Maurice Mason
1927 – 1966
Collaboration Excellence Award
Mr. Maurice Mason was born in Castries on September 11, 1927. He received his education at the Methodist Primary School and later at St. Mary’s College. In 1940, he moved to Curaçao, but returned to Saint Lucia in 1943 to work with the law chambers of Allan Lewis. In 1951, he left Saint Lucia again to study law at the Middle Temple, and he was called to the Bar in 1954. He returned home in 1955 and became very active in the Trade Union movement and the St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP). By the following year, he was elected to the Castries Town Council and served as Chairman from 1956 to 1961.
Mason’s political interests led him to play a significant role in forming the West Indies Federal Labour Party, where he was elected as its first secretary. In 1958, he unsuccessfully contested the Castries Central seat for the SLP. However, in the 1961 general elections, he successfully ran for the Dennery constituency as an SLP candidate. Shortly after the elections, he resigned from the SLP to join John Compton’s National Labour Movement (NLM), serving as its Secretary until the party dissolved in 1964. Mason was instrumental in negotiating with the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) for a merger with the NLM, leading to the formation of the United Workers Party (UWP) in 1964.
In the 1964 general elections, Mr. Mason won the Dennery Constituency seat as a UWP candidate. The UWP defeated the SLP and he was appointed as a Minister without Portfolio. He was particularly interested in constructing roads throughout his constituency. Tragically, he met his untimely death in 1966 at the age of 39.
Mr. Mason is credited with initiating the collaboration between the PPP and the NLM, which targeted voters from different geographical areas. The PPP focused on urban areas like Castries, Soufriere, and Vieux Fort, while the NLM concentrated on rural regions. This collaboration led to the UWP governing the island for thirty successive years, bringing unprecedented developments to all sectors of society