Sir Roland Theodore Symonette, NH (16 December 1898 – 13 March 1980) was a Bahamian politician and the first Premier of the Bahamas after self-government was achieved in 1964. He was leader of the United Bahamian Party (UBP), which some felt represented the interests of the "Bay Street Boys" and was the ruling party between 1958 and 1967. After 1967 Sir Roland Theodore Symonette asked Sir Randol Fawkes to join the U.B.P after the 1967 results were released, in order to assist the U.B.P in the formation of a new government. Biography Roland "Pop" Symonette was one of nine children of Methodist minister Edwin Lofthouse Symonette and his wife Lavania Alethia (née Weech) on the small island settlement of Current, Eleuthera. Although he had only six years of formal education, Symonette became one of the wealthiest men of his generation. An autodidact and lifelong advocate of education, he was a school teacher early in his career. As teaching was a difficult way to make a living, Symonette first tried to make his way as a fisherman and a tomato farmer in Riviera Beach, Florida, and then during Prohibition, Symonette transported whiskey to the United States. During prohibition, liquor was legal in the Bahamas but not in the United States. Bahamian citizens like Roland Symonette could legally buy and transport alcohol as long as they stayed outside US territorial waters. Symonette was among the most successful of Bahamian bootleggers because he obeyed these US territorial laws. That Symonette was a preacher’s son, considered to be decent may have contributed to his relatively good reputation among US customs/coastguard. Also he was known to have rescued a US Customs ship filled with men who other bootleggers had set adrift to die. He was humble and avoided taunting the law, unlike Bill McCoy whose stunts humiliated and angered US law men. During this time he engaged in business with the Bronfman family Sam Ross aka Samuel Bronfman. Symonette parted ways with the Bronfmans as prohibition ended and when the Bronfmans were looking into unsavory ways to profit from human vice. Presumably Symonette felt that in addition to being morally objectional, the Bronfmans' plans would endanger the populace of his small homeland. Symonette's distaste for gambling and drugs was well known. With the profits from bootlegging, Sir Roland invested in real estate, hotels, a shipyard which built boats for the British Navy during WWII and