Maurice Bishop
Revolutionary and Grenada 's second Prime Minister (1979-1983)
Maurice Rupert Bishop (29 May 1944 – 19 October 1983) was a Grenadian revolutionary, politician and the leader of the New JEWEL Movement (NJM), a party that sought to prioritise socio-economic development, education and true black liberation. The NJM came to power on 13 March 1979 and ushered in the Grenada revolution and installed the People's Revolutionary Government which removed Prime Minister Eric Gairy from office. Bishop headed the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada (PRG) from 1979 to 1983. In October 1983, he was deposed as Prime Minister and executed during a coup engineered internally by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard. This quickly led to the demise of the PRG.
Early life
Maurice Rupert Bishop was born on 29 May 1944 on the island of Aruba, then a colony of the Netherlands as part of the Territory of Curaçao. His parents, Rupert and Alimenta Bishop, came from the northeast of Grenada, where Rupert earned five British pence per day. At the end of 1930, to improve his financial position, Rupert moved with his wife Alimenta to Aruba so that he could work in the oil refinery.
Until the age of six, Maurice was raised in Aruba with two older sisters, Ann and Maureen. In 1950, his father took the family back to Grenada and opened a small retail shop in the capital, St. George's.
“Maurice Bishop” enters the record as revolutionary and Grenada 's second Prime Minister (1979-1983). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Maurice, Bishop and Revolutionary can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q468234. VIAF identifies the subject as 79496364. The Library of Congress control number is n82100866. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1983, 1979 and 1930.
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