The new town of Hamilton, located in the central parishes, and to which the colony's capital moved from St. George's in 1815, was achieving increasing prominence as an Imperial fortress thanks to the same channel which allowed development of the dockyard.

Consequently, in the middle of the 19th century, the army purchased land on White Hill in Devonshire, and began the development of a large camp, with barracks to house the bulk of the infantry soldiers in Bermuda.

Called Prospect Camp, it contained the headquarters of Bermuda's military garrison, barracks, parade grounds, training areas, and a fort.

After the last convicts were removed from Bermuda in the 1860s, Boaz and Watford Islands were transferred to the army and housed a considerable number of soldiers (there being capacity for a battalion of infantry plus detachments from other corps).

Although regular infantry soldiers remained, Bermuda no longer had a full garrison, and only a detached company was posted to Prospect Camp.

[14] In 1951 it was announced that the Royal Navy's dockyard would be closed, a process that stretched throughout the 1950s, and left only a reduced resupply base, HMS Malabar, which operated until 1995.

Without the dockyard, and with large naval and air bases of NATO ally, the USA, located in Bermuda, the military garrison became unnecessary.

The last regular detachment, a company of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI), was withdrawn in 1957, following which Prospect Camp, along with most of the military and admiralty properties in Bermuda were transferred to the local government for £750,000.

The Department of Education has also made considerable use of former camp grounds, having housed Prospect Secondary School in former barracks buildings, and having originally sited the campus of the Bermuda College there.