Ruth Seaton James
Trailblazing civil servant 
Born May 4, 1926

Ruth Seaton James was the first woman and the first Black person to head a Government department in Bermuda. That milestone in the Island’s long march towards racial and gender equality occurred on August 22, 1966 with her appointment as Registrar General and Parliamentary Registrar. It came seven years after the 1959 Theatre Boycott overturned legalised segregation in Bermuda. 

James had risen up through the ranks to head a department that had rejected her application for an entry-level position in 1950 because of her race. But one year later, she was offered a job, becoming the first Black person to hold a clerical post within the Civil Service.

Suffragettes hold victory rally 
May 30, 1944

Suffragettes held a rally at Trinity Hall in Hamilton to celebrate passage of the bill that gave women property owners the right to vote. Gladys Misick Morrell (pictured), leader of the 21-year campaign for women’s suffrage, thanked supporters Sir Stanley Spurling and Henry “Jack” Tucker, who piloted the bill through Parliament on April 21. She also praised Dr. Eustace Cann, the only Black parliamentarian to support the bill, for his courage. 

Morrell said: “We very much regretted that a number of coloured representatives in the House opposed our bill. We believe that their reasons for so doing were found on a misunderstanding of the situation and of our policies...”

In response to the bill’s passage, Black parliamentarian and Recorder editor David Tucker wrote: “Less than 300 ladies were powerful enough to alter our franchise. Surely 20,000 people, if united, should be able to bring about universal suffrage and thereby give every adult in the Colony an opportunity to have a voice in the affairs of Government.”

Tucker opposed the bill because he did not believe it would aid the cause of universal suffrage. But he attended the rally “to help bury the hatchet.”

Source: The Royal Gazette, May 31, 1944