I started this series of commentaries on July 20, 2023, after the inaugural American Airlines flight between Miami and Beef Island and the reopening of Marina Cay, to salute the pioneering work of Captain Wladek Wagner, the Polish sailor who contributed to the early development of Trellis Bay and the Virgin Islands’ first public airstrip.
Since then, I have followed chapters of the book Lest I Forget: The Wagner Family, Pioneers of Trellis Bay, Beef Island (published in 2015 by Mr. Wagner’s widow, Mabel Wagner), which draws on her archive of old letters and documents to describe how he and some workers from East End built his vision of a beautiful yacht haven — with a boatyard, guest cottages and a clubhouse — out of bush, by ingenuity and sheer hard work.
Sometimes, I have drawn on books by other authors. In part 23, published on Oct. 10, I referred to the memoirs of Howard “H.R.” Penn, a member of the VI government in 1956, who wrote that Governor Sir Kenneth Blackburne “agreed to having an airfield and took some of us to the proposed site. He had arranged for it to be laid out by a Mr. Wagner, a Pole with an English wife, who was knowledgeable in such matters.”
‘Disgust and indignation’
However, in a chapter of Ms. Wagner’s book headed “Disgust and Indignation,” which was misplaced after one covering later events, she wrote that in November 1956, Geoffrey Allsebrook, then the administrator of the VI, gave Mr. Wagner a copy of an item about the proposed airstrip that appeared on the agenda of an upcoming government meeting without considering its wording’s impact on him.
The item proposed that the work should be done under the supervision of the (unnamed) owner of the yacht station on Trellis Bay, as he had practical experience of construction work on Beef Island and had already employed men from East End on his own work. He would be paid only an honorarium of $200 per month because an airstrip would connect his yacht station and hotel with the outside world.
Wagner upset
Ms. Wagner reported that her husband was incensed by the suggestion in a public record that he only wanted to build the airfield because it would benefit him personally and asked her to type a letter to Mr. Allsebrook, pointing out that the whole colony needed to be connected with the outside world, including the hotels on Guana and Buck islands and in Road Town.
She recalled that since Mr. Allsebrook had arrived in Tortola a few months earlier he had become a close friend who knew that Mr. Wagner was building Trellis Bay for his family and as a source of income, but that he also provided a hands-on learning and training centre for local people. Her husband had felt crushed that anyone would consider his motives dishonourable. In the letter, Mr. Wagner said that it would be easier to communicate with Trellis Bay using fast motorboats than to build a large airport facility for the entire community.
Suggesting that the government should have considered goodwill as his motive rather than impugn his integrity, he also posed a question: If he were to be merely the supervisor, who else would plan and organise the project? He needed an explanation if he was to proceed with it, he stated.
Colonial Office
Mr. Allsebrook replied on Dec. 1, 1956, in a note hastily written on Government House stationery that he was about to go to St. John when the letter arrived but would have preferred to have spoken to Mr. Wagner personally.
The Colonial Office needed to be convinced how much the airfield was needed and how cheaply it could be done because of Mr. Wagner’s interest in it, he wrote. Employing an overseas contractor would have cost far too much.
He also wrote that he had emphasised to the Public Works Department (members and the surveyor of works) that Mr. Wagner would be solely in charge of the work and the pay sheets would pass through the PWD’s books. He would be the only other person involved. He reassured Mr. Wagner that every comment on him by the governor and himself reflected most creditably on his ability and integrity.
Credit extended
According to Ms. Wagner’s book, her husband thought the matter had been settled, and on Nov. 23, 1956, at a meeting with Mr. Allsebrook and the governor’s police chief, he readily agreed to extend credit to the government to build a police station in order to get the airstrip started.
If Mr. Wagner had known that his relationship with the government had been clouded by the governor’s claims to have hired him, he might not have agreed to build and fund the work, and we might not now be celebrating his construction of the first public airstrip in the VI.
He had once told Commissioner H.A.C. Howard, Mr. Allsebrook’s predecessor as administrator, that he might build a small airstrip on his own land.
To continue “The Wagners of Trellis Bay,” click here.
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