Restoring Victory: Naval Heritage, Identity, and Memory in Interwar Britain

In the decade following 1918, HMS Victory was restored as a memorial to the nation, empire, the Navy, and all the sailors who had lost their lives in the Great War. This piece of Britain's naval heritage became a focal point for Great War memory and a resource for narrating the Navy's place in post-war Britain. This article analyses the restoration campaign, focusing on its appeal work and the materials it produced, discourses surrounding the restoration and the use of Victory's oak to recover this ship's importance at the intersection between Britain and its Navy in the aftermath of the Great War, and the function that the Navy played in the construction of post-war memory and identity.