400 ANNIV OF PARLIAMENT: Bermuda's Parliament is the oldest in the Commonwealth outsideof the British Isles. On 1st August 1620, just 11 years after the founding of the colony, Governor Nathaniel Butler summoned a General Assembly to meet in the Towne of St. George at the Town Church ( St. Peter's Church). In 1826, the Assembly moved to the Sessions House which is beautifully situated overlooking Hamilton Harbour on Parliament Hill. The Speaker of the House's mace is a symbol of the authority vested in the Speaker. The wooden gavel used by the Speaker of the House and was fashioned from the wood of a cedar tree that was growing in St. Peter's churchyard on the date of the first Assembly meeting in 1620.
