The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
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Britannia
The Royal Navy’s main training establishment in Dartmouth creates officers and gentlemen.
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Overview
This film documentary centres on male officer training at Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. The college began at Portsmouth in 1859 when the sloop HMS Britannnia was towed up the creek to act as a training ship for Royal Navy seaman who could enrol from the age of 12. In September 1863 the ship was towed from Portland into Dartmouth harbour, berthed near Sandquay and joined a year later by HMS Hindostan. The BRNC building was built between 1902 and 1905.
Admiral of the Fleet, Right Honorable Earl Mountbatten is featured at graduation known as the passing out parade for Royal Navy cadets who have completed officer training. In August 1979, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) claimed responsibility for detonating a remote-controlled bomb on Lord Mountbatten’s fishing boat killing him, his grandson and two others and seriously injuring members of his family. Many members of the British and other royal families and Commonwealth personnel have trained at Dartmouth. The first women trainee officers passed out in 1976 but full integration did not occur until the 1990s. The first three women officers joined the submarine service in 2014.
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