Lyme Regis, Sir George Somers and St. George's, Bermuda

Admiral Sir George Somers was born in Lyme Regis in 1554; he is buried in Whitchurch Canonicorum, where he owned an estate. He served as mayor of Lyme Regis and as an MP; he was knighted in 1605 and died in Bermuda on 24 April, 1610. His body was brought back to Dorset, pickled in a barrel of alcohol. His heart is buried in St.George’s, Bermuda, the island’s original capital, which has been twinned with Lyme Regis since 1996.

Plaque in Bermuda: Flagstone from Berne Manor, Dorset

From Bermuda Legal - Statue of Sir George Somers erected in Lyme Regis, Dorset

                                                              

Lyme Regis, J M W Turner

Sir George had set sail in the Sea Venture for Virginia, from Plymouth, England, on June 2, 1609, and the flagship was shipwrecked during a storm on the coral reef off Bermuda on 26 July, 1609. Accounts of the tempest that caused the shipwreck inspired Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”, in which he refers to the “vexed Bermoothes”.

"Sir George Somers, an exquisite Navigatour, and one of the first Discoverers of the Barmudoas, where at last, after manie Voyages thither, he died ; but his Bodie, beeing brought unto England, was interred at Whitechurch". Thomas Gerard, 1620s.

 Bermuda Gombey Dancers