x The President’s Dispatch Admiral Sir Jonathon Band In the latter days of my naval service I, and others, became increasingly worried about the material condition of HMS Victory. Not surprisingly, the MoD and the Royal Navy were finding it increasingly difficult due to currentday operational pressures, to find the required financial resources and to plan the necessary work. The general state of the ship was deteriorating and it was clear that there were certain serious issues. It was therefore plain that continuing MoD ownership and funding was not the long-term solution and that a different construct was required. But what should that be? At about the same time the Navy Board was concerned that the Royal Navy’s approach to its heritage was disjointed and dysfunctional. The Royal Navy Museum in Portsmouth covered the sailing navy well, particularly during the Georgian period. But it did not cover the recent history at all adequately. The Service museums did an excellent job of telling the story of the Fleet Air Arm, the Submarine Service and the Royal Marines but nowhere were the strategic and higher-level operational roles of the Navy through the centuries set out. Importantly also, there was no proper link, Navy wide, to today’s operations and people. The answer that was agreed upon was to create the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) and to integrate the existing museums into it. The NMRN was created in the Autumn of 2009 and it was my honour to become its Chairman just under a year later. It was quickly realised that with the creation of the NMRN we had the vehicle to develop the charitable and company construct that might attract benefactors and persuade the MoD and the Royal Navy to handover HMSVictoryto an organisation that would always be intimately linked to the Navy. The financial attractiveness was that a charitable trust could accept private endowments. The organisational attractions were that it offered a better focus for conservation and a hard link with the Royal Navy that would still allow the Ship to fulfil a formal role and fly the White Ensign. This latter point was believed to be attractive to potential benefactors and would certainly help general marketing and public presentation. What was now needed were the stars to align, and this they did. Rear Admiral Sir Donald Gosling KCVO offered a very significant endowment. In response,
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