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-service 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.
From the 1790s onwards, the garrison existed firstly to defend Bermuda as the main base of the North America and West Indies Station, including the defence of the Royal Naval Dockyard (HM Dockyard Bermuda) and other facilities in the Imperial fortress colony that were important to Imperial security until the HM Dockyard was reduced to a base (a process that was carried out between 1951 and 1957). The movable military forces in Bermuda (the Board of Ordnance Military Corps, including the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, and Royal Sappers and Miners, and transport and ordnance and commissariat stores departments, and the infantry of the regular British Army, as opposed to the local-service forces of militia and volunteers) included significant stores capability, and was generally an overlarge garrison by comparison to other colonies (most of which received no regular garrison), with the intent that, relying on the Royal Naval squadron for transport, supply, coastal bombardment, and reinforcements in the form of landing parties of Royal Marines and sailors, Bermuda should be the launching point for military raids on the American coast by expeditionary forces detached from the defensive garrison, or that were stationed in Bermuda for that purpose, as demonstrated during the American War of 1812.
Although the last professional soldiers (a detachment of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry) were withdrawn in 1957, and the Garrison ceased to exist, two part-time components – the Bermuda Militia Artillery and the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (retitled Bermuda Rifles) – continued to exist until 1965, when they amalgamated to create the current Royal Bermuda Regiment.
1609 to 1701
The English colony of Bermuda was settled accidentally in 1609 by the Virginia Company, when its flagship, the Sea Venture was wrecked off the archipelago. Although most of the settlers eventually completed their journey to Jamestown, Virginia, the company remained in possession of Bermuda, with Virginia's borders officially extended far enough out to sea to include Bermuda in 1612. In the same year, a Governor and more settlers arrived to join the three men left behind from the Sea Venture. From then until 1701, Bermuda's defence was left entirely in the hands of her own militias.
Bermuda tended toward the Royalist side during the English Civil War, being the first of six colonies to recognise Charles II as King on the execution of his father, Charles I, in 1649, and was one of those targeted by the Rump Parliament in An Act for prohibiting Trade with the Barbadoes, Virginia, Bermuda and Antego, which was passed on 30 October 1650. With control of the "army" (the militia), the colony's Royalists deposed the Governor, Captain Thomas Turner, elected John Trimingham to replace him, and exiled many of its Parliamentary-leaning Independents to settle the Bahamas under William Sayle as the Eleutheran Adventurers. Bermuda's defences (coastal artillery batteries and forts, as well as its militia) were too powerful for the task force sent in 1651 by Parliament under the command of Admiral Sir George Ayscue to capture the Royalist colonies.
In May, 1650, the Reverend Mr. Hooper informed the Council of Bermuda that a ship under the command of Captain Powell, with Commissioners Colonel Rich, Mr. Hollond, Captain Norwood, Captain Bond, and a hundred men aboard, was prepared to seize Bermuda. Although the local Government accepted instructions that arrived at the same time from the Virginia Company regarding the appointment of Governor, it remained staunchly Royalist, prosecuting traitors against the our Soveraigne Lord the Kinge. in November of that year. No assault was attempted against Bermuda, but after the 13 January 1652 fall of Barbados, the Government of Bermuda made peace with the Commonwealth, acknowledging the legitimacy and authority of the Commonwealth of England as yt is now established without a kinge or House of Lordes, but largely preserving the internal status quo of the colony.
Alongside Bermuda's militia (as in England, a conscripted infantry force) was a standing body of volunteers (and some convicts, sentenced to carrying out military service) trained as artillery men to garrison the forts and batteries built by the local government. The earliest of these forts built were the first stone fortifications (and buildings) in the English New World, the first coastal artillery, and are today the oldest English New World fortifications still standing. Together with St. George's town, the forts near the town (including the Castle Islands Fortifications) are today a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In addition to the full-time artillerymen, all of the colony's men of military age were obliged to turn out for militia training and in case of war. They were organised as infantry and (after the Civil War, which had demonstrated the importance at that time of cavalry and mounted infantry) a Troop of Horse.
1701 to 1768 In 1701, the threat of war led the English government to post an Independent Company of regular soldiers to Bermuda, where the militia continued to function as a standby in case of war or insurrection. The company, a detachment of the 2nd Foot of the English Army, arrived in Bermuda along with the new Governor, Captain Benjamin Bennett, aboard , in May 1701, and was composed of Captain Lancelot Sandys, Lieutenant Robert Henly, two sergeants, two corporals, fifty private soldiers, and a drummer. General William Selwyn had objected to their detachment. Despite this small regular detachment, the militia remained Bermuda's primary defence force. Following the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the Independent Company was removed. A company of the 9th Foot was detached from Florida, reinforced with a detachment from the Bahamas Independent Company, but this force was withdrawn in 1768, leaving only the militia.
1793 to 1815
Regular soldiers invalided from continental battlefields as part of the Royal Garrison Battalion had been stationed in Bermuda between 1778 and 1784 during the American War of Independence, but were withdrawn following the Treaty of Paris. US independence cost the Royal Navy all of her continental bases between the Canadian Maritimes and the West Indies. As a result, following the American War of Independence the Admiralty began purchasing land around Bermuda, especially at the under-developed West End, with a view to establishing a dockyard and naval base there.
The Royal Naval establishment began with facilities in St. George's Town in 1795, after the naval surveyors had spent a dozen years charting the barrier reef that encircles Bermuda in order to discover the channel that enabled access for ships of the line to the northern lagoon, as well as to the Great Sound, Hamilton Harbour, and the West End of Bermuda. Although this channel had been located, the naval base had first been established at St. George's Town, at the East End, because the West End lands that the Admiralty was acquiring for a permanent base were as yet completely undeveloped. Vice Admiral Sir George Murray, Commander-in-Chief of the new River St. Lawrence and Coast of America and North America and West Indies Station, set up the first Admiralty House, Bermuda at Rose Hill, St. George's, with the anchorage for the fleet being what is still known as Murray's Anchorage, in the Northern Lagoon off St. George's Island. In 1813, the naval area of command including Bermuda became the North America Station again, with the West Indies falling under the Jamaica Station, and in 1816 it was renamed the North America and Lakes of Canada Station. When the United States declared war on Britain in 1812, construction of the Royal Naval Dockyard) has scarcely commenced, and the main naval base was still at St. George's alongside the main military facility, the St. George's Garrison
The British Army had re-established its garrison on Bermuda the year before the Royal Navy established its base. As the French Revolution had led to war between Britain and France, three companies of the 47th Regiment of Foot were detached to Bermuda in 1793. Prior to this point, the military garrison had always accommodated soldiers in St. George's Town and outlying forts, but construction of the Royal Barracks on the hill to the east of the town, thenceforth called Barrack Hill, marked the establishment of the first large army camp in Bermuda, St. George's Garrison. Regular soldiers would continue to be stationed in Bermuda from then 'til 1957, with the garrison expanded greatly during the 19th Century, when Bermuda was designated an Imperial Fortress, both to defend the colony as a naval base (while keeping it from becoming an enemy naval base) and to potentially launch and support amphibious operations against the Atlantic coast of the United States in any war that should transpire with the former colonies.
Prior to 1784, the Bermuda Garrison had been placed under the military Commander-in-Chief America in New York during the American War of Independence, but was subsequently to become part of the Nova Scotia Command until the 1860s (in 1815, Lieutenant-General Sir George Prevost was Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over the Provinces of Upper-Canada, Lower-Canada, Nova-Scotia, and New~Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, Vice-Admiral of the same, Lieutenant-General and Commander of all His Majesty’s Forces in the said Provinces of Lower Canada and Upper-Canada, Nova-Scotia and New-Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, and in the islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward, Cape Breton and the Bermudas, &c. &c. &c. Beneath Prevost, the staff of the British Army in the Provinces of Nova-Scotia, New-Brunswick, and their Dependencies, including the Islands of Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Prince Edward and Bermuda were under the Command of Lieutenant-General Sir John Coape Sherbrooke. Below Sherbrooke, the Bermuda Garrison was under the immediate control of the Governor of Bermuda, Major-General George Horsford).The Quebec Almanack, 1815.