various times also designated Officer Administering the Government, Acting Governor, and Deputy Governor) in the absence from Bermuda, or the death, of the Governor, and Brett served as Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda in 1866, pending the arrival of the newly-appointed Governor, Major-General Sir John Henry Lefroy, Royal Artillery. Surgeon-Major Usher Williamson Evans of the regiment was appointed the Principal Medical Officer of the Bermuda Command. Not all of the regiment's time was spent on training and guard duties as construction and development of defence works at Bermuda was continuous, and labour was both expensive and scarce and the last of the convict labourers previously used for Government works had been removed from Bermuda in 1863 on the completion of work at the Royal Naval Dockyard. Sixty to eighty men were posted to Ferry Reach in November, 1867, to work under Captain James Grantham, Royal Engineers, in the construction of the causeway that was to link St. George's Island with the Main Island. The regiment departed Bermuda on 20 December, 1870, when it marched from Prospect Camp to the City of Hamilton, embarking on HMS Vixen for transfer to HMS Himalaya at the Royal Naval Dockyard, which carried the regiment to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The regiment had lost 37 men in Bermuda, including Private Vincent Hodge Kinson, who shot himself at the Casemates Barracks on Ireland Island on the 6th of December, 1867, in a fit of temporary insanity, Private William Johnson, who fell into a ditch near the same barracks on the night of 15th December, 1867, and six men during the last year at Bermuda, one of whom had died of each of the following causes: dysentery, Pthisis Pul, Haemoptyses, coma, excess of spirits, and drinking a quantity of Murray's disinfecting fluid while in a fit of delirium tremens. In 1872 they moved to Ireland. In 1873, under the Cardwell Reforms, the United Kingdom was divided into 66 "Brigade Districts" which generally corresponded to one or more counties. A depot was to be established, which would be the home for two regular infantry battalions. At any one time one of the regular battalions was to be on "home" service and the other on "foreign" duty, with the roles being rotated from time to time. The county militia regiments were also to share the depots. The 61st Foot were linked with the 28th (North Gloucestershire) Regiment of Foot