A grassroots campaigner for the Progressive Labour Party has been hailed as one of the party’s architects in Devonshire and a devoted keeper of PLP history.

Ann Webb was recognised in the House of Assembly on Friday by David Burt, the Premier, for her lifetime of support and campaign guidance.

Diallo Rabain, the Minister of the Cabinet Office and Digital Innovation as well as MP for Devonshire North Central (Constituency 13), told MPs: “Ann was more than a campaign strategist — she was our conscience.

“Her legacy will live on in Devonshire and in the heart of this party.”

Ms Webb’s insistence on candidates putting in long hours of canvassing and heeding the voices and concerns of voters on the doorsteps shone through at a party meeting in 2022 when she called upon the PLP to “listen and not talk”.

She was a stickler for would-be MPs knocking on all doors in the area and insisted that they visited voters whom they knew would not support them, and taking in the constituents’ views regardless of a hostile reception.

Mr Rabain praised her on Friday as “old school in the best of ways”.

He added: “Her handwritten notes were always more accurate than our computer printouts — I don’t know how she did it.”

A party statement at the weekend marking her passing said Ms Webb had helped cement the PLP’s presence in Devonshire as one in a group of “close-knit neighbours and cousins”.

After the formation of the PLP in 1963, each parish established its own party branch — with Ms Webb honoured as “one of the last” of its original Devonshire members.

“Long before the advent of WhatsApp and e-mail, branch members walked all around their respective parishes knocking on doors, some friendly, others not so friendly, listening to what was on the hearts and minds of thousands of Bermudians,” the party said.

“They organised bake sales and potluck dinners on a monthly basis in order to raise funds.

“Door by door, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, they gained the trust of the people, not by slick words but by their deeds and dedication.”

Ms Webb was among party faithful in Devonshire with a group that included labour activist “Comrade” Richard Lynch, Leonie Richards, Burnell Henry, Rita Peniston, Marion Robinson and the former party leader and Attorney-General Dame Lois Browne-Evans.

The party said: “Her countless years of service saw the then Devonshire North become a political stronghold held for decades by her first cousin, the late Dame Lois Browne-Evans and the late L. Frederick Wade.

“Her unwavering guidance and mentorship paved the way for the PLP to continuously hold the majority of seats in Devonshire.

“We will for ever be in her debt.”

Mr Rabain told the celebration of Ms Webb’s life on Sunday: “She was the kind of person who could quiet a room just by the look in her eyes. Not loud, never boastful but undeniably powerful.

“When Ann spoke, people listened. Not because they had to, but because they knew they were about to hear something meaningful.”

Mr Rabain said Ms Webb was steeped in the party’s history and maintained an archive covering “decades” of Devonshire election campaigns — earning her the nickname of “encyclopaedia” of the PLP.

He added: “She remembered a simpler time in politics when it was truly about service, not the sometimes self-promotion we see today.”

Mr Rabain said the Constituency 13 branch’s nomination for Ms Webb to be granted honorary life membership in the party had been granted shortly before her passing.

• Ann Blanche Lavinia Webb, a devoted Progressive Labour Party campaigner and strategist in Devonshire, was born on January 28, 1945. She died in September 2025, aged 80