HMS Victory

Missing image
Turner,_The_Battle_of_Trafalgar_(1822).jpg
Victory at Trafalgar

Career RN Ensign
Ordered:
Laid down:23 July 1759
Launched:7 May 1765
Commissioned:1778
Decommissioned:Still in commission
Fate:Museum ship
General Characteristics
Displacement: 3,500 tons (3,556 tonnes)
Length: 227 ft 6 in (69.3 m) overall

(gun deck 186 ft (56.7 m))

Beam: 51 ft 10 in (15.8 m)
Draught: 28 ft 9 in (8.8 m)
Height from waterline to top of mainmast: 205 ft (62.5 m)
Propulsion: Sails—6,510 yd² (5,440 m²)
Speed: 8 to 9 knots (15 to 17 km/h) maximum
Range:Limited by water and provisions
Complement: Around 850
Armour: None, although oak hull thickness at waterline 2 ft (0.6 m)
Armament (Trafalgar): Forecastle: 2 x medium 12 pounder (5 kg), 2 x 68 pounder (31 kg) carronade

Quarter gun deck: 12 x 1.7 ton short 12 pounder (5 kg)
Upper gun Deck: 30 x 1.7 ton short 12 pounders (5 kg)
Middle gun deck: 28 x 2.5 ton long 24 pounders (11 kg)
Lower gun deck: 30 x 2.75 ton long pattern Blomefield 32 pounders (15 kg)
Marines armed with muskets aloft

This article is about the late 18th century ship of the line HMS Victory. For other ships of the same name see HMS Victory (disambiguation).

HMS Victory is a 104 gun ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built in the 1760s. She is the oldest ship still in commission and sits in dry dock in Portsmouth as a museum ship.

Contents

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, during the whole of the eighteenth 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 1760 and were based on HMS Royal George which had been launched at Woolwich in 1756.

Her 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 land victories had been won at Quebec, Minden and naval battles had been won at Lagos and Quiberon Bay. There were some doubts as whether this was a suitable name since the previous first rate Victory had been lost with all on board in 1744.

HMS Victory mast and rigging
Enlarge
HMS Victory mast and rigging

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 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 30 ships of the line and, on July 23rd, sighted a French fleet of 29 sail 100 miles (160 km) west of Ushant. The French Admiral, the 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 27. 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 Bretagne 110, followed by Ville de Paris 90. 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 criticised 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 11 other ships of the line, a 50 and five frigates, to intercept a convoy which sailed from Brest on December 10. Ignorant of the fact that the French Comte de Guichen had twenty one ships of the line, 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 15 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 sailed from the Tagus on January 18, 1797, and after being reinforced on February 6 by five ships from England, his fleet consisted of 15 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 lee 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

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 28th Captain Sutton captured the French Embuscade 32, 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 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 May 7 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 combined fleet were involved in an indecisive action in fog off Ferrol with Admiral Sir Robert Calder's squadron on July 22 before taking refuge in Vigo and Ferrol to land wounded and abandon three damaged ships. Calder on August 14 and Nelson on August 15 joined Admiral Cornwallis's Channel Fleet off Ushant. Nelson continued to England in Victory leaving his Mediterranean fleet with Cornwallis who detached 20 of his 33 ships of the line and sent them under Calder to find the combined fleet at Ferrol. On August 19 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, September 28, Lord Nelson joined Lord Collingwood's fleet off Cádiz, quietly, so that his presence would not be known.

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

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Battleship1.jpg
HMS Victory in 1884

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

Victory bore many Admiral's 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.

Over the next century, 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. Restoration continued and in 1928 King George V was able to unveil a tablet celebrating the completion of the work, although it still continues under the supervision of the Society for Nautical Research. Over the last few years the ship has undergone 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 Royal Naval Barracks at Portsmouth.


Admirals who have hoisted flags in Victory

Admiral The Hon. 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 Hercules

and 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 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 James Burnell-Nugent 29 January, 2003 present

External links

References

nl:HMS Victory simple:HMS Victory

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