Fort Shirley | |
---|---|
Cabrits National Park, Dominica | |
Coordinates | 15°35′00″N61°28′25″W / 15.5834°N 61.4735°W |
Type | Fortification |
Site history | |
Built | 1765 |
In use | No |
Materials | Stone and brick |
Fort Shirley is a historic military outpost on the Caribbean island of Dominica. It was built by the British in 1765, and was named for Sir Thomas Shirley. [1] The fort was the location of the 1802 revolt of the 8th West India Regiment. [2] Today, Fort Shirley is part of Cabrits National Park, which was established as a national park in 1986. [2] [3]
Fort Shirley is located on a peninsula just north of Portsmouth, in an area known as Prince Rupert's Head. [4] [5] The fort overlooks two bays: Prince Rupert's Bay and Douglas Bay. [2]
The British began Fort Shirley's construction in 1765 as a garrison to defend north Dominica. [2] The fort was named for Sir Thomas Shirley, Governor of the Leeward Islands at the time. [1] From 1778 to 1784, the fort was extended by the French during their occupation of Dominica. [2] The fort was built of brick and stone in the Georgian architectural style. It consisted of more than 50 buildings, [6] [2] including seven gun batteries, seven cisterns, powder magazines, and ordnance storehouses, as well as barracks that could house over 600 men. [6] [2] [7]
In April 1802, the revolt of the 8th West India Regiment took place at Fort Shirley. [8] [9] African soldiers, who were recruited as slaves and stationed at Fort Shirley, mutinied and took over the garrison for three days. [2] They did so in protest of poor conditions, lack of pay, and fears of being sold back into slavery. [10] [2] The revolt influenced the Mutiny Act 1807, [2] [11] under which all serving soldiers recruited as slaves in the West India Regiments of the British Army were freed. [12]
By the 1850s, the fort had fallen out of use. It was abandoned in 1854, [6] [13] but remained in the hands of the British Admiralty. [2] In 1901, the fort's ownership was transferred to the government of the Dominica and it remained designated as Crown Land. [2] The fort and the land around were sometimes used as a quarantine station and agricultural station, [14] [2] as well as an experimental teak forestry project. [14]
After years of deterioration, Dr. Lennox Honychurch began restoration of the fort's structures in 1982. [2] [15] Several of the buildings have been completely restored, while ruins of the rest can be found scattered around the peninsula. [15] [16]
Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people to oppose, change, or remove superiors or their orders. The term is commonly used for insubordination by members of the military against an officer or superior, but it can also sometimes mean any type of rebellion against any force. Mutiny does not necessarily need to refer to a military force and can describe a political, economic, or power structure in which subordinates defy superiors.
The 8th (King's) Regiment of Foot, also referred to in short as the 8th Foot and the King's, was an infantry regiment of the British Army, formed in 1685 and retitled the King's on 1 July 1881.
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the company's army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 mi (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858. On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859.
The West India Regiments (WIR) were infantry units of the British Army recruited from and normally stationed in the British colonies of the Caribbean between 1795 and 1927. In 1888 the two West India Regiments then in existence were reduced to a single unit of two battalions. This regiment differed from similar forces raised in other parts of the British Empire in that it formed an integral part of the regular British Army. In 1958 a new regiment was created following the creation of the Federation of the West Indies with the establishment of three battalions, however, the regiment's existence was short-lived and it was disbanded in 1962 when its personnel were used to establish other units in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Throughout their history, the regiments were involved in a number of campaigns in the West Indies and Africa, and also took part in the First World War, where they served in the Middle East and East Africa.
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The 56th Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment in the British Army, active from 1755 to 1881. It was originally raised in Northumbria as the 58th Regiment, and renumbered the 56th the following year when two senior regiments were disbanded. It saw service in Cuba at the capture of Havana in the Seven Years' War, and was later part of the garrison during the Great Siege of Gibraltar in the American Revolutionary War. During the French Revolutionary Wars it fought in the Caribbean and then in Holland. On the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars the 56th raised a second battalion in 1804 as part of the anti-invasion preparations; both saw service in India and in the Indian Ocean, with the first capturing Réunion and Mauritius. A third battalion was formed in the later years of the war, but was disbanded after a brief period of service in the Netherlands.
HMS Gaiete was a French Bonne Citoyenne-class corvette that the British frigate HMS Arethusa captured off Bermuda in 1797. She then served in the Royal Navy until she was sold in 1808.
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Lennox Honychurch is a Dominican historian and politician. He wrote 1975's The Dominica Story: A History of the Island, the 1980s textbook series The Caribbean People, and the 1991 travel book Dominica: Isle of Adventure. Also an artist and a curator, he was largely responsible for compiling the exhibit information for The Dominica Museum in Roseau. Honychurch is the grandson of writer and politician Elma Napier.
Portsmouth is the second largest town in Dominica, with 3,630 inhabitants. It is located on the shore of a natural Harbor, Prince Rupert Bay, in Saint John Parish on the north-west coast of Dominica. The area was called Ouyouhao by the Kalinago and Grand Anse by the French. The Indian River is Portsmouth’s southern border and Cabrits National Park is located on a peninsula to the north of town.
Danapur Cantonment or Danapur Cantt is a cantonment town in Danapur, Patna District in the state of Bihar, India. Danapur is a category II cantonment, established in 1765. The board consists of 14 members including 7 elected members. Danapur Cantonment, located on the outskirts of Patna, is the second oldest cantonment in India, after Barrackpur Cantonment, West Bengal. Danapur is the regimental centre of the Bihar Regiment (BRC). It was earlier called Bankipore Cantonment. Initially, it was set up at Bankipore but later set up in the Danapur area in 1766–67.
Cabrits National Park is on a peninsula at the north end of the Caribbean island of Dominica, north of Portsmouth. The park protects tropical forest, coral reefs and wetlands. There are hiking trails and an English garrison called Fort Shirley.
HMS Excellent was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Harwich on 27 November 1787. She was the captaincy of John Gell before he was appointed an Admiral.
The British West Indies Regiment was a unit of the British Army during the First World War, formed from volunteers from British colonies in the West Indies.
The Invasion of Dominica was a successful French invasion of the island of Dominica in the British West Indies, during the American Revolutionary War. The action took place before British authorities in the Caribbean were aware that France had entered the war as an ally of the United States of America. The French governor in the West Indies, François Claude Amour, marquis de Bouillé, was notified on 17 August that France was at war, and organized the invasion, infiltrating spies to rally sympathetic French-speaking Dominican support.
The Vellore mutiny, or Vellore Revolution, occurred on 10 July 1806 and was the first instance of a large-scale and violent mutiny by Indian sepoys against the East India Company, predating the Indian Rebellion of 1857 by half a century. The revolt, which took place in the Indian city of Vellore, lasted one full day, during which mutineers seized the Vellore Fort and killed or wounded 200 British troops. The mutiny was subdued by cavalry and artillery from Arcot. Total deaths amongst the mutineers were approximately 350; with summary executions of about 100 during the suppression of the outbreak, followed by the formal court-martial of smaller numbers.
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