IN the early 1980s, the late Fred Lumsden and I would wander through the ruin that was the Commissioner's House at the Maritime Museum ruminating on the past, as is the wont of antiquarians.

Fred would often end his recollections, for he worked in the House in its last operational days during the Second World War, with, "We went ashore to the Dockyard canteen", or such like.

It was some time before I appreciated that his turn of phase, or tack, was due to the fact that the Commissioner's House from 1919 to 1951 was a ship ? Bermuda's first stone frigate, the sixth of seven to bear that name in the annals of the Royal Navy.

It is a pity that in those days, the museum did not have its oral history department in being, for we could have recorded Fred's interesting recollections on DVD for future generations.

Be that as it was, Fred was living the life of Royal Navy personnel, all of whom were obliged to serve on board a ship. So naval stations were given the name of one of His or Her Majesty's Ships and if the vessel was scrapped or sold on, the name was transferred to a building.

The last was the headquarters building of the Royal Navy at Bermuda, Moresby House. It yet stands on the left, somewhat damaged by the recent hurricane, just over Cockburn Cut Bridge, the first such crossing apparently in Bermuda to have been made of concrete.

The first four were wooden warships of a type that ruled the ocean seas for nigh on 300 years, until the British launched the in 1862, the first iron battleship. , now impeccably restored at Portsmouth, England, once visited Bermuda when it towed, with and , the newly invented Floating Dock to the island in 1869. The Malabar after which the ships were named is a beautiful section of the western coast of India. The first were used to protect the sea routes and trade to that sub-continent.

troops were transported where "the sun never sets", in peace and war, on ships. My Bermudian grandmother, Agnes Matilda Whitecross, once travelled that way, being on station with her husband, William Sidney Harris, Royal Fusiliers, in Mauritius and India in the years before the First World War.

All of their children were thus born in far-flung places, with the exception of the last being delivered here. My grandfather killed himself here in Bermuda, a victim, my father always said, of the First World War, as he carried a steel plate in his skull to cover injuries that left him in a vulnerable mental state. Granny was left to bring up a battery of children and a grandson, but died at the venerable age of 96.

The British Army is seen as a "projectile fired by the British fleet", for excepting two land battles on the home front, the force has had to be transported by sea to all its other engagements. Troopships were often floating hell-holes chartered from private shippers, so in 1866 the Royal Navy built its own, paid for by the Indian Government, each displaying the Star of India on its bows.

The new vessels were part of the maritime revolution of the 1860s, when steam began to replace sail as the means of propulsion. Five troopers of a similar design with sails and engines, the , , , () and plied the sea route from Britain to Suez and India for the next three decades. They were as familiar to thousands of soldiers in those days, as the Boeings and Airbuses are to the shopping warriors of Bermuda today.

In 1897, was sent to Bermuda as the station ship, being renamed , which turned at its mooring below the Dockyard Parsonage for several decades. In 1919, the vessel was sold out of service and its original name was transferred to the Commissioner's House, which became until 1951 when the Royal Navy downsized the Bermuda station.

of Bermudian ladies yet remember attending balls at this as young girls. During the 1939-45 war, the House served as a vital interception centre of submarine radio traffic that covered the North Atlantic with Halifax to the north and Darby to the east.

Now restored by the Maritime Museum, the Commissioner's House preserves the naval heritage of those, including many Bermudians, who served at and the Bermuda Dockyard for 180 years, until its closure in 1995.

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