Tri-Service

"One Of Last WWI Royal Navy Ships Set For Scrapyard"

A First World War warship which has been a fixture on the Victoria Embankment for over 90 years could be set for the scrapyard.

HMS President was moved to Chatham from her mooring earlier this year to enable work to take place on the Thames Tideway Tunnel.

But she has since been refused £330,000 of Heritage Lottery funding, which could end hopes for a return to a new London mooring.

Gawain Cooper, chairman of the HMS President Preservation Trust, was quoted as saying by www.thecity.co.uk: 

"Our trustees are bitterly disappointed that with all the public support we have, and after having been encouraged by a senior director of the Heritage Lottery to reapply for the £330,000, that again we were refused support. This decision will most likely condemn the President to the scrap yard."

The charity had hoped to refurbish President's hull return her to the City, adjacent to London Bridge.

As a Q-ship, President (known as HMS Saxifrage during her time in service) was a merchant vessel with hidden weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks.

The heavily armed ship would then have the chance to open fire and sink the enemy subs. President escorted convoys in UK waters during 1918, and engaged nine U-boats.

The Flower-class vessel was moored permanently on the Thames in 1922, near Blackfriars, where she served as a Royal Naval Reserve drill ship until the late 80s.

Flower-class ships were given dazzle camouflage schemes to confuse the range-finders of WW1 submarines

HMS President was painted in 2014 to commemorate WWI dazzle camouflage, making it more difficult to work out which end of the ship was which

In the Second World War she was used to protect St Paul's Cathedral from the Luftwaffe and as a base for the French Resistance. In recent years she's been used as an events venue and office space facility.

An ancestor of modern anti-submarine frigates, President is one of the last three surviving Royal Navy warships of the First World War, along with HMS Caroline in Belfast, and the HMS M33 in Portsmouth dockyard.

She was the last Royal Navy warship to wear Victorian battleship livery - with black hull, white superstructure and buff yellow funnel and masts.

The HMS President Preservation Trust is now appealing to new Chancellor, Philip Hammond, to intervene and has also set up a JustGiving fundraising page where people can donate money.