Reginald Woodifield Appleby (18 September 1865 – 30 August 1948) was an English lawyer, practising in

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...

, who in 1898 founded the predecessor of the law firm that now trades as Appleby. He served as a major in the

Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC) was created in 1894 as a reserve for the Regular Army infantry component of the Bermuda Garrison. Renamed the ''Bermuda Rifles'' in 1951, it was amalgamated into the Bermuda Regiment in 1965. Formation A ...

during the First World War, and was a member of the Legislative Council of Bermuda.

Early life and family

Reginald Appleby was born at

Portsea Island Portsea Island is a flat and low-lying natural island in area, just off the southern coast of Hampshire in England. Portsea Island contains the majority of the city of Portsmouth. Portsea Island has the third-largest population of all th ...

, Hampshire, England, in 1865 to George Walton Appleby of Durham and Agnes Sterry Tucker of ''Tankfield'',

Paget Paget is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin which may refer to: * Lord Alfred Paget (1816–1888), British soldier, courtier and politician * Almeric Paget, 1st Baron Queenborough (1861–1949), British cowboy, industrialist, yachtsman and politician ...

East, Bermuda. His parents had married at St. Paul's Church (Church of England), Paget, on 8 September 1859. His father, at the time, resided in Pembroke, Bermuda, and was an officer in the

26th (Cameronian) Regiment of Foot The 26th (Cameronian) Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the Scots Army and subsequently a Scottish infantry regiment of the British Army, active from 1689 to 1881. Although the regiment took the name of its first colonel as The Earl of ...

, into which he had been commissioned as an ensign with seniority from 18 August 1854, and promoted to lieutenant with seniority from 30 March 1855. His regiment served as part of the

Bermuda Garrison The Bermuda Garrison was the military establishment maintained on the British Overseas Territory and Imperial fortress of Bermuda by the regular British Army and its local militia and voluntary reserves from 1701 to 1957. The garrison evolved fr ...

from 1854 until October 1859 (with the Regimental Depot at

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

, Ireland), after which it sailed to Portsmouth, before being posted to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, Ireland. His father was described in the 1871 census as widowed and "Late Captain Landowner" and in

1881 Events January–March * January 1– 24 – Siege of Geok Tepe: Russian troops under General Mikhail Skobelev defeat the Turkomans. * January 13 – War of the Pacific – Battle of San Juan and Chorrillos: The C ...

as "Late Cpt 31st Regmt". Reginald had three brothers and a sister. His mother was born in Pembroke, Bermuda, on the 5 May 1839, the daughter of Benjamin Jennings Tucker (appointed Commissioner of Pilotage in December 1840, and July 1843) and Catharine Dickinson Tucker. The Tucker family had been prominent in Bermuda since Daniel Tucker was appointed

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

in 1616. The Jennings family of Bermuda included the privateer

Henry Jennings Henry Jennings (died possibly 1745) was an 18th-century Kingdom of England, English privateer from the colony of Bermuda, who served primarily during the War of the Spanish Succession and later served as leader of the pirate haven or "Pirates' ...

(died 1745). She died in 1870 and his father remarried, to Drusilla Matthews, his former servant who had been with the family when his first wife was alive. George and Drusilla gave Reginald several

half-siblings A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the subject. A male sibling is a brother and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child. While some circumstances can cause siblings to be raised separat ...

. Reginald Appleby married Edith Mary Gosling at St. Paul's Church, in Paget, Bermuda, on 18 September 1899, and they had a daughter, Prudence Tucker (1905–1976), later Prudence Pearman. The family lived in Westmoreland,

Pembroke Parish Pembroke Parish is one of the nine parishes of Bermuda. It is named after English aristocrat William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (1580–1630). It occupies most of the short peninsula which juts from the central north coast of Bermuda's main i ...

, Bermuda.

Career

Appleby passed his final law exams in England in November 1887. He was in partnership with Reginald Gray, later Sir Reginald Gray, attorney-general of Bermuda, from 1893 to 1897 in Bermuda as Gray & Appleby. In 1898 he founded his own eponymous law firm.Appleby, the offshore law firm with a record of compliance failures.
Will Fitzgibbon, ''The Irish Times'', 5 November 2017. Retrieved 6 November 2017. By 1903 he was a

justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

when he sat on the marine court of inquiry into the wreck of the S.S. ''Madiana''. In 1938 he and Sir Dudley Spurling merged their practices to establish Appleby & Spurling. The year after Appleby's death in 1948, that firm merged with William Kempe to become Appleby Spurling Kempe (or Kemp), one of the predecessors of the firm that now trades as Appleby, the firm at the centre of the

Paradise Papers The Paradise Papers are a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, from the newspaper'' Süddeutsch ...

leaks in 2017. He served in the

(BVRC), commissioned as a second-lieutenant with seniority from 9 March 1895. In 1900 he was the acting adjutant, with the rank of captain. He was promoted to major on 5 November 1903, on becoming the commanding officer. In 1916 he was awarded the

Volunteer Officers' Decoration The Volunteer Officers' Decoration, post-nominal letters VD, was instituted in 1892 as an award for long and meritorious service by officers of the United Kingdom's Volunteer Force. Award of the decoration was discontinued in the United Kingdom ...

. During the First World War, the BVRC fulfilled its role within the Bermuda Garrison while also sending a contingent of 88 other ranks under the command of Appleby's cousin, Captain Richard Jennings Tucker, to join the 1st Battalion of the

Lincolnshire Regiment The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army raised on 20 June 1685 as the Earl of Bath's Regiment for its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. In 1751, it was numbered like most other Army regiments ...

on the Western Front in June 1915. Appleby remained in command of the BVRC 'til succeeded by Major Richard Jennings Tucker (later lieutenant-colonel) in 1920 (another cousin, Lieutenant-Colonel AT Gosling, ED, was to be commanding officer from 1935 to 1941). The BVRC (renamed the ''Bermuda Rifles'' in 1949) was amalgamated with the

Bermuda Militia Artillery The Bermuda Militia Artillery was a unit of part-time soldiers organised in 1895 as a reserve for the Royal Garrison Artillery detachment of the Regular Army garrison in Bermuda. Militia Artillery units of the United Kingdom and Colonies were int ...

to form the

Royal Bermuda Regiment The Royal Bermuda Regiment (RBR), formerly the Bermuda Regiment, is the home defence unit of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. It is a single territorial infantry battalion that was formed on the amalgamation in 1965 of two originally ...

in 1965, with Lieutenant-Colonel John Brownlow Tucker, another cousin, becoming the first commanding officer). He was appointed to the

Legislative Council of Bermuda The Senate of Bermuda is the upper house of the Parliament of Bermuda, the other being the House of Assembly. The Senate consists of eleven members appointed by the Governor for five-year terms — five Senators are nominated by the Premier, thr ...

in 1928 and according to ''The Irish Times'', citing reports in Bermuda's '' The Royal Gazette'', spoke against the idea of the introduction of an income tax in Bermuda at a Legislative Council meeting in 1940, siding with "those who look on all income tax as man's last refinement of torture, to be resisted at all costs".

Later life

Appleby was made a

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in King George VI's

1947 New Year Honours The 1947 New Year Honours were appointments by many of the Commonwealth Realms of King George VI to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. They were published on 31 December 1946.Operational M ...

for "Public services in Bermuda". He died on at Doctor's Hospital, New York, and was buried at Pembroke Cemetery in Bermuda.''The Bermudian'', Vol. 19 (1948), p. ccxi.

References

External links

Appleby one-name study and DNA project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Appleby, Reginald 1865 births People from Portsea, Portsmouth 19th-century English lawyers Bermudian soldiers Commanders of the Order of the British Empire 1948 deaths Bermudian justices of the peace British Army personnel of World War I 20th-century Bermudian lawyers Bermudian politicians Paradise Papers 19th-century Bermudian lawyers