The National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth , formerly known as the Royal Naval Museum , is a museum of the history of the Royal Navy located in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard section of HMNB Portsmouth , Portsmouth , Hampshire , England. The museum is part of the National Museum of the Royal Navy , a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Ministry of Defence . It received 1,081,909 visitors in 2017.
8-664: 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 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
16-538: A captain-superintendent instead, whose deputy was styled commander of the dockyard. The appointment of a commodore-superintendent was also made from time to time in certain yards. The appointment of admiral-superintendents (or their junior equivalents) dates from 1832 when the Admiralty took charge of the Royal Dockyards. Prior to this larger dockyards were overseen by a commissioner who represented
24-613: The Navy Board . In the Royal Naval Dockyards, admiral-superintendents ceased to be appointed after 15 September 1971, and existing post-holders were renamed port admirals . This followed the appointment of a (civilian) Chief Executive of the Royal Dockyards in September 1969 and the creation of a centralised Royal Dockyards Management Board. List of admiral-superintendents by first appointment date. Appointed by
32-722: 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 ). A new glass atrium links the two historic storehouses. 50°48′03″N 1°06′35″W / 50.8007°N 1.1098°W / 50.8007; -1.1098 Admiral Superintendent The admiral-superintendent
40-466: The adjacent No. 10 Storehouse from 1776; both are Grade I listed . The Victory Gallery is a purpose-built museum building of 1938. HMS M33 , a World War I Monitor warship, is also part of the museum; she was opened to the public in 2015, her centenary year. No. 11 Storehouse contains various exhibition spaces relating to the Age of Sail . The restored No. 10 Storehouse opened to the public in 2014 as
48-610: 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" The museum is housed in a row of three buildings which face HMS Victory . No. 11 Storehouse dates from 1763, and
56-625: Was awarded in 1916 the Imperial Service Order . 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
64-559: Was the Royal Navy officer in command of a larger Naval Dockyard . Portsmouth , Devonport and Chatham all had admiral-superintendents, as did some other dockyards in the United Kingdom and abroad at certain times. The admiral-superintendent usually held the rank of rear-admiral . His deputy was the captain of the dockyard (or captain of the port from 1969). Some smaller dockyards, such as Sheerness and Pembroke , had
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