He became Governor of the Gambia in November 1928, finding it hard to deal with the general strike called by the Bathurst Trade Union in late 1929.
To head off trouble, Governor Denham appointed commissions to investigate wage rates and unemployment, followed by emergency public works initiatives.
The recent emergence of a group of well-educated mixed-raced Jamaican politicians posed the main threat to British colonial rule.
[2] On Friday 3 June 1938 the crew of HMS Ajax (22) buried the Jamaican Governor's body at sea at sunset outside the three-mile limit offshore after his bronze coffin was taken to the ship on a gun carriage.
In 1944, six years after his death, Jamaicans were granted universal adult suffrage, an idea initiated by Governor Edward Denham.