September 14, 1907- March 1, 1988
Carpenter and cabinet-maker George Trott was one of Bermuda’s leading and most successful 20th-Century craftsmen.
During a career that spanned 60 years, the former Dockyard apprentice crafted everything from cedar souvenirs to priceless reproduction furniture for private homes and public spaces, and for the rich and famous.
The life-long Pembroke West resident was one of 11 children, all but two of them girls, born to Samuel and Mary Jane Trott. He attended Rev. Rufus Stovell’s primary school.
Trott got his start in 1921 at age 13, when he began working in Joseph Tucker’s carpentry shop in Hamilton.
There he was kept busy making trinket boxes, walking sticks and cedar chests, using hand tools as power-driven saws, planers and portable woodworking tools were either not available or had yet to be invented.
Nine months into his service with Tucker, he learned about the Dockyard apprentice programme.
Trott had to take an entrance exam to get into the rigorous programme, which was run by the British Navy at its base in Dockyard. He started out as an apprentice shipwright, and about a year later transferred to its carpentry programme.
As the first carpenter’s apprentice at the Dockyard, he received special attention from the eight instructors who oversaw his training. He proved to be a star apprentice who earned top marks.
His apprenticeship lasted five years and he continued at the Dockyard for another three years before leaving to work with various contractors throughout Bermuda.
Then in 1935, at age 28, he was inspired to start a business, the Village Craft Shop after two of his sisters, who were seamstresses, brought home a cedar-handled Bermuda bag.
Intrigued, he made several bags of his own and supplied them to Ethel and Catharine Tucker’s Little Green Shop on Queen Street, Hamilton. The bags were such a hit that Trott never looked back.
The Second World War ushered in a big demand for cedar bags and other souvenirs from the large influx of workers building the new US bases as well as troops stopping off on the way to the war front.
Even with a team of eight workers, Trott had to work overtime to keep up with the demand. He was able to continue turning out the bags despite a wartime shortage of metal hardware by using wooden hinges that he had designed in his shop.
There was no let-up in demand after the war when the tourism industry took off again. Trott estimated his Village Craft Shop produced more than a half a million handles for the famous Bermuda bags, which tourists snapped up at Trimingham’s, Smith’s and other Front Street stores over the next three decades.
The cedar blight that killed off 90 per cent of the Island’s cedar trees beginning in the1950s brought an unlimited supply of raw material. Cedarwood was plentiful and inexpensive as the blight unleashed its devastation on live trees.
A major project undertaken during this period was a refit of Evening Light Tabernacle on Parson’s Road, Pembroke with Bermuda-cedar pews, windows, frames and doors.
During the late 1950s, he also made the magnificent pine chandeliers for the lobby of Hamilton City Hall, which opened in 1960.
He once explained the work involved: “It took me about six months working 10 hours a day, six days a week with six helpers. They weigh about 500 pounds each and are almost entirely made of white pine with nearly 200 screws apiece, about 20 quarts of glue and not a single nail. “
Trott took on apprentices at his Village Craft Shop, which he opened at Sandy Hill in Pembroke. He ran his shop, which moved to larger premises on North Shore Road, Pembroke East in 1952, with as many as 13 workers.
Always in demand, he made cedar trays and lamps for the booming tourism trade, as well as period furniture for well-heeled householders as well as institutions. He even received overseas commissions from people who were enamoured of Bermuda cedar doors.
The Corporation of Hamilton commissioned him to make a cedar sugar chest for the Queen and Prince Philip during their 1975 visit to Bermuda, while his Bermuda government commissions included the 20-foot banquet table he made for Camden, the Premier’s official residence. In 1981, Government called him out of retirement to make two Chippendale style chairs as a wedding gift for Prince Charles and Diana Spencer from the people of Bermuda.
Australian impresario Robert Stigwood came calling in 1980 with a request to build a staircase in his home at Wreck Hill in Sandys. Trott later described it as his most challenging project. Four men worked on the 11-foot spiral staircase six days a week for three months. A special shelter was built to house the staircase because it was too large for his shop.
For most of his career, Trott used cedar primarily, but as supplies began to dwindle during the late 1970s, he had to switch to other woods. He and other craftsmen began sounding the alarm about the future of cedar craftsman.
While Trott left an impressive legacy, he was proudest of having trained a new generation of craftsmen. Trott, who was first chairman of the Apprenticeship and Training council, told his daughter Elizabeth Trott: “If I produced a dozen good carpenters, I have done something for my country.”
Trott retired on June 1, 1981, at age 74, exactly 60 years to the day that he began working at Joseph Tucker’s shop. His former apprentice Jeremy Johnston bought his Village Craft Shop.
Trott was married to the former Verona Smith, a schoolteacher, and was the father of three, Dr. Mary Trott, Elizabeth Trott and George Trott.
In 2002, Trott was a posthumous recipient of the Bermuda Arts Council’s Founders Award.
