White Tie and Decorations: Sir John and Lady Hope Simpson in Newfoundland, 1934-1936

Melvin Baker is an archivist and historian at Memorial University of
Newfoundland, and the co-editor of Dictionary of Newfoundland and
Labrador Biography.

White Tie and Decorations consists of a judicious selection of letters
written by Sir John Hope Simpson and his wife to their children in
Britain. Sir John came to Newfoundland in 1934 as one of three British
members of the Commission of Government, a British-appointed body
established in that year to govern the colony, which had been facing a
default on its public debt. Appointed Commissioner for Natural
Resources, Sir John was the most influential member of the Commission.

Written between February 1934 and September 1936, the correspondence
offers insights into Newfoundland’s social, economic, and political
scene. Of the legal system, Lady Hope Simpson writes: “[T]he laws here
are made by the men for the men. The women are of no account—nothing
but drudges & child bearers—and there is not even the morality of the
tribal system to protect society.”

Revealing as much about the governors as it does about the governed,
White Tie and Decorations is one of those rare scholarly works that will
appeal to the general reader.