Dorothea Butterfield, who with equal measures of boldness, charm and a striving for knowledge, grew from being the first Black woman to work as a teller in a bank on Front Street to being a member of the Board of Governors, has died, aged 90.

In 1962, Bermuda was making its first steps to becoming a desegregated society and having already helped blaze a trail in the Savings Bank department of the Hamilton Post Office, Mrs Butterfield saw an advertisement in this newspaper, in which The Bank of Bermuda (now HSBC Bank of Bermuda), boasted that it was “Bermuda for Bermudians”.

She decided to put the bank’s board and managers, as she would later say, “to the test”.

By the time she retired in 1989, she had become the bank’s first Black teller, department supervisor, the first Black woman to be an officer of the bank and, most impressively, a member of the Board of Governors.

“I was the first woman of colour to have had that opportunity to sit with the big boys for meetings upstairs.”

In retirement, she turned her organisational talents to charity work and compiling an impressive itinerary of world travel.

Her indefatigable charitable work was recognised in 2002 when she was awarded a Queen’s Certificate and Badge of Honour by the state for her work with a number of organisations, including St John Ambulance, Sandys Boat Club and Meals on Wheels. She was a cofounder of Harbour Amateur Swimming Association.

Mrs Butterfield was particularly proud of helping cofounder, in 1975, of the Bermuda Business & Professional Women’s Association, an affiliate of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women.

That same year, she was named a Justice of the Peace.

Gwyneth Dorothea Lucille Butterfield, née Brown, was one of five children of Walton St George Brown, the entrepreneur and activist, and Pearl Bean Brown, who died when she was 14. Mrs Butterfield was partially raised by her great aunt, Portia Bean, a school principal.

Her early education was at the then-Central School (now Victor Scott Primary) and then the West End School, Somerset Island.

At age 13, Bermuda’s tiered education system intervened, and due to a lack of funds, she had to skip high school and go to work.

She began her working life at Lespere’s Tailoring, where the Washington Mall is today. Ebenezer Lespere, who was from the Caribbean, found that she learnt top-level skills quickly, including how to make a man’s suit.

She soon went to work for the fabrics store, House of Hamilton, where the owners Cora and Jack Hamilton grew to think the world of her – so much so, in fact, that when she married Ashton Butterfield, her wedding dress was made at the establishment.

When the couple’s 25th anniversary rolled around, although no longer an employee, the store donated the fabric for her celebratory dress.

Mr Butterfield died in 1986, shortly before their 30th wedding anniversary. The couple had one child, Michael Ashton Butterfield.

She left the House of Hamilton by 1957 and joined the post office’s “bank”, until she made her bold approach to the Bank of Bermuda.

“I called Sir Henry Tucker, (later the first Government Leader under the modern constitution) and made an appointment, and when I got there, he referred me to Derisley Trimingham.

“When I met Mr Trimingham, he said: ‘We have no space in the bank’s front line tellers to take you on’. I said: ‘Well, I’m not at all surprised, but you advertise the Bank as ‘Bermuda for Bermudians’ and I thought I would take up the challenge’.”

Less than a month, later the bank executive summoned her back. It was a Thursday and he wanted her to start work the following Monday. As a government employee, however, Mrs Butterfield was required to give a month’s notice.

Not wishing to lose her, Mr Trimingham negotiated an early release from the Post Office.

Under the tutelage of her supervisor, Gervase Marson, Mrs Butterfield rose steadily from teller to supervisor of the savings department in only 11 years.

She became the first Black woman to hold that position in any of the banks in Bermuda, Mrs Butterfield once told The Royal Gazette.

“I had about nine staff under me, English girls and Bermudians of colour, and they were all super. I always told them, ‘Success goes to all those who put the effort in’, and in fact I still hear from some of them.”

Mrs Butterfield became a banking officer in 1978 and over the years, through a succession of evening courses, she more than made up for the missing years in her education at the then-Sixth Form Centre (which has been absorbed in to the Bermuda College).

Mrs Butterfield attained a diploma in banking, was chosen to become a Justice of the Peace, and supervised polling stations from the 1970s into the 1990s.

By the time she retired in 1989, she had overseen many changes, not least of which was being the company’s “primary” in the successful conversion of the savings department from manual to computer operation.

She was also the partial beneficiary of a new, hotly debated bank policy in which the mandatory retirement age for women employees was raised from 60 to 65 in line with men.

Throughout the 1970s, the bank put its valued employee through a working “tour” of its various departments to broaden her grasp of investments, while still having her oversee.

In the process, she met clients from all over the world, some of whom became friends and invited her to be their guest in such countries as Greece, Cyprus and Britain, where she was always treated “royally”.

Once in retirement, she kept a large map in her kitchen, marking countries she had visited. Twice she embarked on months-long world tours. Whether it has been to attend conferences or simply as a tourist, the list of countries is impressive: New Zealand, Mauritius, the Seychelles, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Hawaii, Gibraltar, many countries in Africa, Germany, Russia, Hong Kong, Japan, the Holy Land, and all over the Caribbean.

In all that travel, one experience stands out: Mrs Butterfield was among those who participated in the opening of the Berlin Wall and helping demolish it.

“For $5, you bought a hammer and a little bag and chipped away,” she remembered.

In the years after its formation, the BB&PWA united women from several fields and walks of life and was responsible for pointing out the inadequacy of Race Relations Act, and getting women to serve in the Senate and the municipalities.

It made recommendations on multiple women’s issues, including changes to the Immigration Act so that non-Bermudian spouses of both women and men were given equal treatment under the law.

Over the years, Mrs Butterfield was an active member at several charities and was particularly proud to have been the first woman of colour to be treasurer at both Meals on Wheels and the Garden Club of Bermuda.

She was a life member of the Diabetes Association and the Garden Club of Bermuda. She was a member at the Sandys Boat Club and St John’s Ambulance, and of the Young at Heart Seniors Club.

For her 80th birthday, in lieu of gifts, she asked for donations to St Michael’s Chapel, on the grounds of the Anglican Church Rectory, at Somerset Bridge.

With the Seniors Learning Centre, she took courses including line dancing and digital photography.

Silvia Shorto, the director of the Lifelong Learning Centre at the Bermuda College, extended her condolences to Mrs Butterfield’s family.

She added: “The Lifelong Learning Centre is saddened to learn of the death of Dorothea Butterfield. Mrs Butterfield was president of the (then) Senior’s Learning Centre from 2000, and she played a critical role in establishing both the governance and the financial stability of our organisation.”

Dr Shorto added: “We will always remember her with affection and with gratitude.”

Surlena Smith, the president of the BB&PWA, wrote in tribute that Mrs Butterfield, in addition to being on the exploratory committee of joining the international affiliate of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women, served as an adviser on the executive committee, being one of the first members to become part of the executive team.

“Mrs Butterfield was instrumental in changes that were beneficial to women and men, most of which we are still taking advantage of this day,” Mrs Smith explained. “We would like to commemorate the path of the pioneering women before us and their contributions in her own profession.

“As we end this International Women’s Month, we realise there is more to accomplish in the scope of equality but we have and have had magnificent, selfless women blazing a trail to make it possible so our daughters will not have to work as hard.”

Mrs Butterfield’s first cousin, Ewart Brown, the former Premier, said of Mrs Butterfield: “Dorothea was a pacesetter for our family and the wider community.

“She demonstrated to all of us that hard work, focused energy and relentless commitment bring awesome results into our lives.”

⁕Gwyneth Dorothea Lucille Butterfield, née Brown, a founding member of the Bermuda Professional Women’s Association and the first Black woman to be a director of a Bermuda bank, was born December 8, 1933. She died on March 14, 2024