The Alderney Maritime Trust is an entirely volunteer organisation from which nobody receives financial benefit. According to the preamble of the trust deed (revised 2003) its broad purpose is:

To find, salvage and preserve ships of historic or naval importance or interest which have been wrecked or lost in Alderney’s waters, and the remains, cargoes and artefacts of such ships, so that they may be conserved, studied and displayed for the benefit and education of the inhabitants of the Island and elsewhere.

The particular objectives of the Trust are (from the Trust deed):

To raise funds for, and to promote, the finding, recording, excavation, raising, bringing ashore or other salvage or recovery, study, conservation, keeping, publication, reporting on, exhibition and display of:

1. any ships or other vessels or craft of historic or naval interest wrecked, sunk, lost or abandoned in the seas surrounding Alderney lent to the Trust by the written authority of the General Services Committee of the States of their legal owners, if known;

2. any parts of any such ships, vessels or craft, or any cargo, artefacts or other articles carried on them or belonging to them, whether recovered from the foreshore, the sea bed or elsewhere

By virtue of it being a historic wreck within the meaning of ‘The Wreck and Salvage Law, 1986’, Bailiwick of Guernsey (amended 1991), the ownership of all artefacts from the Alderney Elizabethan Wreck is held by the States of Alderney.