History of the Commissioner's House

Commissioner’s House as viewed from the lower yard of the Keep.

THE COMMISSIONER’S HOUSE STANDS MAGNIFICENT OVER THE OLD ROYAL NAVAL Dockyard, an imposing building dominating the channel into the Great Sound and Hamilton Harbour. This extraordinary structure was built as the private quarters and ceremonial residence for the Commissioner, who was the administrator of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Bermuda.

The main building measures one hundred feet to a side. Rising three stories above the ramparts of the Keep, Bermuda’s largest fort and home of the Maritime Museum, the Commissioner’s House is the most conspicuous landmark at the west end of the Island.

All of the cast iron floor and veranda joists, roof truss members and columns for the verandas were prefabricated in England. Sent to Bermuda in sailing ships, they were manhandled into position as construction progressed. The cast iron was complemented by the use of hard Bermuda limestone for the exterior walls, quarried on site in the Dockyard. Aside from the Commissioner’s House and the buildings of the Dockyard and its fortifications, no other buildings in Bermuda were ever constructed with this beautiful limestone, as it was too hard to be used for local domestic structures. It also existed only at Ireland Island in amounts that could be economically quarried: such was the luck of the Royal Navy (and our legacy) in the wonderful buildings and fortifications they produced with it.

The office of Commissioners for the naval dockyards was abolished in 1837, at which time the Commissioner’s House became an army barracks. The Royal Marines Light Infantry, responsible for manning the guns of the Dockyard, occupied the building through the First World War. In 1919, it was commissioned as HMS Malabar, as the Bermuda Dockyard then became known until its final closure on March 31, 1995. After the Second World War, HMS Malabar was moved to another site and the Commissioner’s House slowly fell into disrepair.

The Commissioner’s House and its surrounding fortifications, photographed from the air in the 1920s. Commissioner’s House was the centrepiece of the Keep, the largest fort in Bermuda at the end of the Old Royal Naval Dockyard in western Sandys Parish.

The Bermuda Maritime Museum was established in 1974 and has hosted over a million visitors in the last 20 years. Its Trustees took on the responsibility of the restoration of all the buildings, ramparts and grounds of the Keep, including the Commissioner’s House. With all the other restoration works, coupled with setting up exhibitions and administration, the Commissioner’s House could not be started in a serious manner until the late 1980s. During those years, the project was kept alive and remedial work to the main building and the restoration or renovation of the outbuildings was accomplished largely due to the very generous gifts of the late Rohan and Margaret Sturdy and their family. Other individuals and companies have since made donations to ensure that the Commissioner’s House will be restored and become the architectural centrepiece of the Museum.