Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard
| Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard | |
|---|---|
| Kingston, Ontario | |
Naval shipyard, Point Frederick, July 1815. Watercolour by Emeric Essex Vidal. Commodore's house and two ships under construction, the Canada and the Wolfe, can be seen in the background
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| Coordinates | 44°13′44″N 76°28′07″W / 44.22889°N 76.46861°WCoordinates: 44°13′44″N 76°28′07″W / 44.22889°N 76.46861°W |
| Type | Shipyard, dockyard |
| Site information | |
| Controlled by | Royal Navy |
| Site history | |
| Built | 1788 |
| In use | 1788—1853 |
| Battles/wars | Active during the War of 1812 |
| Garrison information | |
| Garrison |
Royal Navy base for Lake Ontario |
| Official name | Kingston Navy Yard National Historic Site of Canada |
| Designated | 1928 |
Royal Navy base for Lake Ontario
The Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard from 1788 to 1853 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, at the site of the current Royal Military College of Canada.
The British naval forces on the lakes, known as the Provincial Marine, followed the practices and rank structure of the Royal Navy, but with some flexibility. The Provincial Marine were established and controlled by the army and manned by personnel borrowed from the navy, by soldiers, and by direct recruitment of Great Lakes sailors. The Provincial Marine used lightly armed topsail schooners for transportation.
A government wharf was constructed in 1783 on the eastern side of Lake Ontario by Major John Ross of the 34th Regiment, who was responsible for settling Loyalists at Cataraqui (what is now Kingston) between 1783 and 1785.
In 1785, the place of transshipment for government stores was relocated from Carleton Island to Cataraqui. The merchants who handled transshipment of stores at Carleton Island, using Provincial Marine vessels, built wharves and warehouses near old Fort Frontenac.
Point Frederick was established as a naval depot in 1789 and ships began to be constructed. Point Frederick served as the Lake Ontario base of the British naval establishment and the headquarters of the senior naval officer on all the Great Lakes from 1789–1813. The quarter-master-general's department of the army, who had a monopoly of shipping on the Great Lakes, built transport schooners of the Provincial Marine on Point Frederick by 1792. Because relations with the United States were rapidly deteriorating, a heavily armed, three-masted square-rigged vessel, HMS Royal George, was built in 1809 and launched in Navy Bay specifically for fighting on the lakes, but she was not immediately commissioned. Commodore Hugh Earle was named commander to the Provincial Marine; he commanded the Royal George when she bombarded the American dockyard at Sackets Harbor on 19 July 1812 and when she was attacked by American gunboats off Kingston on 10 November 1812.
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