Admiralty House, Bermuda

Admiralty House, Bermuda

Admiralty House Bermuda at Mount Wyndham (1810 to 1816)
Active 1795-1956
Country  United Kingdom
Branch  Royal Navy
Role Station command
Garrison/HQ North America and West Indies Station

'Admiralty House' in Bermuda was the official residence and offices for the senior officer of the Royal Navy in the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, originally the Commander-in-Chief of the North America and West Indies Station.

The first location of the Admiralty House had been in St. George's Town, between 1795 and 1806. St. George's Harbour, up 'til that time, had been the only harbour suitable for large naval vessels which had a known access route through Bermuda's encircling barrier reef. The Royal Navy had begun establishing itself in and around the town, especially at Convict Bay, but had longer term plans for a dockyard and naval base at the opposite end of the archipelago. Royal Naval hydrographers had spent a dozen years in charting the reef, and had discovered channels enabling the Royal Navy to begin mooring vessels off the north shore of St. George's Island in a location that became known as Murray's Anchorage, after Vice-Admiral Sir George Murray, who led the first fleet to anchor there in 1794. This also opened up the West End of Bermuda, where the Royal Navy had already begun purchasing land around the Great Sound, and Hamilton Harbour to access by large vessels.


St. John's Hill, a property at Spanish Point, in Pembroke Parish that belonged to John Dunscombe (a Bermudian who later became a prominent resident and Lieutenant-Governor of Newfoundland), was rented by the Admiralty in 1810 as a residence for the Royal Naval Commander-in-Chief, by then Admiral Sir John Warren. It was then intended to move to a house on Langton Hill, also in Pembroke, but this evidently did not happen. In 1810, Admiralty House moved to the rented Mount Wyndham, above Bailey's Bay. [1] This location allowed observation of both St. George's Harbour and Murray's Anchorage, and signals could be passed between these points with visual aids (flags or lights). Mount Wyndham was "granted by" the House of Assembly in 1812, and St. John's Hill (which was still being rented by the Admiralty, but had been sitting vacant) was adapted to a naval hospital during a yellow fever endemic that year. [2]

With the development of the Royal Naval Dockyard underway at Ireland Island, Bermuda, Mount Wyndham was unable to provide visibility of the base or the Great Sound, where a new anchorage would be located at Grassy Bay. Consequently, Spanish Point was rented by the Admiralty for a peppercorn beginning in 1813. However, the blockade of the Atlantic Seaboard harbours of the United States during the American War of 1812 was orchestrated from Mount Wyndham, as was the punitive raid on the Chesapeake Bay in 1814 that included the Burning of Washington. In 1816 St. John's Hill was purchased by the Government of Bermuda for £2,000-3,000 pounds and gifted to the Admiralty by the House of Assembly. "Admiralty House" moved there from Mount Wyndham in the same year.

In 1822, St. John's Hill was renamed "Clarence Hill", commemorating Admiral of the Fleet, Prince William, the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV), and remained Admiralty House 'til 1956, after which it was transferred to the local government for use by the Headquarters of the Bermuda Local Forces, part of the Bermuda Garrison of the British Army, which oversaw the Bermuda Militia Artillery and the Bermuda Rifles (but was subsidiary to the Command Headquarters at Prospect Camp.

It is unclear whether it was ever used for this purpose. The Bermuda Government used it as a barracks for the Bermuda Police Service (the first constables housed there were originally caretakers). The property was later adapted for the rehabilitation of drug addicts, and the house was burnt deliberately to raze it as it was considered unsafe. It retains a naval use today as part of the property houses TS Bermuda, the headquarters unit of the Bermuda Sea Cadet Corps, a youth organisation officered by volunteers with honorary commissions in the Royal Navy Reserve.

Mount Wyndham (where the Great Seal of the Confederacy, which had been waiting in Bermuda for delivery to Charleston, South Carolina by blockade-runner, was kept for many decades after the defeat of the Confederate States of America ended the American Civil War) returned to use as a private dwelling after Admiralty House was relocated to St. John's Hill, and currently is part of a housing condominium development which includes many newer buildings.

References

  1. ↑ Bermuda's First Admiralty House, by Dr. Edward Cecil Harris. The Royal Gazette, 1 October, 2011
  2. ↑ "The Andrew and the Onions", by Lieutenant-Commander Ian Strannack