Rose Agatha Leon

Rose Agatha Leon, 1975

Rose Agatha Leon (born October 20, 1913 in Kingston , † August 16, 1999 ) was a Jamaican entrepreneur , politician of the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) and the People's National Party (PNP) and the first woman to chair a party in the country and took over a ministerial office in Jamaica.

biography

Political career in the JLP and first female minister in Jamaica

Rose Agatha Leon grew up in Kingston and, after attending Wolmer's Girls School, began studying at the Abyssinian School of Cosmetic Chemistry in the United States . On her return to Jamaica, she and her husband Arthur Leon founded the Leon School of Beauty Culture , where they designed a range of local beauty products and thus became one of Jamaica's first business women.

During the Second World War , she began her political career at a time when the two leading parties, the People's National Party founded by Norman Washington Manley in 1938 and the Jamaica Labor Party founded by Alexander Bustamante in 1943, were still in their infancy. She was the first of the JLP in was 1948 Executive Chairman ( Chairwoman ) of the party and thus became the first woman in the leadership of a party in the Caribbean and close associate Bustamante during the period of growing political self-government. She held the office of executive party chairman until 1960 and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1949 , where she represented the constituency of St Andrew Western .

On May 5, 1953, she appointed Chief Minister Bustamante to be Minister for Health, Housing and Labor in his cabinet and thus Jamaica's first female minister. She held this office until the defeat of the JLP on February 2, 1955.

After the elections in 1955 there was a scandal: Although she had won again in her constituency, however, due to a speech in support of her fellow party member George Peryer, a petition by the defeated opponent of Peryer and candidate of the PNP, Percy Broderick Sr., felt this his electoral chances were impaired by Leon's speech, whereupon the electoral victories of Leon and Peryer were canceled due to the electoral law in force at the time.

Political career in the PNP and assassination

Disappointed with the political stance of the JLP, which was campaigning for the exit from the West Indian Federation , she left the party in 1960 and ran in the elections on April 10, 1962 as a non-party for the House of Representatives in the constituency of St Andrew West Rural . In doing so, however, she was subject to the candidates of PNP and JLP and shortly afterwards became a member of the PNP of Manley.

After serving as Vice Mayor of Kingston from 1971 to 1972 , she was appointed Minister of Local Government to Kingston’s government on March 2, 1972, following the PNP’s victory in Prime Minister Michael Manley’s government. She held this office until she lost her seat in the House of Representatives elections in 1976 and was then special advisor to the Minister for Social Affairs until the end of Manley's tenure on November 1, 1980.

After leaving politics, she returned to her entrepreneurial interests and at the same time taught at the Leon School of Beauty Culture until her death . Rose Agatha Leon was murdered in a break-in at her home.

Web links

• Female Jamaica Ministers
• THE GUARDIAN: Rose Leon: Outspoken Jamican politician who always put people first (23 Aug 1999)
• THE BOSTON CONNECTION: Rose Agatha Leon-Pioneer political leader (September 1999)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jamaica Elections
2. ^ Jet , May 28, 1953
3. ↑ GENERAL ELECTIONS 1962 ( Memento of the original from January 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.