The effect of English expansion abroad throughout the seventeenth century was felt everywhere in the country, but nowhere more than in Portsmouth, where, by 1700, the dockyard was getting busier and busier.

In 1704, the first St Anne's Church, or chapel was opened within the dockyard itself, on the site where Admiralty House now stands, but it was succeeded by a later building, which first opened its doors in 1786.

The role of the dockyard porter, whose job it was to ring the muster bell and check visitors in and out of the yard was now recognised as more important and in 1708 a dedicated Porter's Lodge was built, smaller than it is now, but extended northwards between 1716 and 1743.

New docks and warehouses were built and a naval academy for training officers was opened in 1733. Meantime, rows of houses were built within the dockyard walls, for naval officers who needed to be close to their work. And outside the dockyard was a hive of activity, too.

By 1700, the walled town of Portsmouth had just about reached a situation of chronic overcrowding, with a population somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000, so people began building houses to the north of the town, on an area of land then known as Portsmouth Common.

The first houses were built around St George's Square, Portsea and one of these, No 90, which was built for a wealthy merchant in 1690, is still standing. A decade or so later, though, and it wasn't just wealthy people building houses in the area.

Dockyard workers, fed up with living in the overcrowded town and even more fed up of the walk to work each morning, also decided that The Common was an ideal place to build, but the Governor of the dockyard became alarmed at this development, fearing that the houses would provide cover for enemy soldiers, should the dockyard come under attack.

He ordered the dockyard's guns to be turned onto the area and threatened to open fire, if the workmen did not cease building; the dockyard workers, however, appealed to Prince George, the husband of Queen Anne, who was visiting Portsmouth at the time.

Prince George had a quiet word with his wife and she granted the workers royal permission to continue building; to show their gratitude, the men named Prince George Street in his honour and, when the queen herself visited in 1711, Queen Street was named after her.

Union Street was named to commemorate the Act of Union of 1707 and Hanover Street got its name because the first three King Georges were all rulers in Hanover as well as in England.

North Street wasn't named for its geographical position, either, but was named after Lord North, who became Prime Minister in the latter part of the eighteenth century, at about the same time that Landport Gate was being constructed and the town walls were being extended to include the new suburb, which was named Portsea in 1792.

Clock Street and Sun Street were probably named after inns of the same name, as was Three Tuns Street, but Half Moon Street is no more, although its name plate is still on the wall of a pub.

The Hard got its name from the fact that it was a slipway for boats and men used to create slipways by tipping clay onto the shore at low tide and rolling it until it was hard - hence "The Hard". And in the nineteenth century, The Hard was nicknamed the Devil's Acre, because there were a total of 13 pubs along its length - oh happy days!

And school days should not be forgotten, either - in 1732 a former Mayor of Portsmouth and physician to its garrison died and bequeathed his estate to Christ Church, Oxford, together with instructions to build a new school in Portsmouth - and so the Portsmouth Grammar School was born, initially in Penny Street, although there have been additions and alterations to locations in the years since, especially after German bombing raids in the second world war.

However, the suburb that would be Portsea was fast outgrowing the original town - by 1801 it was reckoned that the population of Portsea was 25,000, whilst the original town had a population of only 8,000, although that itself was a huge increase on that of a century earlier.

In the eighteenth century, what was to become Portsmouth's Anglican cathedral was still only a parish church and the residents of Portsea were part of the parish of St Mary, but that meant a long walk to attend services and the Portsea residents decided it would be better to build their own church.

As a result of this, St George's Church was built, on one side of St George's Square, close to where the very first houses in Portsea had been erected; the church opened its doors in 1754.

Portsea was quickly evolving into what almost amounted to a separate town; the residents were certainly active and imaginative. In 1764 a body was formed, called the Improvement Commissioners, who had power to clean and pave the streets and they appointed a man called the Scavenger, who was permitted to collect rubbish and sell whatever of it he could get money for.

He arrived regularly with his cart, ringing a bell and he probably earned a good living, as nearly all household rubbish in those days was organic and could be turned into fertiliser.

The street paving was finally completed in 1773, at a reported cost of £8,886, a huge amount for the time and two years later, Captain Cook arrived in Portsmouth aboard Endeavour, after successfully circumnavigating the world.

In March of 1777, James Hill, alias James Aiken, alias James Hinde, nicknamed "Jack the Painter", attempted to burn down the dockyard; he was convicted of arson and attempted arson and hanged, sixty feet in the air, outside the main dockyard gate.

A second Anglican Church, St John's, was opened in Prince George Street in 1789, but was destroyed by bombing during the war, as was the Church of Holy Trinity, opened early in the nineteenth century, in North Street.

In 1755, a Beneficial Society was formed; this helped people in times of sickness and gave assistance, where necessary, in organising funerals - it also opened and ran a school for children of the poor.

Portsea was a bustling, thriving community, though working life was hard, especially when compared with today. The dockyard was the main employer and men were expected to work from six in the morning until six in the evening, working on Saturdays as well.

They were permitted half an hour for breakfast and an hour and a half for lunch and were not allowed - under pain of severe penalties - to smoke, nor light fires within the precincts of the dockyard. They were, however, permitted to take home "chips" of spare wood, although some of these so-called chips were large enough for carpenters to make furniture from them.

In the 1760s, a young man, calling himself William Chandler, obtained a position in the dockyard as an apprentice shipwright, but eleven years later revealed "his" true identity as Mary Lacy, the first accredited female shipwright. Click on the image on the right to read more about Mary.

In 1775, one writer commented that: '... from a barren, desolate heath it (Portsmouth Common, eventually called Portsea), is now a very populous, genteel town, exceeding Portsmouth itself in the number of its inhabitants and edifices.'

By the end of the century, the dockyard, together with the victualling and armament yards that grew up, both on the Portsmouth side of the harbour and across the water in Gosport, formed the largest industrial complex anywhere in the world at that time.

On a darker note, the first convicts transported to Australia left Portsmouth in a fleet of eleven ships - six convict transports, three store ships and an escort of two warships,HMS Sirius and HMS Supply - on 13 May 1787.

That first band of unwilling colonists comprised 568 men and 191 women, all of whom apparently arrived Down Under in relatively good health, after a voyage that lasted 252 days for most, although three of the transports arrived a day earlier than that and HMS Supply, an armed trader and smallest of the First Fleet ships, made land at Botany Bay on 17 January 1788after 250 days.

Governor Arthur Philip, who travelled with the convoy, surveyed the immediate area and decided that the first colony would be established at Port Jackson (named after one of the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty in 1770 by James Cook), just up the coast from Botany Bay and, over the next few years, this grew to become Sydney.

Arthur Philip named Sydney Cove after the then British Home Secretary, Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney, who was one of the main figures behind the idea of transportation of criminals.

Back in Portsmouth, the dockyard continued to thrive, but now there was less building of new ships and a greater concentration on rebuilding, repairing and refitting existing vessels - there were around a dozen other major shipyards around Britain that shared the bulk of the new builds, but Portsmouth, with its dry dock facilities and convenient position half way along the Channel was the ideal place from which to get ships back into action as fast as possible.

Earlier, in 1675, the third HMS Victory had been built at Portsmouth by Sir Anthony Deane, but she was originally named HMS Royal James, with her name changed to HMS Victory in 1691, after the second ship of that name was broken up.

However, in 1721 she was burned almost to the waterline and what remained of her timbers were later salvaged and used to construct a successor - officialy, this HMS Victory was a "rebuild" of the burnt one, but in reality it was a totally new vessel, a 100 gun first rate ship of the line - the last first rate to be armed entirely with bronze cannon.

Sadly, this HMS Victory was lost, with all hands, during a violent storm in October 1744 - it was believed that she foundered on Black Rock, just off the Casquets, a treacherous rock formation close to Alderney and recent underwater archaeological investigations have apparently located what still remains of her.

Odyssey Marine Exploration have so far managed to raise two of her cannon, but are currently in dispute with the British government over salvage rights - maritime law says that the wreck, which is in British territorial waters, belongs to the government, but negotiations continue.

Building work on the first Fort Cumberland was begun on 1 January 1747, by the Duke of Cumberland. It was intended to guard the entrance to Langstone Harbour and such was the importance placed upon this idea that construction was substantially complete by the end of the following year.

The design was an irregular star shape and the outer defences were comprised mainly of large earthworks, with a number of brick buildings inside, including a guardhouse, storeroom and powder magazine. Two barracks blocks were proposed, but it is believed that only one of these was ever built.

In 1782 it was decided to rebuild the defences in masonry and stockpiling of the necessary materials began, with the actual work getting under way in 1785. This time it was a much longer project, with work lasting until 1812.

In the course of this rebuilding, almost all traces of the first fort were obliterated, with the exception of the guardhouse and storeroom and the new fort occupied a much larger area than its predecessor. It is a polygonal fort, with five bastions and a ravelin on the western side and was the last fort to be built with angle bastions in the United Kingdom.

As the eighteenth century drew to a close, the Napoleonic Wars were in full swing and the Royal Navy was kept at full stretch, protecting merchant shipping and the home shores - consequently, Portsmouth was also at full stretch in its role as provider and repairer and as a main base for resupplying the Channel Fleet, although the Channel Fleet's official base was variously at Torbay, Falmouth and Plymouth.

Most of the time, warships stayed at sea for months, blockading strategic French ports and being supplied with fresh water and food by dedicated supply ships, many of which operated out of Portsmouth, but the time was approaching for an out-and-out confrontation.

However, first came a confrontation of a different kind, when the crews of 16 ships anchored at Spithead mutinied in April 1797. Eventually, following the intervention of Lord Howe, the navy agreed to make changes and a royal pardon was granted to the mutineers. (Click HERE, or the image on the right to read more ...)

The mutineers at Nore, in the Thames Estuary were not so lucky, however; they mutinied on 12 May 1797, just a few days before the Spithead dispute was resolved and threatened to blockade London. Richard Parker, elected leader of the mutineers' committee, then began making even more ridiculous demands of the government.

In the reprisals that followed, Parker, along with 28 other leaders, was convicted of treason and piracy and hanged, other men being sentenced to prison, flogging and transportation, and thus the 18th century drew to a close.

Soon, the HMS Victory that we all know would arrive at Portsmouth and, in her wake, would come the man who would make her his final flagship and her name, as well as his own, synonymous with heroism and sacrifice in the name of duty and the Hearts of Oak which were said to be the Royal Navy*.

Heart of Oak is the official march of the Royal Navy and also of the Canadian Navy and the Canadian Forces Naval Operations Branch. It was written, probably in the early 1760s as an opera, the music by Dr William Boyce and the words by the famous English actor of the time, David Garrick.

Some sources suggest it was written in 1759, but as it is also thought that the "wonderful year" referred to in the second line of the lyric is a period between 1759 and 1760, during which the British armies and navy won several notable victories over the French, both on land and water, it is more likely that Heart of Oak was written a little later than that.