A little bit about us..

We were founded in 1911 as the Dockyard Museum, which displayed warship figureheads, model ships and general naval memorabilia.

In 1922 HMS Victory, which had been moored in Portsmouth harbour for many years, was moved into dry dock and restored. She was opened to the public in 1928. 

In 1930, W L Wyllie, the great marine artist, completed his Panorama of Trafalgar, a huge painting of the battle, at the back of a rigging shed across from the Victory.

In 1938 the rigging shed was rebuilt as the Victory Museum, a purpose built gallery dedicated to Victory and Nelson, which we still use today.  Original Dockyard Museum artefacts were also displayed.  The Panorama remained in situ, as it does today.

In 1972 a large collection of Nelson memorabilia was given to the Royal Navy by the American heiress and collector, Mrs Lily Lambert McCarthy. At this point the collections were taken into the Ownership of the Ministry of Defence and we became known as the Portsmouth Royal Naval Museum. At the same time, the large 18th Century storehouses that make up our main galleries today became vacant, and the collections were put on display there.

In 1985 we became a public body in our own right, now funded partly by a Grant-in-Aid from the MoD. Our name changed slightly to the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth.

Between 1996 and 1999, the Victory Gallery and one of the storehouses (No 11) were completely refurbished under a £5.3 million project, all the money for which we raised ourselves, including a major Heritage Lottery Fund grant.

In 2008 the National Museum of the Royal Navy was formed, and publicly launched in September 2009 with a Victory ‘broadside’. The old Royal Naval Museum forms part of the National Museum, along with the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport, the Royal Marines Museum on the Southsea seafront and the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton.

In September 2010 we welcomed our first official affiliate, HMS Trincomalee, a Napoleonic Era frigate, based in Hartlepool.

We recently received backing from the Heritage Lottery Fund to assist us with our plans to develop and expand.  In 2011, we will be celebrating our Centenary.  It is an exciting time for us and the aim of this blog is to share our latest news and give you an insight into life behind the scenes at the museum.

We will also be keeping you up to date through our centenary and development blogs, which will be launching soon.