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The bodies of her crew that could be recovered now rest in the naval cemetery at Lyness, and a memorial stands at the end of the gravestones, overlooking Scapa Flow where their destroyed dreadnought lies in the depths.

The subsequent Court of Inquiry took place on 30 July 1917 aboard the battleship HMS Emperor of India three weeks after Vanguard blew up. The court found that the likely cause of the explosion in either P or Q magazine was either (i) the ignition of cordite due to an avoidable cause or (ii) abnormal deterioration of a cordite charge subjected to abnormal treatment during its life.

Cordite is a smokeless propellant developed in the late 19th century to replace gunpowder in large military weapons such as tank guns, artillery and naval guns. High explosive gunpowder, used since the days of sail, produced a powerful detonation in the barrel that initially accelerated the projectile – but by the time the projectile was leaving the barrel, with the force of the explosion spent, the projectile was already decelerating. Gunpowder was very destructive of the gun barrel itself and produced a large quantity of black smoke.