which he felt should serve as guidelines for the future - “We come not hither for
ourselves only and to serve our own turnes or any man’s in particular, but to serve and regard the public ...We are therefore to riddle ourselves from all base desires of gaine: We are to despice all private interests, thus farre at least, as to cause them to give place to the general.”
England assumes administrative control of Bermuda
responsibility for directing the affairs of the colony, could not force elected members of the General Assembly (who enjoyed “the power of the purse”) to impose taxes or endorse expenditure with which they disagreed.
In opening the first meeting of Bermuda’s Parliament, Governor Butler expounded on the ideals
In 1684, direct administrative control of Bermuda’s affairs was transferred from the Somers Island Company (also referred to as the Bermuda Company) to England. Since then, Bermuda’s Governors, representing the authority of the Crown (and acting on instructions from the mother country), have played a major executive role in the colony’s affairs, a role which
underwent dramatic and far- reaching changes in the late 1960s.
Bermuda’s Parliament moves to Hamilton In 1815, Hamilton replaced the town of St. George as the capital of Bermuda. In the same year, the Parliament, the courts and all public offices were transferred to the new capital. The first gathering of the House of Assembly in Hamilton took place in the Town Hall on Front Street on 13 January 1815. In 1826, the Assembly moved to the Sessions House on Parliament Hill, its meeting place ever since.
The terra cotta facings and the clock tower of the Sessions House were added to the original structure in 1887 to
commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee and the Diamond Jubilee ten years later. The large chamber on the ground floor is
The Parliamentarian | 2009: Issue One - Bermuda | 41
Opposite: St Peter’s Anglican church in St George’s. Above: The Parliament building in Hamilton. Left: A ballot box.