Athelstan Long
Governor of the Cayman Islands who had endured three years as a wartime prisoner of the Japanese
ATHELSTAN LONG, who has died aged 100, survived captivity on Japan’s “Death Railway” in Burma to be one of the last Britons recruited to the Indian Political Service; an engineer of Britain’s handover of power in Burma, Nigeria and Swaziland; and the first colonial governor of the Cayman Islands in the modern era.
Not inclined to take himself too seriously, Long never forgot his first visit to one of the smallest islands, recently devastated by a hurricane. As he waded ashore in full colonial rig (there was no jetty), the survivors greeted him with a chorus of God Save The Queen. “I was moved almost to tears,” he recalled. “I also drew the conclusion that the less you do, the more respect you may inspire.”
Athelstan Charles Ethelwulf Long was born at Worplesdon, Surrey, on January 2 1919, the middle son of Arthur Long, a businessman, and the former Gabrielle Campbell (the historical novelist Marjorie Bowen). He was educated at Westminster and Brasenose College, Oxford.
Graduating in 1940, he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery, then seconded to the 7th (Bengal) Battery, 22nd Mountain Regiment of the Indian Army. Posted to Malaya, his unit early in 1942 joined the
retreat to Singapore. Taken prisoner when Singapore fell, he was held first in Changi camp, then sent to work on building the Burma-siam railway.
He lost so much weight in those three years that the woman he married in 1948 still called him “a skeleton”.
Demobilised in the rank of captain, Long joined the Indian Political Service in 1946. With partition and Independence the next year, he transferred to the Burma Civil Service for the final months before that country, too, became independent in January 1948.
Moving to the Colonial Service, Long was posted to Northern Nigeria as a district officer, touring remote areas in an outsized Pontiac. Promoted to senior district officer in 1958, he became next year the British resident “advising” the emir of Zaria province, who showed his appreciation with a copious supply of eggs.
In the run-up to Independence in November 1960, he served as permanent secretary in the federal Ministry of Animal Health and Forestry, then started Nigeria’s new Ministry of Information in the same capacity. In 1961 Long moved to Swaziland as chief government secretary.
Britain was attempting to turn the protectorate into a constitutional monarchy prior to independence, and he worked hard to keep the venerable King Sobhuza and his national council onside. In 1964 he was promoted to chief secretary, and leader for government business in the Legislative Council.
From its foundation in 1963 to 1968, Long chaired the governors of Swaziland’s multiracial Waterford Kambhlaba United World College, to which he sent both his sons. The very existence of the college was seen as an affront by neighbouring South Africa.
Before Swaziland in turn became independent in 1968, in what he termed “the last whimper of the British Empire”, Long moved to the Caymans as the territory’s deputy commissioner, then administrator.
In 1971-72, for the final months of his posting, he had the reinstated title of Governor.
The 102-square mile British dependency was not then the sophisticated offshore tax haven it is today; there were no tarred roads, telephones or electricity. But finance and tourism were starting to take off, with men from the islands no longer having to go away to sea to earn a living.
One executive action Long took as Governor explained why he was seen in London as a loose cannon. When political unrest threatened to boil over, Long – on his own authority – sent for the British warship on station in the Caribbean. Its arrival calmed the situation.
When his governorship ended in the spring of 1972, he became briefly commissioner of Anguilla. Although he moved with his wife to this much smaller territory, they returned to settle in retirement at Pedro in the Caymans.
Long played an active part in the territory’s public and business life for a further three decades. In 1977 he joined the Cayman government’s Public Service Commission, chairing it from 1984 until its dissolution in 2006.
He oversaw the “Caymanisation” of all the islands’ public services, with locals taking over from British expats.
He also chaired the territory’s planning appeals tribunal, was deputy chairman of its public service pensions board, and served on its coastal works advisory committee.
Long was managing director of the Anegada Corporation in 1973-74, president of the Caymans’ United Bank International from 1976 to 1979, and chairman of Cayman Airways from 1977 to 1981.
Long was appointed MBE in 1959, CBE in 1964 and CMG in 1968. In 2017 – by which time he was living in a retirement home – his medals, including his CMG and his Burma Star, were stolen from a concrete-lined safe in his office in George Town.
Athelstan Long married Edit “Zadie” Krantz of Stockholm in 1948; she died in 2015, and he is survived by their two sons. The elder, Charles, is one of the Caymans’ best known artists.
Athelstan Long, born February 2 1919, died July 31 2019