William S. Zuill, an author and avid historian who became the first director of the Bermuda National Trust as well as serving for three years as editor of The Royal Gazette, has died at the age of 86.

Mr Zuill’s reporting career started in the early 1950s, working as a general news reporter, parliamentary reporter, assistant editor and associate editor before finally editing the paper through to 1971.

His prodigious memory included some watershed chapters in the island’s history, such as the Theatre Boycotts of 1959.

“I think that moment broke the dam of segregation in Bermuda,” he recalled for this newspaper in 2008. “After that, the colour walls came tumbling down.”

Mr Zuill enjoyed a close friendship with the late Stanley Ratteray, Bermuda’s first education minister and a founding member of the Progressive Group that initiated the boycotts.

With his brother, James Zuill, he belonged to an informal gathering nicknamed the Sharon group after his brother’s house, where black and white Bermudians mingled in a notable break from the character of the times. Along with Dr Ratteray, prominent figures such as Eugene Cox and Eva Hodgson socialised there.

Writing ran in the family: his father, also William Zuill, wrote the classic Bermuda Journey, and his son, Bill Zuill, served as editor of The Royal Gazette from 1998 to 2012.

In 1973 he brought out The Story of Bermuda and Her People. Published by Macmillan, it stood for years as the island’s definitive volume of history, used as a school textbook. It was his favourite out of many books.

In 2015, Mr Zuill published The Pirate Menace, a history of the Golden Age of Piracy, which featured several Bermuda pirates along with legendary figures such as Blackbeard (Edward Teach) and Henry Morgan.

Shortly before his death, he completed a shorter narrative on the life of Captain William Kidd, which will be published posthumously.

Taking charge of the Trust after he stepped down as editor, Mr Zuill became a passionate advocate of the island’s heritage, calling for the promotion of Bermuda’s cultural tourism.

He retired in 1990 after 18 years. Under his stewardship, the Trust became Bermuda’s main conservator of the island’s built heritage and open spaces, and a leading environmental organisation of its time.

Two of the Trust’s major public events, the Christmas Walkabout in St George’s and the Palm Sunday Walk, were initiated while he was director. Bermuda’s Delicate Balance, a classic book on the island’s environment, was also published by the Trust during his tenure.

Aside from his keen knowledge of family history, Mr Zuill’s love of bygone Bermuda was expressed in historical dramas and stories. Family recalled him as erudite, and gifted with a formidable memory.

Mr Zuill was also a pillar of St Mark’s Anglican Church in Smith’s, serving for long periods as church warden and a member of the vestry, as well as steering the church through a difficult period in the early 2000s.

He attended the 8am Sunday service every week until he went into hospital two weeks ago.

Born on May 27, 1930 to William E. S. Zuill and Christiana Zuill, he was educated at the Whitney Institute, St Andrew’s School in Delaware, Harvard University — where he majored in history — and the Regent Street Polytechnic, where he studied journalism.

Mr Zuill married Joyce Zuill in 1958. A longtime teacher and president of the Bermuda Garden Club, she died in 2011. The couple had three children: Rebecca Brady, Catherine Zuill, and Bill Zuill, all of whom worked as journalists in various capacities.

Mr Zuill was a longtime trustee of the Whitney Institute, a member of the Government Archives board for decades, a trustee and secretary of the Walsingham Trust — which cares for 25 acres of caves and conserved land in the nature reserve known as Tom Moore’s Jungle — for more than 30 years, and a keen supporter of Probus Club.

In a statement yesterday, his children said: “Our father had a distinguished career in public service, both as a journalist, a conservationist and as a churchman, and we are proud of his legacy. A meticulous researcher and a fine writer, his books are an important part of the Bermuda lexicon.

“If anyone had a question about Bermuda history, they knew who to call, as our father had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the island’s past and its place in the world.

“But we remember him most as a loving husband and a dedicated father who was kind and generous, open-minded and fair to all, and who is an exemplar to us, to his grandchildren and to all who came into contact with him — as a true Bermudian spirit who dedicated his life to the wellbeing of this small island and those who are fortunate enough to call it home.”