HMS Victoria circa 1887. Picture © Beamish
An amazing photograph of a lost Tyneside-built Royal Navy flagship has been unearthed in the vast Photographic Archive at the North of England Open Air Museum at Beamish.
Staff at the museum are heralding the find as an uncanny coincidence, since it comes just days after divers located the wreck of HMS Victoria in the Mediterranean, just off the coastline of Tripoli and sunk into the seabed at an unusual 90° angle.
HMS Victoria in dry dock © Beamish
Rosemary Allen, Senior Keeper at Beamish said, “the discovery of the photo of the launch came, quite by chance, at almost the same time as the rediscovery of the wreck of HMS Victoria itself.”
Staff at Beamish believe the picture to be a unique depiction of the once thriving shipbuilding industry on the Tyne. Picture © Beamish
HMS Victoria was built by Armstrong Mitchell and Company at Elswick and was launched June 9, 1887. The photograph shows the ship close to the Swing Bridge, being manoeuvred by two tugboats. Crowds line the riverbanks whilst a coal train trundles across the bridge. “This brings home the one time importance of the Tyne and its shipyards to the world,” added Ms Allan.
Staff at Beamish have also recently disovered this photograph of James Curran - a Royal Navy sailor who survived the sinking of the Victoria. © Beamish
After sea trials in 1889, HMS Victoria was fitted out as a battleship and, under the command of Admiral George Tyron, became the flagship of the Mediterranean fleet. In 1893, whilst attempting an anchoring manoeuvre, the ship collided with HMS Camperdown and rapidly sank.
358 of the 715 men on board, including the Admiral were lost – the largest peacetime loss in the history of the Royal Navy.
