The voyage from Alexandria took three weeks and then the white buildings and dark green juniper groves of Bermuda came in sight. The Dunera arrived on 2nd December. The Battalion disembarked on the 3rd and 5th and were at once split up into three detachments at Prospect Barracks, Boaz Island and St. George's, with Headquarters at Boaz.

It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast in military stations than was afforded by the change from Khartoum to Bermuda. From the tropical heat of the Sudan, the limitless desert with its mirages and haboubs (sandstorms), and the smell of Nile mud, the Battalion came to what amounted to a seaside resort in picturesque surroundings, with a mild and equable climate not unlike that of England in summer.

The duties at each station were also equal in contrast. At Khartoum the Battalion had to maintain the British prestige in the Sudan after its conquest, and to be ready to assist the Egyptian Army in subduing any possible future rising by the turbulent Arab tribes. In Bermuda, whose populations have always been loyal, the Battalion had merely to act as a guard for the Naval Base and HM Dockyard in conjunction with another battalion already there.

– Lt. Col. E.C. Packe, DSO, OBE, "The 3rd Battalion Royal Fusiliers at Bermuda, 1903-1905".

Militarily, Bermuda slept into the early 1780s, when war was concluded with the rebels in the 13 British colonies of the eastern seaboard. Although some 40-odd forts had been erected in the 160 years since colonisation along the eastern and southern coasts of the island, with a few structures inland, those works of war were the very small constructions of the settlers themselves, not of the mighty British Army.

Effective for the purposes of the day, protecting the channels into the two main anchorages of St. George's and Castle Harbours and landing places on the south shore beaches, those forts were utterly obsolete by1809, when the Dockyard was established in the westernmost parish of Sandys.

The comparison may be made to the Keep at Dockyard, a ten-acre fortification, now the Maritime Museum, that could contain within its ramparts all of the pre-1800s colonial redoubts. Aside from their size, the design, or "trace" of the early forts was also antediluvian, when compared to the bastioned works of the dockyard and the even more modern polygonal trace of Fort Cunningham.

With the independence of the American colonies in 1783, Bermuda's military slumber came to an end. The Royal Engineers, "purveyors of technology to the Empire", arrived in the form of Captain Andrew Durnford, later the first Mayor of St. George's, to inspect the coastal defences of Bermuda and to make recommendations for their improvement.

The glory days of military funding of the local economy had begun, first through the building of great new forts and the Dockyard, and secondarily by the establishment and garrisoning of military camps in the centre and two ends of the island.

While the economic and number-crunching historians have yet to write up the balance sheet, make no mistake about it: the prosperity of Bermuda for more than 200 years from the 1783 to 1995 was due in large measure to the presence of British, American and Canadian forces in local waters, on the ground and latterly, in the air.

The Royal Engineers and their fortifications were followed by the regular British Army and its garrisons, several thousand in strength at any given time, when combined with the naval forces resident at the Dockyard.

Aside from the impact on the local environment of building the Dockyard and the large 19th-century forts, and then the garrison camps, the military had a tremendous effect on the social life of Bermuda.

Parades, balls and many sporting activities became a part of daily live in Bermuda, in addition to employment across the board, especially after Emancipation, particularly in the building trades. Wine and cash flowed, possibly in equal amounts, whereas in the former military arena of the West Indies, a deep and lasting recession took place, as most British military funding was transferred to Bermuda and Halifax in Nova Scotia.

Marriages and other arrangements took place between the foreign personnel and locals, the results of which are yet with us. If you are of a mind to give thanks for a mixed blessing, know that my paternal grandfather arrived on these shores as a bandmaster of the Royal Fusiliers in 1903.

He married Bermudian Agnes Matilda Whitecross and they then travelled the Empire with the Army, returning to Bermuda after the First World War. Granny, unusually perhaps, was listed as a photographer on their marriage certificate, but we have not one image that she ever took, except perhaps a single shot on the day of their nuptials.

Sergeant William Sydney Harris was probably based at Prospect Camp, which was the main Bermuda army base for the century or so, before the garrison left the island for the last time in 1957. Prospect, in the central Devonshire Parish, was comprised from a great acreage of land compulsorily acquired from private landowners, many of whom also lost their ancestral homes, such as Clifton near the American Consulate. Some of the Prospect land is now occupied by CedarBridge Academy, which was built on the demolished and unrecorded bones of most of the large garrison barracks.

At the east end, other acquisitions removed Bermudians from extensive lands to the north and east of the town of St. George's, while in the west, the whole of Boaz Island was turned into a military encampment in the 1850s.

One of the main modern groups to benefit from some those land acquisitions of the mid-1800s is the golfers who ply their play on the public courses composed from significant parts of the St. George's and Prospect Camps.

How wonderful it would have been if Government funds expended on those fields had been equalled in the last 50 years by public investments in the military assets of cultural tourism that were associated with the garrisons of old.

However, it has to be admitted that golf also has a military heritage, as Colonel Packe reported in 1906: "Most of the land in Bermuda, being under close cultivation, was out of bounds to Troops, and what little ground there was available was so rocky that it was impossible to dig trenches in it. For this reason, most of the training exercises had to take place along the roads of which the most usual were the Devonshire road, North Shore, Middle and South Shore roads, the Serpentine road and the Outpost road. Two golf courses were also available for training but not, of course, for trench digging."

In addition to the permanent camps at Boaz, Prospect and St. George's, summer camps were established at Warwick Camp and St. David's Battery in the decade or so before the First World War. The former has become the permanent home, or garrison, of the Bermuda Regiment, thus continuing an unbroken line of military camping by the seaside that began over two centuries ago in the wake of the American Revolution.

Colonel Packe remarked on the atmosphere, some of which is unchanged: "One of the features of Bermuda was the beauty of the scenery and this was enhanced with the approach of summer by the hedges of oleander coming into flower. The effect of the white houses built of coral rock, groves of dark green juniper trees, white roads with hedges of pink and white oleander, surrounded by a deep blue sea and generally in brilliant sunshine was very beautiful."

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. This article represents his opinions and not necessarily those of persons associated with the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm or by telephone to 799-5480.