John Cornell Chads

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Lt. John Cornell Chads (1793 - 1854) was a Lieutenant in the 1st West India Regement.

On the 24th of December 1815 he married Miss Elize Stiles Parker.^[1]

From 1852 to 28 February 1854, he was the President of the British Virgin Islands

Chads was President of the British Virgin Islands during the great insurrection of 1853. On 1 August 1853 a large body of rural labourers came to Road Town to protest the imposition of a new cattle tax. The authorities immediately read the Riot Act, and made two arrests. Violence then erupted almost immediately. Several constables and magistrates were badly beaten, the greater part of Road Town itself was burned down, and a large number of the plantation houses were destroyed, cane fields were burned and sugar mills destroyed. Almost all of the white population fled to St. Thomas. President John Chads was reported to have shown considerable personal courage, but little judgement or tact.^[2] On 2 August he met a gathering of 1,500 to 2,000 protesters, but all he would promise to do was relay their grievances before the legislature (which could not meet, as all the other members had fled). One protester was shot (the only recorded death during the disturbances themselves) which lead to the continuation of the rampage. By 3 August, the only white people remaining in the Territory were John Chads himself, the Collector of Customs, a Methodist missionary and the island's doctor.

The riots were eventually suppressed with military assistance from nearby St. Thomas, but they marked the beginning of almost a complete exodus of the white population of the Territory. The episode marked the beginning of the era sometimes referred to as "decline and disorder" in the history of the British Virgin Islands.