The National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth, formerly known as the Royal Naval Museum, is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

of the

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

located in the

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is an area of HMNB Portsmouth, HM Naval Base Portsmouth which is open to the public; it contains several historic buildings and ships. It is managed by the National Museum of the Royal Navy as an umbrella organizatio ...

section of

HMNB Portsmouth His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth (HMNB Portsmouth) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Devonport). Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is lo ...

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

, England. The museum is part of the

National Museum of the Royal Navy The National Museum of the Royal Navy was created in early 2009 to act as a single non-departmental public body for the museums of the Royal Navy. With venues across the United Kingdom, the museums detail the history of the Royal Navy operating o ...

, a

non-departmental public body In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process of n ...

sponsored by the Ministry of Defence. It received 1,081,909 visitors in 2017.

History

The museum was founded in 1911. Known originally as the "Dockyard Museum", it was conceived by Mr Mark Edwin Pescott-Frost, then secretary to the

Admiral Superintendent The admiral-superintendent was the Royal Navy officer in command of a larger Royal Navy Dockyard, Naval Dockyard. HMNB Portsmouth, Portsmouth, HMNB Devonport, Devonport and Chatham Dockyard, Chatham all had admiral-superintendents, as did some other ...

at Portsmouth. With a passion for naval history he spearheaded a project to save items for future generations, eventually leading to the opening of a new museum. His foresight ensured the survival of many interesting and important artefacts, several of which are still on display today. He was awarded the Imperial Service Order in 1916. In 1985, under the terms of the National Heritage Act 1983, the museum was devolved from the Ministry of Defence to become an executive non-departmental public body, supported by a grant-in-aid. At this juncture, the name was changed to become the "Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth." In 2008, the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) formally came into being with the express purpose of providing greater co-ordination of naval heritage in the broadest sense and, following on from this, in 2010, the Royal Naval Museum became a full subsidiary of the National Museum of the Royal Navy, and changed its name to "National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth"

Buildings and exhibits

The museum is housed in a row of three buildings which face . No. 11 Storehouse dates from 1763, and the adjacent No. 10 Storehouse from 1776; both are

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The Victory Gallery is a purpose-built museum building of 1938. The museum ship is in a

dry dock A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...

alongside. No. 11 Storehouse contains various exhibition spaces relating to the

Age of Sail The Age of Sail is a period that lasted at the latest from the mid-16th (or mid- 15th) to the mid- 19th centuries, in which the dominance of sailing ships in global trade and warfare culminated, particularly marked by the introduction of naval ...

. The restored No. 10 Storehouse opened to the public in 2014 as the Babcock Galleries, housing a new permanent exhibition telling the story of the 20th- and 21st-century Navy, as well as temporary exhibition spaces. It also houses the ''Trafalgar Sail'' (the fore topsail of HMS ''Victory'', said to be the largest surviving single original artefact from the

Battle of Trafalgar The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (180 ...

). A new glass atrium links the two historic storehouses. * ''Victory Gallery'' "tells the story of HMS ''Victory'' and the people who lived, worked and fought on board". * ''Nelson Gallery'' tells the story of Horatio, Viscount Nelson. * ''Sailing Navy Gallery'' tells of life at sea in the Sailing Navy. * ''HMS Hear My Story'' tells "undiscovered stories from the ordinary men, women and ships which have made the Navy‘s amazing history over the last 100 years". HMS ''M33'', a World War I

Monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, West ...

warship, is also part of the museum; she was opened to the public in 2015, her centenary year.

References

External links

National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth
Official website. {{coord, 50.8007, -1.1098, display=title, region:GB-POR_type:landmark Maritime museums in England Naval museums in England Museums in Portsmouth Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)