Norman Washington Manley MM QC National Hero of Jamaica (July 4, 1893 – September 2, 1969) was a Jamaican statesman. A Rhodes Scholar, Manley became one of Jamaica's leading lawyers in the 1920s. With his cousin, Alexander Bustamante, Manley was an advocate of the universal suffrage that was granted the colony in 1944. He founded the People's National Party together with Bustamante, in 1938, and led it in every election from 1944 to 1967. Their efforts resulted in the New Constitution of 1944, granting full adult suffrage.

Norman Washington Manley was born in Roxborough in Jamaica's Manchester parish, on July 4, 1893. His father, Thomas Albert Samuel Manley, who was the son of an English trader from Yorkshire and a former slave, worked as an agricultural businessman and sold Jamaican spices and fruits to the United States. Norman Manley's mother, Margaret Shearer, was the daughter of a pen-keeper of Irish descent and his wife. As a young man, Manley was a brilliant scholar and athlete, studying law at Jesus College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He enlisted and fought in the First World War in the Royal Field Artillery, and later returned to Jamaica to serve as a barrister. He identified himself with the cause of the workers at the time of the labour troubles of 1938 and donated time and advocacy to the cause.

Manley and the PNP supported the trade union movement, then led by Alexander Bustamante, while leading the demand for universal adult suffrage. He was a strong advocate of the Federation of the West Indies, established in 1958, but when Sir Alexander Bustamante declared that opposition Jamaica Labour Party would take Jamaica out of the Federation, Norman Manley, already renowned for his integrity and commitment to democracy, called a referendum, unprecedented in Jamaica, to let the people decide. The vote was decidedly against Jamaica's continued membership of the Federation. Norman Manley, after arranging Jamaica's orderly withdrawal from the union, set up a joint committee to decide on a constitution for separate independence for Jamaica. He himself chaired the committee and then led the team that negotiated Jamaica's independence from Britain.

Manley also serviced as Leader of the Opposition, establishing definitively the role of the parliamentary opposition in a developing nation. In his last public address to an annual conference of the PNP, he said: "I say that the mission of my generation was to win self-government for Jamaica. To win political power which is the final power for the black masses of my country from which I spring. I am proud to stand here today and say to you who fought that fight with me, say it with gladness and pride: Mission accomplished for my generation". Manley retired from politics on his birthday in 1969, and he died later that year, on September 2, 1969. His tomb was decorated by critically acclaimed Jamaican sculptor, Christopher Gonzalez. His second son, Michael Manley, went on to become the fourth Prime Minister of Jamaica.