It ranges from small items of personal ephemera - a dockyard matey’s old cigarette box - to HMS Cavalier, the Royal Navy’s last Second World War destroyer.
There are over 20,000 photographs within this collection dating from the very earliest years of photography. They mainly depict Chatham Dockyard at work and ships of the Royal Navy on the River Medway. Here HMS Royal Oak-Britain's first wooden hulled ironclad-is pictured during her conversion at Chatham Dockyard from a 91 gun wooden ship to a 36 gun ironclad frigate.
Ref: 1990.0024.08 PHA 26
HMS Invincible, a 74 gun ship, was wrecked in the Solent in 1758. In the late 1970’s the ship was excavated by archaeologists. This collection numbers over six hundred artefacts from the ship providing a unique picture of life onboard an eighteenth-century warship. This square plate was issued to a sailor for eating his food off. It is the origin of the expression ‘three square meals a day'.
Ref: 1987.0045.01 INV 175
This collection holds over 150 works of art including oil painting, watercolours and prints. Their content ranges from topographical views of the dockyard to portraits of naval personnel. This painting offers one of the most important views of Chatham Dockyard in the eighteenth century and shows the Dockyard before the reconstruction of the Ropery and the Anchor Wharf Stores. Many of the buildings which still exist are shown on the painting and can be readily identified.
Ref: 1993.0003.01 ART 59
There are 50 models in this collection; they are mainly of naval ships. This model however depicts a figurehead and was made by carvers working in the Dockyard during the late 1780s. It was almost certainly made before work started on the full size figurehead to show King George III how his Queen was to be portrayed. This model is carved from limewood and is an example of the remarkable skills of the Dockyard's artisans. It is very rare - only one other figurehead model is known to survive in public ownership in the UK.
Ref: 2005.0040.01 MOD 45
A far larger model within the collection is this impressive model of HMS Victory made for the 1941 Hollywood film "That Hamilton Woman" starring Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Victory was Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar and is the most famous of all Chatham built warships. A first rate of 104 guns, she was launched at Chatham in 1765. HMS Victory is now the oldest commissioned warship in the world. In service at Portsmouth, she is the flagship of the Second Sea Lord and Commander in Chief Naval Home Command.
Ref: 1996.0032.01 MOD 30
There are over 100 machine tools within this collection-all were originally used in the dockyard for shipbuilding and repair. This Plate Bending machine was built in 1913 by Hugh Smith & Co. of Possil, Glasgow. It was originally located in No. 5 Machine Shop and was used for bending hull plates. It is an exceptionally large scale example of a unique ship building machine tool; only one other is known to exist in Britain.
Ref: 1984.0107.15 MTL 83
There are nearly 150 items in this collection ranging from figureheads and anchors to marine engines. This figurehead came from HMS Rodney, an Admiral class barbette battleship launched at Chatham Dockyard in 1884. It is named after Admiral George Rodney who was in command at the Battle of The Saints in 1782. In 1894 the Admiralty ordered all figureheads and bow ornaments on battleships to be removed. When removed in 1897 Rodney's figurehead was the last borne by a modern sea-going battleship in the Royal Navy. Upon removal, the figurehead was set up in the Pattern Shop at Chatham Dockyard.
Ref: 1999.0018.01 SHP121
This collection numbers over 100 items of naval ordnance dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries and includes guns, torpedoes, mines and mortars. This is an example of a 9 Pounder Sea and Garrison Service gun built to the 1787 pattern. It was designed by Colonel Thomas Blomefield, the Inspector of Artillery who is regarded as England’s last great gun designer. The gun carriage is a replica based on a 1791 pattern. The carriage was built at the Ordnance Workshop at Chatham Historic Dockyard in 1988.
Ref: 1985.0017.02 ORD 31 & 1991.0046.07 ORD 26
There are over 10,000 items in the archive collection, many documents relate to naval and dockyard correspondence and to individuals’ naval service. This Commonplace Book was compiled by John Allan, an apprentice shipwright at Chatham during the mid eighteenth century. In it he mentions the building of HMS Victory. The book was donated to the Dockyard by descendents of the author. A Commonplace Book was a book in which scraps of information were recorded; each book was therefore unique to their creator.
Ref: 2005.0074.01 DOC 1063
The varied ephemera collection consists of 700 items ranging from a dockyard matey’s cigarette box to programmes commemorating ships’ launches. This Programme relates to the visit of His Majesty King George VI to the Royal Naval Barracks at Chatham in 1948.
Ref: 2005.0011.01 EPH 568
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