The BBC recently reported that HMS Victory, one of the most celebrated warships in British history, is being repaired using wood from France. The conservation work is part of a 10-year project titled The Big Repair, which will cost £40-£45m.
They commented that some have said Nelson “might have been shocked” by the use of wood from his old enemy, to which Andrew Baines, executive director of museum operations, said: “The Royal Navy has a long history of using timbers from across Europe and the world.”
Regardless of where the wood is being sourced, it has been 258 years since the ship was launched and 246 years since the ship was commissioned. How much of the original ship remains after over two centuries of active service, repairs, and rebuilding? Depending on which source one uses, estimates range from 17% to 20%. The new restoration work will no doubt reduce the percentage.
Is there a point at which HMS Victory is no longer the same ship whose decks were trod by Nelson at Trafalgar? Or will HMS Victory always be the same historic ship no matter how often she is restored and repaired?
These are not new questions. They were discussed by the Greek philosophers Heraclitus and Plato by c. 500–400 BC in a thought experiment called the Ship of Theseus.
As later articulated by the historian Plutarch, a famous ship sailed by the hero Theseus, on his return from Crete, was kept in a harbor as a museum piece, and as the years went by, some of the wooden parts began to rot and were replaced by new ones; then, after a century or so, every part had been replaced. The question became whether the “restored” ship is still the same object as the original.
So, is HMS Victory an example of an almost Ship of Theseus, having been more than 80% reconstructed from the original ship? In Victory‘s case, it is not a straightforward question as after two centuries it is hard to determine what is original to the ship and whether “original” is a meaningful term.
The Victory was commissioned in 1785 and saw service in four significant battles. By 1797, she was declared unfit for active service and left anchored off Chatham Dockyard. In December 1798 she was ordered to be converted to a hospital ship to hold wounded French and Spanish prisoners of war. With the loss of the 98 gun Impregnable in 1799, it was decided instead to keep her sailing and she was sent for a major rebuild at Chatham.
Between 1800 and 1803 Victory underwent a large repair at Chatham. At the same time, she was updated according to the latest instructions from the Navy Board. Her external appearance changed dramatically.
In the Battle of Trafalgar, Victory was seriously damaged and would require significant repairs over several decades. In 1831 the Admiralty issued orders for Victory to be broken up and her timbers reused in other vessels. A public outcry against the destruction of so famous a ship led to the order being held in abeyance and Victory was left, largely forgotten, at a Portsmouth mooring.
By 1922 the ship’s condition was so poor that she would no longer stay afloat and had to be moved into No. 2 dock at Portsmouth, the oldest dry dock in the world still in use, to avoid sinking. And in No. 2 dock she remains today, still under repair and restoration.
Does the long and varied history of HMS Victory answer the questions raised by the ancient Ship of Theseus thought experiment? I think it does. A ship, whether Victory or the Ship of Theseus, is more than a finite assemblage of its parts. Ships are complex machines that often can be made to evolve to fit the needs of their service. Perhaps, rather than being the sum total of its pieces, the venerable Victory is a synthesis of its varied lives and the sum total of its history.