Reginald Appleby

Reginald Woodifield Appleby (18 September 1865 – 30 August 1948) was an English lawyer, practising in Bermuda, 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 during the First World War, and was a member of the Legislative Council of Bermuda. Reginald Appleby was born at Portsea Island, Hampshire, England, in 1865 to George Walton Appleby of Durham and Agnes Sterry Tucker of Tankfield, Paget 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, 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 from 1854 until October 1859 (with the Regimental Depot at Belfast, Ireland), after which it sailed to Portsmouth, before being posted to Dublin, Ireland. His father was described in the 1871 census as widowed and "Late Captain Landowner" and in 1881 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 in 1616. The Jennings family of Bermuda included the privateer Henry Jennings (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. 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, Bermuda.