H.M.S. VICTORY.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17707, 8 March 1923, Page 11

H.M.S. VICTORY.

THE RESTORATION FUND.

A GENEROUS GIFT. (M CABLE—PEBSB ASSOCHTIOH—COJTBIQHT.) (AU3TBALIAK AHD Jt.z. CABLE ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, March 6. An anonymous well-wisher of the Navy has sent £50,000 to the fund to save Nelson's Victory from further deterioration. Admiral of the Fleet Sir Doveton Sturdee, is receiving similar subscriptions from all parts of the Empire, and p.lso gifts of a few shillings subscribed by school children.

In a recent article, Admiral of the Fleet Sir F. 0. Doveton Sturdee, the victor of the Falkland Islands action of January, 1915, wrote of H.M.S. Victory and what she means to the Empire "Tho honours of Trafalgar," ho said, " were sufficient in themselves to make the Victory famous, and yet alio was famous before ever Trafalgar was fought. It was in her that Nelson pursued over the Atlantic to the West Indies and back again the fleet which Napoleon believed would carry him across tho Channel to conquer the only State in Europe that had not yielded to his sword. On that occasion Nelson chose the Victory for his flag, not because she was the fastest of all the threo-deckers, nor yet because she was the hardest-hit-ting battleship afloat. He chose her becauso he hoped to emulate 4n her the battle honours which she already possessed. The Victory was the flagship of Admiral Sir John Jerviß when, with fifteen ships against twentyseven, he routed his country's enemies at St. Vincent. She was the flagship of Lord Hood when he occupied Toulon, and conquered Corsica. She was the flagship of Lord Howe when, in the face of every obstacle, he relieved Gibraltar after three years of siege, and defeated the combined fleets investing it. She was the flagship in turn of Keppel and Kempenfeldt." In her record of over thirty-four years of war service she flew tne flags of fourteen different Admirals, and since she went to rest at Portsmouth, a century ago, she, has flown the flag of every Commander-in-Chief of that naval station, and has been in active commission.

Sir Doveton .Sturdee is chairman of the committee' which is endeavouring to raise £150,000 for the restoration and partial reconstruction of the Victory. It 6 is proposed thoroughly to overhaul the ship to refit her in the rig in which she fought at Trafalgar, to remove nineteenth century anachronisms, and to replace the beautiful bow, figurehead, and stern, which were altered out of recognition In the early part of the last century. He points out that the Admiralty have always regarded the maintenance and upkeep of the Victory as a sacred frost. Within the last few months the Lords Commissioners have moved the ship, still proudly wearing an Admiral's flag, into a dock consecrated for all time to her sole use; they have furnished the dock with new gates of the latest patterns; they have relieved the vessel's hold of 550 tons of ballast; and supported her sound timbers by an iron cradle, as the body of \a cripple is supported by crutches. "There are two reasons why the Admiralty can do no more.. "In the first place, by. immemorial British custom, the rebuilding of a battleship which is still in commission can only be carried out 'with money specifically raised for the purpose; and there are obvious reasons why the Victory should not be put upon the She is not to be weighed, like a newly voted Ironclad, in the scale of immediate naoesßities. Her value is no transitory thing; and the patriotism, which she magically stirs, would evaporate in an Act of Parlia» ment. And, secondly, the age of ► wooden battleships is gone, and from the dockyards the men who built ' them. The .knowledge of what the I Victory requires is confined to the body of specialists in the Society for NauI tical Research, whom the Admiralty has appointed to oonduct the Victory's I restoration."