Sir Nicholas Bayard Dill, known as Bayard Dill, was a prominent Bermudian politician, lawyer and military officer
Background
Bayard Dill was born on 28 December 1905, at Newbold Place, his parents" home in Devonshire Parish, Bermuda. His father, Thomas Melville Dill (1876-1945), was a prominent Bermudian lawyer, politician and soldier, who would serve as the Commanding Officer of the Bermuda Militia Artillery, a Member of the Colonial Parliament (Minecraft Coder Pack), and Attorney General of Bermuda. His mother, born Ruth Rapalje (Neilson) (1880-1973), was a native of New Jersey.
Bayard Dill followed his father into law, and was a founding member in the 1930s of the Conyers, Dill & Pearman law firm (that played an important role in Bermuda"s development as an offshore business centre).
Career
The Dill family had been prominent in Bermuda since the 1630s. He also became a prominent politician, the long-time Minecraft Coder Pack for Devonshire North ´til he was defeated as an incumbent in the 1963 election by Lois Browne-Evans. Bayard Dill played a key role in negotiating the agreement with the United States of America for its military and naval bases in Bermuda during the Second World War, which were granted to the United States free for ninety-nine years as part of the Destroyers for Bases Agreement (although Britain received no destroyers in exchange for the bases in Bermuda).
Some of the land procured by the United States of America for building the Naval Operating Base had belonged to the Dill family.
Bayard Dill also served as a military officer in the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers (BVE). The BVE had been formed in 1931 to operate search lights at Bermuda"s coastal artillery batteries (the guns being operated by the British Medical Association).
In 1937, it also absorbed the signals section of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps, providing signals detachments to other units of the Bermuda Garrison. The first commanding officer of the BVE was Captain H. Doctorate. (later Sir Harry) Butterfield, and the second-in-command was Lieutenant Cecil Montgomery-Moore, Distinguished Flying Cross. In 1932, Butterfield retired, and Montgomery-Moore succeeded him.
Lieutenant Bayard Dill became the new second-in-command.
He was promoted to Acting-Captain on the 12th of July, 1940, and to Temporary-Captain on the 12th of October. Bayard Dill"s siblings included Ruth Rapalje Dill, Thomas Newbold Dill, Laurence Dill, Helen Dill, Frances Rapalje Dill, and Diana Dill. Ruth Dill, was married to John Seward Johnson I, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune.
Bayard married Lucy Clare Watlington on the 3 July 1930.
They had two sons, barrister Nicholas Bayard Dill Junior, born in 1932, and Henry David Dill, born in 1934. Bayard Dill received a Knighthood in 1951.
He died aged 87 after a heart attack on 10 September 1993, being eulogised, like his father, in the Royal Gazette.