April 28, 1908-Febuary 3, 2004
John Profit played a pivotal role in the founding and operation of many of Bermuda’s most beloved arts organisations.
Profit was a founder-member of the Bermuda Ballet Association, a member of the committee that formed the Bermuda Festival, a long-time member of both the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society (BMDS) and the Russian School of Dance—and was a member of the Bermuda Arts Council.
He was also a member of the Bermuda Society of Arts, Shaw Ibsen Society, the Shakespeare Society, Studio Theatre Association, Irish Players, Police Theatre Group and The Gilbert and Sullivan Society.
He held membership in the St. George’s Dinghy and Sports Club, the Hamilton Parish Arbour Society, the Bermuda Audubon Society, Hamilton Parish Council and the Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals. “We attended all the Audubon Society lectures as kids,” his son, Peter, recalled. “He and my mom grew their own vegetables, and he even paid a gardener to beautify a series of old, abandoned quarries in Hamilton Parish. He cared about nature, and about the environment.”
Profit served as the Town Crier of St. George’s, and sang in the choir and was a lay reader at Holy Trinity Church in Hamilton Parish during the 18 months that the church was without a priest.
Born in Hampshire, England, Profit moved to Bermuda in 1934 to accept a post as teacher of French and Physical Education at Saltus Grammar School.
Profit knew Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts organisation, and had qualified as a Scoutmaster while in England. Upon arrival in Bermuda, he duly formed the Island’s first Boy Scout troupe at Saltus.
After teaching for two years, he won a scholarship to Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1940 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, with a minor in Russian that allowed him to read about ballets in their native language, having exhausted the literature in English and French. He served as President of Harvard’s Dramatic Club. “The Hasty Pudding lot were across the road, but we always thought that we were the professionals,” he once said.
Upon graduation from Harvard, Profit joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves as a Lieutenant Commander during the Second World War. He served in Bermuda, Panama—and in the United States at Pensacola, Florida, Washington, D.C., and Bronxville, New York. He was attached to the British Consulate while in Panama and spent more than three years in Pensacola with the fleet. In Washington and New York, he was Command Adult Education Officer and Rehabilitation Officer for the whole of the Royal Navy’s American command.
Before leaving Bermuda for postings overseas, he met his future wife, Nadia, a visiting American, at a tennis party in Tucker’s Town hosted by Lady Trimingham. “The British officers were always invited to those events,” Peter says. “My mom was on vacation from her home in California. He wrote to her for the next 18 months, and when he was posted to Panama, she and two girlfriends drove from California to see him, and they married. When I took my dad on a world tour in 1990, we stopped off in New Zealand to see the woman who was flower girl at their wedding.”
When the war ended, Profit was asked where he wanted to be demobilised—and he chose Nelson, New Zealand as it was as far away from war-ravaged England as it was possible to go. He and his family—wife Nadia and young sons Peter and Christopher—would spend another five years there, with Profit returning to teaching at Southwell School in Hamilton before spending a year as a travelling salesman. He also acted with Theatre Royal in Nelson, and while teaching had a morning radio programme where he was known as ‘The Wakey Wakey Man’.
He and his family returned to Bermuda in 1951, and he became sales manager and later general manager with one of the Island’s earliest exempt companies, Davis and Lawrence Pharmaceutical, at Ordnance Island, St. George’s. He would become president of the company, retiring from that post at the age of 65.
After retiring, Profit imported gourmet foods until airfares increased and refrigerator ships ceased coming from the United Kingdom. Later, he and broadcaster Bryan Darby ran charter flights on British Caledonian Airways between London and Bermuda. He also owned and operated Victoriana Art Gallery with business partner, Bernard Wells, before they opened Bermuda Art and Frame Company, which was located on Washington Lane in Hamilton. He worked there until taking permanent retirement.
Profit first fell in love with ballet when he saw the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at London’s Alhambra Theatre. He would later see ballet in Mexico, Trinidad, Jamaica and Brussels. In Bermuda, he was to serve for 15 years as the first secretary of the Bermuda Ballet Association, working hard to encourage an appreciation of dance in Bermuda and to provide scholarships for promising young Bermudian dancers. As secretary, he assisted in bringing many international ballet companies to Bermuda including a visit by the Royal Ballet in 1964.
Today, Profit’s contributions to dance in Bermuda are honoured with the annual L. John Profit Commemorative Award, a scholarship awarded by the National Dance Foundation of Bermuda to a promising young dance student.
Aside from his involvement with ballet, Profit was very active in the BMDS, acting in—or otherwise supporting—more than 30 productions between 1962 and 1985. His last performance for the BMDS was a speaking role in the 1985 production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In 1975, the organisation presented him with the Stella Halsall Award for “outstanding contribution to the arts in Bermuda”. “After Mom died in 1971, for dad it was ‘BMDS, BMDS, BMDS’,” said Peter. “BMDS saved his life—he got involved with everything.”
He also acted at the Colonial Opera House with the late Guy Ridgway, had a part in a Bermuda Dance Theatre production, Bermuda Tapestry, choreographed by Conchita Ming for the 1979 Bermuda Festival, and often appeared in regal robes in the incidental role of a king in school ballet recitals.
Upon leaving Bermuda in 1985, Profit returned to his native Hampshire to live in the village of Winchfield, not far from where he spent his youth in Mattingley. Even before his move to Winchfield had taken place, he had become involved with the local Canal Association, which raised money to help old canals become navigable again. Profit was also a founder of the Winchfield Festival, which showcases music, dance and drama. “He couldn’t sit still—he always had to be doing something, and often it was related to the arts,” Peter said.
Profit returned to Bermuda every five years to celebrate his birthday with family and friends. He broke his hip in a fall at home during 2003, and never fully recovered, passing away on February 3, 2004.
Sons Peter and Christopher have inherited their father’s love of the arts. Peter is a jazz drummer, a former member of the Arts Council—and a generous supporter of many of the Island’s arts organisations. Christopher also has a deep affection for the arts.
