Forbes Burnham

Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham (20 February 1923 – 6 August 1985) was a Guyanese politician and the leader of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana from 1964 until his death in 1985.

At Queen's College, Burnham excelled academically, receiving the Centenary Exhibition (1936), the Government Junior (1937), and the Percival Exhibition (1938).

In 1942, he won the British Guiana Scholarship to study at the University of London, as the top student in British Guiana.

Burnham was unable to travel to the United Kingdom due to World War II, instead working as an assistant master at Queen's college and completing a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of London through external examinations.

After he was allowed to travel to London, Burnham received a law degree from the London School of Economics, at the time a constituent college of the University of London, in 1947 or 1948 and was the President of the West Indian Student Union at the university for the year 1947–1948 He went on to pass the bar in 1948, and became a member of Gray's Inn.

Burnham met many African and Caribbean students – including Abubakar Tafawa Balewa of Nigeria, Seretse Khama of Botswana and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana as well as Michael Manley of Jamaica and Errol Barrow of Barbados – during his studies in London.

In London, Burnham won the Best Speaker's Cup, awarded by the Faculty of Law.

He also attended the Student's Congresses in Prague and Paris, and was a member of the League of Coloured Peoples.

In the 1947 elections the Labour Party had won 5 of 14 seats in the Legislative Council, making them the largest party.

He left the United Kingdom to return to British Guiana on 20 December 1948, departing Liverpool on the Empress of France bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, and arrived in Georgetown in 1949.

In 1949, after returning from his studies in the United Kingdom, Burnham entered the private law chambers of Cameron and Shepherd before setting up his own private law practice, Clarke and Martin.

Also in 1949, Burnham became the leader of the British Guiana Labour Party (BGLP), which had been formed in 1946.

Less than a year after his return from the United Kingdom, Burnham was one of the founders of the People's Progressive Party (PPP), which was launched on 1 January 1950.

The Indo-Guyanese labour leader Cheddi Jagan became Leader of the PPP, Jagan's wife Janet Jagan became the secretary and Burnham became the first party chairman.

Jagan had been the leader of the Political Affairs Committee, which merged with the BGLP to form the PPP.

Burnham chose the name of the new party.

In 1952, Burnham became the president of the party's affiliated trade union, the British Guiana Labour Union, and was elected to Georgetown City Council in 1953.

In the 1953 British Guiana general election on 27 April 1953, the PPP won 18 of 24 seats in the first election with universal suffrage in Guyana, with both Burnham and his sister Jessie elected to the House of Assembly.

In the short-lived PPP government that followed, Burnham served as Minister of Education.

Burnham initially threatened to split the party if he were not made sole leader of the PPP, but a compromise was reached by which Burnham and his allies in the party received ministerial appointments.

The newly formed government began to dissent against colonial rule, refusing to send a delegation to the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, urging strike action and repealing several laws which the Colonial Office wanted in place.

This dissent took place during the Red Scare, and British statesmen were worried about a possible communist revolution in Guyana; Winston Churchill remarked that "(W)e ought surely to get American support in doing all we can to break the Communist teeth in British Guiana … (P)erhaps they would even send Senator McCarthy down there."

On 9 October 1953, the British administration suspended the Constitution of British Guiana and sent in armed troops after the PPP government passed the Labour Relations Act (modelled on the Wagner Act ) the day before, marking the end of the PPP government.

Burnham and Jagan would travel to London to unsuccessfully protest the decision, where they were subject to secret surveillance by British intelligence services.

Following this, Burnham and Jagan travelled to India in an unsuccessful attempt to find support for their cause against the British.

The interim government appointed by the British would last until 1957.

He served as Premier of British Guiana from 1964 to 1966, Prime Minister of Guyana from 1964 to 1980 and then as the first Executive President of Guyana (2nd President overall) from 1980 to 1985.

He is often regarded as a strongman who embraced his own version of socialism.

Educated as a lawyer, Burnham was instrumental in the foundation of two political parties (the People's National Congress and the People's Progressive Party) that would come to dominate the politics of Guyana.

During his time as Head of Government, Guyana moved from being a British colony to being a republic with no constitutional ties to the United Kingdom.

His premiership was characterized by the nationalisation of foreign-owned private industries, membership of the Non-Aligned Movement and authoritarian domestic policy.

Despite being widely regarded as having a significant role in the political, social, and economic development of Guyana, his presidency was marred by accusations of Afrocentrism, state-sanctioned violence, corruption, and electoral fraud.

Burnham was born in Kitty, a suburb of Georgetown, Demerara County, British Guiana, as one of three or four (Olga, Freddie, Jessica, and Flora) children.

His parents were James Ethelbert Burnham, a schoolmaster, and Rachel Abigail Sampson, and he grew up in an Afro-Guyanese, Methodist household.

Burnham's father had his roots in a slave family from Barbados, and his family name came from the surname of the plantation owner.

On the abolition of slavery, Burnham's ancestor migrated to British Guiana.

According to Burnham's sister Jessie, the family grew up on 4 Pike Street, Kitty.

Jessie also attests that their father was the headteacher at Kitty Methodist School for 37 years, and sat on the Village Council.

Forbes Burnham attended Kitty Methodist School and Central High School before attending the prestigious secondary school, Queen's College, where he met future political rival Cheddi Jagan.

His sister said that Burnham was ambitious from a young age, and that he was bullied at Central High School for his small stature and academic prowess.