Type Shipyard, dockyard In use 1759 – Year built 1759 | Designated 1923 Province Nova Scotia | |
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Official name Halifax Dockyard National Historic Site of Canada Controlled by Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy | ||
Royal Naval Dockyard, Halifax was a Royal Navy base in Halifax, Nova Scotia from 1759 to 1905. The Halifax Yard was the headquarters for the Royal Navy's North American Station for sixty years, starting with the Seven Years' War.
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Royal Navy (1759–1905)
Halifax Harbour had served as a Royal Navy seasonal base from the founding of the city in 1749, using temporary facilities and a careening beach on Georges Island. The British purchased Gorham Point (present-day Fleet Maintenance Facility Cape Scott) for the Naval Yard, which had been named after its previous owner ranger John Gorham. Land and buildings for a permanent Naval Yard were purchased in 1758 and the Yard was officially commissioned in 1759. The Yard served as the main base for the Royal Navy in North American during the Seven Years' War, the American Revolution, the French Revolutionary Wars and the War of 1812.
In 1818 Halifax became the summer base for the squadron which shifted to the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda for the remainder of the year. The Halifax yard did not have a dry dock until 1887 so it was officially called the "Halifax Naval Yard" when first established, although it was popularly known as the Halifax Dockyard. The graving-dock, coaling facilities and torpedo boat slip were added between 1881 and 1897. The station closed in 1905 and sold to Canada in 1907 becoming Her Majesty's Canadian Dockyard, a function it still serves today as part of CFB Halifax.
The Yard was located on the western shores of Halifax Harbour to the north of Citadel Hill and the main Halifax townsite. In addition to refitting and supplying the North American Squadron the Halifax Yard played a vital role in supplying masts and spars for the entire Royal Navy after the loss of the timber resources in the American colonies in the American Revolution. Masts cut all over British North America were collected and stored in Halifax to be shipped to British Dockyards in wartime with heavily escorted mast convoys.
The site was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1923.
Facilities
The building and facilities in the base included:
The Naval Yard was initially defended by its own large blockhouse, three redoubts and a fortified stone wall. These defences were enhanced and later replaced by the large network of Army fortifications whose main purposes was to safeguard the Naval Dockyard including nearby Fort Needham, Fort George, the Halifax Citadel; York Redoubt; Fort Charlotte on Georges Island, Fort Clarence in Dartmouth; five forts on McNabs Island and extensive batteries at Point Pleasant.
Ships
The main purpose of the Halifax Yard was to supply, man and refit ships but it also built some warships including:
Ships based at the Royal Navy Yard Halifax included:
Historic structures
Many of the original Royal Navy 18th and 19th century buildings in the Dockyard were destroyed in the 1917 Halifax Explosion; others were demolished in World War II to make way for machine shops, stores buildings and drill halls needed to man and maintain the hundreds of corvettes being commissioned during the crash expansion of the Royal Canadian Navy during the Battle of the Atlantic. Only one residence from 1814 and the Admiral's Residence from 1816 survived. The Admiral's residence in now the Maritime Command Museum. The original Naval Yard clock has been restored and moved to the Halifax Ferry Terminal entrance while the original Naval Yard bell is preserved at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, a museum which also features a large diorama depicting the Naval Yard in 1813 at its height in the Age of Sail.