When William Kempe declared in 1956 that Bermuda could become the new Switzerland many laughed at him.

But when Mr. Kempe died aged 83 on Monday he did so safe in the knowledge that he had done more than most to realise that dream after travelling the world to attract international business, now the mainstay of economy.

He was the man to first lure mutual funds to the Island after a ground-breaking trip to London where he enticed a merchant bank to set up here.

Business writer Roger Crombie last night said: "Now there are hundreds and hundreds of them. They all stemmed from that visit.

"Along with Henry Tucker, David Graham and James Pearman he roamed the world bringing Bermuda to the upper echelons of business people."

Mr. Crombie said of that early Rotary lunch speech: "Everyone thought he was mad.

"In 1956 Bermuda was still a fishing village. He said it 30 years before anybody else did and he was right.

"I think he's under appreciated quite frankly."

"Bermuda was run by a small group of well-to-do merchants who often thought with one mind.

"Bill didn't always go along with them and would stand up and say so. He would not sit down until he had said his piece."

Mr. Kempe also brought other international heavy weights to Bermuda including conglomerates Canadian Pacific and Jardine Matheson and drug firm Ciba Geisy.

And while Mr. Kempe had a huge influence on Bermuda, his contribution to his own firm was no less great.

When he joined law firm Appleby, Spurling and Kempe in 1949 as a partner there was a staff of three. When he retired in 1980 there were 153, now there are more than 300.

AS&K partner Rick Spurling said: "Bill Kempe was instrumental with my father, Sir Dudley Spurling, in developing a very parochial firm in the 40's doing mostly wills, property and local litigation to a major and now global law firm dealing with very sophisticated international transactions.

"Bill Kempe had a keen business sense which assisted the firm develop on a sound financial basis.

"He will be missed by his family and I would like to express my gratitude for his contribution to this firm."

Son Will "Wiggy" Kempe remembers: "He was a man who dreamed and realised his dreams. When he was a little boy living in Warwick he would row to Mangrove Bay.

"There was a house he loved and he dreamed one day he would own it. It took him 50 years to be able to afford it but he bought it in 1977."

A keen sailor Mr. Kempe loved to take his wife Sheila, and family out on his 57 foot sloop Chicane which also saw action in the Bermuda to Newport race.

The sea and travel had been in his blood from his war years as a fighter pilot attached to the British Royal Navy. William Stevenson, author of 'A Man Called Intrepid' remembered his war-time buddy as a fellow Hellcat pilot in the Royal Navy.

"He had flown planes that should have been retired long before the war. He qualified for deck-landings by dropping onto tiny flat-tops in 'controlled crashes'.

"I first flew with him when we converted from the Seafire - the naval version of the Spitfire - to the rugged Hellcat."

Mr. Stevenson remembered a time when their chief pilot Nigel Fisher ordered them to fly formation 'upside down' above Fisher's Hellcat.

"Kempe politely declined. After landing, I said, 'The Fish'll have your guts for garters for disobeying orders.' Bill shrugged.

'It was either that or get buried in broken eggs and whiskey.' In Belfast, he had 'liberated' rare quantities of eggs and Scotch - and stashed his booty in the bottom of the cockpit.

"He was a gentle soul, far more than he let his fellow islanders know. After our squadron disbanded, he wanted me to settle in Bermuda.

"He said it had a great future. That was difficult to believe, in 1950. He said it could be achieved if everyone, regardless of colour or race or religion, pulled together.

'We're like a cork on the ocean,' he said at our last dinner together. 'We rise with the rising tide and we go down when the tide goes out but we're always on top.'

"He was a man of the sea in a way that his forebears could not imagine, though they were men of the sea too.

"I know now why he puzzled me when first we met - for the same reason Bermudians down through the ages have puzzled outsiders.

"He handled the sea differently, as he did all things things differently, because self-reliance was bred in his bones."