Paul Southwell

Caleb Azariah Paul Southwell was a public servant in the Commonwealth of Dominica and Saint Kitts-Nevis, serving in various positions until rising to Premier and Minister of Finance, Trade, Development, Industry and Tourism.

Southwell was born in Dominica on July 18, 1913 to Joseph and Amelia Southwell. At 13 years of age, Southwell became a teacher and later joined the Leeward Islands Police Force in 1938. He served Antigua, Montserrat, Saint Kitts-Nevis and Anguilla until he retired from the force in 1944.

In 1944, Southwell became an employee of the St Kitts (Basseterre) Sugar factory (now the Saint Kitts Sugar Manufacturing Corporation) where he worked as a time keeper and assistant stock clerk until the end of the sugar factory workers strike in 1948. Southwell joined the Saint Kitts-Nevis Trades and Labour Union and the Saint Kitts and Nevis Workers League (now the Saint Kitts-Nevis Labour Party) in 1946 and remained vice president of the Union from 1946 until his death.

First elected to the Saint Kitts-Nevis and Anguilla Legislative Council in 1952, Southwell was appointed to the Executive Council in 1955 and served as the First Minister of Communications and Works in 1956. Southwell was appointed the First Chief Minister of St Kitts-Nevis and Anguilla in 1960. He was later appointed Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance, Trade, Development, Industry and Tourism in several Robert Bradshaw administrations from 1967-1978, and assumed the position of full Premier on the death of Bradshaw on May 23, 1978.

Southwell died less than one year later on May 18, 1979 in Castries, St. Lucia where he was attending a meeting of the then West Indies Associated States Council of Ministers to discuss the formation of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).