The settlement takes its name from the nearby harbour in which the Royal Navy established its base of operations for the area during the eighteenth century.

Captain Horatio Nelson arrived in July 1784 as the senior officer of the Northern Division of the West Indies Station, commanding HMS Boreas, until his departure in 1787.

Nelson referred to the harbour as an "infernal hole," while the "residents of these Islands are Americans by connexion and by interest, and are inimical to Great Britain.

Nelson was joined in Dec. 1786 by Captain His Royal Highness Prince Wiliam Henry, commanding HMS Pegasus.

By the end of the Napoleonic Wars a substantial complex of facilities had been developed at English Harbour: in addition to the twin Dockyards, the Harbour accommodated a Victualling Yard, an Ordnance Yard (where the Gunpowder House Hotel now stands) and a Royal Naval Hospital.

The Commissioner (the senior Navy Board official at the Dockyard) resided at Clarence House on a hillside overlooking the bay.

[4]: 202, 256 In 2018, politicians urged local squatters to take advantage of plans to allow them to buy their plots of land for $1 if they had lived there for ten years or more.