Royal Navy Museums

Royal Navy Museums Linking Navy and Nation with inspiring stories and experiences.

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 on and under the sea, on land and in the air. We currently have HMS Warrior, HMS Victory, HMS M33 and other attractions at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, ai

rcraft at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton, HMS Caroline in Belfast and HMS Trincomalee in Hartlepool. If you would like to become a member of the National Museum of the Royal Navy and start you maritime adventure please go to https://www.nmrn.org.uk/membership

📆 On 1 June 1794, the Royal Navy fought one of the most famous battles of the Age of Sail.Known as the Glorious First of...
01/06/2026

📆 On 1 June 1794, the Royal Navy fought one of the most famous battles of the Age of Sail.

Known as the Glorious First of June, it was the first major fleet action between Britain and Revolutionary France during the French Revolutionary Wars.

For days, the two fleets manoeuvred across the Atlantic. The British, under Admiral Lord Howe, sought to intercept a vital French grain convoy carrying food desperately needed by a nation facing shortages and political upheaval. The French fleet, commanded by Admiral Villaret de Joyeuse, was determined to protect it.

When the fleets finally met, the fighting was fierce. Ships exchanged devastating broadsides at close range as thousands of sailors and marines faced the realities of battle at sea.

By the end of the action, six French ships had been captured and Britain celebrated what was seen as a great naval victory.

Back in Britain, artists, printers and newspapers quickly turned the battle into a national story. This satirical print shows Lord Howe and British sailors giving the French revolutionaries "a drubbing", revealing how events fought hundreds of miles from shore could capture the public imagination at home.

Yet the grain convoy reached France safely, allowing both nations to claim success.

The Glorious First of June reminds us that naval history is rarely a simple story of winners and losers. It is also a story of the people who served aboard these ships, the decisions made under pressure, and the ways events at sea could shape lives far beyond the horizon.

Discover the stories that connect Navy and Nation through the people who lived them.

📷 Cruikshank; Isaac (1764-1811); Artist - A caricature commemorating Admiral Lord Howe's victory over the French, 1st June 1794.
📷 Admiral Richard Howe, commander of the British fleet at the Glorious First of June. Royal Museums Greenwich.

Happy 13th birthday to our friends and neighbours at the Mary Rose Museum.For 13 years, the museum has brought visitors ...
31/05/2026

Happy 13th birthday to our friends and neighbours at the Mary Rose Museum.

For 13 years, the museum has brought visitors face to face with one of the most extraordinary archaeological discoveries in British history, connecting people with the lives, possessions and final moments of the Tudor crew lost in 1545.

From world-leading conservation and ground-breaking archaeology to the powerful human stories revealed through the collection, the Mary Rose Museum continues to transform how we understand Tudor England and the people who lived through it.

Here’s to many more years of discovery, research and unforgettable moments at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

📆 ⚓ On this day in 1916, the Battle of Jutland began.For 36 hours in the cold waters of the North Sea, around 100,000 Br...
31/05/2026

📆 ⚓ On this day in 1916, the Battle of Jutland began.

For 36 hours in the cold waters of the North Sea, around 100,000 British and German sailors aboard 250 warships fought in the largest naval battle of the First World War.

The British Grand Fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, met the German High Seas Fleet under Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer off the coast of Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula. Both sides knew control of the North Sea could shape the course of the war.

As the fleets closed in on one another, the battle unfolded through confusion, flashes of gunfire and sudden devastation. There were moments of waiting and silence, followed by overwhelming violence as shells tore through steel and ships disappeared beneath the water. By the evening of 31 May, warships on both sides were firing at close range into smoke, darkness and burning seas.

Before the battle ended, 25 ships had been sunk and more than 8,500 men had lost their lives. Many more would carry the memory of Jutland with them for the rest of their lives.

Today, the story of Jutland lives on at Royal Navy Museums: HMS Caroline, the last surviving ship from the battle and a reminder of the people who experienced it first-hand.

📷 Close view of part of the stern of HMS Onslow 1916 destroyer launched Fairfield , showing damage sustained at Jutland. Members of crew seen looking through hole.
📷 Royal Navy Museums: HMS Caroline

https://orlo.uk/HisEB

The Royal Navy story belongs in ships, objects and archives, but it also lives in the decisions people made under pressu...
31/05/2026

The Royal Navy story belongs in ships, objects and archives, but it also lives in the decisions people made under pressure. That’s where Untold Stories sits.

This is a story of leadership and trust.

On HMS Caroline, nearly 200 men lived and worked below deck, while Captain Henry Ralph Crooke carried responsibility for every order, every risk and every life on board.

At the Battle of Jutland, that responsibility mattered more than ever. This story from Our Untold Stories, explores command, pressure and survival on a ship that came through one of the largest naval battles in history.

Read our latest story to learn what leadership looked like in the chaos of Jutland. Then step inside Royal Navy Museums: HMS Caroline and explore the ship that came through it unscathed.

https://orlo.uk/Puo3B

29/05/2026

⚓ Hidden beneath HMS Victory for more than 130 years. Now on display for visitors to see.

Discovered beneath Victory’s foremast during HMS Victory: The Big Repair, these coins and tokens were placed there by nineteenth-century shipwrights as part of a long-standing maritime tradition associated with luck and protection at sea.

Now conserved and on display, they offer a direct connection to the people who cared for HMS Victory long after Trafalgar. Not admirals or captains, but the shipwrights, craftsmen and sailors whose work helped carry her story from one generation to the next.

These small objects remind us that naval history is not only shaped by famous moments. It is also shaped by the people whose contributions are often hidden from view.

📍 See the HMS Victory coins now on display at Royal Navy Museums: Portsmouth.

https://orlo.uk/W7vzE

This week, we marked over 60 years of Royal Navy aviation storytelling as the Fleet Air Arm Museum begins a new chapter ...
28/05/2026

This week, we marked over 60 years of Royal Navy aviation storytelling as the Fleet Air Arm Museum begins a new chapter as Royal Navy Museums: Naval Aviation.

The new name reflects something bigger than a museum collection. It connects naval aviation more clearly to the wider story of the Royal Navy and the people behind it, from carrier decks and combat operations to engineering, innovation and life in service.

Over the past six decades, the museum has grown into Europe’s largest naval aviation museum, caring for more than 90 aircraft alongside millions of documents, photographs and artefacts linked to more than 100 years of flying in the Royal Navy.

But these collections are not only about aircraft. They carry stories of pilots, engineers, handlers, observers and crews whose lives shaped naval aviation across generations.

As Royal Navy Museums: Naval Aviation, we will continue telling those stories through the people who lived them, linking Navy and Nation through experiences that helped shape the modern world.

https://orlo.uk/OxY3l

On 26 May 1941, some of the Royal Navy’s slowest aircraft were sent to stop one of the most powerful battleships in the ...
26/05/2026

On 26 May 1941, some of the Royal Navy’s slowest aircraft were sent to stop one of the most powerful battleships in the world.

The target was Bismarck.

Days earlier, HMS Hood had been destroyed with the loss of 1,415 men. Now, Swordfish crews from HMS Ark Royal launched into darkness, bad weather and anti-aircraft fire to continue the pursuit. Their aircraft were fabric-covered biplanes. Open to the elements. Slower than many enemy fighters. Yet they pressed home the attack.

A torpedo struck Bismarck’s stern, jamming her rudder and leaving the battleship unable to escape. By the following morning, Royal Navy ships had caught up with her.

Bismarck sank on 27 May 1941.

The pursuit became one of the most famous naval operations of the Second World War and a story of persistence, leadership and crews flying into extraordinary danger. Today, aircraft linked to the Fleet Air Arm’s wartime story help tell those experiences at Royal Navy Museums: Naval Aviation.

Discover the people behind the missions that shaped history.

📷 Fairey Swordfish taking off from HMS Victorious to find the Bismarck.
📷 Fairey Swordfish at Royal Navy Museums: Naval Aviation.

https://orlo.uk/SC2i9

On 25 May 1982, Britain suffered two devastating losses during the Falklands War.HMS Coventry was bombed and sunk. Atlan...
25/05/2026

On 25 May 1982, Britain suffered two devastating losses during the Falklands War.

HMS Coventry was bombed and sunk. Atlantic Conveyor, carrying vital aircraft, supplies and equipment, was struck by Exocet missiles. The loss would have lasting consequences for the campaign that followed.

Among the aircraft involved in operations connected to Atlantic Conveyor was Wessex XT468, which escaped during the attack and continued flying missions throughout the conflict.

Today, another Falklands veteran, Wessex XT765, survives in the collection at Royal Navy Museums: Naval Aviation.

Aircraft like these carried troops, supplies and ammunition across the islands, evacuated wounded personnel from the front line and supported operations under constant pressure and uncertainty.

Their stories are not only about aircraft or conflict. They are about the people who flew them, the crews who depended on them and the role naval aviation played during one of Britain’s most significant modern conflicts.

See Wessex XT765 at Royal Navy Museums: Naval Aviation and discover the stories that connect Navy and Nation through the people who lived them.

https://orlo.uk/n7Hmr

24/05/2026

Royal Navy Museums brings together stories from across naval history, linking Navy and Nation through the lives behind them.

This is a story of leadership under pressure, part of *Our Untold Stories*.

At Royal Navy Museums: Naval Aviation, this story explores Eugene Esmonde’s role in the pursuit of Bismarck on 24 May 1941. Flying slow Swordfish aircraft into dangerous conditions and enemy fire, Esmonde led his squadron during one of the most dramatic naval operations of the Second World War.

His story is remembered for courage. It also reveals leadership, trust and the weight of command.

Discover the story behind one of the war’s most dramatic naval pursuits in our latest blog, then see the aircraft and medals that help tell it at Royal Navy Museums: Naval Aviation.

https://orlo.uk/ZFKvg

📆 ⚓ On this day in 1876, HMS Challenger returned to Britain after nearly three and a half years at sea.When she sailed f...
24/05/2026

📆 ⚓ On this day in 1876, HMS Challenger returned to Britain after nearly three and a half years at sea.

When she sailed from Portsmouth in December 1872, Challenger was no longer just a warship. Her guns had been removed and her spaces transformed into laboratories, specimen rooms and workspaces for scientists, sailors and artists preparing to explore parts of the ocean the world had never seen before.

Over 69,000 nautical miles, the expedition crossed the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans, carrying out deep-sea soundings, dredges and trawls that changed scientific understanding of the world beneath the waves. During the voyage, the crew recorded the deep ocean trench now known as Challenger Deep.

For many on board, the expedition became something far greater than a naval voyage. Sailors wrote of the strange experience of hauling unknown life from the darkness below and charting places no human had ever mapped before.

The Challenger expedition showed how naval history can shape far more than conflict at sea, linking Navy and Nation through discovery, science and a deeper understanding of the world itself.

By the time Challenger returned to Spithead on 24 May 1876, the expedition had identified thousands of previously unknown species and laid the foundations of modern oceanography.

Discover more about the Challenger expedition in Worlds Beneath the Waves at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

https://orlo.uk/2xGwZ

📷 HMS Challenger, Bermuda Naval Base, Caleb Newbold

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