Editorial See you the ferny ride that steals Into the oak-woods far? O that was whence they hewed the keels That rolled to Trafalgar. Rudyard Kipling, Puck’s Song, 1906. This, the nineteenth edition of The Trafalgar Chronicle, once again takes as its keynote a birthday, though this year of a different sort. 23 July 2009 marked the 250th anniversary of the laying down of Victory’s keel at His Majesty’s dockyard at Chatham in Kent. Thus began the building of a vessel that would grow to become the oldest commissioned warship, and perhaps the most famous in the world. Victory will always be linked with the name and memory of Lord Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar, and that, of course, has been key to her survival into the present day. That she has survived 250 years, over 150 of them in the ‘oggin’, is remarkable but what is extraordinary is the dual role she nowadays enjoys. Not only is she a living museum of the Georgian navy, she also serves as the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command. Proof that her heart beats yet – if proof were needed – is evident in the salute she fired on 18 September this year at the formal launch of the National Museum of the Royal Navy. Victorylet go rolling broadsides and, pleasing to HM Treasury no doubt, this was done at the expense of less powder than gunners at Trafalgar would have used for a single shot. Never fear, HMSVictory’s heart still beats strong. In honour of her birth and longevity, we might do well to take as our metaphor for this issue the construction of a ship. A vessel floats, or sinks, according to the result of the cooperation of the skilled hands that go into her building. And in eighteenth-century Britain, the dockyard was the most complex industrial operation then known. It has been estimated that something like twenty-six different trades went into the building of a wooden-hulled, sail-powered warship. We hope the rough similarity of this figure and our complement of contributors this year is obvious. However, it would be inappropriate to stretch this comparison beyond its bounds and differentiate in order of importance between the master craftsmen who laid the keel and the lads who caulked the deck. Each plays a crucial part. Without due recognition of all hands, ‘ships are but boards, sailors but men’. vi
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