World traveller, Cavalier crash heroine and war veteran Edna Watson had a distinguished record of service both in her native Canada and Bermuda. She and Hilda Aitken were the first two women elected to the House of Assembly in 1948.
A woman with vast stores of courage and a strong sense of adventure, she had two close brushes with death at sea, winning a bravery award for her role in the 1939 Cavalier plane crash, and a Royal Red Cross citation for her wartime service in Europe.
In Parliament, where she served from 1948 to 1953, she was the first woman to speak in the House and the first woman to chair a government board. Six months after her election victory, she was appointed chairman of two Government boards, Transport Control and the newly created Board of Social Welfare, a hefty responsibility for a parliamentary neophyte. While she won respect for her abilities, she became frustrated with Government’s reluctance to fund much-needed social programmes. It resulted in her decision to found in 1951 the Committee of 25 for Handicapped Children, and in 1953, a hospital in Dockyard for children with disabilities.
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The 100th anniversary of Emancipation was celebrated island-wide throughout August. AME churches from Somerset to St. David’s kicked off observances the Sunday before August 1, with morning and evening services that saw pastors, MPs and community leaders taking part. Delivering the sermon at St. Paul AME Church, presiding elder Rev. J. Leo Pottinger said: “We should feel no embarrassment because our ancestors were once slaves.”
At Allen Temple AME Church in Somerset, white MP Frederick Misick expressed disappointment that “the colony had not arranged to observe the event more worthily.” H.T. Cann raised a more basic concern: Black workers were being overlooked for jobs by business leaders. Three Methodist churches, including Cobb’s Hill, Warwick, which was built by the enslaved, also marked the milestone.
At St. Peter’s Anglican church in St George’s, visiting Black Anglican minister Rev. Elliott Durham delivered the sermon. According to the Bermuda Recorder, it was “the first time for a long time that old historic St. Peter’s was filled”. It also noted that 60 per cent of the congregation was white. Other events were organised by two Friendly Societies, the Samaritans, and the Young People’s Welfare Association, which in mid-August presented ‘An Emancipation Celebration’.
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Allen Temple AME Church in Somerset was among those that led the 100th anniversary celebrations of Emancipation.
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