HMS Warrior 1860 celebrates 30th Re-Birthday!
Thirty years ago today (3rd September, 2009) HMS Warrior embarked on an exciting journey to be restored to her former glory, before coming to rest as an iconic landmark at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
HMS Warrior, launched in 1860, was the ultimate deterrent of her day. She represented a giant leap forward in naval architecture and weaponry and took 35 months to complete. Yet, so revolutionary was Warrior and such was the pace of technological progress that, within 10 years, she was obsolete and spent the next 100 years as a depot ship, a storage hulk and then formed part of the Royal Navy Torpedo Training School at Portsmouth. Finally, after 50 years as an oil jetty in Milford Haven, she was rescued and towed to Grays Shipyard in Hartlepool, arriving on the 3rd September 1979, to be restored to her original glory.
After so many years of going unnoticed, considerable research was needed to establish exactly what the ship had been like. The Royal Naval Museum stepped in to help after unearthing the remarkable journal of Henry Murray, a 14 year old Midshipman in 1861. Murray had drawn plans and diagrams recording in meticulous detail all the fittings and equipment, showing where everything went. With the aid of this journal, every detail, however minute, was lovingly recreated – from the magnificent Penn steam engine to the gilded figurehead; from the officers’ cabins to the mess tables and guns used by the crew.
“If every warship in the 19th century still existed and was available for preservation Warrior would still be my first choice”. Sir John Smith
After eight years of skilful rebuilding, made possible thanks to the generosity and vision of one man – Sir John Smith[i], HMS Warrior 1860 was restored to her 1861 condition and now with her Red Ensign flying as per her original prominence in the fleet, is a tribute to Victorian innovation, the skills of her restorers and to the Warrior Preservation Trust.
[i]The campaign to restore HMS Warrior began in 1967, championed by John Smith, the MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, who had formed the Manifold Trust five years earlier to restore threatened items of our national heritage. Even the House of Commons heard of Warrior''s fate. MPs were told that Warrior could serve as "a potent source of education and inspiration for our children....."
Smith’s drive and persistence led to a committee, chaired by the Duke of Edinburgh, who met in 1968 to discuss Warrior’s future. From this emerged the Maritime Trust, formed to raise money for the preservation of our naval heritage. Sir John Smith agreed that the Manifold Trust would underwrite the cost of restoration, estimated between £4-8 million, and the ship was handed over to the Maritime Trust in 1979.
In 1983 ownership was then transferred to the Ship’s Preservation Trust, which became the Warrior Preservation Trust in 1985.
