In 1758, Britain was fighting France and her allies for control of the new colonies in North America and India. The government ordered 12 new “ships of the line”, the term for a fighting ship strongly built and well enough armed to be part of the “line of battle” under the preferred naval warfare tactics of the day. One was to be a “first-rate”, with 100 or more guns on three dedicated gun decks. She would be capable of leading the line of battle, much as an aircraft carrier might lead a naval task force today.
Victory’s keel was laid in Chatham Dockyard in July 1759 but a peace treaty with France meant she was not launched until 7 May 1765. At first, she remained “in ordinary”, the term for a ship not in readiness for active service. But in July 1777, France entered the American War of Independence on the American side and work quickly resumed to prepare Victory for war. She fired her guns for the first time in anger on 23 July 1778.
Designed by the renowned naval architect Thomas Slade, HMS Victory is nearly 70 m long overall with a beam (maximum width) of 15.8 m. Her length at the gun deck is nearly 57 m. The depth of her keel below her waterline was 7.5 m and the height of her mainmast 62.5 m. Her top speed in good conditions was around 9 knots, possibly more with the wind behind her.
Her armament at Trafalgar consisted of thirty 32 pounder guns; twenty-eight 24 pounders; forty-four long, medium and short 12 pounders; and two 68 pounder carronades. Carronades were heavy, short-range guns designed to smash into the sides of an enemy ship and send a murderous explosion of shattered timbers and jagged splinters spraying across the decks inside. Enemy crews called them the “devil gun”.
The total firepower HMS Victory could muster at Trafalgar was greater than all of the gun poundage available to the British forces under the Duke of Wellington, ten years later, at the Battle of Waterloo.
The Battle of Trafalgar took place on Monday 21 October 1805 off the Cape of Trafalgar, 35 km south of Cadiz in southern Spain.
Outnumbered and outgunned, Nelson ordered his fleet to form two columns and sail straight towards and through the combined fleet’s line. At first, their slow approach in light winds made the leading British ships an inviting target. But as they crossed the combined fleet’s line, the British ships were able to fire broadsides along the length of the combined fleet’s decks.
HMS Victory’s own first salvo was ‘triple-shotted’. It sent nearly 1.5 tonnes of iron shot crashing through the stern of the French flagship, Bucentaure. In seconds, nearly 400 men were rendered dead or injured, part of an eventual toll that numbered 7000 casualties among the combined fleet against barely a quarter as many on the British side. In the course of the next few hours, 17 of the combined fleet’s 33 vessels were captured and one sunk. The British fleet lost no ships, although many suffered heavy damage. Victory sustained the greatest number of casualties on the British side, including Nelson himself.
He was struck down by a musket ball fired by a sharpshooter high in the rigging of the French ship, Rédoubtable, as she grappled alongside Victory. The ball entered downwards through Nelson’s left shoulder, severing an artery before lodging in his spine. A small brass plaque marks where he fell, as does another the spot where, carried below, he died some three hours later.
The battle was followed almost immediately by a great storm. Ships trying to make port, some already badly damaged, were scattered further and a few lost entirely. Victory was towed to Gibraltar for temporary repairs before returning to Portsmouth on 4 December. She brought with her Nelson’s body, preserved in a water barrel filled with brandy. Nelson was afforded the honour of a state funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral on 9 January 1806.
HMS Victory remained in active service at Portsmouth. Rebuilt between 1814-16, she was eventually listed for disposal in 1831. However, the First Sea Lord of the time refused to sign the necessary warrant. He was none other than Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy, her former captain at Trafalgar.
Saved from an ignominious end, and after a series of more modest roles, HMS Victory was eventually refitted in 1888 prior to taking on, from the following year, the flagship role she retains today. Following a national appeal to help raise the necessary funds, she was moved into the dry dock she now occupies on 12 January 1922.
Did You Know?
- Nelson's famous signal at Trafalgar, "England expects that every man will do his duty", was originally worded, "England confides that every man will do his duty". His flag officer told him that “confides” (meaning “is confident”) would need to be spelled out with individual flags, whereas “expects” could be represented by a single flag and so would be quicker to assemble and raise.
- HMS Victory is the sixth to bear the now-famous name. The first was a ship of the Tudor 'navy royal', a converted merchant vessel bought in 1560, only 15 years after the loss of the Mary Rose. She was rebuilt in 1586 and served against the Spanish Armada in 1588. Victory's immediate predecessor was a 100-gun first rate ship launched in 1737 but wrecked with all hands near the Channel Islands during a storm in October 1744.
- Altogether, Victory’s ropes and rigging extended in length to slightly more than the 26.3 miles of an Olympic marathon course while her sails would have covered two thirds of the pitch at Wembley Stadium.
- Since Trafalgar, HMS Victory has twice more come close to being lost. In October 1903, she was rammed in Portsmouth Harbour by an old Victorian iron-hulled battleship being towed to a breakers yard. She was saved from sinking by being lashed to a nearby dock wall. The ship that hit her was HMS Neptune, whose predecessor in name towed her to safety in Gibraltar after the Battle of Trafalgar.
- Victory’s second narrow escape came in March 1941, when a 250-pound Luftwaffe bomb missed her by a few centimetres before exploding in the bottom of the dry dock that houses her. Flying debris tore a hole in her port side but no more serious damage was done.