A driving force for charity in Bermuda and abroad who spoke out on the island’s social and political issues traced his drive for co-operation and helping others to his deep religious convictions.

Michael Markham hailed from an international family. He was born in England to an American mother, Althea Heinly, and a British father, Arthur Markham, whose extended relatives included many influential figures in Britain — Members of Parliament, aviators, writers, businessmen and architects.

His mother relocated across the Atlantic after the death of her husband, and remarried William Begg, a Canadian.

Mr Markham spent the majority of his youth in Bermuda and California, excluding his time at boarding school in Canada and his extensive travels with friends and family.

His family told The Royal Gazette that his globetrotting upbringing “decidedly influenced his hunger for knowledge and adventure”.

“His extensive travels led Michael to the Lord in the 1970s, and put him on a path of evangelism and charitable works,” they said.

“He attended the Billy Graham World Conference on Evangelism in Lausanne, served with Canon John Lewis and served with Youth For Christ.

“He encountered Kathryn Kuhlman in Jerusalem and worked with Brother Andrew, the ‘God Smuggler’, who risked his life to deliver Bibles behind the Iron Curtain.”

Mr Markham recalled experiencing a religious epiphany at a New Year’s Eve celebration at Trafalgar Square in 1960s London, when he narrowly escaped getting fatally trampled after the crowd surged.

“I was in the middle of the crowd and thought, without a doubt, I was going to die — but the ambulance personnel came and pulled me out,” Mr Markham told the Gazette in 2018.

“I heard someone clearly say, ‘you had a chance to do it your way and now do it my way’. I saw that as God speaking to me.”

Ms Markham was travelling in Europe in the 1970s when he encountered his future wife, Haga, on a tram in Brussels.

That meeting led to their marriage and six children.

The eldest three, Moses, John and Hanna, were born in the Netherlands, and lived there and in the US before the family returned to Bermuda where the youngest three, Grace, Joy and Christy were born.

The couple continued to live on the island, although some of their children have spread across the globe.

Mr Markham’s travels eventually led him into Russia during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Churches had been highly regulated and government-controlled under communism.

As the former USSR opened up, Mr Markham cofounded the World Council on Spiritual Diplomacy with Mark Bazalev.

The group remained involved in post-Soviet affairs, including travelling to Belarus in 2010 as official observers of a highly controversial presidential election.

Back home, Mr Markham poured his faith into concerted action.

He was a founding board member of Habitat for Humanity of Bermuda alongside Sheelagh Cooper, Jim Stanard and former US President Jimmy Carter.

Mr Markham helped establish a prison fellowship programme with Melvin Bassett, Neletha Butterfield, Dennis Bean and Reggie Dill, and later worked with Cleveland “Outtasight” Simmons and others to form the Alternatives to Incarceration Committee, aimed at providing second chances to people who had fallen afoul of the law.

His family said Mr Markham played “a careful role in politics, both in Bermuda and internationally”.

He helped to launch the Christian Coalition in Bermuda with Bishop Vernon Lambe, and offered political advice to the Progressive Labour Party after it became the Government in 1998, sharing views with former premiers Alex Scott and Ewart Brown.

In letters to the Gazette, Mr Markham was forthright in his views on White privilege and social justice.

He described himself as “not a doom-and-gloom person, but an optimist” who urged people to work together.

He wrote in 2011: “It is time for a new way of Bermuda thinking and innovation. I believe the ideas and solutions we need exist among our own community.

“What is lacking is our willingness to co-operate with each other. We must stop fighting and lying to each other.

“When a Bermudian has new ideas and solutions, we need to protect and encourage them to make those dreams reality.

“We cannot continue to kill the messenger because the message does not fit into our personal agenda.”

Mr Markham became a familiar sight to reporters covering the House of Assembly, seated quietly in the public gallery to observe proceedings.

His family said: “Michael's life bridged worlds in a myriad of ways — especially in politics and faith, and with Bermuda and the wider world.

“He believed in dialogue, conscience and forgiveness as forces strong enough to move nations.

“He believed in co-operation and working together as an imperative from the Lord.”

Mr Markham is survived by his wife and five of his six children, along with his granddaughter, Jasmine.

• Michael Markham, a political and spiritual activist, was born on June 20, 1944. He died in September 2025, aged 81