Bermuda had maintained its own militias (in which all able-bodied, adult males, free or enslaved, were required to serve) since British rule officially began in 1612.

With the buildup of the Royal Naval Dockyard and the attendant Regular Army garrison in the years following the American War of Independence, however, the Government of Bermuda quickly lost interest in funding a militia that seemed superfluous.

For the next eight decades, the Secretary of State for War, and the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda implored the local government in vain to raise a military reserve force as vast funds were channelled into building up the colony's defences.

The colonial government, however, feared being saddled with the entire cost of maintaining the garrison, and was also concerned of the social discord that would result from raising either racially integrated or segregated units.

Major General Sir William Reid, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda from 1839 to 1846, was forced to raise a body of voluntary reservists without the assistance of the local government, which recruited part-time soldiers into the regular army and the Board of Ordnance military corps without racial discrimination, although relatively few white Bermudians enlisted.

[3][4] Although this unit was short-lived, other Bermudians appear to have continued to serve on a local-service, and presumably part-time, basis (many others simply enlisted as regular full-time soldiers) with the regular detachments in Bermuda (note First Sergeant Robert John Simmons of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, who died of wounds as a prisoner of war following the assault on Battery Wagner.

Simmons was described by abolitionist, lecturer, novelist, playwright, historian and former slave William Wells Brown as "a young man of more than ordinary abilities who had learned the science of war in the British Army".

[5][6] In Britain, too, many citizens felt the government was neglecting the defence of that island by deploying much of the army around the World on garrison duty.

[7] As funds for the increase of the British Army were not forthcoming, and with the threat of invasion by France, the government tackled these issues by raising a Volunteer Force of part-time soldiers in 1859.

In addition to creating these part-time reserve forces, the British Government sought to redeploy regular army units from imperial garrisons back to Britain, where they could be used for defence or to compose expeditionary forces to be sent overseas to war zones, and replacing them with full-time or part-time units raised locally.

As neither the London nor the Hamilton government was keen to pay for these units, decades more would pass before the regular army garrison in Bermuda began to be drawn down.

Bermuda's new tourism industry, pioneered in the latter 19th century by Princess Louise, Samuel Clemens and others, provided the Secretary of State with the leverage to compel the colonial government.

He withheld his approval of American investment into the new Princess Hotel and the dredging of the shipping channel into St. George's Harbour as the first could provide a pretext for invasion (by the US, to protect the interests of its nationals), and the latter would make it easier for an enemy force to invade.

Accordingly, the Parliament of Bermuda passed three acts drafted by the London Government authorising the creation of voluntary, part-time artillery, rifle, and sappers-and-miners (engineers) units.

The old militia, in England and Wales, as well as in Bermuda, had been a body of men who gathered annually to train, and could be called out and embodied in times of emergency.

In Bermuda, which had seen the buildup of a regular army garrison, the militia had been allowed to lapse, but the American War of 1812 led to its resurrection.

Whereas the Militia infantry and the mounted units had embodied only for annual training, or during times or war or emergency (which included quelling the Privateer Riots in Bermuda), a standing force of the Militia Artillery had been required to maintain the coastal artillery defences in Britain and Bermuda, guarding against attacks that might come at any time.

In Bermuda, roughly five hundred artillery pieces were emplaced by mid-century, but without the support of a militia, the regular gunners were sufficient to man only a fraction of them.

Small contingents were sent to England in 1897, to take part in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and in 1902, for the coronation of King Edward VII.

Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig commended the contingent, writing: They were employed on heavy ammunition dumps, and great satisfaction was expressed with their work.

Though called upon to perform labour of the most arduous and exacting nature at all times of the day and night, they were not only willing and efficient but also conspicuous for their cheeriness under all conditions.

Their behaviour on all these occasions was excellent, and commanded the admiration of those with whom they were serving.This was not the end for the BMA, however, as it was re-constituted for the annual camp of 1920, when fifty new recruits joined six officers and 154 other ranks who had enlisted before or during the war.

In 1931, a new territorial unit, the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers (BVE), was raised[12] to take up the role of manning the search light detachment at Saint David's Battery (and in 1940 it also absorbed the BVRC signals element, providing wireless communications for the garrison).

As the firing was to commence at 8am (on 21 January), and it was thought unlikely any vessels would be in the danger area, it was decided to proceed with the salute, ensuring the guns were elevated for maximum range (8,000 yards), out to sea.

Despite this, the manpower requirements of the BMA simply did not make full use of the number of black males available for military service when the war began.

Unlike in the Great War, when the two local units relied entirely on volunteers, conscription was introduced soon after the outbreak of hostilities, with blacks directed into the BMA or BMI, and whites into the BVRC.

By then, the likelihood of a German attack, or sabotage, had greatly diminished, and American forces, including artillery detachments, had been built-up on the island.

This meant that local forces could be spared for service overseas, and both the BVRC and the Bermuda Militia detached companies to send across the Atlantic.

After serving briefly in the field, the Regiment escorted a shipment of Axis prisoners to Egypt, then remained there as prisoner-of-war (POW) camp guards until the end of hostilities.

The local territorials might have been disbanded as their role had disappeared, but the Bermuda Government chose to maintain both remaining units, entirely at its own cost.