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The Royal Naval Academy was an institution that prepared young men for careers as naval officers. It was reconstituted in 1806 as the Royal Naval College. However, the academy and college did not become the preferred path for preparation of potential officers as the system of recruiting young men to go directly to sea as midshipmen remained the preferred entry stream. The Naval College was closed in 1837.

A volunteer naval reserve that was organized into units in several locations around the British Isles. The volunteers were unpaid civilians who bought their own uniforms and paid for travel expenses. The Royal Naval Reserve (Volunteers) was a separate organization that recruited men from the mercantile marine. The Royal Naval Artillery Reserve was disbanded in 1892, but the Naval Forces Act of 1903 established the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) whose recruits were civilians without seagoing experience. The Royal Naval Artillery Volunteer Force was thus a forerunner to the RNVR.

Created in 1903 as a reserve force made up of people from civilian occupations, the RNVR and the Royal Naval Reserve (whose members were recruited from civilians with seagoing experience) were combined in 1958.

A permanent “Navy Royal” emerged during the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547). In the 19th century, Royal Navy ships were heavily involved in the colonial phase in the development of what became British Columbia in carrying out the hydrographic surveys that opened coastal waters to navigation, in a constabulary role, and in providing a presence that backed British and subsequently Canadian sovereignty.

A public university located on site of Hatley Castle, the estate built west of Esquimalt by James Dunsmuir in the early in 20th century. The property was acquired by the Canadian government in 1940 and became a training establishment to train officers for the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve and subsequently the Royal Canadian Navy College to train officers for the permanent force. After WWII, it initially became a college to give naval and air force officers academic training and subsequently a tri-service college. It ceased being a military college in 1995 and is now a public university.

The oldest yacht club in B.C. Its current location on Cadboro Bay had been the location of the Hudson’s Bay Company cattle wharf.