Collingwood’s strategic vision and understanding of the region, including the importance of North Africa, became the very essence of British government policy. As historian Piers Macksey writes: ‘The scale (of the Mediterranean theatre) was heroic, and over the vast canvas towers the figure of Collingwood’. If Collingwood had one weakness it was his inability to delegate and relax. Consequently the stress of the workload weighed heavily and towards the end of 1809 his health began to deteriorate. By February of the following year he could hardly walk. He was ‘so weak that application to business is impossible’. At last the Admiralty allowed him to come home but two days into the voyage from Port Mahon he died. He was laid to rest next to Nelson in St Paul’s Cathedral. Every year wreaths are laid at Nelson’s tomb on 21 October and last year for the first time, members of the Collingwood family paid homage to their ancestor at the same time as well. The 1805 Club is proud to have re-designed the St Paul’s Cathedral Trafalgar Day ceremony, led by the Dean, and at the heart of which is the wreath laying by the First Sea Lord. Last year over sixty people attended. I believe it is fair to say that the death of Collingwood will be seen as the last great naval bicentenary of the Napoleonic period and The Club therefore takes pride in the fact that its ideas and activity led to the North East’s Collingwood 2010 Festival. ‘Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter’ – this strap line, chosen for the Festival and taken from Collingwood’s own words on 21 October 1805, has inspired everyone. However, and appropriately for a local hero as opposed to a national hero like Nelson, it was the Northumbrians who came together so splendidly to celebrate one of their own. The 1805 Club has remained intimately involved throughout but passed the chairmanship of the organising committee to Captain Stephen Healy, the Deputy Master of Trinity House Newcastle. He worked tirelessly to put Collingwood 2010 in place and deserves this special mention in dispatches. The 1805 Club secured significant sponsorship for the Festival from both Trinity House London and The Drapers’ Company and would like to put on record its thanks to both organisations for their generous support. In his Address at Thanksgiving Service for Collingwood at The Cathedral Church of Newcastle upon Tyne, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope KCB OBE, First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, felt that if Lord Nelson had been present he would have been the first to pay tribute to Lord Collingwood. Let us imagine he had been. What would Nelson have said? x
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