![]() Mr Astwood served on a commission under Mayor of Hamilton Jay Bluck in 2006 that was tasked with reviewing the management and development of the city. He led the Living Landmark Appeal in 1991 and raised millions to refurbish the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity in Hamilton. In 2009, Mr Astwood sold Aberfeldy, also the name of his home on Long Bay Lane in Somerset. Sir Jeffrey, one of the founders of the Bermuda Rose Society in 1954, later took charge of the business and was followed by Mr Astwood. Mr Astwood's uncle, the architect Will Onions, was a founder of Paget's Aberfeldy Nurseries in 1950. Sir Jeffrey, who died in 1996, was also Speaker of the House from 1968 to 1972.Īnother family trait was a love of gardening and plants. His later travels took him to Hong Kong, where his exploits included a job at the South China Morning Post newspaper and racing a Fiat 1100 in the first Macau Grand Prix in 1954.īut politics ran in the family - his father, Sir Jeffrey Astwood, started his career in the field in 1948 and represented Somerset as an independent Member of the then Colonial Parliament and held a variety of Cabinet posts from the early 1950s. Their travels across North Africa took them to Ethiopia, where they measured the country's largest lake, Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. Mr Astwood, after studying geography at Cambridge University, set out in 1953 on a globe-trotting scientific expedition with fellow students. He still enjoyed a daily swim out to the wreck of the Vixen off the West End in later life. Mr Astwood, a gifted swimmer, was in his youth a competitor in the elimination heats for the Bermuda Olympic swimming team. The company, and its division Astwood Cycles Ltd, gave him an early insight into Bermuda's boom in tourism. Mr Astwood told The Royal Gazette in 1994 when he stepped down as Wedco chairman after ten years: “I have always found most satisfying those things that carry the greatest risk.”Īfter a business career that started with a Mobylette motorbike and pedal cycle rental to tourists through JB Astwood and Sons, a company on Front Street that his grandfather started in 1890, he became president of the Bermuda Chamber of Commerce in 19. I am like a man who jumps off a cliff without a parachute. He added later: “I never doubted we could succeed in the West End. Mr Astwood said in a 1990 interview that the creation of Wedco involved a struggle. He helped transform Dockyard as chairman of the West End Development Corporation, a quango that he had lobbied the Government to form. Mr Astwood had an instinct for the island's potential for tourism as well as international business. He was one of the party's founding members in 1964 and helped with the draft of the island's Constitution four years later. He was a Sandys North MP for the United Bermuda Party between 19. Mr Astwood, a businessman and consultant who was a director of dozens of companies, was chairman of the Bermuda Hotel Association for decades. “Kit” Astwood, who passed on May 28, was 87. ![]() ![]() ![]() A businessman, hospitality leader and a former MP for the West End who led the redevelopment of Dockyard as a major tourist destination has died. ![]()
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