Convict's Bay, Bermuda

Last updated

Convict Bay
St George's Town and St George's Garrison , Bermuda OS Map Lieut AJ Savage 1901.jpg
Map of St George's Town and Garrison, including Convict Bay, ca. 1899
Coordinates 32°22′49″N64°40′25″W / 32.3803°N 64.6737°W / 32.3803; -64.6737
TypeRoyal Engineers Yard. Company offices
Site information
Owner War Office
OperatorFlag of the British Army.svg  British Army
Site history
Built1864
Built for War Office
In use1864–1957
Garrison information
Garrison St. George's Garrison, Bermuda, Bermuda Garrison
Occupants Royal Engineers

Convicts' Bay (better known as Convict Bay) is a bay located in St. George's Harbour on the eastern side of St. George's Town on St. George's Island, Bermuda, and near to Ordnance Island.

Contents

The bay was part of the Royal Navy base in Bermuda, which was at St. George's from 1795 through the American War of 1812, pending construction of the Royal Naval Dockyard. It was subsequently part of St. George's Garrison until the 1950s, with HMCS Somers Isles, a Royal Canadian Navy training base, established there during the Second World War.

History

Convicts' Bay was named after the use of the area as a prison. The British administration used obsolete warships as floating prisons, prison hulks, in New York City during the American War of Independence and applied them to use on the island. In 1799, a hulk was towed to Somerset Island, Bermuda and one more by 1824. Several would be used at the Royal Naval Dockyard and one at Convict Bay. Convict Bay was transferred to the Army in the 1860s (along with other Admiralty properties at the East End and in the Central parishes), and the army merged the facility with the adjacent St. George's Garrison, which overlooked it, and used the bay for various purposes (initially as a Royal Engineers yard) until the Second World War. The military detachments housed there were withdrawn to make way for the Royal Canadian Navy's HMCS Somers Isles for the duration of the war. It was part of the War Office and Admiralty lands slated for disposal in the 1950s.

Today

After the departure of the military from Convict Bay and the rest of St. George's Garrison, the area is now a residential neighbourhood. Streets in the area reflect the neighbourhood's past:


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military of Bermuda</span>

While the defence of Bermuda remains the responsibility of the government of the United Kingdom, rather than of the local Bermudian Government, the island still maintains a militia for the purpose of defence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stone frigate</span> Naval establishment on land

A stone frigate is a naval establishment on land.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Navy Dockyard</span> State-owned shipbuilding and maintenance facilities for the British navy

Royal Navy Dockyards were state-owned harbour facilities where ships of the Royal Navy were built, based, repaired and refitted. Until the mid-19th century the Royal Dockyards were the largest industrial complexes in Britain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ireland Island, Bermuda</span> Island in Bermuda

Ireland Island is the north-westernmost island in the chain which comprises Bermuda. It forms a long finger of land pointing northeastwards from the main island, the last link in a chain which also includes Boaz Island and Somerset Island. It lies within Sandys Parish, and forms the northwestern coast of the Great Sound. It is regarded as one of the six principal islands of Bermuda, and part of the West End of the archipelago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boaz Island, Bermuda</span>

Boaz Island, formerly known as Gate's Island or Yates Island, is one of the six main islands of Bermuda. It is part of a chain of islands in the west of the country that make up Sandys Parish, lying between the larger Ireland Island and Watford Island, with which it has been joined by a man-made isthmus. South of Watford Island is Somerset Island. Boaz and Watford are connected to Somerset by Watford Bridge, and to Ireland by Gray's Bridge. Watford's east coast forms part of the edge of the Great Sound. The western end of the channel between Boaz and Watford was blocked by the isthmus, creating a camber that opens to the Great Sound. Boaz and Watford Islands were parts of the Royal Naval base, which included the HM Dockyard on Ireland Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. George's Harbour, Bermuda</span>

St. George's Harbour is a natural harbour in the north of Bermuda. It serves as the port for the town of St. George's, located on St. George's Island, to its north. To its south is St. David's Island. The harbour and both islands lie within St. George's Parish. It was for two centuries the primary harbour of the British Overseas Territory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda</span> Base of the Royal Navy in the Western Atlantic

HMD Bermuda was the principal base of the Royal Navy in the Western Atlantic between American independence and the Cold War. The Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda had occupied a useful position astride the homeward leg taken by many European vessels from the New World since before its settlement by England in 1609. French privateers may have used the islands as a staging place for operations against Spanish galleons in the 16th century. Bermudian privateers certainly played a role in many English and British wars following settlement, with its utility as a base for his privateers leading to the Earl of Warwick, the namesake of Warwick Parish, becoming the most important investor of the Somers Isles Company. Despite this, it was not until the loss of bases on most of the North American Atlantic seaboard threatened Britain's supremacy in the Western Atlantic that the island assumed great importance as a naval base. In 1818 the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda officially replaced the Royal Naval Dockyard, Halifax, as the British headquarters for the North America Station (which would become the North America and West Indies Station after absorbing the Jamaica Station in 1830.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bermuda Sea Cadet Corps</span> Military unit

The Bermuda Sea Cadet Corps was created in 1966 and registered as a charity under the Bermuda Sea Cadet Association Act, 1968. The first unit had actually been created two years earlier.

Canadian Forces Station Bermuda, commonly shortened to CFS Bermuda and popularly known as Daniel's Head, was a Canadian Forces Station in Bermuda that was operational from 1963 until 1992. Daniel's Head and Daniel's Island had previously been used by the militia, the regular army, and the Royal Navy. A previous Canadian base, HMCS Somers Isles, had existed during the Second World War.

HMCS Somers Isles was a temporary training facility and stone frigate for the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) in Bermuda from 1944 to 1945 during the Second World War. Following the war, the base was closed. Beginning in mid-1944, work-up training for naval ships stationed on the East Coast of Canada took place in Bermudian waters as it allowed for training year-round compared to the RCN's previous work-up site, St. Margaret's Bay and Pictou, Nova Scotia.

Watford Island is an island of Bermuda.

Vice Admiral George Murray was a Royal Navy officer and politician. He was the third son of the Jacobite general Lord George Murray.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bermuda Garrison</span> British military post

The Bermuda Garrison was the military establishment maintained on the British Overseas Territory and Imperial fortress of Bermuda by the regular British Army and its local militia and voluntary reserves from 1701 to 1957. The garrison evolved from an independent company, to a company of Royal Garrison Battalion during the American War of Independence, and a steadily growing and diversifying force of artillery and infantry with various supporting corps from the French Revolution onwards. During the American War of Independence, the garrison in Bermuda fell under the military Commander-in-Chief of America. Subsequently, it was part of the Nova Scotia Command until 1868, and was an independent Bermuda Command from then until its closure in 1957.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prospect Camp, Bermuda</span> Military installation manned by the Royal Garrison Artillery

Prospect Camp, also referred to as Prospect Garrison, was the main infantry camp of the Bermuda Garrison, the military force stationed in the Imperial fortress of Bermuda. It also contained Fort Prospect, Fort Langton, and Fort Hamilton, as well as being the base for mobile artillery batteries, manned by the Royal Artillery. Outlying parts of the camp were disposed of in the early decades of the Twentieth Century as the garrison in Bermuda was reduced. The core area, including the barracks, passed to the local government when the garrison was withdrawn in 1957.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Historic Town of St George and Related Fortifications, Bermuda</span> UNESCO World Heritage Site in British Overseas Territories, United Kingdom

The Historic Town of St George and Related Fortifications is the name used by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee to identify collectively as a World Heritage Site St. George's Town, founded in 1612, and a range of fortifications, batteries, and magazines built between 1612 and 1939, the last of which was removed from use in 1953.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Redoubt</span>

The Western Redoubt, or Fort William, is a square fort built on a crest on the eastern side of Government Hill, and within the boundaries of the original main British Army camp in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, St. George's Garrison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Admiralty House, Bermuda</span> Military unit

Admiralty House, Bermuda, was the official residence and offices for the senior officer of the Royal Navy in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, originally the Commander-in-Chief of the North America and West Indies Station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. George's Garrison, Bermuda</span> British military post

St. George's Garrison was the first permanent military camp of the Bermuda Garrison established in the British colony and Imperial fortress of Bermuda, with construction of Old Military Road and the original Royal Barracks commencing during the war between Britain and France that followed the French Revolution. It would remain in use until 1957, when it was transferred to the civil (colonial) government with most of the other Admiralty and War Office properties in Bermuda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imperial fortress</span> One of four key British colonial military outposts

Lord Salisbury described Malta, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and Halifax as Imperial fortresses at the 1887 Colonial Conference, though by that point they had been so designated for decades. Later historians have also given the title "imperial fortress" to St. Helena and Mauritius.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort George, Bermuda</span>

Fort George is a square fort built on the crest of Mount Hill to the west of St. George's Town, near to, but outside of the boundaries of the original main British Army camp in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, St. George's Garrison.