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Major Sir Richard Christopher Sharples KCMG OBE MC (August 6, 1916 – March 10, 1973), St. George, Bermuda) was a British politician and Governor of Bermuda from late 1972 to 10 March 1973 when he was shot dead by assassins linked to the militant Black Beret Cadre, a small Bermudian Black Power group.

Career

Sharples passed out from Sandhurst in 1936 and was commissioned into the Welsh Guards.

Sharples married Pamela in 1946; they had two sons and two daughters. The family greatly enjoyed yachting and this was the basis of a close friendship with Edward Heath, later prime minister.

Sharples was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam in a 1954 by-election. After the 1970 general election, he served as Minister of State at the Home Office, before resigning his seat in 1972 to take up the position of Governor of Bermuda.

Sharples was killed along with his aide-de-camp, Captain Hugh Sayers of the Welsh Guards and his beloved Great Dane, Horsa. He and Sayers were ambushed outside Bermuda's Government House while taking the dog for a walk following a dinner party.

Sharples was buried in the graveyard at St. Peter's Church in St. George's, along with his ADC Capt. Hugh Sayers. His widow was subsequently made a life peer as Baroness Sharples. They were one of the few couples to both hold titles in their own right.

The assassins

Erskine Durrant "Buck" Burrows, a petty criminal, according to The Bermuda Sun, confessed to shooting and killing Sir Richard, Capt. Sayers, and Horsa. He was also found guilty of murdering the police commissioner, George Duckett, six months earlier on 9 September 1972. He was also convicted of killing the co-owner and bookkeeper of a supermarket called the Shopping Centre, Victor Rego and Mark Doe in April 1973.

Larry Tacklyn was acquitted of assassinating Sharples and Sayers but was convicted of the Shopping Centre killings. The pair were hanged on 2 December 1977. They were the last people to be executed under British rule anywhere in the world.^[1] Three days of rioting followed, with the Government inviting the British Government to send troops to quell the rioters. It later got a bill for $2 million.

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.

Tacklyn’s was a different story. He didn’t want to die. According to The Bermuda Sun source, he always thought he’d get a “last minute reprieve.” The murderers remained in prison for yet another year before they went to the gallows. Tacklyn passed the time playing table tennis while Burrows took a virtual vow of silence, communicating his thoughts and requests on scraps of paper.

Elements of the British Army's airborne forces were on Bermuda for training exercises with the Bermuda Regiment at the time of the assassination: 23 Parachute Field Ambulance, 1 Parachute Logistic Regiment and the band of the 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment. These troops subsequently provided protection for Government buildings, officials and dignitaries and assisted the Bermuda Police when required during the subsequent riots.

The troops also provided a guard and escort for the late Governor's body to the Leander class frigate HMS Sirius, which was stationed at HM Dockyard Bermuda at the time. HMS Sirius conveyed the Governor's body from Hamilton to St. George's where he was interred. After the assassination HMS Sirius provided enhanced security for Senior Naval Officer West Indies (SNOWI) who was stationed on the Island.

Notes

Sources

• Find A Grave

External links

• BBC News story from 1973
• Bernews: Details of assassination of Sir Richard, and subsequent conviction