Context: Defending the Harbour

The British started establishing fortified settlement in Halifax as of 1749 and continued to see the strategic importance of this harbour even in the twentieth century.[1] Indeed the fortified port of Halifax was considered “Canada’s most important contribution to the naval defence of the British Empire during the First World War.”[2] In the eighteenth century, Halifax also served Great Britain’s military interest. In this period Great Britain’s main enemy and competitor was France; the two powerful nations were fighting across the globe in the Thirty Years War, the Seven Years War, and the War of American Independence, and the War of 1812.[3] These imminent wars forced the British to set up permanent defences in strategic locations such as the Halifax harbour. Halifax needed to be well defended because it was vulnerable to a naval assault from the Atlantic.

Point Pleasant Park specifically - in the southern part of the peninsula - was one of six batteries that had to be continually reinforced in order to suitably defend Halifax.[4] Today, we can still observe the Prince of Wales Martello Tower and Fort Ogilvy as witnesses to the important defensive infrastructures that were built in the later eighteenth century. The Prince of Wales Martello Tower - pictured above - was built between 1796-1797 under the order of Edward, Duke of Kent.[5] These round towers were built across British North America as part of an extensive defensive system to protect against French and American attacks. The round tower “offered fewer blind spots” and “better deflected projectiles.”[6] This particular Martello tower had ten gun positions and room for storage and barrack use.[7]

This survey marker - like the Martello Tower - is a witness to British Military Defences in Halifax. The marker was installed in 1895 by the British War Department as part of their perambulation survey of Point Pleasant Park and the Halifax Peninsula.[8] The land was officially given to Canada, through the city of Halifax, in 1866.[9]