The HMS Victory

Over on  Stout Standards I was reading an interesting piece entitled 'Treasure Hunting at its very best' on the recovery of bullion from the SS gairsoppa, the bullion consisted of 1574 silver ingots weighing about 1,100 ounces each. To a bloke who thinks a silver half crown is a lot of silver that's a whole lot of treasure.

The SS Gairsoppa was discovered by an organisation called Odyssey Marine Exploration.

Odyssey Marine Exploration (OME) have apparently pioneered what they call 'commercial marine archaeology'.  

Amongst their other discoveries is HMS Victory (not the HMS Victory that was Nelson's flagship).

 It would appear that the wreck was found in May 2008 by OME and this was announced on 1 February 2009. HMS Victory was at the time property of the British Government but was gifted to the Maritime Heritage Foundation in January 2012 (Heritage Daily investigation in the whole affair here). The Maritime Heritage Foundation was created and is chaired by Lord Lingfield, a Conservative Peer. Claims had been made that Lord Lingfield was a descendant of Admiral Balchen, who went down with the HMS Victory along with the crew of about 1150, but it appears that these claims may be false (1150 crew on a 250 odd year old ship is amazing in itself to me).

There are now plans to salvage items from the Victory although they are awaiting ministerial approval something which may not be forthcoming given that Admiral Balchen's actual descendant Richard Temple West and many others are concerned about the commercial exploitation of a war grave. Furthermore OME may have been rather naughty in exploring the wreck without a licence.

OME has been in the Courts before after unlawfully retrieving 17 tonnes of gold and silver from a Spanish Wreck.

I do wonder if there really is there any archaeological benefit in salvaging the items from the HMS Victory or if Treasure Hunting really is the only motive.

Whilst some of this might be old news in the light of the furore over the Nazi War Diggers I thought the story of the HMS Victory is an interesting one as both tales involve disturbing the dead to find artifacts.