A waterline model of the 'Victory' (1765), a 100-gun, three-decker ship of the line. The model is on a scenic plaster base inside a small case. It is decked, equipped and rigged, with the sails set. A plaque on the case is inscribed, ‘64 feet to the inch scale HMS Victory at Trafalgar 1805. Modelled by Chas. Hampshire M.I.M.E. 1933’. ‘Victory’ is towing a ship’s boat.

‘Victory’, the flagship of Vice Admiral Nelson at Trafalgar, is probably the best known of all the Royal Navy’s warships. This incarnation, built at Chatham and launched in 1765, was the fifth vessel of her name. She was not commissioned until 1878 and first served as Admiral Keppel’s flagship in an indecisive battle with the French off Ushant in the same year. She saw much service, both in the American War of Independence (1775-82) and in the Revolutionary War with France (1793-1801).

During the Napoleonic War (1803-15), she became Nelson’s flagship in 1803 in the Mediterranean and carried him in his chase across the Atlantic after Admiral Villeneuve. She then took Nelson from Portsmouth to join, and take command of, the fleet of Vice Admiral Collingwood which was watching the combined Franco-Spanish fleet at Cadiz in October 1805. During the subsequent battle off the Cape of Trafalgar Nelson was mortally wounded by a bullet while standing on the upper deck.

She next served in the Baltic as the flagship of Admiral Saumarez and was withdrawn from active service in 1812. Taken to Portsmouth, she was selected as the permanent, and stationary, flagship of the commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, lying at moorings in the harbour. In 1922, under pressure from the Society for Nautical Research, she was brought into No. 2 Drydock where she was restored and re-rigged to her state at Trafalgar.