 White's Island in 2006 | |
  Location of White's Island in Bermuda | |
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Hamilton Harbour |
| Coordinates | 32°17′17″N64°47′05″W / 32.2881°N 64.7847°W |
| Administration | |
Bermuda | |
White's Island is an island located in Hamilton Harbour in Hamilton, Bermuda, the only island directly adjoined on all sides by the harbour.
The island was originally known as Hunt's Island. Following US independence, the Royal Navy, deprived of its continental bases between Nova Scotia and the West Indies, established the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island. In addition to Ireland, Boaz, and Watford islands at the West of the Great Sound, the Admiralty purchased most of the small islands in the Great Sound and Hamilton Harbour. Over the following century, the Royal Navy and the British Army found various uses of these smaller islands.
White's Island served as a United States Navy base (Number 24) during the closing years of the First World War, being used as a staging point for anti-submarine vessels deploying to the European theatre of operations during their trans-Atlantic crossings. [1]
White's Island currently belongs to the Bermuda Government, assigned to its Department of Youth, Sport and Recreation, which has permitted its use for many years by youth charities. The Bermuda Sailing Association (BSA) had an informal lease, which it lost on September 28, 2010, when a minister of the Progressive Labour Party government granted a 21-year lease to a new charity, CARTEL (Challenging and Reclaiming the True Essence of Life), for use in its youth rehabilitation programme. The government of Bermuda closed the Training School, its last facility for juvenile delinquents (a youth prison that had been located on Paget Island, Bermuda, in St. George's Harbour), two decades before. [2] Leases of government land for twenty-one years or longer require parliamentary approval. The PLP government avoided this by granting a lease for one day short of twenty-one years. The BSA was forced to relocate its youth sailing programme to Darrell's Island. The Bermuda Amateur Swimming Association (BASA), which had also long had free use of White's Island for its own youth programme, was advised it would have to pay CARTEL $10 per child per week for its continued use of the island. The Bermuda Rowing Association was permitted to continue its use of the island for its youth programme at no charge. The granting of a lease to CARTEL, which is controlled by PLP party officers, is tied to wider accusations of the misappropriation of government revenues and assets by the PLP, which was defeated in the parliamentary election of 2012.
The association typically welcomes 80 to 120 children a week to the camp, meaning it could have to pay CARTEL as much as $7,200 before the end of the summer. [3]
In 2013, the Corporation of the City of Hamilton revealed its controversial redevelopment plans for the Hamilton waterfront, which include a casino hotel on White's. As gambling is illegal in Bermuda, and a promised referendum on its legalisation has not yet been held, critics have questioned why the corporation and the private company with which it has partnered are already planning a casino. [4]
Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about 1,035 km (643 mi) to the west-northwest.
Bermuda is the oldest British Overseas Territory, and the oldest self-governing British Overseas Territory, and has a great degree of internal autonomy through authority and roles of governance delegated to it by the national Government. Its parliament held its first session in 1620, making it the third-oldest continuous parliament in the world. As part of the British realm, King Charles III is head of state and is represented in Bermuda by a Governor, whom he appoints on the advice of the British Government. The Governor has special responsibilities in four areas: external affairs, defence, internal security, and policing.
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.
The Sea Cadet Corps is a national youth charity. It is present in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Malta and Bermuda. Cadets follow an ethos, training plan and rank structure similar to that of the Royal Navy, and are recognised by the UK Ministry of Defence.
The City of Hamilton, in Pembroke Parish, is the territorial capital of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. It is the territory's financial centre and a port and tourist destination. Its population of 854 (2016) is one of the smallest of any capital city.
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.
The Progressive Labour Party (PLP) is one of the three political parties in Bermuda. At the 18 July 2017 general election, the party won 24 of the 36 seats in the Bermudian House of Assembly to become the governing party. The party was founded in 1963, the first political party in Bermuda, and the oldest still active. It formed government from 1998 to 2012, and again since 2017.
Paget Parish is one of the nine parishes of Bermuda. It is named for William Paget, 4th Baron Paget de Beaudesert (1572–1629).
Hamilton Harbour is a natural harbour in Bermuda which serves as the port for the capital, the City of Hamilton. It is an arm of the Great Sound, and forms a tapering wedge shape of water between Paget Parish and the peninsula which forms Pembroke Parish, and upon which the capital sits.
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.
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.
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.
Naval Air Station Bermuda, was located on St. David's Island in the British Colony of Bermuda from 1970 to 1995, on the former site of Kindley Air Force Base. It is currently the site of Bermuda International Airport.
The Bermuda Fitted Dinghy is a type of racing-dedicated sail boat used for competitions between the yacht clubs of Bermuda. Although the class has only existed for about 130 years, the boats are a continuance of a tradition of boat and ship design in Bermuda that stretches back to the earliest decades of the 17th century.
Agar's Island is an island of Bermuda. Located in the Great Sound, near to the shore of the parish of Pembroke, it was owned by billionaire James Martin, and was historically a secret munitions store, part of the Bermuda Garrison of the British Army.
The United States Naval Station Whites Island was a United States Navy (USN) facility located on White's Island in Hamilton Harbour, in the British Colony of Bermuda, 640 miles off the coast of North Carolina.
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.
HMS Castle Harbour was a civilian harbour vessel of 730 tons that was taken-up from trade (TUFT) during the Second World War by the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda for use by the Royal Naval Examination Service and later armed and commissioned as a warship, providing harbour defence from submarines.
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.
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.