The Mary Rose Trust traces its origins back to the Mary Rose Committee, founded in 1968 with the intent "to find, excavate, raise and preserve for all time such remains of the ship
Mary Rose as may be of historical or archaeological interest". The wrecksite was scouted and surveyed with
side scan sonar in 1967-68, revealing a hidden feature, the first loose timber was located in 1970 and the buried wreck of the
Mary Rose finally located on 5 May 1971. Throughout the 1970s volunteer divers and archaeologists surveyed the ship and conducted some limited excavations.
on 11 October 1982. The lifting frame holding the wreck of the Mary Rose'' can be seen just below the surface of the water, about to be lifted. In the 1960s and 70s the Mary Rose Committee collaborated with museum representatives, diving clubs and archaeologists to campaign for legal protection of shipwrecks as vital to the national historical heritage. The
Merchant Shipping Act 1894 stipulated that any wreck that was unclaimed and was salvaged had to be sold to pay for the expenses of the salvers. This meant that any shipwreck old enough to fall under the sway of the act was threatened by commercial exploitation. Instead of being carefully excavated and recorded by
maritime archaeologists, historically invaluable wrecks risked being destroyed by unscrupulous salvers and treasure hunters. The joint organisation Committee for Nautical Archaeology, of which the Mary Rose Committee was a member, successfully lobbied to grant the wreck legal protection under the
Protection of Wrecks Act 1973, with the
Mary Rose being among the first to receive legal protection. However, the risk of having salvaged artefacts confiscated was still a very real risk under UK salvage law, and a confrontation had to be averted by continuous negotiations with the
Receiver of Wreck, a division of the
Maritime and Coastguard Agency. The
Mary Rose, along with a few other historic wrecks, was a vital example during the lobbying for the new shipping act as well as the gradual change in implementation of UK salvage law. The committee handled the small-scale diving operations and underwater surveys of the
Mary Rose wrecksite until 1979, when it was decided that the remnants of the ship should be fully excavated and salvaged. This required considerable financial means and a considerably larger organisation, leading to the foundation of the Mary Rose Trust.
Prince Charles acted as its president and
Margaret Rule archaeological director in charge of excavating and preparing the wreck of the
Mary Rose for salvage. The project had already received considerable media attention as well as large donations with which the salvage vessel
Sleipner was purchased. On 11 October 1982 the
Mary Rose was successfully salvaged and towed to
Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, where it was placed in passive storage until active conservation began in 1994. In the meantime, the Trust built a museum to display exhibits explaining the history of the ship and its 16th century
Tudor era context. ==Operations==