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ARROWSMITH, EDWIN PORTER (1909-1992) Governor, was born on 23 May 1909, the son of Reverend Edwin Arrowsmith and his wife Kathleen Eggleston, nee Porter. He married Clondagh, eldest daughter of Dr WG Connor, in 1936 and. they had two daughters, Susan who married a naval officer she met in the Falkland Islands, and Jennefer. Educated at Cheltenham College and Trinity College Oxford, in 1932 he followed the strong Cheltenham College tradition of opting for a service career by entering the Colonial Service as Assistant District Commissioner, Bechuanaland Protectorate. He then held various district posts from 1933 to 1938. Progressing from Commissioner Turks and Caicos Islands 1940 to 1946, Administrator Dominica 1946 to 1952 and Resident Commissioner Basutoland 1952 to 1956, he became Governor of the Falkland Islands 1957 to 1964 and was additionally High Commissioner British Antarctic Territory 1962 to 1964. Cheltenham College has the unique distinction of providing three post-war Governors of the Falkland Islands, the other two being Sir Edwin’s successor Sir Cosmo HASKARD and William Fullerton.
His was an inspired appointment as Governor but then his service background and training in the various parts of the Commonwealth made him ideal for the post. It is a measure of his success and popularity that he served such an exceptionally long period in the Islands. He was probably the first governor to talk to Islanders instead of at them. A commanding figure supported by a highly popular family he participated naturally in the social life of this close community whilst retaining the dignity of office. Approachable at all times he achieved success because he listened to people and made up his own mind regardless of past prejudices. An instance of this which brought considerable financial benefit to the Islands was his acceptance in the face of some scepticism and opposition from officials of proposals from the United Kingdom based companies led by the Falkland Islands Company. These
proposals involved the replacement of indirect taxes which the overseas companies were unable to set off against their British tax liability with a much higher corporate direct tax of around the British level. This resulted in substantial diversion of tax from the UK to the Islands. Earlier, following the outbreak of the Korean War wool prices had soared but much of the benefit had been lost to the Colony because the overall tax rate of the Falkland Islands Company for example of 66 per cent was shared 49_ per cent UK and 17_ per cent Falkland Islands. The legislation was introduced in such a way that locally registered companies were largely unaffected. Arrowsmith was a keen fly fisherman and introduced freshwater fish to the Islands to establish fishing in the Islands as a sport. He was also a firm supporter of all sporting activities in the Islands and no game of football or cricket would be played without his presence and support. During his governorship there occurred the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of the Falkland Islands which had a significant influence on naval warfare during World War 1. To mark the occasion Arrowsmith set out to trace survivors of the battle and located no less than 237 officers and men initially and some more later on. Each survivor was presented with a suitable memento including a set of the commemorative stamps issued by the Islands to mark the occasion.
Following his departure from the Falkland Islands, ‘Arrow’ as he was popularly known, became Director of Overseas Services Resettlement Bureau and was also regularly invited to ‘meet and greet’ visiting V.I.P.’s, a role for which his unfailing good humour, tact and charm was ideally suited. Outside his service roles he was dedicated to helping the blind, being a member of the Council of St. Dunstan’s for 28 years and for 15 years, Chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind and later Vice-President. A fervent supporter of Cheltenham College, Arrowsmith was President of the Cheltonian Society 1968/1969 during its centenary year. He also strongly supported the Falkland Islands during the difficult years of the late 1960s through to his death on 10 July 1992.
Frank Mitchell
ARTHUR, (OSWALD) RAYNOR (1905-1973) Governor, was born in 1905 in Poonah, India, son of Sigismund and Constance Arthur. His father was a member of the Indian Civil Service. He was educated at Charterhouse and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He joined the Nigerian Political Service in 1928, serving there till 1937 when he was transferred to the district administration in Cyprus, the first of three island postings. He became Chief Commissioner (head of the district administration) in 1948, and Governor’s Deputy in 1950. In 1952 he was appointed Colonial Secretary, Bermuda, whence he was appointed to the Falklands.
Governor Arthur’s time in the Islands pre-dated the era of Argentine pressure which did not begin effectively till 1964. He was spared having to deal with the frequent, seemingly inherent, conflict between the wishes of Islanders and the strategy of the British Government which was to be-devil the Governorships of so many of his successors. Yet he still had to fight the Island’s corner with the Colonial Office over what he saw as ill-informed Whitehall views about projects financed by Colonial Development and Welfare Funds, as his private letters (in the Rhodes House Library at Oxford) show. He was especially angry about what he described to LEGCO on 17 February 1955 as the "recklessly planned and extravagantly and inefficiently constructed freezer at Ajax Bay".
The Colonial Reports for the years 1954 to 1957 tell of what may now seem to be basic, modest, infrastructural, developments. In 1954 there was the installation of new broadcasting equipment, the opening of the Stanley Infants’ School, and the completion of the Darwin Boarding School, largely financed by the Falkland Islands Company to mark their Centenary. In 1955 the new power station was opened. The laying of the concrete main road on the Stanley waterfront began in 1956 and was completed in 1957. Work on the water filtration plant also began in 1956. Work on the important new development of Camp Tracks began too in Governor Arthur’s time. A second Beaver float plane was purchased, though thoughts which he harboured of an air link with Latin America would have to wait.
His address to the Legislative Council on 26 October 1954 speaks of the difficulties of recruiting teaching and other professional staff from overseas, as well as artisans and unskilled labour. It describes the extent to which maintenance of buildings had had to be neglected through labour shortages. These problems feature again in his Address to Legislative Council on 17 February 1955 and on 4 June 1956 he speaks to Legislative Council of how ‘The Public Works programme seems to be like the mythical Hydra; as fast as one horrid head is cut off another one grows. Much has been done on the renovation and repair programme of Government buildings but the work has proved to be much more extensive than had been expected’.
The Rhodes House letters, not of course written with a view to reputation, reveal a man who appears to have been entirely appropriate to the Falklands of his time. He was a passionate horseman who imported his own horses and rode whenever he had the opportunity, covering much of the Islands on horseback and spending days in the saddle. He even persuaded the non-riding captain of a visiting Royal Navy ship to learn to ride sufficiently well to accompany him in taking the 1954 Queen’s Birthday parade mounted. With a very light load of paper work when mails were infrequent and administration relatively simple, he had the time to appreciate the people and the place. He was a natural countryman who from time to time took an active part in sheep gathering, cattle gathering and lamb marking, as well as relishing shooting upland geese. He was an indefatigable party giver and dispenser of hospitality. He had the capacity to relate to all sorts and conditions of men and women and to judge them shrewdly, sympathetically, and with humour.
Yet, though he obviously enjoyed himself, he took his responsibilities seriously. At that time the Governor was expected to give a strong lead to Executive Council which consisted of a combination of officials appointed ex-officio and nominated unofficials to whom the four elected members were added to form Legislative Council. A letter gives the flavour. "Exco went very well, and I got through one or two things which they had thrown out before If you go on and on at a council or legislature you usually get what you want in the end." He was quick to assert his authority when he felt it was needed. Of one elected Councillor he says "I told him pretty sharply he was talking nonsense and why". At the same time he encouraged debate, and democracy, in Legislative Council by obliging unofficial members of Executive Council to support publicly the decisions which they had reached in private. Essentially he was the very best sort of old-fashioned paternalistic colonial administrator.
His Governorship will be especially remembered for the visit of Prince PHILLIP from 7-9 January 1957. It appears to have been a great success. In Stanley Prince Philip attended a special race meeting and won the Sailors’ Race as well as the customary school and hospital visits. There was a Colony Ball and a visit to Fox Bay before the Prince, accompanied by Arthur, departed in the Royal Yacht Britannia for South Georgia and Antarctica.
He married in 1935 Mary Elizabeth Spring Rice, the daughter of Sir Cecil Spring-Rice who was the British Ambassador in America during World War I. They had one son and one daughter.
Towards the end of 1956 he was offered the Governorship of the much more sophisticated world of the Bahamas. "I shall be very sorry to leave here," he wrote on leaving the Falklands. Sadly there are no letters to tell how he coped with his new islands with their population of 100,000 and burgeoning prosperity increasingly founded on luxury tourism and financial services. He was Governor there from 1957 till 1960 when he retired, becoming a JP in East Sussex. Unusually he was appointed CVO and CMG in the same year, 1953, and KCMG in1957. He died on 4 December 1973 following a riding accident.
David Taylor
BARKLY, ARTHUR CECIL STUART (1843-1890), Lieutenant-Governor, was born in 1843, the eldest of the five children (four sons, one daughter) of Sir Henry Barkly (1815-1898) and Elizabeth Helen Barkly, nee Timins. Sir Henry was successively governor of British Guiana, Jamaica, Victoria (Australia), Mauritius, and Cape Colony. Barkly was educated at Harrow, and was a lieutenant in the 3rd Carabineers from 1862 to 1865. He served as private secretary to his father in Mauritius and Cape Colony, where in 1873, at Government House, Cape Town, he married Fanny Hatchard, daughter of the bishop of Mauritius. In August 1877 he was appointed a residentmagistrate in Basutoland (now Lesotho). He took his wife and their two eldest children, Harry and Nancy, with him to Basutoland, where they remained during the Zulu revolt (1878-1879) and the Basuto rebellion (1880). Barkly’s leadership and coolness under fire gained him the respect of the Basutos, who called him "The Lion". During each of the two major crises, a child was born to the Barklys: Hugh in January 1879 at the time of the massacre of British troops by the Zulus at Isandhlwana, and Gilbert ("Bertie") on 20 June 1880 as the rebel Basutos were advancing on their residence at Mafeteng. Under hair-raising circumstances Fanny and the children got away, but Barkly was besieged in Mafeteng until relieved on 19 October 1880 by the Cape Mounted Police, who placed some of their troops under his command, thereafter called "Barkly’s horse". He fell seriously ill in June 1881 and returned to Britain to convalesce. In November 1881 he was appointed Chief Civil Commissioner of the Seychelles, where their fifth child, Dorothy Maud ("Dot"), was born in 1883. They remained throughout an epidemic of smallpox, and in autumn 1884 returned to Britain.
In January 1886, Barkly was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Falklands, as Governor KERR had requested sick leave. He travelled alone to the Falklands, arriving on board the Kosmos mail steamer Luxor on 12 February 1886, and took up his post on 4 March 1886, after Governor Kerr had left. His appointment as Lieutenant-Governor was temporary, on half pay of £500 a year, and he suffered constant financial hardship. During his tenure, another peat slip occurred in Stanley, following the first one of 29 November 1878. The second slip occurred on the night of 2 June 1886, and as Barkly reported in a letter to his father, "a regular river of half liquid peat flowed down the mountain, and ran across the very middle of the town into the sea. It has blocked up several streets, touched a house or two... and killed two people." He thereupon initiated extensive drainage works to avoid a repetition of the disaster. He was popular in the islands, and a special meeting of the Legislative Council on 9 December 1886 voted him an extra £100 a year. He left the Falklands on HMS Ruby on 17 December 1886 after Governor Kerr returned, and was unexpectedly sent back to the Seychelles. This time he took his whole family, and celebrated Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee there on 21 June 1887, but was soon afterwards invalided home, for the fourth time in his career (he had convalesced in Australia in 1863 after suffering a "dangerous attack of congestion of the lungs", and in 1873 had been given a year’s leave of absence from his post in Cape Town after an attack of rheumatic fever). He may perhaps also have suffered from diabetes.
In November 1888 he was appointed Governor of Heligoland, an island in the North Sea which had been British since it was captured from Denmark in 1807. Secret negotiations with Germany in the spring of 1890 by Lord Salisbury, British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, resulted in the Anglo-German Agreement of 1 July 1890, under which Britain exchanged Heligoland for large areas of German territory in Africa. The island was ceded to Germany on 9 August 1890, even though it had never been under German rule. Its Frisian-speaking inhabitants, who had been British citizens all their lives, were not consulted about the change, and Barkly himself only learnt of the agreement from the newspapers. The Barklys could do nothing to help the Heligolanders, who became Germans whether they liked it or not. Still in acute financial straits, the Barklys returned to Britain, where he died on a visit to his wife’s brother’s estate at Stapleford Park, Pontefract, on 27 September 1890, aged only 47. His early death was attributed by his family to "a broken heart", but rheumatic fever can damage the heart, and this, perhaps combined with diabetes, may have been the cause. His death was a severe blow to Sir Henry Barkly, all of whose four sons predeceased him.
His widow Fanny wrote two books of reminiscences at Hampton Court Palace, where she was granted a "grace-and-favour" apartment in 1892 thanks to the personal intervention of Queen Victoria. She resigned her apartment in March 1900 — the other Palace occupants found her and her five children too lively.
Graham Pascoe
BARNARD, CHARLES H. (1781-?c.1840) American sealer, sailed from Sandy Hook, New Jersey on 12 April 1812 in the 132-ton brig Nanina of New York on a sealing voyage to the Falkland Islands, anchoring off New Island on 7 September 1812. Among his crew were his father Valentine, Barzillai Pearse, A. Hunter and Edmund FANNING, the well known American sealer, who was temporarily out of employment due to the strained relations between the United States and England. On arrival off New Island a shallop of 10 tons, which had been brought out in frame, was constructed on shore and then sent to the Jason Islands, where a party of ten men were landed on Steeple Jason, with provisions for six weeks. At the beginning of January 1813 the Hope of New York, Captain Obed Chase, called at New Island and informed Barnard that the United States had declared war against Great Britain. As a result of this information Barnard recalled his men from Steeple Jason and moved the Nanina to the head of Port Richards, referred to by Barnard as Barnard’s Harbour, where he hoped to be safe from English whalers, who might be issued with letters of marque. Sealing operations were then resumed off West Falkland. The following April Barnard took the shallop to Fox Bay, from where he saw smoke rising from Speedwell Island, (Eagle Island to Barnard), in the south-east entrance to Falkland Sound. Barnard made for the island and, when people were sighted on shore, hoisted American colours. Barnard found nearly 50 people on the island, including a party of Royal Marines, half a dozen women and some children, survivors of the 194-ton Isabella of London which had been wrecked there on 9 February 1813, when on passage from Port Jackson, in New South Wales, to London. Two officers and four seamen had already set off in the Isabella’s longboat for South America to seek relief. Barnard offered to convey the whole party to some port in South America in the Nanina and an agreement was drawn up to that effect. But before the agreement was signed Barnard volunteered the information that Great Britain and the United States were at war, adding that he hoped that this fact would make no difference to the friendly relations between the two parties. Barnard then took a number of the castaways on board the shallop and set sail on 8 April for the Nanina, with the intention of bringing her round to Speedwell Island to embark the rest of the Isabella’s crew and passengers. Bad weather, however, forced him to anchor in Port Edgar, from where he led a party of 18 across the island to the Nanina. He then returned to the shallop and four days later succeeded in rounding Cape Meredith, only to be forced to take refuge in Port Stephens. After calling at Weddell Island to obtain a supply of geese and hogs, Barnard eventually reached the Nanina. On 14 May the shallop was sent back to Speedwell Island, to bring back the Isabella’s cargo or such other articles from the wreck that Fanning and Hunter, who had been left there for that purpose, might select. Meanwhile Barnard moved the Nanina to his original anchorage off New Island.
Betrayal and Abandonment
The prospect of taking such a large party to South America in the Nanina made it necessary to lay in a stock of provisions for the voyage. Accordingly, Barnard, Jacob Green, a coloured man from the Nanina, Samuel Ansel, Joseph Albrook and James Louder from the Isabella, went by small boat to Beaver Island on 10 June to obtain some hogs, which were running wild on the island. When they returned to New Island, the Nanina had disappeared, leaving nothing behind, not even a message. Three days after Barnard set off for Beaver Island the British passengers on board the Nanina had seized her and got under way. They first made for Beaver Island where a gun was fired to attract Barnard’s attention, but with no signs of him they were not prepared to anchor and search the island and so set course for Speedwell Island, leaving Barnard and his companions to their fate. Nanina was made a prize of the British 16-gun brig Nancy, Lieutenant William D’Aranda - Isabella’s longboat had succeeded in reaching Buenos Aires and the Nancy had been sent to her relief. On 10 July D’Aranda sent the shallop to search for Barnard and his companions, but it returned on the 13th without finding them. It seems unlikely that the shallop even reached Beaver Island. On 27 July the two brigs left Speedwell Island with the survivors, the Nancy bound for Buenos Aires and the Nanina, under a prize master bound for England. The Nancy, however, was forced to call at Rio de Janeiro for provisions and water, before continuing to London where Nanina was deemed a lawful prize. Thus, according to Barnard, D’Aranda succeeded in ‘wresting from an unfortunate man his vessel, while in the act of saving many of their subjects from actual starvation’.
Marooned
Back in the Falklands the plight of Barnard and his companions was most wretched as it was now the height of winter. First they attempted to make their way by boat to Speedwell Island, but were forced to turn back. Having abandoned hope of being rescued by the Nanina or the shallop they made for New Island early in October, as whalers sometimes put in there for water. As it was approaching the time that the albatrosses began to nest, Barnard provided each man with a seal skin bag to collect their eggs. About a week after their return to New Island, Barnard’s four companions, at the instigation of Ansel, deserted him, taking the boat, almost all his belongings and more importantly his dog, Cent, who was invaluable in catching wild hogs. In their absence Barnard managed to rekindle the fire which they had kept alight since returning to New Island. In this he greatly assisted by discovering a source of peat on the island. He then began to construct a stone building, covering the roof with seal skins. He also recovered three small potatoes which he planted in the hope that they would produce a crop in due course. In December Macaroni Penguins arrived, making their nests between the albatrosses, enabling Barnard to collect their eggs in large numbers.
Towards the end of December the four erstwhile deserters returned to New Island and were reconciled with Barnard, who had thus been alone for more than two months. They told him that they had returned to the site of the wreck of the Isabella, but found that every useful article had been destroyed or carried away. From Louder, Barnard learned that Ansel had tyrannised the other three and so it was resolved to banish him from New Island. In the spring, Louder, Green and Albrook took the boat once more to Speedwell Island, returning with a boatload of useful articles. By the middle of October, the albatrosses had returned, enabling them to lay in a supply of eggs. The following month Barnard, Albrook and Louder went over to Weddell Island for some driftwood and hogs, but were detained there for some days by strong winds. On 26 November Albrook and Barnard set off to climb a hill, but before they could reach the summit they heard Louder cry out. On reaching him, all he could say was ‘two ships’, which they then could see were standing in for New Island. As soon as the tide allowed the three made their way back to New Island where, at six o’clock that evening, Barnard went on board the British whaler Indispensable, Captain William Buckle, who informed Barnard that he had received a letter from the British Admiral at Rio de Janeiro, asking him to look out for the castaways, should he put into any of the islands. On 29 December, while Barnard remained on New Island, the remaining four took the boat across to Weddell Island ostensibly to obtain hogs, and marooned Ansel there. The remaining three then returned to New Island, after spending three days on Beaver Island. A few days later, with Barnard’s consent, the three set off once again for the wreck of the Isabella, returning on 26 January 1814 with many useful articles. Barnard and his three companions set off for Sea-dog Island, situated about half a mile north-west of Cape Orford, for fur seal skins. On the way they stopped at Weddell Island to drop off Ansel’s share of seal skins and his belongings. Ansel fell on his knees entreating them to take him off, which they eventually did with considerable reluctance. After visiting Sea-dog Island they returned to New Island where, as it now seemed unlikely that any whalers would call as winter was approaching, they completed the house using driftwood and the ribs of a whale. During the winter, whenever supplies were low, they crossed over to Beaver and Staats Islands to hunt for hogs and fur seals. To supplement their provisions, Barnard devised a method of snaring geese.
Rescue
On 29 November 1814, the two whalers got under way with Barnard, Louder and Albrook on board the Indispensable, and with Green and Ansel on board the Asp, Captain John Kenny. The two whalers rounded Cape Horn and worked their way north, killing a number of whales. When off the coast of Peru, Barnard and his two companions left the Indispensable in their own boat. Landing not far from Pisco, Barnard went through many adventures before finally reaching his home port of New York. There can be little doubt that Barnard’s patience and resourcefulness kept the party sane during their enforced stay of over 17 months in the Falklands.
During a sealing voyage to the South Shetland Islands in 1821 in the Charity, Barnard called once again at New Island Harbour, where he met James WEDDELL, whose account published in 1827 first drew attention to Barnard’s misfortune. On his way back to the United States, ‘nearly at the same place where I encountered these British demons’ Barnard found a British seaman, who had been abandoned by his captain. Barnard took him on board and gave him a passage to New York, where he handed him over to the British Consul. It may have been the publication of Weddell’s account in 1825 that encouraged Barnard to publish his A Narrative of the Sufferings and Adventures of Capt. Charles Barnard in 1829. This gives a lucid and readable account of his misadventures. His book included a chart titled ‘Chart of the Falkland Islands as Surveyed by Capt Chs H. Barnard’. Since it includes both East and West Falkland it seems possible that Barnard may have visited the Falklands on several more occasions. Nothing is known of Barnard’s final years after he was elected to the Marine Society of New York in 1831.
Andrew C F David
BASELEY, REGINALD BRUCE (1878-1952) Colonial Engineer, was born in Southampton on 9 March, 1878, the youngest child and second son of James and Catherine Baseley. His father had a tailoring business in the suburb of Eastleigh and Baseley received his primary schooling at a preparatory school in Swanage, later going on to Victoria College in Jersey where his parents had retired. On leaving school he trained as a marine engineer and attained the qualification of a Member of the Institute of Marine Engineering (MIME). He had a variety of seafaring appointments and for a time was engineer in charge of the Padstow lifeboat which was then powered by steam. In 1904, he married Edith Mary Clayton, daughter of a Liverpool art dealer and in 1905 their first child, Victoria, was born; she was later to marry Jack BONNER of San Carlos.
In 1907 he was appointed Marine Superintendent for the Falkland Islands Company in Stanley. His first commission for the Company was to be engineer on the schooner Malvina, which had to be delivered from Liverpool to the Falklands. Malvina was an auxiliary schooner built by Ferguson and Connagh in Liverpool to a Mersey pilot boat design and fitted with a Gardiner oil engine operating a twin bladed propeller giving the vessel a service speed of five knots. She was one of the first vessels to be fitted with auxiliary propulsion of this type. They sailed from Liverpool on 7 March 1907 and had a good passage until 23 April, when, more or less opposite the River Plate, they encountered a south-westerly storm which blew them approximately 1000 miles off course in a northerly direction. There was then a long haul southwards to the Falklands which they finally reached on 9 June. Though well off most shipping routes they were fortunate to pass one vessel which was able to report their position and allay anxiety as to their whereabouts. Malvina sadly only sailed for about two years in Falkland waters, being wrecked on Reef Island in May 1910.
After this epic voyage, Baseley returned to England to bring his family out to Stanley, and the names of Mr and Mrs Baseley and infant are recorded in the passenger list of RMS Ortega arriving in Stanley on 18 December 1907. He was Marine Superintendent for the FIC until the end of 1911. In January 1912, he was appointed by Governor ALLARDYCE to the position of Colonial Engineer, a post he was to hold until his retirement in 1928. As such he was responsible for overseeing the erection of the Naval Wireless Station at Moody Brook and the Government Wireless Station at Fox Bay, both in 1913. He also was in charge of building the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, which opened in 1915, and the Town Hall in 1916. Both buildings have since been destroyed by fire, the Town Hall in 1944 and the Hospital in 1984. After the end of World War I in 1918 an extensive programme of public works was started which included an improved water supply, modern drainage and sewage disposal, improved roads and electric lighting. He was also in charge of erecting the 1914 Battle Memorial along from Government House. In addition to these extensive public works, Baseley and his wife found time to enter fully into the social life of the Colony. A deeply religious man he served on the Cathedral Select Vestry from May 1908 until 1928, acting as secretary in 1910 and treasurer from 1913 to 1922. He was engineer to the Stanley Fire Brigade and active in the various sporting clubs in Stanley at the time, particularly the Football and Cricket Clubs. The Baseleys had two more children while living in Stanley, Reginald Harold, (b 1908) and Bruce Falkland, (b 1915). They retired to England in 1928 and settled in the village of Wraysbury near Windsor where they continued their involvement in church affairs. They moved to Worthing in 1951 and Mrs Baseley died later that year. Baseley died on 27 May 1952.
Chris Bonner
BENDER, CHRISTOPH PETER WILHELM (Charles) (1844—1924) colonist, was born in Hamburg, Germany, the son of a family of lawyers. He was to be apprenticed to the family firm, but being an outdoor type left home to seek his fortune, ending up in 1864, at 20 years of age, sealing off Patagonia where a seal bit off two fingers from his right hand. According to some family members, he was put ashore in Stanley to recover, (but another says that the ship’s crew were cruel to him and that he jumped ship and hid in a cave until the ship had left Stanley). The Aliens’ Register of 1867 does not list a Bender, so it is likely that he arrived shortly after that date. Whenever it was that Bender fetched up in Stanley, it was in time to make friends with and impress several settlers in the town, probably by his youthful good looks and industrious habits. On 25 June 1875, Governor D’ARCY granted William COULSON, Government messenger, a lease for 21 years of 4,000 acres of Crown Land in Moody Valley west of Stanley. The next day Coulson took Bender into partnership, and with their joint capital and some advances from local merchants, (Mrs Orissa Dean in particular), they stocked the farm with sheep and erected the necessary buildings, at a cost of between £700 and £800. Management was entirely in the hands of Bender, who resided on the farm. Ten months later on 24 April 1876, Bender with Edward Nilsson, a native of Sweden, swore an Oath of Allegiance to Queen Victoria at a fee of £5, and became the first ‘Five Pound Britisher.’ Legislation had not been put in place to provide for such a contingency and so on the 11 May 1876, a retrospective Naturalization Ordinance was passed giving Bender, (and Nilsson) "to all intents and purposes whatsoever entitled, within the limits of this Colony, to all the privileges of British-born subjects of Her Majesty". It would have been certainly advisable, probably necessary, for Bender to become a naturalised British subject in order to occupy and enjoy the profits of Crown land and it prevented his internment during World War I. On 23 December 1880 Bender became the sole leaseholder and after settling a dispute with Coulson involving the Supreme Court, the partnership was dissolved on 7 October 1890. By this time Bender had almost doubled the size of Moody Valley Farm to 7,000 acres by the acquisition of adjoining land from Captain PACKE, and incorporating more Crown land. The land was poor with several stone runs and the 1982 battlegrounds of Two Sisters and Mount Tumbledown. Governor KERR considered that Bender over-stocked his farm and with the fluctuating price of wool he never became wealthy but rather eked out an honest living by exporting wool and hides and, in addition, supplying Stanley with mutton. In 1916 the Admiralty Wireless Station was built at the head of Stanley Harbour on Bender's land.
On 31 May 1888, he married Hannah Conisbee who gave her age as 30, though her English birth certificate states that she was born on 30 March 1857. Hannah had been companion-seamstress to a wealthy lady taking a world cruise and had been so horribly seasick rounding Cape Horn that she begged to be put off at the next piece of land to recover. It happened to be the Falklands and although given a handsome pension and told to make her own way home to rejoin her mistress, Bender courted her and they married in St. Mary’s Catholic Church. She bore him eight children, (seven girls, one boy,) in the space of 12 years and four months. As a devout Catholic, it was easier for Bender to pay for one of the nuns in Stanley to come out and be their governess than for seven children to be transported the three miles into town and back every day - one of the earliest examples of a ‘travelling teacher’. Even in such a remote Colony, the girls were taught to play the piano and to be young ladies. Bender was a strict disciplinarian who would not countenance swearing or drunkenness and insisted on perfect table manners from all his many children. In later years, he was a stout figure with a flowing white beard. He cut his two youngest daughters off without a penny for going to England: Dorothy in 1922 to escape being put upon as the youngest daughter after her mother died on 21 September 1916, and Beatrice in 1923 to marry a naval telegraphist who had served at Moody Brook. In Dorothy's case, Bender promised to pay her return passage if ever she changed her mind, but he knew that his money was safe! He died on 6 December 1924.
Beatrice's son, Peter MILLAM, returned to the Falklands as the Anglican priest in 1966. Bender’s story is that of a foreign pioneer settler, who by grit and determination helped establish a viable economy and stable community, thereby laying the foundation of the prosperous overseas territory we see today.
Peter J Millam
BIGGS, MADGE BRIGID FRANCES (1902-1995) librarian, was born on 26 July 1902 at Marmont Row, Stanley, one of nine children of Vincent and Mary Biggs. Vincent was a shipwright with the Falkland Islands Company as was his father, a combined service of 79 years, and the family were among the original British settlers in the Islands (see James BIGGS). Educated at St. Mary’s, she initially trained to be a teacher and at the age of 17 commenced a lifetime of selfless devotion to the community. Her initial salary was £15 per annum and her teaching legacy lives on to this day. Madge Biggs was Government Librarian for almost 50 years and overcame problems such as poor communications and erratic external mail deliveries with composure and devotion to duty. Because of her background in photography through her family’s expertise, she became the Islands’ first radiographer, serving for nine years at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital. Following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Madge Biggs became the Hon. Treasurer of the local branch of the Red Cross Society and it is a measure of her ability and dedication that she was granted Life Membership. When the threat of Japanese invasion occurred and the substantial British Falkland Islands Force arrived, she organised the popular services canteen and was much distressed when her office at the Town Hall was destroyed in 1944 when the building was lost to fire. With her brothers, she made a valiant attempt at saving the cash takings and the papers but was forced to withdraw after carefully locking the doors in the mistaken belief that the fire would be extinguished.
A pillar of strength to St. Mary’s and a devout Roman Catholic, Madge Biggs played the harmonium every Sunday for 65 years and led the choir for most of that time. She was honoured by two Popes. It is wholly appropriate that at the time of her death on 8 September 1995, Monsignor Agreiter said "A great woman has gone home". It was a privilege to know Madge Biggs and it is disappointing that her one visit to Britain in her later years was for medical attention. Her sighting of England was limited by movement by ambulance in darkness and she resisted all pleading to come to London and see the famous sites, insisting that she could not be a burden to friends in view of her incapacity and that she needed to return to her beloved sister Irene. Her only other departure from the Islands was a wartime trip to Montevideo on the SS Fitzroy for new spectacles, a journey which she found extremely uncomfortable. She was honoured with an MBE which was presented to her by Governor Sir Miles CLIFFORD during the reign of King George VI.
Frank Mitchell
BIGGS, (BERNARD) NOEL (1916-1986) civil servant, was born in Stanley, Falkland Islands, on 4 September 1916 the eldest surviving son of the large family of Bernard Claud Biggs and Kathleen Mary Biggs. In childhood he contracted polio spending several years in bed. He was left with a weak leg and permanent limp and had to wear a caliper. On leaving school, he became messenger boy for the Falkland Islands Company and believed the cycling strengthened his leg to the extent that he was able to do without the caliper. In spite of the lack of formal schooling he had a very alert mind and soon became clerk in the office of the King Edward Memorial Hospital. Here he met his future wife Miriam MacGill and married in 1936. They had three children, Noeline (b 1937), Kim (b 1939) and Rosina (b 1946). He took to married life with enthusiasm, keeping an excellently productive vegetable garden, a peat shed filled with good peat and a cow to provide his family with milk.
Biggs joined the FIDF, thoroughly enjoying the training camps and exercises. Because of his disability he was unable to join his brothers when they enlisted for service with the British forces at the start of World War II. As a result, he was nicely placed when the Falkland Island Government was looking to fill the position of Customs Officer and Post Master in South Georgia. In 1942, he and his wife and two children travelled there on RMS Fitzroy where they spent the next three years. The job was interesting and varied as there were then three active whaling stations and the oil produced had to be monitored entailing trips on the small whale catchers: somewhat of an ordeal for a man who was a notoriously bad sailor. In his spare time, he learned to speak Spanish. Everyone had to learn to ski and suitably small skis were specially made at the Grytviken Whaling Station for the children.
In 1945, the family returned to Stanley and Biggs was appointed Senior Customs Officer for the Falkland Islands. He enjoyed the work and in 1949, the then Governor Miles CLIFFORD arranged for him to receive training in London. The family which now included another daughter, spent six enjoyable months there whilst Noel was working with HM Customs at Tilbury. In 1952, again sponsored by the Governor, he applied for a posting to another British territory.
In March 1952, Biggs took up his post as Collector of Customs and Excise in Mombasa, Kenya, where a very successful and satisfying career within the East African Customs and Excise Department ensued. He enjoyed his contact with the diverse shipping around the Coast and in due course learned the intricacies of the brewing industry where it attracted Excise Duty. He was serving in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika, as Regional Commissioner of Customs when the territory was granted independence.
He retired to the United Kingdom in 1964. Miriam died of cancer in 1958. In 1961, Biggs married Agnes Power, a Nursing Sister who came from Waterford in Southern Ireland, and they had three daughters: Kathleen (b 1963), Bernadine (b 1967) and Sheelah (b 1970). After a short spell in Hampshire he moved to Southern Ireland, where he bought a piece of land on the Waterford coast and set up a very successful caravan park. Here he brought up his new family. He battled for several years with Parkinson’s disease and died in Co Waterford in 1986, a few months short of his 70th birthday. His wife Agnes died in 2003.
Noeline Sloggie
BLAIR, LAURENCE FREDERICK DEVAYNES (1867-1925), Bishop, was born in Chittor, India in 1867 the son of Lt Gen William Blair, of Madras. After spending his university years at Cambridge, (where he obtained an MA and a Doctorate in Divinity) he was ordained in 1892 and served as Curate of Portman Chapel from 1892-5. After a further seven years as Rector of Chalgrove and Vicar of Langley, he returned to India to serve in a series of chaplaincies until 1906. He was then Chaplain of the Church Parochial Mission Society until 1910.
His appointment as third bishop of the Falkland Islands was one of the results of Bishop EVERY's scheme to divide the South America region into two dioceses. Blair was named as the new Bishop of the Falkland Islands, with episcopal oversight of Anglicans in the Falkland Islands, Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and part of the States of Colombia. He based himself in Valparaiso, in Chile. The task Blair faced proved to be too much for him. The reduced diocese he was responsible for seriously lacked financial resources, so he was forced in 1911-12 to return to England to look for funds. In 1912 he wrote to The Times threatening to resign unless £100,000 was raised. But the response did not match his hopes. He returned to South America and resigned in 1914.
During the war years, 1914-19, the Diocese of the Falkland Islands returned to the jurisdiction of Bishop Every, until the appointment of Norman DE JERSEY as fourth bishop.
Blair was unfortunate in that he lacked the personal wealth of Bishop Every to support his work. He lacked tenacity and was an aloof, formal man. On his return to England in 1914, it seems that Blair ceased to have any priestly ministry, but lived quietly until his death at Ealing, aged 57, on 18 November 1925.
Jeremy Howat
BLAKE, LIONEL GEOFFREY (Tim) (b 1935) Legislative Councillor, was born in Somerset on 29 July 1935, the son of Norman David Blake (youngest son of Robert BLAKE) and Alice Vicars Blake, nee Boyle. He was educated at Crewkerne School and the West of Scotland Agricultural College and served his National Service in the army.
Blake arrived in the Falkland Islands in 1958 and worked at Hill Cove as cadet/assistant manager. From 1965 he was manager at Hill Cove until 1987 when the farm was sold to Falkland Islands Government. He oversaw the division of the land and livestock into eight sections and purchased one of the smaller ones — The Peaks — which he ran with his wife until his retirement in 1999.
He served as a nominated member of Legislative Council from 1964-8 and an elected member from 1972-7 and again from 1981-9, when he did not seek re-election. He sat on Executive Council on numerous occasions: 1972-5; 1981-2; 1983-4; and 1986-7. In 1975, he was the first Falklands representative at a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference in India and subsequently attended conferences in Mauritius, Fiji, Kenya, the Isle of Man and Saskatchewan. Always interested in the Constitution of the Islands, he sat in LEGCO in 1964 when the number of official members was reduced to two and again in the early seventies when nominated members were abolished. In March 1982, he and Councillor John Cheek formed part of the British Delegation which met the Argentines for talks in New York. In 2002, he was nominated the first Speaker of the Legislative Council. He was appointed Justice of the Peace in 1969 and awarded the OBE in 1978.
In 1983, during the visit of Mrs Thatcher to the Islands, Blake asked the Prime Minister at a joint meeting of Councils when the Falklands could expect their own fishing zone. He was told that Mrs Thatcher was in the Falklands to celebrate the liberation of the Islands, not to discuss fishing. It was at the end of 1986 that the fishery conservation zone was established, transforming the economy of the Falklands
Blake married Sally Gwynfa Clement in 1965. They have two sons, Paul (b 1969) and Alex (b 1972).
Tim Blake
BLAKE, ROBERT (1851-1930) colonist, was born in Taunton, Somerset in 1851,the fifth child of nine of William Blake and Fanny Follet Osler Blake, nee Browne, a strong Unitarian family with a background in medicine, law and farming. He was a resolute and adventurous young man, the lively one of the family whose restlessness got him involved in conflict with authority and with fellow students at boarding school where he chafed at the discipline. A short period in Munich studying engineering was followed by further engineering studies in Manchester in 1871 but the profession did not appeal to him and he returned hone to Somerset the following year. It was at that stage that an. event occurred which was to transform his life. In March 1873 the Colonial Manager of the Falkland Islands Company, Frederick COBB, himself only 27, arrived from the Falkland Islands to marry Robert’s sister Emily, Cobb had assumed this important and prestigious position at the remarkably young age of 22 and he regaled the family with stories of his life in the remote islands and the challenges faced by the early settlers. He suggested to Robert that he should accompany the newly married couple and try his hand at sheep farming, initially at the Company’s principal farm at Darwin and later to explore opportunities for farming in his own right. This idea greatly appealed to Blake and with the blessing of his parents he sailed to the Falklands on 9 May 1873,
Following a few days in Stanley he rode with Cobb to Darwin to spend a few months there as a cadet, Meanwhile, Ernest HOLMESTED, a pioneer sheep farmer on West Falkland, visited Stanley where he was impressed with the hospitality and welcome of the Cobbs and particularly of Emily, a charming and thoughtful hostess. Learning of Blake’s ambitions he invited him to Shallow Bay, West Falkland. Blake arrived there in mid December 1873 and was immediately plunged into the busy farming season with fine weather and different landscape to Lafonia, providing him with the stimulation and outlet for his energy which he had been seeking. An opportunity soon arose for him to invest in farmland when Holmested’s partner Rees decided to sell his interest and offered it to Blake. He accepted with alacrity and on 31 January 1874 he became the partner of Ernest Holmested in what was to become a highly successful sheep farm and an enduring and harmonious relationship between the two families lasting more than a century.
Holmested was impressed with Blake, his drive and ability to handle men, but decided to test him out by leaving him in charge for a couple of months despite his youth, being just 23. The plan was fully successful despite Blake’s apprehension. The development of West Falkland for sheep farming took place later than on the East and there was much to do for the two men, new livestock to be imported, new buildings to he erected, a workforce to be recruited and stabilised and fencing and land improvements to be carried out, It is surprising therefore that these two young men should share a small dwelling with relative equanimity despite their differences in outlook. They were reputed to be the hardest workers on West Falkland. They survived the vicissitudes of the wool market, probably with help from home, and on 14 March 1870 Robert sailed for Stanley by schooner en route to England and the family home in Somerset. During his visit he stayed with the Herford family in Manchester, also Unitarians whom he had got to know during his engineering course, and whilst there proposed marriage to the elder daughter Dorothea who was two years his junior. They were not to marry however until 14 July 1881 mainly because Holmested’s own marital arrangements had taken precedence. The couple arrived at Shallow Bay on 26 November 1881 having journeyed from Montevideo, on a Kosmos Line ship, and soon got to work on their new home at Hill Cove which was to be the principal settlement of the farm for over 100 years. By 1888 the farm was shearing 25,000 sheep and Blake had enhanced his reputation for breeding rams. Other matters such as land drainage needed constant attention, much of the work being carried out by contract workers from the West Country.
The Blakes had eight children: Elsie (b 1882) Robert (b 1884) Bridget (b 1886) Violet (b 1887) Willie (b 1890) Dorothy (b 1892) Arthur (b 1894) and Norman (b 1896). Following the successful appointment of Sydney Miller as Farm Manager, Blake returned to Somerset early in 1892. He had delayed his own return to look at prospects in San Julian, Argentina where two former shepherds were struggling to establish sheep farms and had asked for his help, particularly with capital for livestock and buildings. A shipment of sheep had already been successfully made to San Julian and Blake was determined to view the surrounding land before committing himself to invest. The two shepherds had leased land and Blake, approving of the sheltered valley they were farming, agreed to enter into partnership with them whilst initiating the purchase of the land. Following his return to England he became involved in ordering the materials for San Julian and realised that he needed to supervise the work. He left for the Falklands late in the year, arriving just before Christmas and planning to spend a few weeks there before leaving for San Julian where his experience and organisational skills would he needed if the venture was to be established on a more commercial basis. His stay at Hill Cove -though brief - was most enjoyable because he could relax in the knowledge that the farm was being managed by the highly competent Sydney Miller. At this time Blake became involved with other sheep farmers in a bitter confrontation with Governor GOLDSWORTHY over his plans for land reform with Blake joining his fellow farmers in refusing to serve as a Justice of the Peace. Hill Cove, as with many other farms, was at the time held under a government lease and the possibility that the lease would not be renewed following many years of physical struggle and capital investment was strongly resented. It is interesting in the light of current land developments that Blake, when expressing his relief at the subsequent lease renewals, stated that the prevailing view among the workforce was that if the land were subdivided the small farmers would employ less labour and the men would be worked harder.
There is no doubt that Blake enjoyed the new challenge he faced at San Julian although he increasingly missed his wife and family. He also missed the hilly landscape of West Falkland, disliking the flat plains of Patagonia. He became physically involved the construction of farm buildings such as a wool shed and dip, there being no other outlet for his energies. He returned to England in February 1894 where after a short while in Manchester where Emily had settled with the children near to her own family they returned to Paignton. Blake became increasingly restless to return to Hill Cove however and pleading financial difficulty in keeping a large family in England following substantial investment in Patagonia persuaded Dora to return with him, leaving the two elder children at boarding school. They returned to the Islands in October but his return to Hill Cove was beset with problems which would not have been resolved with lesser men than Robert Blake and Sydney Miller. Miller’s appointment had been outstandingly successful and he had moved into the house vacated by the Blakes with his wife and young child so that he faced disruption to both his working life and home living,
The question of the lease renewal had been discussed with Blake by the Colonial Office shortly before he left England and he was advised that the lease would be renewed subject to the surrender of 10,000 acres of land at Coast Ridge. However, the land reform ideas collapsed and leases were renewed. It was at this stage that the unique solidarity of West Falkland farmers was probably born, manifesting itself not only in farming matters but such issues as medical and mail services. Blake had promised his wife that they would return to England in 1898 to settle and although he was sorely tempted to accept an invitation from FE Cobb, his brother in law and the Managing Director of the Falkland Islands Company to manage the Company’s farms, he declined but consented to spend a few months at Darwin to formulate plans which were well received and culminated in Blake being invited to join the Board in London upon his return. From that time onwards until the Company was taken over in 1972 there was always a Blake on the Board and they made regular visits to San Julian, Hill Cove and the Company farms. Today the Blake family are still represented in the Falklands although Hill Cove farm has been sold and subdivided.
Frank Mitchell
TABARIS HIGHLANDERS (1939). The Tabaris Highlanders were a group of volunteers from the Anglo-Argentine community who arrived in Stanley shortly after the beginning of World War II intending to assist in the defence of the Falkland Islands in the event of an attack by the German Navy. They had responded to much worrying comment in the Argentine press at that time on the possibility of German warships blockading transit through the Cape Horn route to Australia, New Zealand, and the Far East. Most Highlanders were either ex-regular soldiers or OTC members (according to one version), or former and practising rugby players (according to another). From the Colonial Secretary's files in Stanley we know that when the group (33 in all) arrived in the Falklands on 27 September 1939, six were rejected on medical and other grounds and returned to Buenos Aires almost immediately. Unfortunately, the 'commanding officer' a Major Morrough was one of those rejected.
The remainder were enrolled in the FIDF, with Ronald Campbell made Sergeant as their group commander and Thomas Dawson Sanderson as Corporal. They left the Islands on 8 December 1939, once the immediate danger of attack from German raiders was judged to have receded. It was no slouch time for the Highlanders: they were digging gun pits, embankments, and protection of every sort from a possible German naval attack. While they were only in the Islands for just over two months, 22 of them applied from Stanley to join the British forces
Sanderson was President of the Argentine Rugby Club, and a general sportsman with a handicap of 2 in golf. He remembered a difficult moment receiving a formal invitation to go to a function at Government House where formal dress had been stipulated. He called the Governor and explained that regretfully the volunteers had not come the Islands to be entertained and so had not brought the appropriate dress for the occasion. The invitation was cancelled.
'Tabaris Highlanders' was surely an ironic name, derived from a Buenos Aires nightclub infamous in the 1920s and 30s for the amount of money spent there by estancieros and businessmen on girls, wine, and betting. It did not have a particularly savoury reputation and was not considered a respectable place for women. Although most of the 'Highlanders' were familiar with it, their wives were not.
Jeremy Howat