HMS Victory: a first rate built at Chatham
HMS Victory began as one of twelve ships William Pitt the Elder asked for in December 1758, in the middle of the Seven Years' War. The order went to Chatham Dockyard on the Medway, and Sir Thomas Slade, Surveyor of the Navy, drew her lines. Her keel was laid on 23 July 1759 in the Old Single Dock, during the run of British successes remembered as the Year of Victories. That same year David Garrick wrote the words of "Heart of Oak", still the Navy's official march, and the story of that song is told on our page about Royal Navy songs.
She was a first rate: three gun decks and a nominal hundred guns. Around 6,000 trees went into her, nine tenths of them oak, and because the war ended before she was needed her frame was left to season for nearly three years. That long drying out is often credited with her survival. She was floated out on 7 May 1765 at a cost of £57,748, then laid up in reserve on the Medway. At launch the shipwrights found she was too wide for the dock gates and had to cut the gates back with adzes before she could get out.
Victory was first commissioned in March 1778, when France entered the American War of Independence. She was Admiral Keppel's flagship at the First Battle of Ushant that summer, fought again off Ushant in 1781, and led Lord Howe's convoy to relieve Gibraltar in 1782. In the next war she flew Sir John Jervis's flag at the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797. Worn out by 1798, she was sent to Chatham to serve as a hospital ship for prisoners of war. The loss of another three-decker in 1799 changed the Admiralty's mind, and a rebuild between 1800 and 1803 cost £70,933 and gave her the 104 guns and the black and yellow "Nelson chequer" she carries today.
Trafalgar, 21 October 1805
Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson hoisted his flag in Victory in May 1803, and from that summer Thomas Masterman Hardy was his flag captain. For two years she was the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, watching Toulon and then chasing the French fleet of Pierre-Charles Villeneuve to the West Indies and back. When Villeneuve finally sailed out of Cádiz in October 1805 with the combined French and Spanish fleet, Nelson was waiting.
His plan was to attack in two columns and cut the enemy line. In light winds Victory led the weather column towards the French flagship Bucentaure, taking fire for a long time before she could reply. She broke through between Bucentaure and Redoutable and fired a raking broadside into the French flagship's stern at point-blank range. Close alongside Redoutable, Victory's quarterdeck was swept by musket fire from the French ship's tops.
About 820 men were aboard on the eve of the battle. Like every ship of the line, she was manned by a mix of volunteers and men taken up by the press gang, along with boys, Royal Marines and sailors from many nations.
Nelson's death aboard HMS Victory
At about a quarter past one a musket ball fired from Redoutable struck Nelson in the left shoulder and lodged in his spine. He was carried below to the orlop deck, the lowest deck, where the surgeon William Beatty could do nothing for him. Nelson lived for about three hours, long enough to hear from Hardy that the battle was won, and died at half past four. The place where he fell is marked on the quarterdeck today.
Victory lost 57 killed and 102 wounded. She was too badly damaged to sail and was towed to Gibraltar by HMS Neptune. Nelson's body was preserved in a cask of spirits for the voyage home. The ship reached Portsmouth on 4 December, went on to Sheerness, and Nelson was buried in St Paul's Cathedral on 9 January 1806.
From harbour flagship to dry dock in Portsmouth
After Trafalgar she served as Sir James Saumarez's flagship in the Baltic from 1808, carried troops to Lisbon in 1811 and then came home for good. From 1824 she lay in Portsmouth Harbour as a flagship for the port admiral and later the Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth. In 1831 the Admiralty ordered her broken up, and public protest saved her. Visitors came aboard in their thousands. In 1903 the ironclad HMS Neptune, a successor of the ship that had towed her from Trafalgar, broke away from her tugs and rammed her, and only the intervention of Edward VII kept her from the breakers.
By 1921 she was in such poor shape that she could no longer stay afloat safely. The Society for Nautical Research, formed in 1910, ran the Save the Victory campaign with the shipping owner Sir James Caird among the main donors. On 12 January 1922 she was moved into No. 2 dock at Portsmouth, and she has stayed there ever since. The dock itself is one of the stone docks Samuel Bentham added in the early 1800s, part of the oldest working naval base in Britain, which you can read about in our guide to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1759 | Keel laid at Chatham on 23 July |
| 1765 | Floated out on 7 May |
| 1778 | First commissioned; First Battle of Ushant |
| 1797 | Battle of Cape St Vincent |
| 1803 | Rebuild complete; Nelson hoists his flag |
| 1805 | Battle of Trafalgar; Nelson killed aboard |
| 1922 | Moved into No. 2 dock at Portsmouth |
| 1941 | Damaged by a German bomb |
| 2012 | Becomes flagship of the First Sea Lord |
The restoration and the Big Repair
Work to return her to her Trafalgar appearance began in the 1920s. The rounded bow fitted in 1814 was removed and a square beakhead put back, missing cabins and storerooms were rebuilt, and in 1928 George V unveiled a plaque marking the end of the first phase. In 1941 a 500-pound bomb dropped in a Luftwaffe raid broke her keel and badly damaged one of the steel cradles that held her up. Deathwatch beetle, rot and the strain of sitting out of water have kept shipwrights busy ever since.
Since 2012 the ship has been looked after by a trust within the National Museum of the Royal Navy, and the work is now known as the Big Repair. Her upper masts came down in 2011 to ease the load on the hull. Between 2018 and 2021 the old cradle was replaced with 134 adjustable steel props fitted with sensors, after surveys showed the hull had been slowly sagging. Since then a large scaffold has gone up around her so that shipwrights can replace the hull planking, a job planned to run for around a decade.
Visiting the First Sea Lord's flagship
HMS Victory is still a commissioned warship, the oldest in the world, and since October 2012 she has been the flagship of the First Sea Lord, the professional head of the Royal Navy. She still has a serving Royal Navy commanding officer, working alongside the museum staff, and she flies the White Ensign.
The ship stays open while the conservation work goes on, and the scaffolding has turned the repair into part of the visit. You can walk from the upper deck down through the gun decks to the hold, see the admiral's great cabin, and stand on the orlop where Nelson died. A walkway opened in 2020 lets visitors go below the waterline and look at the props under the hull. She is a few minutes' walk from HMS Warrior, so the last great wooden flagship and the iron warship that made her kind obsolete can be seen in a single afternoon.
FAQ
Where was HMS Victory built?
At Chatham Dockyard on the River Medway in Kent. Her keel went down in 1759 and she was floated out in 1765, designed by Sir Thomas Slade.
Where did Nelson die on HMS Victory?
He was shot on the quarterdeck by a marksman from the French Redoutable and carried down to the orlop, the lowest deck, where he died that afternoon.
Is HMS Victory still in commission?
Yes. She is the oldest commissioned warship in the world and has served as the First Sea Lord's flagship since 2012, while also opening to the public as a museum ship.
How long has HMS Victory been in dry dock?
Since January 1922, when she was moved into No. 2 dock at Portsmouth because she could no longer be kept safely afloat.
Can you go aboard HMS Victory during the restoration?
Yes. The ship stays open while shipwrights replace her planking, and walkways let visitors see the work and go below the waterline.