A former government head statistician, ex-MP and senator has died. Calvin Smith was 87.

Mr Smith was also a stalwart of the Bermuda Industrial Union, as well as a major figure in the Progressive Labour Party.

Mr Smith was also prominent in the football world. He was president of the Pembroke Hamilton Club from 1976 to 1981 and helped save the club from bankruptcy.

He was a director of the Bermuda Football Association for more than a decade and was later appointed a life vice-president.

Mr Smith was elected to Parliament in 1980, when he won in Hamilton West with Arthur Hodgson of the PLP under the former dual-seat constituency system.

But he was unseated in the snap election of 1983.

Mr Smith, who wrote regularly for The Royal Gazette, was among several people expelled from the PLP in the leadership crisis of 1985.

He wrote in a 2005 opinion piece: “At the time, Dame Lois Browne-Evans was the leader of the party and doing a good job, considering what she had to work with.

“Still I did not think so at the time. The revolt and the ultimate expulsions led to the election of Mr L. Frederick Wade as leader.”

Although Mr Smith did not hold back from criticism of his party, he still played a big role in its historic 1998 General Election victory — the PLP’s first.

He had earlier reconciled with the PLP and in 1996 was appointed co-chairman of its campaign committee, along with the late Larry Burchall. The pair masterminded the 1998 campaign.

Mr Smith was later chairman of the party’s candidates’ committee and continued to work in public relations.

Mr Smith served in the Bermuda Senate from 1998 to 2003.

Although he was Bermudian, he studied and worked for 13 years in Canada after he became a citizen in 1958.

He was a statistician for the Canadian Government until 1965, when he came home to become Bermuda’s Director of Statistics.

Mr Smith often took on racial injustice in his columns.

He wrote in 2006: “Today, I even find it difficult to believe that when I was employed at the Secretariat [now the Cabinet Office] in 1965 as government statistician, I was the first black to hold such a position in the highest administrative department of government.”

He was also devoted to the Bermuda Industrial Union and ran the BIU Members Credit Union Co-op Society from 1983 until 2001.

Mr Smith was a researcher for the BIU from 2002 onwards.

He was also a keen sportsman. He held a black belt in judo and taught the martial art.

Colleagues lined up to pay tribute after Mr Smith’s death was announced by the PLP on Saturday.

Kim Swan, a PLP backbencher, said he learnt from Mr Smith despite their political rivalry when he joined the Senate in 1998 as a United Bermuda Party member.

The two met when Mr Swan cleaned golf clubs for him as a teenager at the Port Royal Golf Course.

Mr Swan said he “schooled me from opposite benches” and had brought an eloquence to the Upper House.

He added: “I marvelled at his brilliance, paid close attention to what he said, and admittedly I copied some of his style.

“He was wise and knew this — we talked about it in his living room a few years ago.

“Whenever we were together in the past ten years, I would always share how much I respected him and how I benefited from being able to be in his midst politically.”

Mr Swan added that Mr Smith often spoke about the power of football as a social unifier and his trailblazing work in the Civil Service was “legendary”.

He said: “Unlike many, he choose the rugged road to represent the common man.”

Jamahl Simmons, of the PLP, said his father, Lionel Simmons, was elected to Parliament along with Mr Smith, was expelled from the PLP with him and several others, and also rejoined.

He said he and Mr Smith shared a “special bond” — including a fascination with comic books.

Mr Simmons added: “It was a pleasure to talk to a Bermudian of such wisdom and experience and whose interests ranged from local to global politics, the labour movement and the elevation of the poor and working class, to something so humorous as comics.

“He was a great man, a great mentor and a great friend. Bermuda is poorer for his loss and I am grateful for the contribution he made to my life and the friendship he shared with my father.”

LaVerne Furbert, a friend of Mr Smith’s and an administrative assistant at the BIU, revealed details of a tribute to him in the union newspaper, the Worker’s Voice.

Ms Furbert said yesterday: “He was a brilliant man — cool, calm and collected and he wrote a library of material.”

She added that Mr Smith was close to Ottiwell Simmons, a former BIU president and ex-MP, and met him every week for lunch.

Mr Smith served on the school boards of the Berkeley Institute as well as Warwick Academy.

He was a keen gardener along with his wife, Jeannine.

The couple had two sons, Christopher and Steven.

Calvin James MacDonald Smith, government statistician, politician, was born on July 9, 1933. He died on August 21, 2020, aged 87