Richard Sharples
This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2020) |
Sydney Marshall | |
---|---|
Succeeded by | Graham Tope |
Personal details | |
Born | England | 6 August 1916
Died | 10 March 1973 Hamilton, Bermuda | (aged 56)
Manner of death | Assassination (gunshot wounds) |
Resting place | St. Peter's Church, St. George's |
Spouse |
Second World War |
Sir Richard Christopher Sharples,
Career
Sharples passed out from the
His widow was subsequently made a life peer as Baroness Sharples.
Assassination
Sharples was killed outside Bermuda's Government House on 10 March 1973. An informal dinner party for a small group of guests had just concluded, when he decided to go for a walk with his Great Dane, Horsa, and his aide-de-camp, Captain Hugh Sayers of the Welsh Guards. The two men and dog were ambushed and gunned down outside the Governor's residence.[2]
Aftermath
The Governor's coffin was borne by officers of the Bermuda Regiment, and Sayers' by a party from the Welsh Guards. The coffins were carried atop
Sharples was buried in the graveyard at St Peter's Church in St George's on 16 March 1973, six days after his assassination, with Captain Sayers and Great Dane, Horsa.
Elements of the
Manhunt, arrests, and sentence
Police launched a massive manhunt and investigation. Seven months later an armed man named Erskine Durrant "Buck" Burrows was arrested.[5] He confessed to shooting dead Sharples and Sayers. At his trial he was also convicted of murdering the Bermuda Police commissioner George Duckett on 9 September 1972 and killing the co-owner and the bookkeeper of a supermarket in April 1973. He was sentenced to death.[6]
In his confession Burrows wrote:
The motive for killing the Governor was to seek to make the people, black people in particular, become aware of the evilness and wickedness of the colonialist system in this island. Secondly, the motive was to show that these colonialists were just ordinary people like ourselves who eat, sleep and die just like anybody else and that we need not stand in fear and awe of them.[7]
A co-accused named Larry Tacklyn was acquitted of assassinating Sharples and Sayers but was convicted of killing Victor Rego and Mark Doe at the Shopping Centre supermarket in April 1973. Unlike Burrows, who did not care whether he was to be executed, Tacklyn expected to get a "last minute" reprieve.
Both murderers remained in Casemates Prison while the appeals process for Tacklyn was brought before the Privy Council in London. During this time, it was reported that Tacklyn passed the time playing table tennis, while Burrows took a virtual vow of silence, only communicating his thoughts and requests on scraps of paper.
Execution
Both men were hanged on 2 December 1977 at Casemates Prison. A moratorium on hanging was then in effect, and, although others had been sentenced to death in the intervening years, no one had been executed in Bermuda since the Second World War. Burrows and Tacklyn would be the last people to be executed under British rule anywhere in the world. The last hangings on British soil occurred in 1965, while the last death sentence would be passed on the Isle of Man in 1992.[8][9]
Riots
Three days of rioting followed the executions. During the riots, the
Honours and decorations
On 20 December 1940, Sharples was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for "gallant conduct in action with the enemy".[11] In 1945, he was mentioned in dispatches for services in Italy.[12] In 1946, he was awarded the Silver Star, the United States Armed Forces third-highest military decoration for valor in combat.[13] He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1953 Coronation Honours List.[14]
In 1972, Sharples was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George following his appointment as Governor of Bermuda.[15]
Notes
- ^ Lieutenant Colonel Sir Richard Sharples KCMG OBE MC. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
- ISBN 9780850525267.
- ^ "Family Treasure Restored to Owner
- ^ Guarding SNOWI, by Mick Pinchen, Royal Marine
- ^ "Baroness Sharples Obituary". The Times newspaper. 3 June 2022. Retrieved 19 June 2022.
- ^ "Assassination of Governor Sir Richard Sharples Bermuda Buck". Bernews. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
- ISBN 978-0-7614-3115-2.
- ^ Browne, Anthony (23 October 2002). "Death penalty abolished on all British territory". The Times. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
- ^ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/manx-court-sentences-man-to-be-hanged-1532599.html
- ^ "Bermuda Online: British Army in Bermuda from 1701 to 1977". Archived from the original on 14 April 2013. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
- ^ "No. 35020". The London Gazette (Supplement). 20 December 1940. p. 7199.
- ^ "No. 36886". The London Gazette (Supplement). 9 January 1945. p. 325.
- ^ "No. 37761". The London Gazette (Supplement). 15 October 1946. p. 5138.
- ^ "No. 39863". The London Gazette (Supplement). 26 May 1953. p. 2939.
- ^ "No. 45703". The London Gazette (Supplement). 16 June 1972. p. 7265.
Sources
The Ottawa Citizen, 11 March 1973,**as first reported.**
The Black Panthers: Their Dangerous Bermudian Legacy, Mel Ayton 2006.