The Impact of the Duke of Windsor's Abdication on British Monarchy and Society

In August 1940, the Duke of Windsor (formerly King Edward VIII) was appointed Governor of the Bahamas. He arrived in the colony with his wife. Although disheartened at the condition of Government House, they 'tried to make the best of a bad situation'. He did not enjoy the position, and referred to the islands as 'a third-class British colony'. He opened the small local parliament on 29 October 1940. The couple visited the 'Out Islands' that November, on Axel Wenner-Gren's yacht, which caused controversy; the British Foreign Office strenuously objected because they had been advised by United States intelligence that Wenner-Gren was a close friend of the Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring of Nazi Germany. The Duke was praised at the time for his efforts to combat poverty on the islands. A 1991 biography by Philip Ziegler, however, described him as contemptuous of the Bahamians and other non-European peoples of the Empire. He was praised for his resolution of civil unrest over low wages in Nassau in June 1942, when there was a 'full-scale riot'. Ziegler said that the Duke blamed the trouble on 'mischief makers – communists' and 'men of Central European Jewish descent, who had secured jobs as a pretext for obtaining a deferment of draft'. The Duke resigned from the post on 16 March 1945.