Robert Hall (Antiguan politician) explained

Honorific-Prefix:Sir
Robert Hall
Office1:Leader of the Opposition
Term Start1:1979
Term End1:1984
Predecessor1:George Walter
Successor1:Eric Burton
Office3:Deputy Premier of Antigua
Term Start3:1971
Term End3:1976
Successor3:Lester Bird
Primeminister3:George Walter
Office4:Minister of Agriculture
Term Start4:1971
Term End4:1976
Office5:Leader of the Opposition
Term Start5:December 1968
Term End5:1970
Successor5:George Walter
Birth Date:1909
Birth Place:Colony of Antigua and Barbuda
Death Date:1994
Death Place:Antigua and Barbuda
Party:Progressive Labour Movement

Sir Robert Hall (1909–1994) was a politician of Antigua and Barbuda. Hall was an opponent of the dominant Antigua Labour Party throughout his career. He was politically active mainly during Antigua and Barbuda's time as a West Indies Associated State.

Career

During the 1960s, Hall led the Antigua and Barbuda Democratic Movement. This very loose political organisation was most significant for the role it allowed Hall to play in the creation of the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM) in 1968. After the party won four by-elections, it became Antigua and Barbuda's first parliamentary opposition party. Hall was the first leader of this party and was appointed as the first parliamentary Leader of the Opposition in the state,[1] but he relinquished this role to George Walter before the 1971 general election.

Hall served as Deputy Premier of Antigua during the Progressive Labour Movement government of 1971–76, and during that period he was also the first Minister for Agriculture in the state. Agricultural policy had been divided among several separate civil service bodies during the previous administration. His flagship policy was diversification of agriculture away from the archipelago's heavy dependence on sugar exports, and to increase the cultivation of other crops, such as the pineapple.[2]

Hall assumed the leadership of the Progressive Labour Movement for a second time in time for the 1980 general election, due to the electoral defeat and subsequent imprisonment of his predecessor, George Walter, on false corruption charges relating to PLM economic mismanagement.[3] Though a free man by 1980, Walter had been barred from participating in the election. This oppression diminished the appeal of opposition parties, and Hall left the legislature in 1984, three years after the full independence of Antigua and Barbuda.

Hall died in 1994, and was posthumously knighted by the United Progressive Party government that came to power in 2004. Outside politics, Hall was a planter and farmer, as well as a former civil servant in the field of agriculture. He was a White Antiguan.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Gascoigne . Joseph Michael . Partyism and Polarisation: A History of Antiguan Political Culture, 1967-1976.
  2. Web site: Robert Hall - Father of Diversification . The Gilbert's Agricultural and Rural Development Center . 2005 . 23 January 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080724194305/http://www.gardc.org/farmmap.html . 24 July 2008 .
  3. Web site: Antigua and Barbuda - Government and Politics . Meditz . Sandra W. . Hanratty . Dennis M. . 1987 . Caribbean Islands: A Country Study . Federal Research Division, Library of Congress . Washington, D.C. . 23 January 2010.