Profiles: Heroes, Role Models and Pioneers of Trinidad and Tobago - by Nasser Khan

174 important industrial strike in Trinidad. In 1921 he was elected to a seat on the City Council of Port of Spain. In 1923, he was elected President of the Trinidad Workingmen’s Association, at that time the country’s leading workers’ organisation. In 1925 he became the Mayor of Port of Spain, which helped him to a seat on the Legislative Council in Trinidad’s first general elections. On the Legislative Council he championed key issues such as old age pension, women’s rights, a minimum wage, compulsory education, an end to plantation child labour and the end of the Crown Colony System. In 1934, he formed the Trinidad Labour Party, which was really the Trinidad Workingmen’s Association under a new title to give it a revival and a political beginning. During his tenure he had the likes of Uriah Butler and Adrian Cola Rienzi as close comrades, both of whom left the ranks in 1936 to form their own parties when attention began to turn to the plight of the oilfield workers and the families of sugar cane workers. Cipriani was also an advocate for the latter group before Rienzi took up the mantle. Cipriani, a solicitor, retired from public life in 1944, having never lost his seat on the City Council since he had first been elected to it in 1921 along with his record eight terms as Mayor. As a keen fan of race horses, he was heavily involved in the sport for decades as well as being a commission agent and auctioneer. A statue to his memory was erected in Port-of-Spain at the base of Frederick Street, unveiled on April 17, 1959 by Chief Minister Dr. Eric Williams who said: “Captain Cipriani is the pioneer of the nationalist movement of Trinidad and Tobago. With the unveiling of this statue we commemorate our own historical development, our own positive action, our own native history made by native hands, and the aspiration of our native peoples.” The Cipriani College of Labour and Co-operative Studies is named in his honour and a postage stamp was issued in 1971, also in his honour. DAISY CRICK (1898-1979) S he was a Trade Unionist, and although a housewife and not an oil worker, she held positions of increasing responsibility in the related Transport Union and OWTU.