The governor of Bermuda (officially Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Somers Isles (alias the Islands of Bermuda)) is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Bermuda.
For the purposes of this article, Governor of Bermuda refers to the local office, although this was originally a Lieutenant-Governorship ("Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Our Islands in America commonly called or known by the name of the Bermuda or Summer (sic) Islands"; the Lieutenant-Governor of Bermuda was re-titled Governor of Bermuda in 1738),[1] which – like the Lieutenant-Governorship of the Jamestown colony – was subordinate to the actual Governor located in England. For a period following the 1783 independence of those continental colonies that were to become the United States of America, the remaining continental colonies, Bermuda and the Bahamas were grouped together as British North America, and the civil, naval, military, and ecclesiastic government of Bermuda was made subordinate to the Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over the Provinces of Upper-Canada, Lower-Canada, Nova-Scotia, and New~Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, Vice-Admiral of the same, Lieutenant-General and Commander of all His Majesty's Forces in the said Provinces of Lower Canada and Upper-Canada, Nova-Scotia and New-Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, and in the islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward, Cape Breton and the Bermudas, &c. &c. &c., with the governor of Bermuda again becoming a Lieutenant-Governor. Although soon restored to a full civil Governorship, in his military role as Commander-in-chief he remained subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief in Halifax, and naval and ecclesiastic links to the Maritimes remained. The military links were severed by Canadian confederation at the end of the 1860s, when the governor of Bermuda, in his office of Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda, was elevated upon the removal of the British Army from Canada and the taking up by the Canadian Dominion Government of responsibility for the defence of all of the former British North American continental colonies excepting Newfoundland. The established Church of England in Bermuda, within which the governor held office as Ordinary, remained linked to the colony of Newfoundland under the same Bishop until 1919.
The governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the British government. The role of the governor is to act as the de factohead of state, and is responsible for appointing the premier and the 11 members of the Senate (the upper house of Bermuda's Parliament).
The governor is also commander-in-chief of Bermuda, formerly in control of a large Bermuda Garrison composed of regular army, militia, volunteer, and territorial units, of which only the Royal Bermuda Regiment remains. Until 1867, the governor also held the appointment of vice-admiral of Bermuda.
The current governor is Rena Lalgie; she was sworn in on 14 December 2020.[2][3]
Bermuda's settlement began in 1609, with the wrecking of the flagship of the Virginia Company, the Sea Venture. Although most of the passengers and crew ultimately completed their voyage to Virginia, the archipelago was permanently settled from that point, and left in the hands of the Virginia Company. The first intentional settlers arrived in 1612, under Richard Moore, whose appointment was officially as the deputy governor of Bermuda. Sir Thomas Smith remained in England as the first governor and treasurer of Bermuda. A carpenter by trade, Moore ensured the long-term survival of the colony by concentrating on building fortifications, including the first stone forts in the English New World, and developing St. George's Town. Moore brought with him to Bermuda two consecutively numbered boxes. The first, only to be opened in the case of his death, incapacitation or absence from the colony, contained the name of the settler who was to replace him. In the case of that settler also having died, or otherwise being incapable of taking the office, a second was named in the other box. More was also instructed to appoint a Counsell of Six to assist in the governance of the colony. The six appointed Counsellors were Captain Miles Kendall, Captain John Mansfield, Thomas Knight, Charles Caldycot, Edward Waters (some records give his name as Robert Waters),[4] and Christopher Carter (Christopher Carter and Edward Waters were among three men who had first arrived in Bermuda with the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture. They had remained behind when the Deliverance and Patience had departed for Jamestown in 1610 with the remainder of the Sea Venture's passengers and crew, and remained again with the addition of Edward Chard, after the Patience had returned from Jamestown and departed once more in the same year for England, thereby ensuring that Bermuda has been permanently settled since the wreck of the Sea Venture).
Bermuda was the second permanent English colony established (as an extension of the first, Jamestown, Virginia, which had been settled in 1607). Bermuda was administered under Royal charters by the Virginia Company, and its successor, the Somers Isles Company, which appointed the colony's governors until the Crown revoked the charter and took over administration in 1684. With the transfer to the Somers Isles Company in 1615, Sir Thomas Smith remained in England as Governor and Treasurer of Bermuda, and Captain Daniel Tucker was sent to Bermuda in 1616 aboard the George, in consort with the Edwin, to succeed Moore as Deputy Governor. Twenty-four Assistants were also appointed. By the 1630s, the Somers Isles Company had ceased sending Governors to Bermuda and had begun appointing prominent Bermudians, such as William Sayle, to the position.
The Crown maintained the system of government established under the company; an elected parliament (originally a single House of Assembly, which held is first session in 1620) which held its and a privy council under a governor. The Privy Council, made up of the chief justice, certain senior civil servants, and appointees, was also known as the Governor's Council and the Legislative Council (most of its responsibilities are now filled by the Cabinet and the Senate of Bermuda, with the council now only an advisory body for the governor). The last company-appointed governor was reappointed by the Crown. In 1707 the British state was created by the union of the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland, and Bermuda thereby became a British colony. Since the 1783 independence of Virginia, it has been Britain's oldest colony. Following US independence, Bermuda became an imperial fortress, with an important Royal Navy base and a large military garrison to guard it.[5][6][7][8][9] As such, the policy of the government until the 1950s, when the Royal Naval Dockyard was reduced to a base (in 1951) leading to the final closure of the regular army's Bermuda Garrison in 1957, had been to appoint (often retiring) senior military (or occasionally naval) officers as Bermuda's governor and commander-in-chief. On the rare occasions when a civilian was appointed to the role, it was only as governor – with operational command of the garrison in the hands of the senior lieutenant-colonel in Bermuda, who was appointed brigadier and subordinate to a military commander elsewhere. Since the 1964, those appointed governor and commander-in-chief have tended to be prominent career-politicians at the ends of their political lives.
Prior to the creation of the lower (and, originally, only) house of the Parliament of Bermuda, the House of Assembly, in 1620, the governors ruled supreme, and were often draconian. Governor Daniel Tucker, formerly of Virginia, who arrived in 1616, was notorious for his harshness, having many islanders hanged, maimed, or whipped on the slightest provocation. One Bermudian, John Wood, was hanged for airing his views on the governor in church. Governor Tucker's personal boat was reportedly stolen by five islanders, one named Saunders, who left a note saying they were on their way to England, or Davy Jones' Locker, either place being preferable to Bermuda under Tucker's rule. On reaching England, they complained about the harshness of Tucker's rule, though their complaints fell on deaf ears. Governor Tucker also, reportedly, used his oversight of the surveying of Bermuda to enrich himself and future generations of Bermudian Tuckers with prime real estate when he appropriated the overplus (surplus) land left after Richard Norwood's 1616 survey of the colony. Much of this land, forming an estate known as The Grove, would still be in the hands of his relatives during the American War of Independence.
For the remainder of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the real political power in Bermuda lay in the elected parliament and the appointed Council, both dominated by members of Bermuda's wealthy commercial class. By the mid-seventeenth century, the Somers Isles Company had ceased sending governors from overseas, and instead appointed Bermudians such as William Sayle from this same local elite; a policy which ended after the Civil Wars, during which Bermuda tended to the Royalist side.
The Adventurers in England, many of whom were Parliamentarians, had exerted their authority over the preceding two decades to strangle Bermuda's emerging maritime industry, and the Bermudians' animosity towards the Adventurers in England consequently further acted to place them on the side of the Crown (The Somers Isles Company had tended towards the Royalist side in 1647, but was in the Parliamentary camp by 1649, and Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, one of the major shareholders of the Somers Isles Company, was appointed Lord High Admiral of the Parliamentary navy from 1642 to 1649, and was related to Oliver Cromwell by the marriage of his grandson and heir to Cromwell's daughter).
In a letter to Alexander Pym at Derby House, Westminster, dated 9 May 1646, William Renner wrote:
The Government is changed. Within twenty days after his arrival, the Governor called an assembly, pretending thereby to reform certain things amiss. All the ministers in the island, Mr. White, Mr. Goldinge, and Mr. Copeland, were Independents, and they had set up a Congregational Church, of which most gentlemen of Council were members or favourers. The burgesses of this assembly were picked out of those who were known to be enemies to that way, and they did not suffer a Roundhead (as they term them) to be chosen.
A Triumvirate replaced Captain Josias Forster as Governor of Bermuda in 1647. The members all being religious Independents, they established a minority rule that both the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians found tyrannical, resulting in their alliance against the Independents (whereas in England it had the Presbyterians had allied with the Independents under Parliament against the Royalist Episcopalians). To end the strife in the colony, the Somers Isles Company appointed Captain Thomas Turner Governor in 1647, and Independents were removed from Government.[11][12]
A Somers Isles Company magazine ship, which had left England before the King's 30 January 1649 execution, arrived at Bermuda in March 1649, bearing news of the king's impending trial. It also bore instructions from the Company stripping the moderate Royalist Captain Thomas Turner of the office of governor (which had been filled by a succession of Bermudian settlers since the 1630s, in contrast to the company's earlier practice of dispatching governors to the colony) and ordering that the colony be governed by a triumvirate composed of the moderate Richard Norwood, Captain Leacraft (also spelt Leicroft), and Mr. Wilkinson. However, Leacraft had died before the instructions arrived, Wilkinson was a strong Independent, obnoxious to the dominant Church faction in the Council and the House of Assembly, and was not permitted by them to exercise his commission, and Norwood would not accept his own commission without Wilkinson. Captain Turner, Captain Josias Forster, and Roger Wood (all three having formerly held the office of Governor) were put forward as candidates for the governorship, which was voted upon by the other members of the council. Although Captain Richard Jennings and the Sheriff both voted for Wood, the others all voted for Turner, who reluctantly resumed the office. Turner was too moderate for most of the Royalist party, however.
News of the execution of King Charles I reached Bermuda by July, and a proposition was made to the governor and Council by the Country (analogous to the Royalist party) at a meeting on 5 July 1649:
Wee uppon sufficient grounds reports and circumstances are convinced that our Royall Souraigne Charles the first is slaine wch horrid act wee defie and detest and unwillinge to have our conscience stained with the breach of the oath (to) our god and to avoide fallinge into a premunire, acknowledge the high-borne Charles prince of Wales to be the undobted heire apparent to the kingdomes of great Brittan ffrance and Ireland wee desire the said prince accordinge to his birthright may speedily be proclaymed
2ndly. Wee desire that the oath of alledgeance and supremacy may be forthwith administerd to all people in these Islands who are capable thereof without exception and if any shall deny the taking of the said oathes or by any manner of practice whatsoever transgress against either the ptie or p.ties beinge Lawfully convict thereof, to be speedily punished accordinge as the Lawes of our nation hath provided in such cases
3rdly. Wee desire that all manner of psons whatsoever Inhabiting these Islands may accordinge to the Lawes of our nation be comanded vniformitie In matters of Church Govmt And uppon refusall of conformity to be proceeded against as our Lawes in that case hath provided
Wee desire these our Just demands and Requests may be putt into speedy execution
The answer of the governor and Council to the Country's proposition was to make Bermuda the first colony to recognize Charles II as King, and included:
give our heartie thanks for your loyaltie to the kinge and Crown of Englande wee doe acknowledge the high-born Charles Prince of Wales to be heir to the crowne and kingdome of England Scotland ffrance and Ireland after the decease of his royal father and we doe hereby declare and utter, we detest and dissent that horrid Act of Slayinge his Majtie and by the oath wch wee have taken, wee shall beare faith and alleadgiance to the Lawfulle Kinge of England his heirss and successors.
On 20 August 1649, Governor Turner ordered a proclamation to be drawn up and published (dated 21 August) requiring that, as various persons in the colony had taken the oath of supremacy and alleadgiance vunto his matie the Lawfull kinge of England and yet neuertheles they contrarye to theire oathes doe deny conformity to the lawes and Government here established, all such persons who refused conformity to the Government in both the church and state could expect no protection by virtue of any former power or order, and would face prosecution. A Mr Romer and a Thomas Wilson were imprisoned the same day for refusing to take the oath of allegiance. A Mr. Hunt was summoned before the council the same month for treasonable speeches against the King, the Parliament, and the governor. Hunt refused to accept the council's authority to question him and, having been sentenced to an hour in the pillory to be followed by imprisonment until he provided bail against his good behaviour, he refused to submit and was ordered to lie in irons until he willingly submitted.
Turner's governorship would end after Mr. Whetenhall, in the name of the Country, impeached the Reverend Nathaniel White of the Puritan party for being an enemy of the King, Company, and country. A warrant was issued for White's arrest. On 25 September 1649, the Council and Country met at the home of John Trimingham after the party in arms called The Country had arrested White under the aforementioned warrant, along with most of the Independents (who had been imprisoned in the house of a Mrs. Taylor). The Country exhibited articles against Governor Turner. Although the Council deemed the articles not to be grounds for his displacement, the Country was insistent against Turner, who therefore resigned the office of Governor. The Country then put forward John Trimingham and Thomas Burrows to the Council as candidates for Turner's replacement. The Council members elected Trimingham. On Thursday, 27 September 1649, the Army brought downe the new Gour and he tooke his oathe in the Church according to the usuall forme and vppon ffryday they marched awaye out of the towne (of St Georges) into the mayne.[13]
The Royalists in Bermuda, with control of the army (nine companies of militia and the complements of the coastal forts), were confident in Bermuda's natural and man-made defences (including a barrier reef and numerous fortified coastal artillery batteries). The Parliamentary government, however, believed the defences weak and formed plans to capture the colony.
On 18 December 1649, the Earl of Pembroke, Colonel Purefoy, Sir W. Constable, the Earl of Denbigh, Lord Whitelocke, Colonel Wanton, and Mr. Holland were appointed by the Council of State, with any three or more of them to be a committee with authority to examine the business of Bermuda. The Council of State Orders for 1 January 1650 lists:
(17) That the following Reports brought in from the Comttee Appointed for the business of the Summers Island bee approved of vizt:
(18) That the Government of the Summers Island bee setled on Capt Foster, and his Councell, as already is appointed by ye Company
(19) That all Captaines and Commanders of the Forts and Castles within ye said Island, bee nominated and appointed, by ye said Governour w[i]th the Consent of this Councell.
(20) That the said Governour and Councell, doe choose another Secretary in ye place of Vaughan if they see cause;
That the Gouernour and all other officers of Trust doe take the Engagmt according to ye order of Parliament.
That Imediatly after the Settlement of the said Governer and ye Councell, ye persons of Capt Turner, late Governour and Mr Viner the Minister bee secured, and upon Examinations and proofes taken concerning the Crimes and misdemeanours wch are informed against them, they bee forthwith sent over to England togeather wh ye said Examination & proofe.
These instructions and Forster's commission arrived in Bermuda on the 29 May 1650. Although the Country made charges against Forster and Captain Jennings on learning of this, demanding their charges be answered before the commission read, and many members of the Council denied to take notice of it because the l'tre was not directed to them with the Gour as here to fore, but eventually it was agreed to read it, and Forster was accepted as Governor.
The following day, Trimingham, Mr. Miller, Captain Jennings, and Mr. Morgan accepted the oaths of Councillors. Richard Norwood, Mr. Berkeley, and Mr. Wainwright refused. Mr. Deuitt would not accept because the company deserted him.
Despite accepting the instructions from London on the matter of the new appointments, the Government of Bermuda remained Royalist.
The Reverend Mr. Hooper informed the Council that a ship under the command of Captain Powell, with Commissioners Colonel Rich, Mr. Hollond, Captain Norwood, Captain Bond, and a hundred men aboard, was prepared to seize Bermuda.
In Bermuda, tailors Thomas Walker of Paget and George Washington of Hamilton were tried at the Assizes held 11–22 November 1650, on charges of being traitors against our Soveraigne Lord the Kinge.
Admiral Sir George Ayscue, in command of the task force sent in 1651 by Parliament to capture the Royalist colonies, received additional instructions from Whitehall (dated 13 February 1651) addressed to him and the other Commissioners, instructing aswell to take Care for the reducemt of Bermuda's Virginia & Antego, as of the Island of Barbada's; In the case that (through the blessing of God upon yor endeavors) you shall be able to recover the Island of Barbada's unto its due subjection to this Comonwealth or after you have used your utmost dilligence to effect the same. If that you finde yorselves in a Capacity to send one or more of yo ships for the reduceing of any or all of the other plantacons to the like obedience. You are hereby Authorized and required soe to doe. And you are to make yor attempt upon the Island of Bermuda's, wch it is informed may without much strength or difficulty be gained or upon any the other plantacons now in defection as your Intelligence and opportunity shall serve. The instructions also specified that the officer in command of the force that captured a colony should then become its Governor, But if either Care of the Fleet wth you or any othar important publiq service, will not admit of his Continuance there, to exercise the office & Comand of Governor thereof then it shall be lawfull for him the said Comr or commandrs in chiefe to depute & Constitute William Wilkinson of the Island of Bermudas or some other able and faithfull person to be Governor there, and to appoint such & soe many well affected & discreet persons to be a Councell for his Assistance as he thinks fit.
Barbados would surrender on 13 January 1652, but no attempt would be made to test Bermuda's defences. At a meeting of the governor and Council on 25 February 1652 (at which were present Governor Forster, Council members Captain Roger Wood, Captain Richard Jennings, Captain Thomas Turner, Captain William Seymour, Mr. Stephen Painter, Mr. William Wilkinson, Mr. John Miller, Mr. William Berkeley, Mr. Richard Norwood, and Secretary Anthony Jenour), a Generall Letter received from the company was read, which instructed them to engage to the Commonwealth of England as yt is now established without a kinge or House of Lordes, which engagement was given and a proclamation ordered by the governor explaining and commanding all inhabitants of Bermuda to take the same engagement when it should be tendered unto them.[15]
Governors who were too high-handed or injudicious in the exercise of their office occasionally fell foul of the local political institutions. Governor Isaac Richier, who arrived in 1691, quickly made himself unpopular with his carousing and criminal behaviour. Bermudian complaints saw him placed in jail, and replaced by Governor Goddard. When Goddard proved worse than Richier, Attorney General Samuel Trott had him jailed alongside Richier. The two governors were to be tried before a pair of prominent Bermudians, John Trimmingham and William Butterfield. After Trott called the amateur judges bush lawyers, however, he found himself in St. George's jail alongside the two governors. After they confided in him their plan for escape, Trott informed the judges. Richier and Goddard were sent back to England for trial.[16]
Government House, Mount Langton. This became Government House when the colonial capital was moved from St. George's to the City of Hamilton in 1815, and was replaced with the current building on the same grounds.
At the written request of George Washington, during the course of the American War of Independence, 100 barrels of gunpowder were stolen from a magazine in St. George's and provided to the American rebels. No one was ever prosecuted in relation to this act of treason. The theft had been the result of a conspiracy involving powerful Bermudians, who were motivated as much by Bermuda's desperate plight, denied her primary trading partner and source of food, as by any favourable sentiments they may have had in regard to either the American colonists or their cause. The chief conspirator was Henry Tucker of The Grove (the overplus estate appropriated in 1616 by Governor Daniel Tucker), a member of the House of Assembly, former member of the council, and militia officer (soon to be promoted to colonel), who had plotted with Benjamin Franklin while attending the rebel Continental Congress as a delegate for Bermuda. Two of his sons served in the rebel Army and were to achieve high office in the post-War US government. A third son, also named Henry Tucker, was at the time the president of the council (and later acting governor on multiple occasions), and married to the daughter of Governor George James Bruere. Following this, Bermudians and their political institutions were looked at suspiciously by the British government.
With the build-up of the naval and military bases on the island following American independence, the position of the governor was enhanced. Despite this, the governors – appointed by the Crown – remained largely dependent on the Bermudian parliament to pass laws and to provide funds. This fact often found governors pleading in vain for the required acts of parliament or money to carry out policies determined at Government House, or in London. This was particularly noticeable in the Bermudian parliament's neglect to maintain militia, which (other than during the course of the American War of 1812), it allowed to become moribund after the build-up of the naval and military base began in 1795.
Attempts to raise militias directly under the control of the governor, without acts of the local parliament, ultimately failed because the parliament did not provide funds. In the 1860s, it became the policy of the British government to reduce the costly professional military garrison in Bermuda. As it was not wished to leave the archipelago, seen more as a naval base and designated an Imperial fortress rather than a colony, unguarded, this could only be done if the professional soldiers were replaced with part-time Volunteer units. Successive governors were set the task of convincing the Bermudian parliament to raise the required units, but, concerned of being saddled with the cost of maintaining the entire garrison, as well as with the possibility for social disruption that could be caused by raising either racially segregated or integrated units, the Bermudian Parliamentarians simply refused. This state of affairs continued until the Secretary of State for War found a lever (the Princess Hotel) to blackmail the Bermuda Parliament with in 1885, which resulted it finally passing acts in 1892 for the creation of militia and volunteer forces (although the units would be entirely funded by the British government).[17] Struggles between the governor and the Parliament would continue to recur. In 1939, the governor, General Sir Reginald Hildyard, resigned his post, reportedly because the Bermudian Parliament refused to allow him a motor car (motor vehicles having been banned in Bermuda before the First World War, following a petition signed by numerous Bermudians, and by visitors including Woodrow Wilson).
On 10 March 1973, the 121st governor, Sir Richard Sharples, and his aide-de-camp Captain Hugh Sayers, were assassinated in an attack by a Bermudian black activist named Buck Burrows and an accomplice, Larry Tacklin, who were members of the Black Beret Cadres. Under Bermudian law at the time, premeditated murder was a capital offence, and death sentences were often handed out, though routinely commuted. No death sentence had been carried out since the 1940s. After much debate due to the controversial moral issues raised, the sentence stood despite a 6,000-strong petition from Bermudians to the Queen. Both men were hanged in 1977 for the killings and other murders, sparking riots throughout Bermuda. Buck Burrows explained in his confession that he had killed the governor to prove that he was not untouchable and that white-dominated politics was fallible. He was also found guilty of murdering the police commissioner, George Duckett, six months earlier on 9 September 1972, and of killing the co-owner and book-keeper of a supermarket called the Shopping Centre, Victor Rego and Mark Doe in April 1973.
List of governors of Bermuda
George James Bruere, in office from 1764 to 1780, the longest-serving of all Bermuda's governors
1612–1616 Richard Moore (Deputy Governor in Bermuda. Sir Thomas Smith remained in England as Governor and Treasurer of Bermuda)
Between Moore's 1615 departure for England aboard the Welcome and the 1616 arrival of Captain Tucker, the role of acting Deputy Governor was to be rotated monthly among the members of the Counsell of Six: Captain Miles Kendall, Captain John Mansfield, Thomas Knight, Charles Caldicot, Edward Waters, and Christopher Carter, beginning (after the drawing of lots) with Caldicot. At the end of the first month, Caldicot, Knight and Waters departed aboard a frigate to obtain supplies from the West Indies but met with misadventure, and those members of the crew who returned did not do so for years). The monthly succession thereafter was Mansfield, Carter, and Kendall, before starting again with Mansfield
1616–1619: Capt. Daniel Tucker (Deputy Governor in Bermuda. Sir Thomas Smith remained in England as Governor and Treasurer of Bermuda)
1877: Colonel William Laurie Morrison, Commanding Royal Engineer in Bermuda (Act. Gov.)
1877–1882: Brigadier Sir Robert Michael Laffan, Royal Engineers[18] (Gazetted Major-General 2 October 1877, antedated to 8 February 1870. Later Lieutenant-General)
1882–1888: Lt. Gen. Sir Thomas Lionel John Gallwey, Royal Engineers
1904–1907: Lt. Gen. Sir Robert MacGregor Stewart, Royal Artillery
1905: Colonel Arthur Noel Roberts, Commanding Army Service Corps (temporarily from 10 July 1905, for period of leave of absence of Sir Robert MacGregor Stewart)[25]
Bermuda is the oldest British Overseas Territory, and the oldest self-governing British Overseas Territory, and has a great degree of internal autonomy through authority and roles of governance delegated to it by the national Government. Its parliament held its first session in 1620, making it the third-oldest continuous parliament in the world. As part of the British realm, King Charles III is head of state and is represented in Bermuda by a Governor, whom he appoints on the advice of the British Government. The Governor has special responsibilities in four areas: external affairs, defence, internal security, and policing.
Captain William Sayle was a prominent English landholder who was Governor of Bermuda in 1643 and again in 1658. As an Independent in religion and politics, and an adherent of Oliver Cromwell, he was dissatisfied with life in Bermuda, and so founded the company of the Eleutheran Adventurers who became the first European settlers of the Bahamas between 1646 and 1648. He later became the first governor of colonial South Carolina from 1670 to 1671.
The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC) was created in 1894 as a reserve for the Regular Army infantry component of the Bermuda Garrison. Renamed the Bermuda Rifles in 1951, it was amalgamated into the Bermuda Regiment in 1965.
The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army raised on 20 June 1685 as the Earl of Bath's Regiment for its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. In 1751, it was numbered like most other Army regiments and named the 10th Regiment of Foot. After the Childers Reforms of 1881, it became the Lincolnshire Regiment after the county where it had been recruiting since 1781.
The Somers Isles Company was formed in 1615 to operate the English colony of the Somers Isles, also known as Bermuda, as a commercial venture. It held a royal charter for Bermuda until 1684, when it was dissolved, and the Crown assumed responsibility for the administration of Bermuda as a royal colony.
The 61st Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1756. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 28th Regiment of Foot to form the Gloucestershire Regiment in 1881.
Richard Norwood was an English mathematician, diver, and surveyor. He has been called "Bermuda’s outstanding genius of the seventeenth century".
First Sergeant Robert John Simmons was a Bermudian who served in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. He died in August 1863, as a result of wounds received in an attack on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina.
Between 1639 and 1651 English overseas possessions were involved in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of civil wars and wars that were fought in and between England, Scotland and in Ireland.
Lieutenant-Colonel George James Bruere was a British Army officer and colonial administrator who served as governor of Bermuda from 1764 until his death in 1780. Of all Bermuda's governors since 1612, his term of office was the longest. He had a difficult time during the American Revolutionary War and is thought to have died of chronic stress caused by the interplay of Bermudians and American rebels.
The Bermuda Garrison was the military establishment maintained on the British Overseas Territory and Imperial fortress of Bermuda by the regular British Army and its local militia and voluntary reserves from 1701 to 1957. The garrison evolved from an independent company, to a company of Royal Garrison Battalion during the American War of Independence, and a steadily growing and diversifying force of artillery and infantry with various supporting corps from the French Revolution onwards. During the American War of Independence, the garrison in Bermuda fell under the military Commander-in-Chief of America. Subsequently, it was part of the Nova Scotia Command until 1868, and was an independent Bermuda Command from then until its closure in 1957.
Lieutenant General Sir George Mackworth Bullock, was an officer of the British Army. He served during the First World War, rising to the rank of lieutenant general, and was also the 108th civil Governor and military Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda.
Many British nationals from the United Kingdom or colonies who were resident in Canada during the First World War joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force, which was deployed to the Western Front. A sizeable percentage of Bermuda's volunteers who served in the war joined the CEF or the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), either because they were resident in Canada already, or because Canada was the nearest and easiest other part of the British Empire and Commonwealth to reach from Bermuda. As the Royal Canadian Regiment, 38th Battalion (Ottawa), CEF, 77th Battalion, CEF, and 163rd Battalion (French-Canadian), CEF, were successively posted to the Bermuda Garrison before proceeding to France, islanders were also able to enlist there. Although the Bermuda Militia Artillery (BMA) and Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC) both sent contingents to the Western Front, the first would not arrive there until June 1915. By then, many Bermudians had already been serving on the Western Front in the CEF for months. No further contingents were sent to France by the BVRC after 1916, however forty-seven BVRC NCOs and Riflemen (Privates) were permitted to re-enlist in Canada during the course of the war. Although some enlisted in British Army organs in Canada, including the Royal Flying Corps, most joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Bermudians in the CEF enlisted under the same terms as Canadians.
Sir Joseph Outerbridge was a prominent Bermudian businessman and philanthropist in Newfoundland.
The 1889 Birthday Honours were appointments by Queen Victoria to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of The Queen, and were published in the London Gazette on 24 May 1889 and in The Times on 25 May 1889.
The 1877 Birthday Honours were appointments by Queen Victoria to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of the Queen, and were published in The London Gazette on 30 May and 2 June 1877.
Henry Tucker (1742-1800) was a Bermudian politician, and a member of a family that had been prominent in Bermuda since the 1616 appointment of Captain Daniel Tucker as Governor of Bermuda. Henry Tucker was the President of the Governor's Council of the British colony of Bermuda from 1775 to 1807. Prominent men at that time filled a variety of civil and military roles by appointment, and Tucker was also appointed the Colonial Secretary of Bermuda and Provost Marshal General of Bermuda after the resignation of W. O'Brien from those positions in 1785. He was acting Governor of Bermuda in 1796, pending the arrival of new Governor William Campbell. Campbell died almost immediately upon arrival and Tucker resumed the acting Governorship from 1796 to 1798, and again from 1803 to 1805, and in 1806.
The Bermuda Cadet Corps was a youth organisation in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, sponsored originally by the War Office and the British Army. Modelled on the Cadet Corps in England, now organised as the Army Cadet Force and the Combined Cadet Force, it was organised separately under Acts of the Parliament of Bermuda. It was one of three Cadet Corps that historically operated in the British territory, with the others being the Bermuda Sea Cadet Corps and the Air Training Corps, of which only the Bermuda Sea Cadet Corps remains. After more than a century of existence, the Bermuda Cadet Corps was disbanded in 2013 and replaced by the resurrected Junior Leaders programme of the Royal Bermuda Regiment.
Reginald Woodifield Appleby was an English lawyer, practising in Bermuda, who in 1898 founded the predecessor of the law firm that now trades as Appleby. He served as a major in the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps during the First World War, and was a member of the Legislative Council of Bermuda.
Lord Salisbury described Malta, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and Halifax as Imperial fortresses at the 1887 Colonial Conference, though by that point they had been so designated for decades. Later historians have also given the title "imperial fortress" to St. Helena and Mauritius.
References
↑ Labaree, Leonard Woods (1967). Royal Instructions To British Colonial Governors, 1670–1776; Volume I (Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 67-18771. New York: American Historical Association and Octagon Books, Inc. Reprinted 1967 by special arrangement with Appleton-Century-Crofts, Division of Meredith Publishing Company (Albert J. Beveridge Memorial Fund). p.xiv.
↑ Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of The Bermudas or Somers Islands, 1515–1685, Volume I (1511–1562), by Lieutenant-General Sir John Henry Lefroy, KCMG, CB, LL.D, FRS, Royal Artillery. The Bermuda Memorials Edition, 1981. The Bermuda Historical Society and The Bermuda National Trust. Printed in Canada by the University of Toronto Press.
↑ "The Andrew and the Onions: The Story of the Royal Navy in Bermuda, 1795–1975", Lt. Commander Ian Strannack, The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, The Bermuda Maritime Museum
↑ Keith, Arthur Berriedale (1909). Responsible Government in The Dominions. London: Stevens and Sons Ltd. p.5. Bermuda is still an Imperial fortress
↑ May, Edward Sinclair (1903). Principles and Problems of Imperial Defence. London and New York: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Limited, London; E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. p.145. In the North American and West Indian station the naval base is at the Imperial fortress of Bermuda, with a garrison numbering 3068 men, of whom 1011 are Colonials; while at Halifax, Nova Scotia, we have another naval base of the first importance which is to be classed amongst our Imperial fortresses, and has a garrison of 1783 men.
↑ Gordon, Donald Craigie (1965). The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense, 1870–1914. Baltimore, Maryland, USA: Johns Hopkins Press. p.14. There were more than 44,000 troops stationed overseas in colonial garrisons, and slightly more than half of these were in imperial fortresses: in the Mediterranean, Bermuda, Halifax, St. Helena, and Mauritius. The rest of the forces were in colonies proper, with a heavy concentration in New Zealand and South Africa. The imperial government paid approximately £1,715,000 per annum toward the maintenance of these forces, and the various colonial governments contributed £370,000, the largest amounts coming from Ceylon and Victoria in Australia.
↑ MacFarlane, Thomas (1891). Within the Empire; An Essay on Imperial Federation. Ottawa: James Hope & Co., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. p.29. Besides the Imperial fortress of Malta, Gibraltar, Halifax and Bermuda it has to maintain and arm coaling stations and forts at Siena Leone, St. Helena, Simons Bay (at the Cape of Good Hope), Trincomalee, Jamaica and Port Castries (in the island of Santa Lucia).
↑ LANGFORD OLIVER, VERE (1912). Pym Letters. CARIBBEANA: BEING Miscellaneous papers RELATING TO THE History. Genealogy, Topography, and Antiquities OF THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. VOLUME II. London: MITCHELL HUGHES AND CLARKE, 140 WARDOUR STREET, W. p.14.
↑ Tanksalvala, Sarah (2 September 2021). "English Civil Wars 23: Empire". americanhistorypodcast.net. Sarah Tanksalvala. Retrieved 11 September 2022. in England, Parliament had purged the Somers Islands Company of members who opposed the Commonwealth, so its remaining members pushed Bermuda into submission. They also allowed the Eleutherian Adventurers to return to Bermuda from the Bahamas, and pushed Governor Forster to punish the people who had revolted after the regicide … or tried. Forster evaded their questions, feigned ignorance, and downplayed both the revolt and the previous governor's participation in it. He protected his predecessor, and the rebels, from the consequences demanded by the company on Parliament's behalf, and to his credit, Bermudians lived peacefully thanks to his leadership.
↑ Tanksalvala, Sarah (26 October 2021). "English Civil Wars 27: Witch trials in the Devil's Isles". americanhistorypodcast.net. Sarah Tanksalvala. Retrieved 11 September 2022. If you've been listening, and if you remember, Bermuda was the colony that tore itself apart first when war broke out in England. The only other colony that suffered the same sort of division was Maryland, but Maryland had so many external issues that it's not even a comparable situation. By 1651, various political and religious factions in Bermuda had spent about a decade seizing power from each other, and then rebelling, imprisoning, banishing and otherwise abusing each other. Governors had been rotated every few months by a company that was, one, completely befuddled, two almost as passionately divided in England as its colony was in America, and three, which colonists were barely listening to at this point.
There was a violent rebellion after King Charles was beheaded, and that prompted a purging of the company within England, as well as orders that the Independents who had been exiled and founded Eleutheria in the Bahamas be allowed to return. Like everywhere else in Commonwealth-era England and America, people could only vote if they signed an allegiance to the king-free government, which Bermuda's Presbyterians refused to do for over a year. And so, after a decade of unbridled animosity, this had given one side complete control over the island. And to their limited credit, the Company realized that this might be a problem. So, in order to try to address this issue, kind of? They reinstated Governor Josias Forster, who was known for being the island's most moderate of moderates.
↑ Lefroy, John Henry (1981). Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands 1515–1685, Volume I. Bermuda: The Bermuda Historical Society and The Bermuda National Trust (the first edition having been published in 1877, with funds provided by the Government of Bermuda), printed in Canada by The University of Toronto Press.
↑ EDITED BY W. NOEL SAINSBURY, OF THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, ed. (1964). CALENDAR OF STATE PAPERS, COLONIAL SERIES, AMERICA AND WEST INDIES, 1661–1668. PRESERVED IN HER MAJESTY'S PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. London: First published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1880. REPRINTED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE, LONDON, BY KRAUS REPRINT LTD. VADUZ, 1964. Page 111, 1662?. 372. Petition of Capt. Thos. Trafford to the King. That Will. Sayle, a severe separatist had surreptitiously possessed himself of the Government of the Bermudas, and exercised cruel tyrannies over the inhabitants, for which he was by the then Committee for Foreign Plantations adjudged fit for banishment; but by the exorbitant power of Desborow and Jones, two persons proscribed by Parliament, who were sent thither, Sayle was settled in that Government. Prays to be sent over to take the Government, which he presumes to undertake, "because he has spent so much time in travel." Capt. Florentia Seymour was appointed to succeed Wm. Sayle as Governor, September 1662, see Gen. Lefroy's Memorials of the Bermudas, II. 185. 1 p. (Col. Papers, Vol. XVI., No. 107.)
↑ Lefroy, John Henry (1981). Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands 1515–1685, Volume I. Bermuda: The Bermuda Historical Society and The Bermuda National Trust (the first edition having been published in 1877, with funds provided by the Government of Bermuda), printed in Canada by The University of Toronto Press.
↑ "Bermuda in Three Colours", Carveth Wells. Robert M. McBride & Company, New York. 1935.
↑ "Defence, Not Defiance: A History of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps", Jennifer M. Ingham (now Jennifer M. Hind), ISBN0-9696517-1-6. Printed by The Island Press Ltd., Pembroke, Bermuda. Itself using as a source the unique, typescript "History of The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps, 1891–1933", held at the Bermuda Library, in Hamilton.
↑ "Colonial Secretary's Office, 1st September, 1898". The Royal Gazette. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 6 September 1898. p.2. HIS EXCELLENCY Lieut.-General G. Digby Barker, C. B., having this day left Bermuda on leave of absence, the administration of the Government has, by virtue of the instructions contained in the Letters Patent constituting the office of Governor of Bermuda, devolved on LIEUT.-COLONEL WILLIAM ANDREW YULE, Senior Officer for the time being of Her Majesty's Regular Troops on service in these islands, to whom the oaths of office have this day been duly administered by His Honour the chief Justice. By His Honour's command, ARCHIBALD ALISON, Colonial Secretary.
↑ The Royal Gazette. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 6 September 1898. p.2. His Excellency the Governor, Lt. Genl. G. Digby Barker, C. B., accompanied by Miss Barker, proceeded to New York on Thursday last by S. S. Orinoco, on short vacation leave. During his absence the administration of the Gorernment devolves on the Senior Military Officer for the time being-at present Lt. Col. W. A. Yule, D. A. A. G., who on the afternoon of Thursday last was sworn in by his Honour Sir Josiah Rees, Kt., Chief Justice.{{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
↑ "EXTRACTS FROM BRIGADE ORDERS. HEADQUARTERS OFFICE, PROSPECT, 1ST SEPTEMBER 1898". The Royal Gazette. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 6 September 1898. p.2. 30th Aug, 1898 The command of the Troops will devolve on the Honble. Lt. Colonel W. A. Yule. D.A.A.G., who will also administer the Civil Government during the Governor's absence.
↑ "EXTRACTS FROM BRIGADE ORDERS. HEADQUARTERS OFFICE, PROSPECT, 17th September, 1900". The Royal Gazette. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 18 September 1900. p.2. The undermentioned temporary appointment is made: — Major A. W. M. Wilson, the West India Regiment, to be a Deputy Assistant Adjutant General, vice Lieutenant-Colonel W. A. Yule, whose period in that appointment has expired. Dated 7th May, 1900.
↑ "From the Army and Navy Gazette, Sept. 1 1900". The Royal Gazette. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 18 September 1900. p.2. Lieut.-Colonel W. A. Yule, half-pay, has been selected to succed[sic] Colonel E. C. Browne in command of the 31st Regimental District, Ayr, on October 1, with the rank of Colonel. Colonel Yule is a Staff College graduate and has held several important posts, such as D. A. A. G, Madras; A. G. M. G., Secunderabad; and until recently Chief Staff Officer at Bermuda. He served as Adjutant of the 2nd Batn. Royal Scots Fusiliers, and on the staff of Sir Donald Stewart in the Afghan War 1879–80.
↑ The Royal Gazette. City of Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 11 July 1905. p.2.{{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
↑ "GOVERNMENT NOTICES. ADMINISTRATION OF THE GOVERNMENT". The Royal Gazette. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 28 July 1914. p.2. His Excellency the Governor and Commander-in-Chief left the Colony on six weeks leave of absence on the 25th of July, 1914. Lieutenant-Colonel George Bunbury McAndrew, commanding the 2nd Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment, Senior Military Combatant Officer for the time being in command of His Majesty's regular troops, was sworn in as Officer Administering the Government by the Honourable the Colonial Secretary at the Council Chamber in the presence of the Members of His Majesty's Executive Council at 12.30 p.m. on the same date.
↑ "GOVERNMENT NOTICES. ADMINISTRATION OF THE GOVERNMENT". The Royal Gazette. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 8 August 1914. p.2. His Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir George Mackworth Bullock, K.C.B., Governor and Commander-in-Chief, having returned to the Colony on the 7th of August, 1914, resumed the administration of Government on that date. Colonial Secretary's Office.
↑ "GOVERNMENT NOTICES. CANCELLATION OF LEAVE OF ABSENCE". The Royal Gazette. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 8 August 1914. p.2. With reference to Government Notice of the 28th of July, 1914, the unexpired portion of the leave of absence granted to His Excellency the Governor, viz. from the 7th of August to the 4th of September, 1914, inclusive, is cancelled.
↑ "DEAD MAN'S FRUIT". The Royal Gazette. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 25 March 1915. p.2. Details of the fight at Neuve Chapelle are filtering through. It was a British victory in the fullest sense It cost dearly; and in the roll of honour is inscribed the name of Colonel McAndrew of the Lincolnshire Regiment who was Acting Governor of Bermuda at the outbreak of the war. When his regiment was summoned home the Corporation of Hamilton presented an address, to which Colonel McAndrew replied, and expressed the hope that they might be sent to the front to assist in carrying freedom and justice into Berlin. He has done his duty like a British officer and this little Colony will long cherish his memory.
↑ "Act'g. Governor's Address at Closing of Parliament". The Royal Gazette. City of Hamilton, Pembroke Parish, Bermuda. 9 September 1919. Yesterday morning at noon, His Honour the Officer Administering the Government, CoL H. B. DesVoeux, C.M.G. attended at the Council Chamber and received the Honourable Members of the Legislative Council, and the members of the Honourable House of Assembly. A guard of honour was furnished by the 2/4 Batn. E. York Regiment, consisting of 50 rank and file and a Subaltern under the command of Capt. Hannaford. The Council Chamber was filled with officers of the Navy and Army, together with a large number of civilians. Admiral Morgan Singer attended with his Staff. The Captain in Charge, Capt. Fanshawe, the Captain and Officers of H.M.S. Cambrian, and a number of naval officers on the station. Amongst the military we noticed, Colonel Lockhart, Col. Berger, Major Fairfield and a large number of the officers of the E. Yorks Regt.
↑ U.S. National Archives Catalog, Index to Photographs of Navy Personalities, 1941 – 1945, Murphy, W. L.
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