes a Crown Colony with no elected members, the system Marryshow spent his career opposing.
- 1915: The West Indian is founded in St George's, with federation and self-government as its causes.
- 1920s: limited reforms introduce some elected seats to the Legislative Council; Marryshow is elected and serves for many years.
- 1932: a regional conference in Dominica, in which Marryshow took part, sets out proposals for federation and self-government.
- 1947: the Montego Bay conference commits the British government and colonial leaders to working towards federation.
- 1951: universal adult suffrage arrives in Grenada, achieving the representative goal Marryshow had pursued.
- 1958: the West Indies Federation is inaugurated; Marryshow is appointed a federal senator and dies in October.
- 1962: the Federation is dissolved after the withdrawal of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
What people often get wrong
One frequent error is to treat the Federation as a Grenadian or Eastern Caribbean project that the big islands sabotaged. In reality it was a regional initiative backed strongly by Britain, and the failure had many authors: weak federal powers, quarrels over taxation and migration, and leaders who stayed at home. Another error is to assume federation would have meant independence for Grenada sooner. Possibly, but no one can say what a surviving federation would have looked like.
A third confusion concerns names. The West Indian newspaper should not be confused with later Grenadian papers, and Marryshow House is a building in St George's, not a government office. When reading older sources, note too that "West Indies" in Marryshow's usage meant the British Caribbean colonies, not the whole region. Finally, the title Father of Federation is honorific rather than literal: many people across the islands worked for the idea, including labour leaders in Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica, and Marryshow was one prominent voice among them, though for Grenadians the most celebrated.
Frequently asked questions
Why is T.A. Marryshow called the Father of Federation?
Marryshow campaigned for a united, self-governing West Indies for more than four decades, through his newspaper The West Indian and in regional conferences. When the West Indies Federation was created in 1958 he was appointed to its Senate, which is why he is widely given the title.
When did the West Indies Federation exist?
The Federation was inaugurated in 1958 and formally dissolved in 1962. It included ten British Caribbean territories, including Grenada, with a federal parliament in Port of Spain. It ended after Jamaica voted to leave in a 1961 referendum and Trinidad and Tobago followed.
What was The West Indian newspaper?
The West Indian was a newspaper founded in St George's in 1915 by Marryshow and C.F.P. Renwick. It campaigned for representative government and Caribbean federation, carrying the slogan that the West Indies must be West Indian. Marryshow edited it for many years.
Did Grenada consider joining Trinidad after the Federation ended?
Yes. After the Federation collapsed, there were discussions about Grenada forming a unitary state with Trinidad and Tobago, and the idea featured in the 1962 Grenadian election. The talks did not produce a union, and Grenada later became an associated state in 1967.
What replaced the Federation?
No single body replaced it. Instead, Caribbean cooperation continued through several institutions: the University of the West Indies, the Eastern Caribbean currency and central bank, the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, the OECS and CARICOM. Grenada belongs to all of them.
