Yard, Royal Navy

A Royal Dockyard, a state-owned shipbuilding and repair base of the Royal Navy. The principal home yards were Portsmouth, Plymouth (Devonport), Chatham, Sheerness, Woolwich, and Deptford, with overseas yards at Gibraltar, Malta, Bermuda, and elsewhere supporting the global fleet. The yards built and refitted ships of the line, stored ordnance and provisions, and were among the largest industrial sites in the country; Chatham built HMS Victory, launched 1765. They were run by the Navy Board until the Admiralty absorbed it in 1832.