The automobile torpedo was the most deadly and feared naval weapon from its inception in 1866 until the explosion of the Atomic bomb in 1945. Had it not been invented, over 25 million tons of shipping would not lie rusting on the seabed and the submarine would not be the key deterrent it is today. Yet the historical development and complexities of this weapon are little understood outside of naval circles. Its British inventor, Robert Whitehead, was a brilliant Victorian engineer who, while honoured by many countries world-wide, received little or no recognition from the land of his birth. Even the administrators of the Royal Navy seemed to have had very little respect for the weapon. In the 1950's a superb collection of torpedoes on display at the Torpedo Experimental Establishment at HMS Vernon was scrapped despite the pleas of the engineers who had built up the collection.

The area of Weymouth Bay and Portland Harbour was found to be ideal for the Royal Navy to test torpedoes once the British Government decided to purchase the manufacturing rights for the weapon from the Whitehead Torpedo Company (based in Fiume, a part of Austria) in 1871. In 1895 the Whitehead Company set up its first manufacturing site, outside of Austria, in Wyke Regis, on the Weymouth side of Portland Harbour.