Louis Diston Powles

Louis Diston Powles (1842–1911) was an English barrister. He is now remembered for his outspoken memoir Land of the Pink Pearl of his time in the Bahamas as a stipendiary magistrate, during the 1880s.

Early life He was born on 11 October 1842, the youngest son of John Diston Powles by his second marriage, and was educated at Harrow School. He matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1861.

Powles entered the Inner Temple 10 April 1863 and was called to the bar 30 April 1866. He went the south-eastern circuit.

Lightbourn case A case in the Nassau Police Court, in which Powles sentenced James Lightbourn to jail for beating a maid, Susan Hopkins, caused controversy. Lightbourn was white, and Hopkins black. Powles had the intention of repressing domestic violence, and had announced that in all cases of a man striking a woman, the man if found guilty would be sent to jail without the option of paying a fine; and had acted accordingly in sentencing three black men in common assault cases. When Lightbourn was sentenced to a month's imprisonment, he appealed to Henry William Austin, Chief Justice of the Bahamas.

Powles became convinced that Lightbourn, a Wesleyan Methodist, had perjured himself. Against Blake's advice of silence, he made a public comment that he wouldn't believe a Methodist. Powles being a Roman Catholic, on good terms with the local Anglican cleric Charles Carthew Wakefield, he aroused a furore based on nonconformist feeling. It was argued that, in a trial without a jury, Powles had acted in accordance with religious animus. He was forced out, lacking support in the executive and judiciary. Ormond Drimmie Malcolm, the attorney-general, backed the appeal. Austin, usually at odds with Malcolm, agreed in this case after non-white Bahamians petitioned on behalf of Powles. Blake felt that Powles had raised racial tensions, in a counter-productive fashion and after due warning: and wrote in those terms to the Colonial Office.

Aftermath After the departure of Powles, there was another petition in his favour. Austin granted the Lightbourn appeal, on the grounds that the black witnesses lacked credibility.

Works Powles, Browne on Probate Browne and Powles' Law and Practice in Divorce & Matrimonial Causes (1905) Powles and Oakley on the Law and Practice Relating to Probate & Administration (1906)

The Opera Cloak, a farce written by Powles with Augustus Harris, was performed at the Royalty Theatre in 1893.

The Land of the Pink Pearl Some of the material in The Land of the Pink Pearl drew on earlier accounts by William Drysdale (1852–1901). Drysdale was a journalist for the New York Times, who wrote travel colour pieces, and had published articles of 1884–5 about the Bahamas as part of In Sunny Lands: Out-Door Life in Nassau and Cuba (1885). Drysdale has been accused of racist attitudes to the black population. Powles acknowledged borrowing from Drysdale for two of his chapters.

The book described the lives of blacks and whites in the Bahamas in forthright terms. It was critical of the sponging trade. Craton and Saunders wrote:

Only L. D. Powles among nineteenth-century writers came close to providing an accurate explanation for the less fortunate aspects of Nassau's social life [...]

They further state that his analysis was "perceptive" and based in part on his personal observations; and they mention that his views from the judicial bench, "comparatively liberal", put him at odds with white residents.

Powles was attentive to music and dance. He noted the Afro-Bahamian adaptation of ballroom dancing in Nassau, and on Fortune Island at a wedding celebration the merengue and jigs, with music from fife, accordion and tambourine.

Family Powles married in 1868, Catherine Prescott, second daughter of Admiral Sir Henry Prescott and his wife Mary, eldest daughter of Philippe d'Auvergne.