THE TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE Journal of THE 1805 CLUB No. 21, 2011 TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE Edited by Anthony Cross & Huw Lewis-Jones
ii Cover Illustration: HMSVictory in her final berth at Portsmouth, from an original drawing by Hanslip Fletcher, 1932. Courtesy Michael A. Nash Archive. Edited by Anthony Cross & Dr Huw Lewis-Jones. Published by The 1805 Club, 2011. Publication Design by Bumblebee www.bumblebeedesign.net Printed by BD&H, Litho and Screen Printers, Norwich. ISBN: 978-1-902392-21-9 Admiral Nelson, detail from Battle Honours of the British Fleet, chromolithograph, published circa 1905. Courtesy Warwick Leadlay Gallery.
THE TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE Journal of The 1805 Club. No. 21, 2011 Editorial – Anthony Cross and Huw Lewis-Jones vi The President’s Dispatch– Admiral Sir Jonathon Band x The Chairman’s Dispatch: Remember Nelson– Peter Warwick xii The Drunken Sailor – John Dacam 1 Towards the Patriotic Fund– Anthony Twist 16 Luke Brokenshaw, Master RN: A Hero of Trafalgar – Nigel Hughes 49 ‘My Gallant Good Friend ...’: The Life of Edward Thornbrough Parker – Richard Venn 58 The Politics of American and British Naval Strategy in the War of 1812 – Stephen Budiansky 75 The Royal Navy and the Peninsular War – Nick Lipscombe 86 Portrait Mezzotints of Nelson in the Lennox-Boyd Collection– Margaret Schutzer-Weissmann 100 The Life and Career of Admiral Sir Richard Goodwin Keats – Stephen Wood 122 Nelson’s Proxy: A Sketch of the Life of Captain Sir William Bolton– Huw Lewis-Jones 149 Model Mystery: New Light on the Building of Nelson’s Column– Elizabeth Jamieson 158 North-West Navigator: The Story of Captain George Vancouver, Part II – E.C. Coleman 170 ‘Keep Watch’: The Navy League in the Interwar Period– Duncan Redford 191 Fougasse Expects – James Taylor 206 The Nelson Interview– Joseph F. Callo 218 HMS Victory’s Last Sea-Going Commission: The Cecil Isaacson Lecture, 2010 – Tim Voelcker 227 Contributors’ Biographies 249 Notes for Contributors 253 iii
THE 1805 CLUB President Admiral Sir Jonathon Band KCB OBE ADC Past President Mrs Lily McCarthy CBE (1914-2005) Vice-Presidents Mr K. Flemming*, Mrs J. Kislak, Mr M. Nash*, Mrs W.J.F. Tribe OBE JP, Mr T. Vincent*, Mr K. Evans*, Mr G. Jeffreys, Mrs J. Jeffreys, Adm J.F. Callo, Dr A. Guimera-Ravina Hon. Chairman Peter Warwick 4A Camp View, Wimbledon, London SW19 4UL Hon. Vice-Chairman BillWhite Hon. Secretary John Curtis 9 Brittains Lane, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 2JN Hon. North American Secretary R. Burdett Mafit Hon. Treasurer Lindy Mackie Hon. Editors, The Trafalgar Chronicle Anthony Cross Dr Huw Lewis-Jones MA MPhil PhD FRGS Hon. Membership Secretary Barry Scrutton 1 Cambus Road, London E16 4AY Hon. Events Officer Kathy Clark Chaplain to The 1805 Club (Ex-officio) Reverend Peter Wadsworth MA Hon. Editors, The Kedge Anchor Randy and Dana Mafit Keith Evans and Ken Flemming Hon. Publications Officer Cdr Stephen Howarth RNR, FRHistS FRGS AMNI iv
Hon. Education Officer Dianne Smith Hon. Webmistress Josephine Birtwhistle *Indicates Founder Member. All posts listed above are honorary. The Club’s Bank Lloyds TSB, 27 High Street, Whitchurch, Shropshire SY13 1AX Account Number: 11193060 Annual Subscription Rates Members: £35 / US$70 Schools: £50 / US$100 Corporate Members: £100 / US$200 Membership of The 1805 Club The 1805 Club is a non-profit-making voluntary association dedicated for the benefit of the public to the preservation and maintenance of Nelson-related graves and monuments. The 1805 Club also publishes original Nelson-related research, reprints, rare Nelson-related documents and organizes events of interest to students of the Royal Navy in the age of sail. Membership of The 1805 Club is open to all and is by direct application to, or special invitation from, its governing Council. Subscriptions are due on 1 January each year. All members receive, post-free, the Club’s news magazine The Kedge Anchor, the Club’s Journal The Trafalgar Chronicle and the Club’s occasional papers. A charge may be made for other special publications. A prospectus is available on request from the Membership Secretary or the North American Secretary. For economy of administration, members are encouraged to pay their subscriptions by Standing Order. Disclaimer The opinions expressed in The Trafalgar Chronicle are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The 1805 Club as a whole. Registered as a Charity in England and Wales Registered Charity No. 1071871 v
Editorial Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life. Robert Southey, Poet Laureate and biographer of Nelson. This is the twenty-first edition of The Trafalgar Chronicleand as such this year may be said to mark a coming of age, an event that surely deserves a measure of congratulation and modest celebration. Still buoyed by the optimism of its relative youth, the journal continues to look forward to future years with energy and confidence, despite the challenging economic times we all face. We know little or nothing of how Horatio Nelson may have marked his own special birthday because he left no specific record for 29 September 1779. But we do know that by that date the sketch of his life had taken recognisable shape and form. He had already risen to a remarkable height in the ranks of the Royal Navy compared to many of his contemporaries. In early June that year he was made a Post Captain, one of the most important moments in a young officer’s career. The future looked bright. That September found him ashore in Jamaica, poised to take command of the 28-gun frigateHinchinbroke, a French privateer captured as a prize off Cuba. It was said to leak like an old bucket, but – and most important – it put young Nelson on the captains’ list. He spent the month sorting out his crew of some two hundred men, before leaving in early October to join ships patrolling the Lesser Antilles to the southeast and with them the promise of riches in captured Spanish prizes. Yet, later in his twenty-first year Nelson’s fortunes were altogether changed. Invalided by a recurrence of malaria in the jungles of Costa Rica after the woeful expedition to San Juan and Lake Nicaragua, he was evacuated down river by canoe, then taken by sloop to Kingston where he was carried ashore in his cot. The doctors’ verdict and prognosis made grim reading and recommended as his only chance an immediate change of climate. Nelson was promptly discharged and returned to England by ship. Battered and broken by hard service, the young man returned home with his tail between his legs. But young Nelson was no stranger to fickle fortune. The boy born in an obscure corner of rural England had already seen both its sides by the time of vi
vii Admiral Nelson Recreating with his Brave Tars after the glorious Battle of the Nile (detail). Coloured etching by Thomas Rowlandson, circa 1798. Courtesy Warwick Leadlay Gallery.
viii his promotion. Since his formal inception into the navy as an Ordinary Seaman in Raisonnable in 1771, he had twice crossed the Atlantic to the West Indies, and then joined in an expedition to the Arctic that reached within ten degrees of the North Pole before being turned back by impenetrable ice. He had voyaged to the East Indies too where, before his eighteenth birthday, he had his first serious experience of battle, which he happily survived only then to have his first near death encounter with malaria. Even before his Lieutenant’s examination then, he had met the two imposters Triumph and Disaster and treated them just the same. His confidence in command was assured. Worth equal thought, before we blow out our birthday candles, are some of the seismic shifts going on in the world around Nelson as he grew up to attain his majority. He was a child of an era of evolution and revolution. Just a few examples may suffice: the year before he was born the Battle of Plassey had been fought and won; India ceased to be merely a commercial venture, England had embarked upon political domination, the foundations of Empire were laid. Something similar may be said in consequence of Wolfe’s victory at Quebec in 1759. The same year King George opened the British Museum to the public. Elsewhere, the mare incognitum, ditto, terra incognita – particularly of the southern hemisphere – were beginning to be explored and discovered. In 1779 the seas were also full of powerful enemies. The French had leapt at the chance of harassing the old enemy and to help the American rebels. A great fleet from Toulon was among the West Indian islands. The Dutch had signed a treaty of amity with America too and then came the news that Spain had also declared war on Britain. It was a world war and Britain was alone; her possessions at risk and from the Caribbean to the English Channel her shipping was being menaced by hostile fleets. Nelson celebrated his birthday in the midst of a war that would conclude with the loss of England’s American colonies. Revolution of sorts in industry too: the spinning jenny, the water frame, the iron railroad and bridge and, above all, the steam-driven engine all came into being in Nelson’s formative years. In 1779, Brunel Senior opened the first steam-driven sawmill at Chatham Dockyard in Kent. The old order, it has often been observed, was an unconscionable long time dying, but its days were certainly numbered. Some of these events may have been more perceptible to a contemporary than others, but nevertheless they all bear witness to the fact that, to paraphrase Robert Southey, twenty (one) years is a long time, especially to a twenty-one year old.
ix On the publication of this birthday edition, we hope that we are in better health than poor Nelson was all those years ago. We trust that the contributors to this particular volume, and equally all those who have contributed in the past, will take some pleasure in seeing this edition delivered in fine fettle. We feel happy to compare our authors to the explorers, innovators and indeed – hands across the ocean – the revolutionaries, of Nelson’s young lifetime. They deserve full praise as they are the ones who have endured the voyage, explored new territory, often as not fought or otherwise suffered for it; they have investigated and recorded it in minute detail and brought home the fruit of their labours for the benefit of all. Everyone who has contributed to this journal has done so in a spirit of good fellowship, sharing their knowledge generously with their contemporaries, as well as for posterity. Nelson’s actions – as a young man and later during his superlative career – clearly sound beyond the storm of battle and they have left us a rich legacy in human activity, impulse, endeavour and memorial. Our continuing editorial objective is to take in this broad compass of maritime research, neither to be confined solely to the minutiae of Nelson’s life, nor to dwell too long on his glorious death. The driving ambition of The 1805 Club is the conservation of monuments relating to seafarers of the Georgian era and the promotion of research into this period, and our first attentions are always to subjects that closely meet this brief. But, increasingly we aspire to consider a wider range of maritime interests, and all manner of men who served under Nelson, alongside him, or followed in his footsteps, taking inspiration from his actions. As our Chairman observes in his Address, though we may suffer the constraining effects of the tightened belt, there is a limit to which such economies can be made beyond which it turns out false. The Editors of this journal, whilst obedient to the last order that it must be delivered within a reduced budget, will not, or ever shall, see the ship spoilt for a halfpenny of tar. Therefore, this year, though we may be slimmer than in recent editions we assure you we have not economized on the quality of the contents. Again, we thank our authors for their support and we would encourage all with an interest to put pen to paper in the hope of joining the journal next year. There is little or nothing more to be said now, other than: ‘Happy Birthday to us all!’ Anthony Cross Huw Lewis-Jones
x The President’s Dispatch Admiral Sir Jonathon Band When one completes one’s active service in the forces one is normally unclear how much contact one will want, have, or indeed need, with your service. Certainly, as a former head of the Royal Navy, I knew and indeed expected to remain engaged, but the question was to what extent? I was always hoping to become Chairman of the Royal Naval Museum, living in Southsea as I do and having been a Friend of the Museum for years. But, as some of you know, the Navy Board, of which I was a Member, decided that the Service’s approach to its heritage was far too fragmented and needed to raise its game. The decision to create the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) was made in 2007 and it was formally established in 2009. I was hugely pleased to become its Chairman in 2010. It has been a busy period as the Museum completed the legal integration of the Service Museums and the Royal Naval Museum, gave the final green light to the Alliance Restoration Project at the Submarine Museum, progressed the preparation phase of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Gallery Project in Portsmouth and set about assessing how we might save the former HMS Caroline, the only remaining First World War vintage ship in the world. Meanwhile, a whole raft of other initiatives are underway in the Historic Dockyard, at the various museum sites, and nationally as we expand our affiliates programme. I mention all this about the NMRN because we in The 1805 Club should be duly supportive of this campaign to promote naval heritage in the round. It benefits us and, indeed, underpins our vital work with respect to the Georgian sailing navy. Collectively all of us in the naval family, as we take our individual agendas forward, should be aware of what others are doing. This way we can support each other and ensure that the effectiveness of the whole campaign to promote and salute naval heritage is more than the sum of its parts. To dwell on our part of this campaign, I must say I am really encouraged by the effort made and the effect being achieved. It is always potentially divisive
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