THE TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE Journal of THE 1805 CLUB No. 22, 2012 TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE Edited by Huw Lewis-Jones
ii Cover Illustration: HMS Victory in her final berth at Portsmouth, from an original drawing by Hanslip Fletcher, 1932. Courtesy Michael A. Nash Archive. Edited by Dr Huw Lewis-Jones. Published by The 1805 Club, 2012. Publication Design by Bumblebee www.bumblebeedesign.co.uk Printed by BD&H, Litho and Screen Printers, Norwich. ISBN: 978-1-902392-22-6 Detail from the ‘Monody on the Ever-to-be-Lamented Death of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson’, a poem by Charles Fox, engraved by Anthony Cardon after a drawing by William Craig and published in 1806. © Trustees of the British Museum.
THE TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE Journal of The 1805 Club. No. 22, 2012 Editorial – Huw Lewis-Jones vi The President’s Dispatch– Admiral Sir Jonathon Band x The Chairman’s Dispatch– Peter Warwick xii Notes on Nelson’s Funeral: The River Procession – Colin White 1 The War of 1812 and the Defence of British Floating Trade – Andrew Lambert 12 Horatio Nelson, Weather Observer – Dennis Wheeler 27 The Lost Letters of Admiral Gardner – Francis Davey 41 An Undiplomatic Diplomat: Charles Lock and Lord Nelson – Anthony Twist 53 The Stormy Life and Strange Death of William Layman – John Sugden 68 Captain Cook and ‘Experimental Gentlemen’ – Glyn Williams 101 Family First: The Hilton Brothers at the Battle of Trafalgar – Tony Beales 113 French Representations of Napoleon in the British Museum – Charlotte Lepetoukha 129 ‘If You’re Reading This …’: Last Letters Home from the Napoleonic Wars – Siân Price 148 A Myth Too Many – Peter Hore 158 Lord Nelson on the Mind: Naval Victories and Cultural Memory in Nova Scotia – Keith Mercer 171 The Head Money Case of the Rayo – Mark West 192 Manning and Training the British Fleet before the Glorious First of June – Sam Willis 208 The Literary Assassins – Jacqui Livesey 219 Flaxman’s Monument to Nelson – Philip Ward-Jackson 234 In Nelson’s Wake: Sailing a Wooden Boat to Nelsonoya – William Stirling 248 Sailing on the Small Screen: The Royal Navy on Television, 1973-2011 – Jonathan Rayner 258 Nelson Now: A Question of Relevance – Joseph F. Callo 274 The Colin White Leadership Lecture, 2011 – Peter Warwick 281 Punishment in the French Wars: The Cecil Isaacson Lecture, 2012 – John Dacam 293 Contributors’ Biographies 302 Notes for Contributors 305 iii
THE 1805 CLUB President Admiral Sir Jonathon Band GCB DL 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. Guimerá-Ravina Chairman Peter Warwick 4A Camp View, Wimbledon, London SW19 4UL Vice-Chairman Bill White Secretary John Curtis 9 Brittains Lane, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 2JN Membership Secretary Barry Scrutton 1 Cambus Road, London E16 4AY North American Secretary Randy Mafit Treasurer Lindy Mackie Editor, The Trafalgar Chronicle Dr Huw Lewis-Jones Conservation Officer Paul Ellis Events Officer Kathy Clark Editors, The Kedge Anchor Randy and Dana Mafit Ken Flemming iv
Publications Officer Stephen Howarth Education Officer Dianne Smith Webmaster Josephine Birtwhistle Chaplain to The 1805 Club (Ex-officio) Reverend Peter Wadsworth Members of Council without Portfolio Peter Hore, Gillian Knight, Marina Nicholson and Carol Robbins *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 ofthe 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, theClub’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 Huw Lewis-Jones Our story begins in Vienna. The year is 1800 and Admiral Nelson is sat in a chair with straws up his nose. Long before photography would revolutionise the way people saw themselves, one of the most fashionable methods of securing your likeness involved a bucket of wet plaster and a great deal of patience. Exhausted after more than two years of continuous service in the Mediterranean, Nelson finally struck his flag and was heading for home. He would return to England overland through Austrian territory, with his pregnant mistress and her husband in tow. Famous for his exploits at the Battle of the Nile, he was the lion of the day and Emma made sure that he made the most of his time in the spotlight. They stopped so many times en route that a journey they could have made in a few weeks, eventually took over three months. While most were satisfied with a glimpse of their hero passing in his carriage or dancing at a ball, some admirers suggested they would like his bust to decorate their parlours. Never one to step modestly from the public gaze, Nelson agreed and was ushered into the sculpture studio of Franz Thaller. During this unglamorous procedure, he was very likely strapped into a tilted chair and told to keep his eyes firmly closed. Straws were inserted into each of his nostrils, helping him to breathe while wet plaster was slopped, smothered, and then artfully moulded all over his face. He had to stay completely still until the plaster was set hard enough to remove in sections. This simple cast was the starting point for a relentless cycle of portraits celebrating the newest naval hero. Where once it had been the exploits of Sir Francis Drake, or Captain James Cook, that had captured the public imagination, making them the most famous men of their day, now it was Nelson who ruled the waves. The negative cast was cleaned and then filled with plaster to provide a positive, the mask we see here. Features were refined. Nelson’s mask was used as the modellofor a number of marble busts. Countless copies were made, legitimately and otherwise. These sculptures gave many artists an impression of the man they would, in turn, make the star of their grand oil canvases. Prints from these pictures were runaway successes and the cheap engravings that began to circulate as soon as he stepped ashore in England made Nelson ‘one of the most recognisable faces in Britain’. vi
In just five years, however, Nelson would be dead. Mortally wounded in one of the most ferocious sea battles the world had ever seen, Trafalgar would be his defining moment. It would also mark the decisive turning point for the rest of this maritime century. It is no overstatement to say that his victory, that fateful October day in 1805, shaped the future of nations across the globe. With supremacy of the seas secured, Britain took to the oceans as never before. Through an energetic century of overseas trade and travel, technological innovation and commercial opportunity, the face of the world was changed forever. Yet for Nelson, the passage of time has often been unkind. Though his status as England’s greatest modern hero was consecrated in that bittersweet triumph at sea, in recent years historians have looked to excavate the man from the myth, to lift the mask and discover his true character. For a great many people he is still a scandalous figure, an ‘arrogant philanderer’, the vii This rare cast of Admiral Nelson’s face was created in Vienna in 1800. It is, perhaps, as near to Nelson’s true appearance as we are likely to see. Courtesy the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth.
viii wager of war. For others, he means nothing at all – a hero long forgotten, irrelevant to the modern world, shamed by neglect. Though Nelson’s statue looms high above London’s Trafalgar Square, it is often hard to see past the legend, past an image of the hero that history has passed down. And yet, new information frequently comes to light and things we understand to be familiar are called into question. Nothing is ever set in stone. This rare cast of Nelson’s face, for example, was for many years believed to be a death mask made after Trafalgar. It was bought by Queen Mary in 1924 from an antique shop in the Isle of Wight and made its way into the collections of the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. We now know that this cast was created when Nelson was alive, though admittedly rather unwell, travelling through Vienna. This rare mask is possibly the most authentic image of Nelson. Certainly, it is more truthful than many of the portraits that were painted of him, but is this enough? Imagine for a moment if Nelson had survived into the age of photography, like many of those men who served with him. If only a daring cameraman could have been at his side, that tempestuous day off the Spanish coast. We must however content ourselves with journals, logs, and many thousands of letters; yet happy in this too, for there is much we can still learn in the primary record about the rise, and fall, of this enigmatic man. Back to 1800 for a moment and even Nelson was unsure that he deserved to be remembered. He was so worn out, he wrote, that he felt but a shadow of himself remained. He was consumed with self-doubt and even his beloved career was in jeopardy: ‘who wants a one-eyed, one-armed admiral? My life is finished’. Though Nelson drew crowds of admirers, for many he remained a disappointment, his reputation over-hyped and his appearance unremarkable. In Germany, one observer would declare: ‘Nelson is one of the most insignificant figures I ever saw … a more miserable collection of bones and wizened frame cannot be imagined. He speaks little, and then only in English, and he hardly ever smiles’. *** It is clear, whatever you do, you can never please everyone. I would hope there is enough in this year’s journal to satisfy a range of tastes and interests. In doing so, I trust we are able to come closer to Nelson, not just in death, but in those visions of him in life – described in the words, and through the actions, of his contemporaries and reaffirmed in our remembering the men who fought alongside him.
ix In this spirit, this journal is devoted not just to Nelson, but to those who served with him, followed in his wake, or were inspired by his actions. The way we write about naval men of the past requires sympathetic attention, as much as our approach to their graves and memorials needs to be considered and purposeful. I’m grateful to our contributors this year for as sensitive and erudite a range of articles as we have ever had. I’m pleased to be able to publish the biographies of a number of Trafalgar veterans here, and to introduce the lives of other men who deserve our attention. There’s even some space for Napoleon – but not too much, perish the thought. Other articles give a sense of the maritime culture of this period, whilst some explain in more detail the legacy of Nelson’s achievements at sea. In this bicentenary year, it is also right to give due attention to the War of 1812 and we will do so next year too, following the conflict as it sprawled into other theatres. This journal welcomes a range of expertise, with leading naval history professors and established authors sharing pages with club members and young post-doctoral researchers. We celebrate research that careers across a range of scales too, from broad naval strategy, the legalities of prize money, through to public sculpture and memorials, a little literary detective work, some small-boat sailing, or even reflections on a silver muffineer that might have graced a king’s breakfast table. I’m delighted to be able to publish some of the final writings of the late Colin White, a Nelson man like no other, and a kind soul who set me off on my early forays in the archives, searching, like Nelson, for polar bears amongst the ice. I’d also like to take this chance to mark thanks, in particular, to my good friend Anthony Cross for almost a decade of support in producing previous editions of this journal together. He welcomed me onboard in 2004 and I’ve enjoyed his fellowship ever since. Huw Lewis-Jones
x The President’s Dispatch Admiral Sir Jonathon Band In the latter days of my naval service I, and others, became increasingly worried about the material condition of HMS Victory. Not surprisingly, the MoD and the Royal Navy were finding it increasingly difficult due to currentday operational pressures, to find the required financial resources and to plan the necessary work. The general state of the ship was deteriorating and it was clear that there were certain serious issues. It was therefore plain that continuing MoD ownership and funding was not the long-term solution and that a different construct was required. But what should that be? At about the same time the Navy Board was concerned that the Royal Navy’s approach to its heritage was disjointed and dysfunctional. The Royal Navy Museum in Portsmouth covered the sailing navy well, particularly during the Georgian period. But it did not cover the recent history at all adequately. The Service museums did an excellent job of telling the story of the Fleet Air Arm, the Submarine Service and the Royal Marines but nowhere were the strategic and higher-level operational roles of the Navy through the centuries set out. Importantly also, there was no proper link, Navy wide, to today’s operations and people. The answer that was agreed upon was to create the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) and to integrate the existing museums into it. The NMRN was created in the Autumn of 2009 and it was my honour to become its Chairman just under a year later. It was quickly realised that with the creation of the NMRN we had the vehicle to develop the charitable and company construct that might attract benefactors and persuade the MoD and the Royal Navy to handover HMSVictoryto an organisation that would always be intimately linked to the Navy. The financial attractiveness was that a charitable trust could accept private endowments. The organisational attractions were that it offered a better focus for conservation and a hard link with the Royal Navy that would still allow the Ship to fulfil a formal role and fly the White Ensign. This latter point was believed to be attractive to potential benefactors and would certainly help general marketing and public presentation. What was now needed were the stars to align, and this they did. Rear Admiral Sir Donald Gosling KCVO offered a very significant endowment. In response,
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