Smasher of Napoleon's invasion dream, veteran of three major wars, and scene of the death of the Royal Navy's greatest hero, HMS Victory is one of Britain's most famous warships. Curiously, and despite being on permanent display as a tourist attraction, Victory remains to this day a fully commissioned naval vessel. This is her story.
A First-Rate Warship
HMS Victory was constructed from 1759 at Chatham Dockyards in Kent to a design by Sir Thomas Slade. Built of solid oak and elm, the ship required the sacrifice of an incredible 2,500 mature trees. Completed in May 1765, the three-masted ship was over 227 ft (69 m) long and displaced 3,500 long tons. It was the largest ship yet built for the navy, and she was fast. In the right conditions, Victory could cut through the water with remarkable speed for her size thanks to 36 sails and an innovative hull design.
Victory was far from being a positive name for most of the sailors first assigned to her. This was because the last naval ship named Victory had sunk in 1744, with all hands drowned. This new Victory, actually the seventh British naval ship to carry that name, had a long wait to see active duty: 13 years, in fact. The first-rate warship carried a crew of over 800 and positively bristled with more than 100 guns set along three cramped decks. Victory was a major weapon for the British in the 1770s during the American Revolutionary War. The ship was then refitted and made the flagship of Vice-Admiral Lord Hood, who sailed her around the Mediterranean in the early 1790s during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Victory's fortunes then went into decline as her condition deteriorated. Serving as a hospital ship in 1797, Victory was slated to see out her days as a prison hulk, the ultimate fall from grace. The venerable old warship then received a last-minute reprieve. After the loss of HMS Impregnable in 1799, and with war looming against the old enemy, France, the Admiralty was obliged to bring Victory back into service.
A Major Refit
Extensively refitted, Victory sported a new hull covering of almost 4,000 copper plates and a whole new complement of lighter, more accurate, and faster-loading cannons. Most striking of all, the ship was painted a distinctive dark grey with yellow stripes. Victory was once again ready for war and her finest hour. The famed artist John Constable selected Victory as the subject of one of his paintings, describing the ship as "the flower of the flock."
From 1803, Britain and Napoleon's France were at war. The Napoleonic Wars involved a vast array of European nations, but it was a crucial naval battle in October 1805 that scuppered Napoleon's planned invasion of Britain and established the Royal Navy as the world's foremost naval fleet. This battle was Trafalgar.
The Battle of Trafalgar
Victory was selected as the flagship of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson, England's finest commander of the period and already a national hero. In the two-year build-up to the great Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson never left Victory once, sleeping each night in his bed of preference, a suspended cot positioned between two giant cannons.
The British fleet met the slightly larger French and Spanish fleets off Cape Trafalgar (on the southern coast of Spain). It was from Victory that Nelson issued his immortal signal: "England expects that every man will do his duty." The Royal Navy won the battle thanks to Nelson's innovative tactics, where, risking the full force of enemy fire as the respective fleets closed in, he smashed through the centre of the enemy's more traditional formation of two lines of ships. Another factor in the Royal Navy's favour was the ability of its experienced gunners to fire twice as fast as those of the enemy.
Victory's crew at Trafalgar included Britons, Indians, Africans, Americans, and even three Frenchmen. There was one woman, too, a Minorcan disguised as a man. The youngest crew member was not yet 12, and the eldest was well into his sixties. Some men were volunteers, others were conscripts, and some were convicts. All had one goal: survive the battle.
Victory was certainly no bystander to the battle and knocked out no less a ship than the French Admirals' flagship Bucentaure. With 104 guns, Victory was a formidable foe. Firing cannons accurately on a rolling sea was far from easy and required teamwork. A 32-pounder – of which Victory boasted 30 – weighed three tons and needed a crew of 12 to 15 men to operate. Victory also had two massive 68-pounders on her decks; one of these had caused carnage when it fired a barrel of 500 musket balls right through the Bucentaure's stern windows. The British ship did not escape unscathed; her huge wheel was shattered by cannon fire, and it took a team of 40 men to rig an alternative steering mechanism in the heat of battle.
Incredibly, no British ships were lost in the battle, but there was a heavy price to pay for victory. In the chaos of sail, smoke, and smashed timbers, a sniper on the French warship Redoubtable had fatally hit Nelson while he prowled Victory's quarterdeck. At least the stricken commander lived long enough to learn of his great victory. The venerable old warship survived Trafalgar but was badly battered, both in the battle itself and in the storm which immediately followed it. Victory, obliged to stop at Gibraltar for vital repairs, carried Nelson home preserved in a barrel of brandy.
Later Career
Victory saw yet more active service as the Napoleonic Wars dragged on, particularly in the Baltic, and then operated as a troop ship from 1810. By the 1820s, the great ship was going nowhere and, dismasted and moored at Portsmouth, served as a stationary flagship of the naval command. Placed in dry dock in 1922 and then restored to its former glory, Victory was opened to public visits in 1928 in a ceremony presided over by King George V. The ship, 20% of which remains original, can still be toured today at Portsmouth's Historic Dock Yard. Victory's crucial role in Britain's defence is not forgotten; all naval vessels which pass her in Portsmouth fire a gun salute in her honour.
