Earlier in 1758, a Norfolk parish priest, the Reverend Edmund Nelson, and his wife Catherine, had a baby boy, the sixth of 11 children, named Horatio.

The ship was designed by the Royal Navy’s chief surveyor, Sir Thomas Slade. At 227ft long and nearly 52ft wide, the Victory was a floating forest. Sixty acres of prime English oak (some 2,000 trees) were felled to build her. She was launched on May 7, 1765.

In 1803, following a major rebuild, the Victory once more entered active service, now under the command of her most celebrated officer, Nelson. This period was to culminate in the famous victory at Trafalgar in October 1805, when Nelson was fatally wounded on deck.

Victory’s combat career came to an end in 1812, after which she sailed back to Portsmouth, and saw service as a depot ship for over a century. It was only in the 1920s that it was proposed that she should be towed to a permanent home in dry dock at Portsmouth, and fully restored as a museum. Her final battle-scar was sustained during the second world war, when a German bomb exploded nearby.

Further restorations for the bicentenary of Trafalgar in 2005 saw the Victory returned to ship-shape condition. The ceremony to mark the occasion took place in torrential rain, but nothing could dampen the spirits of those present as the famous signal was once again run up the mizzenmast: “England expects that every man will do his duty.”