Summary History of the Trust A Personal Recollection Prepared by Peter Goodship Consultant Chief Executive June 2020 1. Introduction It is often said by historians seeking to justify their existence that "if you don't know where you have come from you cannot possibly know where you are going". The Chairman thought it might be helpful if I were to provide all current trustees with a potted history of the Trust from its inception in 1985 to assist your review of strategy. As part of my then role as Chief Executive’s Staff Officer, I was tasked by Portsmouth City Council to set up the Trust after having led the discussions with various agencies in the wake of the 1982 Defence Review. Several of you will recognise aspects of the history from your personal involvement and will no doubt have your own gloss on events and be in a position to expand on them. The views I express are my own, distilled from personal recollection and from research of our minute books, an extraordinarily valuable and precious archive. I have supplemented my own history with a copy of our last published account of our work covering the first twenty years from 1986 to 2006. This adds some colour to the narrative as well as capturing events I have not had the opportunity to cover in this summary. The document pre-dates the Trust’s acquisition of Priddy’s Hard and Explosion Museum from Gosport Borough Council and our revised proposals for the re-use of Boathouse 4. 2. The 1982 John Knott Review of Defence The Trust was born out of the Defence Review of 1982 which led to the closure of Chatham Dockyard, the privatisation of Devonport Dockyard and the slimming down of Portsmouth from a major ship building and repair facility to a Fleet Maintenance and Repair Organisation (FMRO). The more modern facilities at Chatham were transferred on a freehold basis to a development agency and the historic estate was transferred on a freehold basis with an endowment to a charitable trust, established jointly by Kent County Council, the Ministry of Defence and the Department of the Environment. The slimming down of Portsmouth led to the proposed disposal of the south-west corner HM Naval Base comprising a collection of dilapidated war damaged listed buildings and monuments most of which had been disused for some time but some occupied such as the top floor of Boathouse 6, Boathouse 4 and Boathouse 7. 3. By Coincidence In parallel the Mary Rose had just been lifted from the seabed in the gaze of international publicity and had been temporarily located in No.3 Dock next to HMS Victory with plans to build a new museum at the eastern end of Southsea seafront in sight of where she was sunk. Portsmouth City Council had also agreed with the Maritime Trust to provide a berth and construct a pier for the Warrior which at the time was serving as an oil platform in Milford Haven but was planned to be fully restored in Hartlepool funded by Sir John Smith's Manifold Trust. This combination of factors led the City Council to contemplate the creation of a tourist destination centred on the south-west corner of the Base and the English Tourist Board and Hampshire County Council were persuaded to jointly fund a Page 1 of 24 Brief History of the Trust A Personal Recollection study into how all this could be achieved. The ETB also arranged several study tours, one of which took us to view the various developments undertaken by the Rouse Corporation on the North Eastern seaboard of the USA and many ideas started to germinate from the visits to South Street Seaport New York, Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, Mystic Seaport, Inner Harbour Baltimore featuring USS Constellation, Colonial Williamsburg Virginia and Tobacco Dock, Richmond. In the 1980's Rouse were light years ahead in their approach to "making places". 4. The Narrow and the Broad Study The Study was undertaken by Ventures Consultancy of Beaulieu who produced two reports; the Narrow study and the Broad Study. The Narrow study confined its remit to the development of the south-west corner of HM Naval Base and made two principal recommendations. Firstly, that the existing and proposed ship and museum attractions should jointly establish a charitable trust to co-ordinate the marketing and ticketing of their attractions on a collective basis under the leadership of an independent chair. The second recommendation was that an independent charitable trust be established to hold the property and grant leases to the ship and museum attractions on a concessionary basis but otherwise to exploit commercially the other buildings through development. The Broad study considered how the numerous military related sites within south Hampshire, the majority of which were built to protect and support the historic Naval Base could be better marketed and ticketed on a collective basis. I recall this was of much greater interest to Hampshire County Council (HCC) than Portsmouth City at the time. But it is important to mention this as HCC had considerable influence in the widening of the Trust's approved purposes as recited in the following paragraph. 5. The Establishment of Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust Portsmouth City Council, through yours truly, led discussions with the Royal Navy, English Tourist Board and Hampshire County Council on how best to set up PNBPT. By this time the arrangements at Chatham were fairly well advanced and the Ministry of Defence had drafted a Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Trust to be set up there in consultation with Kent County Council and the DoE. The MoD, through the Head of Secretariat Naval Staff, produced similar draft documentation for the Trust to be established at Portsmouth. The MoD also suggested that the newly formed English Heritage (born out of the former Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission of the DoE) should source a Chair and appoint the majority of the trustees. While MoD contemplated appointing the remaining two trustees, it subsequently decided against it on the grounds that if things went wrong it did not wish to be under any financial obligation in the longer term. As a result, the City Council agreed to step in as the other nominating body but on the strict understanding of only appointing those recommended to it by the Trust. This was an important point of principle which was subsequently compromised by the City Council ten years later when it chose to politicise its appointments. Page 2 of 24 Brief History of the Trust A Personal Recollection The Memorandum and Articles of Association did take some time to be finalised and approved by all parties but of importance to note was the strong desire of the Ministry of Defence, English Heritage and Hampshire County Council that the Memorandum should be widely drawn geographically to allow the Trust to take on additional surplus MoD estate as it became available beyond the boundaries of HM Naval Base. Minister for the Armed Forces at the time, Roger Freeman, was particularly keen to ensure that MoD acted responsibly in the disposal of its historic estate and the Trust was identified as the appropriate vehicle for this. 6. The Selection of Founding Trustees The Chairman of English Heritage, Lord Montagu, was invited by MoD to appoint the founding Chair and identified Robin Bishop, then Senior Partner of London based Chartered Surveyors Drivers Jonas. In close consultation with Lord Montagu the other four founding trustees were identified - Sir William Whitfield, celebrated London based architect and Surveyor to St Paul's Cathedral, David Thomson, a merchant banker with Lazards (later Director- General of the British Invisible Exports Council), John Roome, the senior partner of London solicitors, Withers and Admiral Philip Higham who had just retired as the Keeper of HMS Belfast. English Heritage appointed Robin, Sir William and John Roome, the City Council the other two. 7. The Portsmouth Naval Heritage Trust (PNHT) In accordance with the recommendations of the Narrow Study, Admiral Sir John Lea was appointed as the independent chairman of the other trust to be established representing the Mary Rose Trust, the Royal Naval Museum and Warrior (albeit the Warrior did not arrive in Portsmouth until 1986). The Royal Navy operated HMS Victory, which at that time was open to the public with no admission charge and did not form part of the Trust. 8. The Early Years of the PNBPT The early years of the Trust were very much London based for several reasons but principally because all but one of the trustees were based there, all the principal advisers were based in London, the Trust banked at Coutts in the Strand where I was regularly served afternoon tea by a guy in a frocked coat and for the first three years we were pretty much camped out in MoD Main Building in Whitehall negotiating firstly the level of endowment and secondly the detailed terms of the Head Lease. Until the end of 1991, all Board meetings were held at the offices of Drivers Jonas in Suffolk Street. 9. The Head Lease and the Endowment The first task was to agree the level of endowment and the terms of the Head Lease, MoD reluctant to dispose of the freehold given that part of the site to be leased was also being used operationally. E.g. Boathouse 4. By this time (1985) the parallel trust at Chatham had accepted the endowment offered by the PSA on behalf of MoD, a sum of £10M albeit for a much larger estate and with £3M of it already committed on a re-roofing project.