The National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) has announced that it has been saved from imminent insolvency by a promise of emergency government funding. The museum group includes Lord Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory and HMS Warrior at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and the frigate HMS Trincomalee in Hartlepool, among vessels and exhibitions at seven UK sites.
The museum said the closure of its sites due to the coronavirus lockdown had caused a £6.35m shortfall which would have resulted in its filing for insolvency within the next month had the emergency funding not been granted. NMRN will now able to begin to reopen its sites in Portsmouth, Gosport, Hartlepool, and Yeovilton and will be making announcements about dates for reopening, in the coming weeks. NMRN said the government had indicated it would give £5.4m to cover losses this financial year.
NMRN will not, however, be able to open its site in Belfast as HMS Caroline is governed by a different funding model via the Northern Ireland Executive.
After decades of amateur restoration and poor craftsmanship the current restoration board are doing an amazing and professional job of doing the correct procedures and preserving HMS Victory for centuries. This is great news.
Yes welcome news but then I do not think this was widely known outside the maritime fraternity. VICTORY is being excellently restored and not before time. Unfortunately when the RN Museum took over the running of the warship WARRIOR the first think they did was to put in a very modern coffee shop into the Victorian Galley which somewhat destroyed the historical context. We in the UK are not as good as you are in the USA at doing reenactment within the operation of our museums, you have it right with costumed characters in period something we could learn from.
Chris