page_title: Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda / 19th century
context_page_description: HMD Bermuda was the principal base of the Royal Navy in the Western Atlantic between American independence and the Cold War. 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 Imperial wars following settlement. 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 and West Indies Station.
context_section_description: After the War, the Navy concentrated on the building of the Dockyard, while the Army began its own buildup of fortifications, coastal artillery, and infantry garrisons to defend the Naval Base, as the British Government began to view Bermuda more as a base than as a colony.
  The convicts brought in from the United Kingdom to serve as manual labourers included many Irishmen, including participants in the ill-fated Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 and Nationalist journalist and politician John Mitchel. Conditions for the convicts were harsh, and discipline was draconian. In April 1830, convict James Ryan was shot and killed during rioting of convicts on Ireland Island. Another five convicts were given death sentences for their parts in the riots, with those of the youngest three being commuted to transportation for life. In 1849, convict James Cronin, on the hulk Medway at Ireland Island, was placed in solitary confinement from the 25th to the 29th for fighting. On release, and being returned to work, he refused to be cross-ironed. He ran onto the breakwater, brandishing a poker threateningly. For this, he was ordered to receive punishment (presumably flogging) on Tuesday, 3 July 1849, with the other convicts aboard the hulk assembled behind a rail to witness. When ordered to strip, he hesitated. Thomas Cronin, his older brother, addressed him and, while brandishing a knife, rushed forward to the separating rail. He called out to the other prisoners in Gaelic and many joined him in attempting to free the prisoner and attack the officers. The officers opened fire. Two men were killed and twelve wounded. Punishment of James Cronin was then carried out. Three-hundred men of the 42nd Regiment of Foot, in barracks on Ireland Island, responded to the scene under arms.
  In addition to Mitchel, notable convicts sent to Bermuda included Irish painter William Burke Kirwan.
  In 1851 Master stone carver Charles Thomas Thomas travelled to North America. He was appointed foreman of works with the Works Department of the British Royal Navy, responsible for development of the strategic Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda. By the time the first phase of development was complete, in the 1860s, the convict establishment was no longer seen as politically expedient. The last convicts were withdrawn in 1863, returned to Britain on the Bermudian merchant clipper, Cedrine (which was wrecked on the Isle of Wight, on its maiden voyage, costing Captain Thomas Melville Dill, grandfather of the parliamentarian and Attorney General of the same name, his Master's certificate).
  The primary limitation of Bermuda as a Dockyard was the porosity of its limestone sandstone, which prevented construction of a proper drydock. From 1869, this problem was remedied with a floating drydock. This, and its successors, was a large hull, with a U-shaped cross-section. It could be partly submerged by filling ballast tanks with water, so that a ship might be brought in and braced into position. The tanks were then emptied to lift the ship out of the water for repairs below its waterline.
  When the second phase of development began at the end of the 19th century, there was still a shortage of Bermudians willing to work as common labourers, and the Admiralty resorted to importing labour from British West Indian islands (which were suffering economic hardship due to the loss of the sugar industry, following American victory in the Spanish–American War). This began a century of sustained immigration into Bermuda from the West Indies which has had profound social and political effects.
  The Dockyard served as the base for a succession of Royal Naval organisations, including the North America and West Indies Squadron. A fleet of C-class cruisers and smaller vessels was based there in the 1930s. In both World Wars, Bermuda served as a staging area for trans-Atlantic convoys.
caption: Dockyard, Camber, Hulks and Casemates Barracks, 1857
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