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| 2209 HMD Bermuda |
In the decades following American independence, Britain was faced with two threats to its maritime supremacy. The first was Napoleon's France, which battled for supremacy in Europe, closing continental ports to British trade, and also unleashed a storm of privateers from the French West Indies in order to cripple British trade in the New World. The second was United States, whish had its own interest in breaking Britain's supremacy on maritime trade.
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| 2210 Clocktower at the HMD Bermuda |
As a result, the Royal Navy commissioned its own light vessels, built along the lines of traditional Bermuda sloops, and began to buy islands at the West End of the chain, and in the Great Sound, with the view to building a naval base and dockyard. Initially, it developed property in and around St. George's, but soon relocated all of its facilities to the West End, and the core of the base, the Dockyard, began to take shape on Ireland Island.
In 1811, it started building the large dockyard on Ireland Island. To guard it, the British Army built up a large Bermuda Garrison, and heavily fortified the archipelago. During the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States, the British attacks on Washington, D.C. and the Chesapeake were planned and launched from Bermuda, where the headquarters of the Royal Navy's North American Station had recently been moved from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
In 1816, James Arnold, the son of Benedict Arnold, fortified HMD Bermuda (Her/His Majesty's Dockyard, Bermuda) against possible US attacks. As a result of Bermuda's proximity to the southeastern US coast, during the American Civil War Confederate States blockade runners used it as a base for runs to the South to evade Union naval vessels. The convicts brought in from the United Kingom to serve as manual labourers included many Irishmen.
During the two world wars, the Dockyard and its vessels found themselves absorbed with the role of protecting Allied merchant shipping the length and breadth of the Atlantic. After the WWII, the USA being an ally, the naval base diminished in importance, and most of the Dockyard facilities were closed in 1958, excluding HMS Malabar, which operated until 1995. Today, the National Museum of Bermuda, which incorporates the Maritime Museum, occupies The Keep of the Royal Naval Dockyard, including the Commissioner's House, and exhibits artefacts of the base's military history.
About the stamps
On the postcard 2209
The first stamp is part of the series Bermuda's beaches, part 2, issued on May 16, 2013:
• Jobson's Cove, Warwick (0.35 BMD) - It's on the postcard 2209
• Southlands Beach, Warwick (1.25 BMD)
• Astwood Park Beach (1.50 BMD) - It's on the postcard 2217
• Warwick Long Bay (1.65 BMD)
On the postcard 2210
The first postcard, depicting Angular Triton (0.20 BMD), belongs to the first part of the series Bermudan Shells, about which I wrote here.
The second stamp is part of the series Bermuda Casemates, issued on July 21, 2011:
• 0.35 BMD
• 0.70 BMD - It's on the postcard 2210
• 0.85 BMD
• 1.25 BMD
References
Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda - Wikipedia
Sender 2209, 2210: Denise
2209: Sent from Southampton (Bermuda), on 01.05.2014
Photo: John Penrod
2210: Sent from Southampton (Bermuda), on 29.04.2014
Photo: Allan Davidson
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