Old Royal Naval College - Royal Naval College, Greenwich

Royal Naval College, Greenwich

When the Greenwich Hospital was closed it was converted to a training establishment of the Royal Navy and from 1873 to 1998 it provided a number of courses for naval officers including being home to the Royal Navy's staff college. The staff course provided advanced training for mid-ranking officers. It became known as the "Navy’s university", auguring a new era of scientific training. It combined the functions and resources of the former Royal Naval War College at Portsmouth and the School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, which moved from South Kensington. In 1919 the Naval Staff College was also opened on the site.

During the Second World War the College’s major task was the training of fighting officers. Around 35,000 men and women graduated during that period. In 1943, the beautifully floored and paneled "Admiral’s House" on the north wing of King Charles Court was damaged by a direct hit from a German bomb; another hit the front of the building.

The Navy’s Department of Nuclear Science and Technology opened in 1959, and JASON, the department’s research and training reactor was commissioned in the King William building in 1962. JASON was fully dismantled in 1999.

In 1967 Francis Chichester was knighted on the river steps of the College by Queen Elizabeth II for being the first person to single-handedly circumnavigate the world by the old clipper route; it was also the fastest circumnavigation (nine months and one day).

From 1983 the relocated Joint Services Defence College also occupied much of the King Charles building.

The Royal Navy finally left the College in 1998 when the site passed into the hands of the Greenwich Foundation for the Old Royal Naval College. On the closure of the Royal Naval College, Britannia Royal Naval College became the sole naval college in the United Kingdom.