Card of the Day: A Royal Visit to H.M.S. “Victory”

After the First World War, the damage to Britain was considerable, and over the course of the following several years, King George V and Queen Mary made a point of surveying the state of the Empire. Some of the damage was directly related to the War, some of it was due to neglect of historical properties which had been ignored during more turbulent times.


The twentieth card in the series of commemorative cards produced by Wills’s Cigarette Company in 1935 for the Silver Jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary depicts a visit from the King to Lord Nelson’s famous ship, H.M.S. VICTORY.

The reverse of the card reads:

A ROYAL VISIT TO THE H.M.S. VICTORY


A year or two after the War, it was discovered that Nelson’s famous flagship, the “Victory,” was sinking at her moorings in Portsmouth Harbor, and that the timbers of the hull were in perilous condition. She was accordingly moved permanently into dry dock, and thorough measures were taken to restore her. A careful study of naval records has enabled the “Victory’s” appearance at the time of the Battle of Trafalgar, and the Admiral’s quarters, to be reproduced. On July 26th, 1924, before holding the Naval review at Spithead, the King and the Prince of Wales went over the famous old man-of-war, and inspected the work of reconstruction.

The Victory Today
BBC News