The Tribune

THE last surviving British colonial governor of the Bahamas has died in England at the age of 101.

Sir Francis Cumming-Bruce, 8th Baron Thurlow, was head of the colonial government in Nassau from 1968 to 1972. He died on March 24.

Sir Francis also served as High Commissioner to New Zealand from 1959 to 1963, and High Commissioner to Nigeria from 1963 to 1966.

His post in the Bahamas was his last before retirement from public service.

According to his obituary in the UK newspaper, The Telegraph, the former governor’s “wide experience of the British Commonwealth, his easy, unassuming manner and his complete lack of self-importance, were combined with an eager interest in the arts, culture and customs of all the countries in which he served.

“He invariably gave the impression of being entirely genuine, which he was: vanity, conceit and pettiness were foreign to his nature.”

He was appointed CMG in 1957 and KCMG in 1961.

On retiring from the Bahamas in 1972, Sir Francis and his wife settled at an estate on the Thames near Reading.

The obituary said: “He took his duty as a peer seriously and well into his 80s played a full part, as a Cross-Bencher, in the deliberations of the House of Lords, his special interests being foreign affairs and mental health.

“He did not seek to remain a member of the Lords when the majority of hereditary peers were deprived of their seats in 1999, but he remained vigorous, active and alert far into his 90s.”

In 1949, Sir Francis married Yvonne Wilson, who died in 1990. They had two sons and two daughters.

The former governor’s younger identical twin brother Sir Roualeyn Cumming-Bruce, PC, was a judge of the High Court of Justice and a Lord Justice of Appeal.

Sir Francis was the second son of Reverend Charles Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce, 6th Baron Thurlow and a grandson of the Liberal politician Thomas Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce, 5th Baron Thurlow, who served as Paymaster-General under William Ewart Gladstone.

In 1971, he succeeded his elder brother as 8th Baron Thurlow.