NAVY NEWS, AUGUST 2007 37
● The Staff Offi cers’ Mess, as it was called in 1850. The building is little changed now but the photograph ● Previous Mess Presidents of the Old Naval Academy attending their fi nal lunch in May
was taken before the area in front was grassed over and the trees planted. The ornate Victorian gas lamp
is still there.
Admiral of the Fleet and is com- on intervening Saturdays the boys used as accommodation for junior service for the quality of its food
T
HE Old Naval Acad- constantly washed and combed at
emy, in Portsmouth
breakfast and dinner.”
memorated in St Ann’s Church in would travel by boat to Haslar to officers. and its staff, some of whom had
Naval Base, has fi nally
The listed Georgian building,
Portsmouth Naval Base. play football in an area in front of From 1906 it became the worked there for nearly 20 years.
The Academy’s reputation the hospital entrance. Navigation School HMS Dryad, However, with the transfer of so
closed its doors after 275
with its distinctive red-brick façade
improved in the early 1800s and The cupola was the first tacti- and the building was modernised many people to Fleet headquarters
years of somewhat chequered
and gilded ball atop a cupola, was
built in 1729 as an academy to
in 1808 it reopened as the Royal cal school – sea fighting strategies and electrified. During the Great at Whale Island, mess numbers fell
history.
train young officers.
Naval College, with the Rev James would be played out with models War it was used for accommoda- and the wardroom had to close.
In its latter years, the ONA had
Originally called the Portsmouth
Inman, one of the leading math- on the floor, and students would tion, and remodelled in the 1920s. Most of the building is now empty
the sedate atmosphere of a gen-
Naval Academy, it opened its doors
ematicians of his day, as Professor. watch from the gallery. The ball In 1979, on the 250th anni- and its future is undecided.
tleman’s club, providing lunches
in 1733 to “the sons of Noblemen
At the end of the Napoleonic on the top was used as a represen- versary of its first founding, the Its fine silverware and furniture,
and respectable social events for
and Gentlemen” between the ages
War the curriculum was “English, tation of the sun for sextant work. building was renamed the Old which included a dressing table
its members.
of 13 and 16, to teach naviga-
Latin and Greek every day before Despite its increasing success, Naval Academy. from the Royal Yacht Victoria and
However, in its early years the
tion, gunnery, writing, arithme-
breakfast, maths from 9 to 12 the Academy fell victim to an By the time it closed in June, it Albert, has been sent to the trophy
academy witnessed such scenes of
tic, French, drawing, fencing and
noon, afternoons from 2 to 4.30 economising Admiralty in 1837 was the oldest Naval Wardroom store in HMS Nelson.
debauchery that St Vincent went
dancing.
either history and geography or and closed its doors as a school. still in use, and the last to employ The last functions to be held
so far as to call it “a sink of vice
Its success was limited in its
French and drawing.” Thereafter the building became a entirely Royal Navy chefs and RN there were a lunch for past Mess
and abomination, which ought
early years, not just because of its
Every other Saturday was set tender to HMS Excellent to teach and civil service stewards. Presidents in May, and a Summer
to be abolished” and Barham
dubious reputation, but because
aside for small arms training, and science, and from 1873 it was It was renowned throughout the Ball and final lunch in June.
described it as a “nursery of vice
most 18th-Century sea-officers
and immorality”
looked down upon schoolroom
Sadly, the details of the 18th- education and theory and pre-
Century goings-on are lost in the ferred training at sea.
mists of time (despite Navy News’ However, during the 1770s,
best efforts to uncover them) but sons of serving officers could be
certainly there were many con- educated there at public expense,
temporary accounts of its gen- and it grew more popular, until
eral dirtiness and squalor, and the by the early 1800s it was oversub-
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● The ONA suffered a direct hit in World War 2. This photograph,
taken in September 1942, shows the extent of the damage.
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