Agatha Barbara
Agatha Barbara (
March 11,
1923 –
February 4,
2002) was the first
female President of
Malta.
Barbara was born in
Żabbar, Malta, and was educated at the
grammar school in
Valletta. During the
Second World War, she worked as an
air raid warden. She was a schoolteacher from the early 1940s until
1947, when she became the first woman elected to the Maltese parliament; she was the only woman to be returned in these elections. She was a member of parliament until
1981, by which time she had contested and been elected in ten consecutive elections. She served as education minister of Malta in the Labour Party government of
Dom Mintoff from
1955 to
1958 and instituted compulsory full-time education in Malta for children, leading to the hiring of hundreds of new teachers. In 1958 she served 43 days in prison "with hard labour", for picketing during a national strike following the resignation of Mintoff.
In a subsequent Labour government, she was once again Minister for Education, between 1971 and 1974, after which she became Minister for Labour, Culture and Welfare and eventually Deputy Prime Minister.
On
16 February 1982, she was appointed the third President of the Republic and the first, and only, woman to hold this post. Barbara was elected President for a 5-year term in
1982. She served as President until
1987. The old series of monetary notes of
Malta depicted the face of Agatha Barbara. She then retired at Żabbar, where she died at her residence in 2002.
A monument in her honour was unveiled by the President of Malta Dr. Edward Fenech Adami in Żabbar on the 23rd of April 2006.
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Picture of Agatha Barbara*
The unveiling of her monument
