The Rectors of Pembroke

The Rectors of Pembroke

• The Rectors of Pembroke, 1623 – 1693
• The Rectors of Pembroke, 1693 – 1820
• The Rectors of Pembroke, 1820 – 1996
• The Rectors of Pembroke, 1996 – present

The Rectors of Pembroke, 1623 – 1693

The churchmanship of the various clerical appointments made by the Bermuda Company in the seventeenth-century non-conformist views and, over the life of the tended to select ministers to send to Bermuda from those who would not conform to the demands of the with Governor Moore in 1612, was apparently not even ordained in the Church of England. He left in 1617 and settled in Virginia where he became a came in 1614, was ordained, but had been imprisoned by Bishop Bancroft of London for involvement in a witchcraft case. Both of these spent some time in Pembroke in the days before, then he returned to England to write books urging reform of the Book o Common Prayer. He was one of the very few ordained Church of England priests who practiced in accord with the Book of Common Prayer (although with some modifications) in Bermuda until 1696. Hughes was a thoroughly conscientious priest and was some years the only cleric in the Island.

The successors of these early ministers were all non-conformist to the official practices of the Church in London dealing with local dissent without Marvel noted this fact in his poem, Bermudas, written about 1645:

What should we do but sing His praise,
That led us through the wat’ry maze,
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?
ere He the huge sea-monsters wracks,
That lift the deep upon their backs;
He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from storms, and prelat’s rage.

The security from episcopal interference was a and Devonshire in 1623, refused to preach or administer the sacraments in Pembroke Church unless the pulpit was moved. From the record of other brushes with authority which Staples had, it is clear that he was of the Independent persuasion, and put a greater emphasis on the preaching of the Word than on the celebration of the Eucharist. To him, and to others of his persuasion, the pulpit, not the altar, should be the central focus of the church.

It seems likely that the early settlers built the first Pembroke church according to the pattern with which they were familiar in England; an altar would be placed in the east end in the sanctuary which was separated from the body of the church by a screen. The pulpit would be in the body but close to the screen. Although Staples was threatened with a fine for such arrogant behaviour, it is clear that the pulpit was either moved or rebuilt to be the central focus of the church (as in old Devonshire church), and remained there until 1914, when the new chancel was built. It is possible that the cedar board carrying the date 1625 and shown in Plate 6 was part of a new pulpit installed at that time in the central location desired by Staples.

Staples was ordered by the Company to exchange livings in 1628 with Abraham Graham who had just arrived and was temporarily in charge of Hamilton and Smith’s. An interesting feature of ‘this exchange was that the Governor and Council allowed the exchange to be delayed until Staples was able to gather his crop of vegetables from his glebe and thus not lose the benefit of his planting.

Graham was a more extreme Independent than Staples, and demanded of the Governor that he should hold the same authority over his church as the Governor had in civil affairs; he was promptly dismissed and sent back to England.

In 1638, an informer told the Archbishop of Canterbury that the greater part of the Company in London, as well as the settlers in Bermuda, ‘are nonconformist, and men opposite to the government and discipline of the Church of England’. The Company righteously responded that this was not so. It stated that it had sent out books of homilies and Books o Common Prayer, and that ‘a principal enquiry of the Company [ of their clerical appointments] is after their conformity to the discipline of the Church of England’. In this year, the Company sent out Nathaniel White to Pembroke and Devonshire. He had preached a sermon against the activities of the bishops, and, as a consequence he was forced to ‘leave his native country. The Company, however, demanded a bond of £200 so that he would live peaceably and quietly and ‘follow the orders and discipline’ of the Church of England for three years. During this time, ‘he was as hot a zealot as possibly might or could be, both for the Book o Common Prayer, as also for all other ceremonies of the Church, as kneeling at the Sacrament, cross in Baptism, ring in the marriage service, and all other things whatsoever’. But after the term of the bond, he ‘turned upside down’.

He left Pembroke in 1642 for Sandys and Southampton, and in 1644, he, in company with most of his clerical colleagues, renounced their office in the Church of England and established a covenanting church of the same type as that established by Independent ministers in Massachusetts. For a few years after this event, all the parish churches were without clergy, and the people wrote to England expressing concern that there was no one to officiate at a marriage ceremony nor baptise children, nor to administer the Sacraments, because White’s group would only minister to those who bound themselves to the new covenanting church. Bermuda was in a religious turmoil, resolved only when the Governor and Council took advantage of a religious colonising expedition to Eleuthera in the Bahamas and shipped members of White’s church there between 1647 and 1649.

There was also turmoil in England at this time Parliament, waging a civil war against Charles I, had begun to reform the Church of England. It abolished bishops in January 1643, and, in June 1643, in return for Scottish aid in the civil war, established the Westminster Assembly to advise Parliament on a ref armed Church of England along Scottish Presbyterian lines. The two ministers sent out by the Company in 1646 are the only ones to be described by their contemporaries as Presbyterian. One of them, William Viner, was appointed to Pembroke and Devonshire and he began the earliest parish register which has survived in Bermuda. The first page of his register of baptisms is reproduced in plate 7. He died in December 1649.

In England, matters came to a head with the unless the pulpit was moved. From the record of other brushes with authority which Staples had, it is clear that he was of the Independent persuasion, and put a greater emphasis on the preaching of the Word than on the celebration of the Eucharist. To him, and to others of his persuasion, the pulpit, not the altar, should be the central focus of the church.

It seems likely that the early settlers built the first Pembroke church according to the pattern with which they were familiar in England; an altar would be placed in the east end in the sanctuary which was separated from the body of the church by a screen. The pulpit would be in the body but close to the screen. Although Staples was threatened with a fine for such arrogant behaviour, it is clear that the pulpit -was either moved or rebuilt to be the central focus of the church (as in old Devonshire church), and remained there until 1914 when the new chancel was built. It is possible that the cedar board carrying the date 1625 and shown in Plate 6 was part of a new pulpit installed at that time in the central location desired by Staples.

Staples was ordered by the Company to exchange livings in 1628 with Abraham Graham who had just arrived and was temporarily in charge of Hamilton and Smith’s. An interesting feature of · this exchange was that the Governor and Council allowed the exchange to be delayed until Staples was able to gather his crop of vegetables from his glebe and thus not lose the benefit of his planting. Graham was a more extreme Independent than Staples, and demanded of the Governor that he should hold the same authority over his church as the Governor had in civil affairs; he was promptly dismissed and sent back to England.

In 1638, an informer told the Archbishop of Canterbury that the greater part of the Company in London, as well as the settlers in Bermuda, ‘are nonconformist, and men opposite to the government and discipline of the Church of England’. The Company righteously responded that this was not so.

It stated that it had sent out books of homilies and Books o Common Prayer, and that ‘a principal enquiry of the Company [ of their clerical appointments] is after their conformity to the discipline of the Church of England’. In this year, the Company sent out Nathaniel White to Pembroke and Devonshire. He had preached a sermon against the activities of the bishops, and, as a consequence, he was forced to ‘leave his native country’. The Company, however, demanded a bond of £200 so that he would live peaceably and quietly and ‘follow the orders and discipline’ of the Church of England for three years. During this time, ‘he was as hot a zealot as possibly might or could be, both for the Book o Common Prayer, as also for all other ceremonies of the Church, as kneeling at the Sacrament, cross in Baptism, ring in the marriage service, and all other things whatsoever’. But after the term of the bond, he ‘turned upside down’.

He left Pembroke in 1642 for Sandys and Southampton, and in 1644, he, in company with most of his clerical colleagues, renounced their office in the Church of England and established a covenanting church of the ame type as that established by Independent ministers in Massachusetts. For a few years after this event, all the parish churches were without clergy, and the people wrote to England expressing concern that there was no one to officiate at a marriage ceremony nor baptise children, nor to administer the Sacraments, because White’s group would only minister to those who bound themselves to the new covenanting church. Bermuda was in a religious turmoil, resolved only when the Governor and Council took advantage of a religious colonising expedition to Eleuthera in the Bahamas and shipped members of White’s church there between 1647 and 1649.

There was also turmoil in England at this time. Parliament, waging a civil war against Charles I, had begun to reform the Church of England. It abolished bishops in January 1643, and, in June 1643, in return for Scottish aid in the civil war, established the Westminster Assembly to advise Parliament on a reformed Church of England along Scottish Presbyterian lines. The two ministers sent out by the Company in 1646 are the only ones to be described by their contemporaries as Presbyterian. One of them, William Viner, was appointed to Pembroke and Devonshire and he began the earliest parish register which has survived in Bermuda. The first page of his register of baptisms is reproduced in Plate 7. He died in December 1649.

In England, matters came to a head with the execution of Charles I in January 1649, and the control of England by Oliver Cromwell’s army which was solidly Independent. This halted the plans for a reform of the Church of England on Presbyterian lines, and no formal reform of the Church was attempted beyond substituting the Directory of Public Worship, devised by the Westminster Assembly, for the Book o Common Prayer. The Book of Common Prayer was, in fact, proscribed, and any clergyman using it was ejected from his living. During the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell from 1653 to 1658, clergy were ‘approved’ by a national Commission of Triers, since there were no bishops to ordain them and the Commission approved Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists as ministers. Bermuda fared badly in this period with only two clerics sent out. One was Thomas Browne who was appointed to Pembroke and Devonshire in 1654; he served only until 1658 when he went to Jamaica.

In 1660, the monarchy was restored in England with the invitation to Charles II to return as King. All of the legislation passed by the Long Parliament since 1641 was swept away, and the office of bishop was reinstated. The act of Plate 7. The first page of the earliest parish register, signed by William Viner, Minister, Francis Saltus, and Nathaniel Waterman, Churchwardens Uniformity was re-stated and passed in 1662. This required that all clergy be ordained by a bishop and that the clergy make a public declaration of their ‘unfeigned assent and consent’ to the Book of Common Prayer. All incumbents of parishes in England had to comply with these terms by St. Bartholomew’s Day, 24 August 1662, or face ejection from their livings. There were many clergies who had been ejected because of their reluctance to use the Directory o Public Worship rather than the Book of Common Prayer, and they sought reinstatement in their former livings.

The effect of these developments on the nonconformist Bermuda Company was quite predictable.

The large number of ejected clergy were potential applicants for appointment to Bermuda, and the Company filled all the vacant livings from this pool. To Pembroke and Devonshire they sent Sampson Bond, who arrived in January 1663 and remained (with occasional absences from the Island) until he died in 1692-nearly thirty years. Of all the clergy appointed by the Company in this period, Bond is the only one who had been formally ordained; he had been ordained by Bishop Hall of Exeter in 1641, just two years before the office of bishops had been abolished by the Long Parliament. In practice, however, he was Independent and, while in Bermuda, made several attempts to obtain an appointment to a church in Massachusetts. He was twice dismissed by the Company because he was ‘of a factious and contentious spirit’; yet he was twice re-instated. A later Governor described him as ‘a secret enemy to the quiet of this country; … he has the turbulent spirits of the country for his friends’.

Despite the views of officials, Bond was well regarded by his parishioners. At a meeting of them in Pembroke in 1689, it was resolved that he be given £15 as ‘a gift … for this year’s salary’. At this time, the Company, which had paid the stipends of the clergy, had been dissolved, and the clergy did not know who would be responsible for their salary in the Company’s stead.

The Rectors of Pembroke, 1693 – 1820

The Bermuda Company’s charter was called in by the Courts in London in 1684, and Bermuda became a Crown Colony. Her affairs were then administered by a Committee of the Privy Council known as the Lords of Trade and Plantations. The Bishop of London was a member of this Committee. At this time, he was Henry Compton, one of the first Bishops of London. to take a major interest in recruiting clergy for the colonies, and to attempt to re-establish the Church of England there in accord with the Book of Common Prayer. He established a bounty of £20 to be paid to each ordained priest who volunteered for colonial service.

He could not visit the colonies himself but used the local Governor as his deputy to implement his instructions. The pattern established by Bishop Compton was clear: the Bishop of London would license and appoint all clergy and schoolmasters to the colonies, and the colonies would provide for their stipend by legislation. In 1691 Governor Richier drew this matter to the attention of Bermuda’s House of Assembly, and in 1693 the House passed the Act or settling a yearly Revenue upon the Ministers of these Islands.

In effect, this act determined that Bermuda would be divided into three livings, and made provision for three clergymen. St. George’s would be one living, the parishes of Hamilton, Smith’s, Devonshire, and Pembroke (known as the Eastern Parishes) would be the second, and the parishes of Paget, Warwick, Southampton, and Sandys (known as the Western Parishes) the third. The act also provided that the stipend for the cleric in the Eastern and Western Parishes would be £40 per annum, with each of the member parishes contributing £10 each, raised by assessment. No significant alteration to this act took place until 1820, and between 1693 and 1820 Pembroke shared its rector with Devonshire, Smith’s and Hamilton parishes. Consequently, the churches generally had a service from the rector but infrequently, and had to rely on lay readers for most Sunday services.

During the previous era, the Bermuda Company had simply bound each cleric with a contract much as it had done with officers of the Company. Under the Bishop of London, this changed, and gradually the official forms of clerical institution and induction came into force. The Bishop of London appointed (or instituted) the clergyman to a living, and the local Governor, acting as Ordinary, inducted him into real possession of the living and to the rectory and other benefits such as the glebe lands. The earliest induction document in the records is that for John Clarke in 1737.

The first appointment to Pembroke and the Eastern Parishes under this new scheme was Bartholomew Wormell. He arrived in about August 1698 but was dismissed by the House of Assembly in April 1699, which declared that he ‘has both very lately, and oft formerly, by repeated bad acts dishonoured his function by ill and irregular life’.

Following this inauspicious beginning, Pembroke and the Eastern Parishes had a number of individuals as rectors, punctuated with periods when they had no rector at all, as outlined in the summary table above. Until Alexander Ewing was inducted in 1791, none of these rectors stayed for more than ten years, and some died in office. Space does not permit a full biography of each one, and, indeed, very little is known about some of them. Robert Barron (1701-1704) was ill-suited for the relatively primitive and pioneer-type of life in Bermuda and was ill for most of his stay. He complained· in London that the parishioners were not hospitable.

William King (1715-1721) came first as a schoolmaster but went to London to be ordained and returned to the Eastern Parishes. He died in office and, for some reason, is buried in Paget.

William Nairn (1722-1727) was one of the more litigious incumbents. He brought actions at the Assizes against John Masters and against Capt. John Butterfield for slander, but the court decided that Bermuda law did not provide for legal action in such circumstances and dismissed the cases. Nairn was suspected of having Roman Catholics sympathies but refused to take the oaths demonstrating his allegiance to the principle of Protestant succession to the throne of England. As a consequence, the church was locked against him and his salary was stopped. He relented and took the oaths and was reinstated. He then left ‘abruptly’ for Virginia where he held the Huguenot parish of Manakin, but remained there only a year before returning to England.

Jonathan Chapple (1743-1744) was held in high regard but died after but a year in Bermuda.

James Holiday (1745-1754) was a Yorkshireman and a conscientious priest who travelled from St. David’s to Somerset when needed: He kept a diary of which only a fragment has survived, but this fragment shows a keen inquiring mind with great interest in the education of the Blacks. He acted as host to t Methodist missionary, George Whitefield, when he visited the Island in March 1748, and invited him to take his pulpit before the Governor reluctantly had to close the parish churches to Whitfield because he could not produce his clerical licence.

John Feveryear, who came in 1756 and left in 1766 for a better position in Beaufort, South Carolina, was Pembroke’s first American rector, having been born in Boston; he was a Harvard graduate. He also kept a school as many of the rectors did.

Thomas Lyttleton came from England in 1767, and his churchmanship was stricter than most of his predecessors and successors. He re-established the centrality of the Eucharist in worship and was responsible for urging the Pembroke parishioners to have a ‘communion table and altar’ built. Lyttleton was also full of grand plans for reviving Bishop Berkeley’s scheme for a college in Bermuda and presented proposals to the House of Assembly where they were politely received and left to lie upon the table. Lyttleton left to return to England in November 1775.

James Barker (1783-1791) had been expected Plate 8. A page from Ewing’s personal register for the year 1 794 from 11 February to 4 April to maintain a school as well as serving as rector. He appears to have been more interested in farming cotton on the glebe, and the parishioners promptly reduced his salary.

Alexander Ewing (1791-1820) was a Scot from Edinburgh, who had graduated from the University Edinburgh with the intention of becoming a schoolmaster or a minister in the Church of Scotland. Unfortunately, he suffered from an impediment in his speech which lessened his chances of success in either profession in Scotland. However, he answered an advertisement for a schoolmaster in Sandys parish and, when accepted, set out in 1780. His ship was captured by an American privateer, and the passengers were landed in St. Eustatius. He was there when Admiral Rodney captured the island, and subsequently found passage to Bermuda, arriving in March 1781. The Bermuda climate agreed with him, and his speech impediment vanished.

In 1787, he went to England and was ordained By the Archbishop of Canterbury (since the Bishop of London was at that time ill) and was licensed for Bermuda service. He returned in 1788, but since There were no livings vacant, he resumed his school with a tacit agreement with Governor Hamilton that would be offered the first living when available.

Pembroke and the Eastern Parishes became vacant with the death of the incumbent, James Barker in 1791, and Ewing was inducted in all the parishes of the Eastern living. Ewing quickly won approbation from all his parishes, and Pembroke made him a compliment in 1794 of a quarter-cask of Madeira wine ‘of a quality not inferior to New York Particular, in consideration of [his] services with which his parishioners have heretofore had great reason to be satisfied’. In 1796 he wrote to the churchwardens of all his parishes, pointing out that the cost of living had increased since 1693 when the stipends of the clergy were set by the act of that date and suggested that since the parishioners would expect him to make ‘a decent appearance’, he should have an increase in salary.

The parishes did not refuse, and when he retired in 1820, the House of Assembly, in an unprecedented move, resolved to settle a pension on him. In 1806 he found himself to be the only cl erg an in the Island and served all the parishes. His personal record of baptisms, marriages, and burials is a valuable source for the genealogist (Plate 8.). He also continued to teach school in his rectory, and a large number of later leaders of the country learned their ‘3-R’s’ from him.

On Ewing’s death in October 1822, Charles Rollin Beach, the Editor of the Bermuda Gazette, printed a laudatory tribute to the former rector and in capitals across the centre of the eulogy he printed: ‘We ne’er shall look upon his like again’.

The Rectors of Pembroke, 1820 – 1996

With the dawn of the nineteenth century, winds of change were blowing over Bermuda. Even the editor of the Bermuda Gazette felt that religion was much neglected and ‘vice and immorality prevail so rapidly among us’, and urged a reform of the system of church livings. The parishes objected to the increased cost of providing more clergy, but Governor Lumley, shortly after his arrival in 1819, persuaded the House of Assembly to amend the act of 1693. This they did with the act of 1820 which returned Bermuda to the distribution of livings established by the Bermuda Company in the seventeenth century Under this act, the Eastern Parish was divided into two livings, Pembroke and Devonshire being one, and Smith’s and Hamilton parishes comprising the other. The act also stipulated that the incumbents of these new livings were ‘to perform service, and the usual duties, on every Sunday, alternately in the forenoon and afternoon, in the parish church of each of the parishes composing his living’. The Public Treasury would pay each incumbent a stipend of £200 per annum on receipt of a certificate from each parish vestry that he had resided in the parish and performed duties according to the act.

Ewing gave notice that because of his ill health he would resign as soon as the act became law, and George Coster was inducted to succeed him in May 1820. Coster had come to Bermuda as a schoolmaster with a number of his brothers and sisters, and the family opened a school in the new town of Hamilton. He was appointed in 1819 to be the first Master of the new Devonshire College which had been established by the House of Assembly in 1816, and, as it was a requirement of the position of Master that the incumbent be an ordained priest of the Church of England, Coster went back to England

to be ordained. When he returned, he informed the trustees of Devonshire College that he preferred to succeed Ewing in the new living of Devonshire and Pembroke. He was inducted on 13 May 1820, and remained as rector until 1824 when he went to Newfoundland as a missionary; he was appointed Archdeacon in the next year. He subsequently moved to New Brunswick in 1829 as Archdeacon of that province and remained there until he died in 1859.

In 1825, Bermuda and Newfoundland were transferred from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London to the Diocese of Nova Scotia coincident with the consecration of the third bishop of that diocese, John Inglis. Bishop Inglis determined to visit all parts of his enormous diocese and paid his first visit to Bermuda in April 1826. He visited each church in turn and formally consecrated them. He visited Pembroke Church on 16 April 1826 and consecrated it with the name of St. John. Each of these visits was a gala day for the parish; it was the first visit by a bishop in the history of the colony, and it was the first time that the confirmation service was used. In Pembroke, Bishop Inglis confirmed 122 candidates and noted in his diary that they were ‘of devout and very feeling appearance’ and were ‘of full age, and many of them communicants’. The candidates in Pembroke included one black person.

Bishop Inglis took a particular interest in the black population and urged enlargement of the churches · to· accommodate them. He made several visits to Bermuda and confirmed many of them.

In April 1839, the large and unwieldy diocese of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Bermuda was

split into two with the formation of a new Diocese of Newfoundland and Bermuda; Aubrey George Spencer, formerly the Archdeacon of Bermuda and Rector of Paget and Warwick, was consecrated as its first bishop. Spencer served until 1843 when he was translated to the See of Jamaica. He was succeeded by Bishop Edward Feild. Joseph Fraser Lightbourn was inducted into the living comprising Devonshire and Pembroke in January 1827. He had been ordained Deacon in St. George’s by Bishop Inglis in April 1826 during the bishop’s first visit to Bermuda; he was the first to be so ordained in the Island. Lightbourn went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in November 1826 to be ordained priest by Bishop Inglis and returned to begin a long service as Rector of Devonshire and Pembroke, terminated only by his death. He made a particular effort to minister to the black population particularly after Emancipation in 1834, and his register records many of their marriages and baptisms.

He was a busy man because the new town of Hamilton was rapidly becoming a bustling business centre, and the population of Pembroke was rapidly increasing. His registers of baptisms, marriages and burials show clearly that Pembroke had the largest number of these events in the Island. He was a popular rector and is one of the few to have bestowed upon him a nickname, ‘Pa Josey’.

He was active in his office when he died in February 1872 in his 70th year. It so happened that Bishop Feild was making one of his regular visitations to Bermuda at the time that Lightbourn died, and the bishop put off his return to Newfoundland to act as rector until he had appointed Lightbourn’s successor, the Rev. Mark James, and knew that James was on his way to Bermuda from his previous appointment in the Turks Islands. James was inducted in December 1872 and served until his death in May 1898. He was appointed Canon of the Bermuda Cathedral when it was so styled by an act of the Legislature in 1894.

James was succeeded by James Davidson, who had come to Bermuda in 1894 to be the first Canon Residentary of the Bermuda Cathedral. He was inducted in July 1898. Davidson, like his predecessor, was well regarded by the parishioners who were sympathetic to his requests for leave for health reasons, and when he resigned in 1903, a committee was appointed to ask if he would withdraw his resignation and continue if given a whole year’s leave of absence. Davidson did not feel that he could comply with the parishioner’s wishes and Alfred Stunden was appointed and inducted in July 1903.

He had been curate to Davidson since 1901, and served until he resigned in 1906. Stunden’s successor was again James Davidson, who had been enticed to return; Davidson was reinducted in July 1906 and served until 1921. During his tenure of office he established Sunday Schools a St. Monica’s (1907), St. Alban’s (1907), and St. Augustine’s (1909), and developed the Guilds for St. John’s, St. Monica’s, St. Alban’s, and St. Augustine’s.

He also started the Pembroke and Devonshire Parochial Magazine which had its first issue in November 1906. This was a neatly printed magazine which appeared monthly. It ceased publication in 1915 under the pressures of World War I.

The Synod proposed to recommend to the bishop that Canon William James Franklin Groves be inducted as Davidson’s successor. The vestry concurred for Groves was well known, having been curate at Pembroke since 1910. Groves was inducted on 1 July 1921. He was the first rector to serve Pembroke without serving Devonshire also, benefiting from the Church Livings (Pembroke and Devonshire) Act of 1921 which divided Pembroke and Devonshire into two livings. He was also the first rector to occupy the new rectory, ‘Maria’s Hill’, in 1926. Ill-health forced his retirement in July 1935, and St. John’s was without a rector until 23 February 1936 when Eustace Mordaunt Strong was inducted.

Strong served until his death in September 1949. He was active among the youth and established the link with the Saltus Grammar School. Two alms basins · and a chalice were given to the church in his memory by the congregation and the silver reading desk on the pulpit was also given in his memory by Maud and Morris Gibbons.

Almost three years elapsed before Strong’s successor was appointed. For most of this period, the Rev. David S. Evans acted as priest-in-charge, largely by himself until September 1950 when the Rev. WJ. Manning came to assist. Evans left in November 1951, and Manning served until Edward Nowel Bewes Chapman was inducted on 23 July 1952. He served until he resigned in 1965, and he died in 1966.

Chapman was, in the words of his successor, ‘a modest man. He made no claims to be successful and he never boasted. He was a quiet man, yet he always arrived. On many occasions, by quiet perseverance, he succeeded where others may have failed.’ The gifts made to the church in his memory are indicative of the regard the parishioners held for him: an Altar Missal, given by the choir; a new lectern in St. Alban’s Sunday School, given by the teachers and scholars; new pews for the memorial chapel; and the window given by the St. Alban’s Guild and their friends.

Jack Peel was inducted on All Saints Day, 1 November 1965. He had been rector of Sandys for five years before transferring to Pembroke. Before his appointment at Sandys, he had been rector at Kingston, Jamaica. Peel began the parish newsletter shortly after induction. This newsletter filled both sides of a foolscap sheet, single-spaced. Each letter was cast as a personal letter to each parishioner with chatty details about church affairs and of the news of the day. Under his rectorship, a greater amount of ceremonial was introduced, and through his newsletter and sermons he carefully explained the reason and significance of each new ceremonial as he introduced it. His wife died in 1967, and he retired in May 1972 to take a less demanding appointment in France.

Maurice Samuel Wheatley succeeded Peel and was inducted on 24 August 1972. Wheatley had been an army chaplain in the North African campaign in World War II, the principal of a theological college in Madagascar, and had been Youth and Education Secretary for the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in which capacity he had trained and sent out some 1500 persons for missionary posts. He continued the newsletter started by Peel, investing it with his own personality.

He retired in April 1980 at the age of 67 and returned to England. Wheatley’s successor and present incumbent was Alexander Ewen Ratteray who was inducted on 20 June 1980. Ratteray was Pembroke’s first Bermuda-born rector, and its first black rector as well. He had been ordained deacon at the Bermuda Cathedral in December 1965, and priest at the parish church of St. Peter and St. Leonard in Horbury, West Yorkshire, England in December 1966.

He had been serving as Rector in Yorkshire before returning to Bermuda and St. John’s. Under his direction, the character of the newsletters changed. He abandoned the chatty prose of his predecessors in favour of short, straightforward statements. His leadership of the parish differed from that of his predecessors, particularly in its directness, but was no less effective and caring. He was elevated to the position of Archdeacon of the Diocese on the retirement of the farmer Archdeacon, Thomas Dyson, and has organized the celebrations of the 375th anniversary.

He was elected Bishop of Bermuda by The Synod on 20 April 1996; his consecration by the Archbishop of Canterbury is scheduled for 19 May 1996.

The Rectors of Pembroke, 1996 – present