The cast of "The downfall of Zachariah Fee"

 

The downfall of Zachariah Fee

Governor Hodson wrote and produced a play called “the downfall of Zachariah Fee” or “The Troubles of Santa Claus”. In the picture taken of the cast, you can see that Charles was a member of the Zachariah Fee orchestra. The instrument Charles is holding is a Stroh violin - a violin with a trumpet horn attached to amplify the sound. The little girl sat behind him on the stage is his daughter, 'Vina'. My Grandmother, Meggie, made many of the costumes for this play.

The Governor himself is centre stage. I think the entire Falkland Island police force is there amongst many others.

I hear that the play was very scary, and Zachariah Fee became a notorious bogeyman figure for the children.

On page 70 of the book “The Sea Microcosm” edited by Dorothy U Ratcliffe there is a transcript of the speech which Governor Hodson gave just before the performance of his play. The whole book has been digitized for Microsoft by the Internet Archive.

On the next page is the text of the speech.