HMS Victory

HMS Victory is a 104-gun ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built between 1759 and 1765. She is the oldest naval ship still in commission and the only remaining ship of the line. She sits in dry dock in Portsmouth as a museum ship.

Construction

In December 1758, the commissioner of Chatham Dockyard was instructed to prepare a dry dock for the construction of a new 100-gun first-rate ship. This was an unusual occurrence at the time; during the whole of the 18th century only ten were constructed—the Royal Navy preferred smaller and more manoeuvrable ships and it was unusual for more than two to be in commission simultaneously.

The outline plans arrived in June 1759 and were based on HMS Royal George which had been launched at Woolwich Dockyard in 1756. The Naval Architect to design the ship was Sir Thomas Slade who, at the time, was the appointed Surveyor of the Navy.

The keel was laid on 23 July 1759 in the Old Single Dock (now No. 2 Dock), and the name was finally chosen in October 1760. It was to commemorate the Annus Mirabilis or Year of Victories, of 1759. In that year of the Seven Years' War, land victories had been won at Quebec, Minden and naval battles had been won at Lagos and Quiberon Bay. There were some doubts whether this was a suitable name since the previous first-rate Victory had been lost with all on board in 1744.

Once the frame had been constructed it was normal to cover the ship up and leave it for several months to season. However, the end of the Seven Years' War meant that she remained in this condition for nearly three years, which helped her subsequent longevity. Work restarted in autumn 1763 and she was finally launched on 7 May 1765 having cost £63,176 and 3 shillings (present day £50 million) and used around 6000 trees, 90% of which were oak and the remainder elm, pine and fir.

There being no immediate use for her she was placed in ordinary— in reserve having been roofed over, demasted and placed under general maintenance—moored in the River Medway for 13 years until France joined the American War of Independence.

She was commissioned in 1778 under the command of Rear Admiral John Campbell (1st Captain) and Captain Jonathan Faulknor (2nd Captain), with the flag of Admiral the Honorable Augustus Keppel. She was armed with smooth bore, cast iron cannon 30 x 32 and 42 pounders (15 and 19 kg), 30 x 24 pounders (11 kg), and 40 x 12 pounders (5 kg). Later she also carried two carronades, firing 68 lb (31 kg) round shot.

In service

Keppel put to sea from Spithead on July 9 1778, with a force of thirty ships of the line and, on July 23, sighted a French fleet of twenty-nine sail 100 miles (160 km) west of Ushant. The French Admiral, Louis Guillouet, comte d'Orvilliers, who had orders to avoid battle, was cut off from Brest but retained the weather gage. Two of his ships to windward escaped into port leaving him with twenty-seven. The two fleets manoeuvred during shifting winds and a heavy rain squall until a battle became inevitable with the British more or less in column and the French in some confusion. However, the French managed to pass along the British line to windward with their most advanced ships. At about a quarter to twelve Victory opened fire on the Bretagne of 110 guns, followed by the Ville de Paris of 90 guns. The British van escaped with little loss but Sir Hugh Palliser's rear division suffered considerably. Keppel made the signal to wear and follow the French but Palliser did not conform and the action was not resumed. Keppel was court martialled and cleared and Palliser criticized by an inquiry before the affair turned into a party political squabble.

In March 1780 the hull below the waterline was sheathed with 3,923 sheets of copper to protect it against shipworm.

On December 2 1781, Victory, now commanded by Captain Henry Cromwell and bearing the flag of Rear Admiral Richard Kempenfelt, sailed with eleven other ships of the line, a 50-gun fourth-rate, and five frigates, to intercept a French convoy that sailed from Brest on December 10. Ignorant of the fact that the convoy was protected by twenty-one ships of the line under the command of Luc Urbain de Bouexic, comte de Guichen, Kempenfelt ordered a chase when they were sighted on December 12 and began the Second Battle of Ushant. When he noted the French superiority he contented himself with capturing fifteen sail of the convoy. The French were dispersed in a gale and forced to return home.

In 1796 Captain Robert Calder (First Captain) and Captain George Grey (Second Captain) commanded Victory under Admiral Sir John Jervis's flag. Sir John Jervis sailed from the Tagus on January 18, 1797, and after being reinforced on February 6 by five ships from England, his fleet consisted of fifteen sail of the line and six frigates. On February 14, the Portuguese frigate Carlotta, commanded by a Scotsman named Campbell with a Portuguese commission, brought news that a Spanish fleet was close. Jervis manoeuvred to intercept, and the Battle of Cape St Vincent was joined. Principe de Asturias, leading the Spanish leeward division, tried to break through the British line ahead or astern of Victory but that ship poured such a tremendous fire into her, followed by several raking broadsides, that the whole Spanish division wore round and bore up. Horatio Nelson, in HMS Captain (primarily), also played a decisive role in this action.

Reconstruction

HMS Victory now

In February 1798, Victory was stationed at Chatham under the command of Lieutenant J. Rickman. On 8 December, unfit for service as a warship, she was ordered to be converted to a hospital ship to hold wounded French and Spanish prisoners of war. In 1799, Rickman was relieved by Lieutenant J. Busbridge.

However on 8 October 1799 HMS Impregnable was lost off Chichester, having run aground on her way back to Portsmouth after escorting a convoy to Lisbon. She could not be refloated and so was stripped and dismantled. Consequently, now short of a first rate, the Admiralty decided to recondition Victory. Work started in 1800 but as it proceeded an increasing number of defects were found and the repairs developed into a very extensive reconstruction. The original estimate was £23,500 but the final cost was £70,933.

Extra gun ports were added, taking her from 100 guns to 104, and her magazine lined with copper. Her figurehead was replaced along with her masts and the paint scheme changed from red to the black and yellow seen today. Her gun ports were originally yellow to match the hull but later repainted black, giving a pattern later called the "Nelson chequer" and which was subsequently adopted by all Royal Navy ships after the Battle of Trafalgar. The work was completed on 11 April 1803 and the ship left for Portsmouth on 14 May under her new captain, Samuel Sutton.

Nelson

Lord Nelson hoisted his flag in Victory on 16 May 1803 with Samuel Sutton as his flag captain and sailed to assume command in the Mediterranean on May 20. Nelson transferred to the faster frigate Amphion on 23 May.

On May 28 Captain Sutton captured the French Embuscade of 32 guns, bound for Rochefort from San Domingo. Victory rejoined Lord Nelson off Toulon on July 30 when Captain Sutton exchanged commands with the captain of the Amphion, Thomas Masterman Hardy.

Victory was passing the island of Toro on April 4, 1805, when HMS Phoebe brought the news that the French fleet under Pierre-Charles Villeneuve had escaped from Toulon. While Nelson made for Sicily to see if the French were heading for Egypt, Villeneuve was entering Cádiz to link up with the Spanish fleet. On 7 May Nelson reached Gibraltar and received his first definite news. The British fleet completed their stores in Lagos Bay, Portugal, on May 10 and two days later sailed westward with ten ships and three frigates in pursuit of the combined Franco-Spanish fleet of 17 ships. They arrived in the West Indies to find that the enemy was sailing back to Europe where Napoleon Bonaparte was waiting for them with his invasion forces at Boulogne.

The Franco-Spanish fleet was involved in the indecisive Battle of Cape Finisterre in fog off Ferrol with Admiral Sir Robert Calder's squadron on 22 July before taking refuge in Vigo and Ferrol to land wounded and abandon three damaged ships. Calder on 14 August and Nelson on 15 August joined Admiral Cornwallis's Channel Fleet off Ushant. Nelson continued to England in Victory leaving his Mediterranean fleet with Cornwallis who detached twenty of his thirty-three ships of the line and sent them under Calder to find the combined fleet at Ferrol. On 19 August came the worrying news that the enemy had sailed from there, followed by relief when they arrived in Cádiz two days later. On the evening of Saturday, 28 September, Lord Nelson joined Lord Collingwood's fleet off Cádiz, quietly, so that his presence would not be known.

Nelson's famous signal, "England expects that every man will do his duty", flying from Victory on the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar.

When Admiral Villeneuve learned that he was to be removed from command he took his ships to sea on the morning of October 19, first sailing south towards the Mediterranean but then turning north towards the British fleet, beginning the Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson had already made his plans: to break the enemy line some two or three ships ahead of their Commander in Chief in the centre and achieve victory before the van could come to their aid. In the event fitful winds made it a slow business. For five hours after Nelson's last manoeuvring signal the two columns of British ships slowly approached the French line before Royal Sovereign, leading the lee column, was able to open fire on Fougueux. Twenty five minutes later Victory broke the line between Bucentaure and Redoutable firing a double shotted broadside into the stern of the former from a range of a few yards. At 25 minutes past one Nelson was shot, the fatal ball entering his left shoulder and lodging in his spine. He died at half past four. Such killing had taken place on Victory's quarter deck that Redoutable attempted to board her, but the marines and small arms men repelled them. Nelson's last order was for the fleet to anchor but this was rejected by Vice Admiral Collingwood. Victory lost 57 killed and 102 wounded.

After Trafalgar

Victory took Nelson's body to England where, after lying in state at Greenwich, he was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral on January 6, 1806.

Victory bore many Admirals' flags after Trafalgar, and sailed on numerous expeditions, including two Baltic campaigns under Admiral Sir James Saumarez. Her active career ended on November 7 1812, when she was moored in Portsmouth Harbour off Gosport and used as a depot ship.

It is said that when Thomas Hardy was First Sea Lord, he told his wife on returning home, that he had just signed an order for Victory to be broken up. She burst into tears and sent him straight back to his office to rescind the order. Though this story may be apocryphal, the page of the duty log containing the orders for that day is missing, having been torn out.

In 1889, Victory was fitted up as a Naval School of Telegraphy. It soon became a proper Signal School, and signal ratings from ships paying off were sent to Victory instead of the barracks, for a two-month training course. The School remained on Victory until 1904, when training was transferred temporarily to HMS Hercules, and in 1906 the whole School was moved to a permanent establishment at the Royal Naval Barracks.

As the years passed by, Victory slowly deteriorated at her moorings. A campaign to save her was started in 1921 with the Save the Victory Fund under the aegis of the Society for Nautical Research, by which time she was in very poor condition. The outcome of the campaign was that British Government agreed to restore and preserve her to commemorate Nelson, the Battle of Trafalgar and the Royal Navy's supremacy during and after the Napoleonic period.

On 12 January 1922 she was moved into the oldest drydock in the world: No. 2 dock at Portsmouth for restoration. In 1928 King George V was able to unveil a tablet celebrating the completion of the work, although restoration and maintenance still continued under the supervision of the Society for Nautical Research. Over the last few years the ship has undergone another very extensive restoration to bring her appearance to as close as possible to that which she had at Trafalgar for the bicentenary of the battle in October 2005.

HMS Victory is still in commission as the flagship of the admiral for the time being acting as Second Sea Lord in his role as Commander in Chief of the Royal Navy's Home Command (CINCNAVHOME). She is the oldest commissioned warship in the world, although the USS Constitution, launched 30 years later, is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat. Victory attracts around 350,000 visitors per year in her role as a museum ship.

The name is also used to refer to the westernmost entrance (Victory Gate) to the Royal Navy's facility in Portsmouth, HMS Nelson.

Admirals who have hoisted flags in Victory

Augustus Keppel>

May 16, 1778	October 28, 1778
Admiral Sir Charles Hardy	March 19, 1779	May 14, 1780
Admiral Geary	May 24, 1780	August 28, 1780
Rear Admiral Francis Drake	September 26, 1780	December 29, 1780
Vice Admiral Sir Hyde Parker	March 20, 1781	May 31, 1781
Commodore John Elliot	June 1781	August 1781
Rear Admiral Richard Kempenfelt	September 10, 1781	March 11, 1782
Admiral The Earl Howe	April 20, 1782	November 14, 1782
Admiral The Earl Howe	July 1790	August 1790
Admiral The Lord Hood	August 1790	August 1791
Rear Admiral Sir Hyde Parker	February 6, 1793	May 1793
Admiral The Lord Hood	May 6, 1793	December 15, 1794
Rear Admiral John Man	July 8, 1795	September 27, 1795
Vice Admiral Robert Linzee	October 1795	November 1795
Admiral Sir John Jervis	December 3, 1795	March 30, 1797
Vice Admiral The Viscount Nelson	May 8, 1803	October 21, 1805
Admiral Sir James Saumarez	March 18, 1808	December 9, 1808
Admiral Sir Graham Moore	December 1808	January 23, 1809
Admiral Sir James Saumarez	April 8, 1809	December 1809
Admiral Sir James Saumarez	March 11, 1810	December 3, 1810
Rear Admiral Sir Joseph Yorke	December 1810	March 1811
Admiral Sir James Saumarez	April 2, 1811	December 25, 1811,
Admiral Sir James Saumarez	April 14, 1812	October 15, 1812
In Ordinary	December 18, 1812	January 31, 1824
Commissioner Sir Michael Seymour	1824
Paid off	April 30, 1827	October 21, 1831
became Flagship of Port Admiral
Rear Admiral Sir F L Maitland	1832
Rear Admiral D Pleydell Bouverie	1837
Rear Admiral Hyde Parker	1842
Rear Admiral W H Shiffeff	1847
Admiral Sir C. Ogle	March 20, 1848	December 19, 1848
Admiral Sir T B. Capel	December 20, 1848	December 19, 1851
Admiral Sir Thomas Briggs	December 20, 1851	March 19, 1853
Vice Admiral Sir Thomas J. Cochrane	March 20, 1854	March 19, 1856
Vice Admiral Sir George F. Seymour	March 20, 1856	March 19, 1859
Admiral William Bowles	March 20, 1859	March 19, 1860
Vice Admiral Henry Bruce	March 20, 1860	December 19, 1864
Vice Admiral Sir Michael Seymour	December 20, 1864	March 19, 1866
Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley	March 20, 1866	March 20, 1869
Tender to HMS Duke of Wellington	December 20, 1869	September 1, 1891
Admiral The Earl of Clanwilliam	August 1, 1891	September 17, 1894
Admiral Sir Nowell Salmon VC	September 18, 1894	August 31, 1897
Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour	September 1, 1897	November 17, 1900
Admiral Sir Charles F Hotham	November 18, 1900	September 30, 1903
Admiral Sir John Fisher	October 1, 1903	March 18, 1904
The Port Admiral's flag moved to Herculesand on February 1, 1905, to Firequeen
Admiral Sir Archibald L Douglas	March 18, 1905	March 1, 1907
Admiral Sir Day H Bosanquet	March 2, 1907	March 17, 1908
Admiral Sir Arthur D. Fanshawe	March 18, 1908	April 30, 1910
Admiral Sir Assheton Gore Gurzon-Howe	May 1, 1910	March 17, 1911
Admiral Sir Arthur W. Moore	March 18, 1911	July 31, 1912
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Hedworth Meux	August 1, 1912	February 17, 1916
Admiral The Hon Sir Stanley Colvill	February 18, 1916	April 17, 1919
Admiral Sir Cecil Burney	April 18, 1919	June 17, 1920
Admiral Hon Sir Arthur Gough-Calthorpe	June 18, 1920	May 31, 1923
Admiral Sir Sidney Robert Fremantle	June 1, 1923	April 1, 1926
Admiral Sir Osmond de Beauvior Brock	May 18, 1926	April 30, 1929
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes	May 1, 1929	June 17, 1931
Admiral Sir Arthur Waistell	June 18, 1931	February 17, 1934
Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Kelly	February 18, 1931	August 31, 1936
Admiral of the Fleet The Earl of Cork and Orrery	August 18, 1937	June 30, 1939
Admiral Sir William M. James	July 1, 1939	September 30, 1942
Admiral Sir Charles Little	October 1, 1942	September 28, 1945
Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton	September 29, 1945	June 29, 1947
Admiral The Lord Fraser of North Cape	June 30, 1947	April 18, 1949
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Algernon Willis	April 19, 1949	October 17, 1950
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur J. Power	October 18, 1950	October 17, 1952
Admiral Sir John Edelsten	October 18, 1952	October 17, 1954
Admiral of the Fleet Sir George E Creasy	October 18, 1954	July 17, 1957
Admiral Sir Guy Grantham	July 18, 1957	July 17, 1959
Admiral Sir Manley L Power	July 18, 1959	January 17, 1962
Admiral Sir Alexander N C Bingley	January 18, 1962	January 17, 1963
Admiral Sir Wilfrid J. W. Woods	January 18, 1963	September 9, 1965
Admiral Sir Varyl C. Begg	September 10, 1965	June 9, 1966
Admiral Sir Frank E. Hopkins	June 10, 1966	October 30, 1967
Admiral Sir John B. Frewen	October 31, 1967	February 27, 1970
Admiral Sir Horace R. Law	February 28, 1970	February 28, 1972
Admiral Sir Andrew Lewis	February 29, 1972	June 29, 1974
Admiral Sir Derek Empson	June 30, 1974	October 30, 1975
Admiral Sir Terence Lewin	October 31, 1975	October 30, 1976
Admiral Sir David Williams	October 31, 1976	October 30, 1978
Admiral Sir Richard Clayton	October 31, 1978	June 30, 1981
Admiral Sir James Eberle	July 1, 1981	December 31, 1983
Admiral Sir Desmond Cassidi	January 1, 1983	October 30, 1984
Admiral Sir Peter Stanford	October 31, 1984	October 30, 1987
Admiral Sir John "Sandy" Woodward	October 31, 1987	October 30, 1989
Admiral Sir Jeremy Black	October 31, 1989	March 30, 1991
Admiral Sir John Kerr	March 31, 1991	March 30, 1993
Admiral Sir Michael Layard	March 31, 1993	March 30, 1994
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce	March 31, 1994	March 30, 1997
Admiral Sir John Brigstocke	March 31, 1997	January 18, 2000
Vice Admiral Sir Peter Spencer	January 19, 2000	January 28, 2003
Vice-Admiral Sir James Burnell-Nugent	29 January, 2003	25 October, 2005
Vice-Admiral Adrian Johns	25 October, 2005	Present

HMS Victory: Encyclopedia BETA

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