by John Sugden
6. Nelson’s Norfolk, from Faden’s map, surveyed during the years Nelson resided at Burnham Thorpe rectory as an unemployed captain. It shows the exact location of the rectory and its gatehouse, south of Burnham Thorpe.
7. The rectory at Burnham Thorpe, Nelson’s birthplace, was demolished in about 1804. A neighbour reputedly made this wash and sketch from memory in 1806, though it may have been based upon an oil miniature of 1760.
8. Norwich Grammar School, to the left of the chapel, attended by William and Horatio Nelson about 1768.
9. The Sir William Paston Grammar School, North Walsham. On the right the yard at the rear of the school, with its gate leading to the town centre, can be seen. The main entrance appears to have been elaborated since Nelson’s day, several windows bricked up, and an annexe built on the left-hand side, but the school retains much of its eighteenth-century character. Photograph taken by the author in 2002.
10. Captain Maurice Suckling (1728–78), Nelson’s uncle and patron, portrayed at Woodton Hall, Norfolk, in 1764 by Thomas Bardwell, the son of one of the Suckling family servants.
11. Skeffington Lutwidge, who took the fifteen-year-old Nelson aboard the Carcass in 1773. He died an admiral in 1814.
12. The Racehorse and the Carcass trapped in the pack ice off North East Land, Spitsbergen, on 31 July 1773. The men are exercising by playing leap-frog on the ice. The engraving was made from a watercolour by John Cleverley, based upon a drawing done on the spot by a midshipman of the Racehorse.
13. Captain George Farmer (1732–79), under whom Nelson served in the East Indies aboard the Seahorse. Painted by Charles Grignion.
14. Vice Admiral Sir Edward Hughes (died 1794), painted by Joshua Reynolds. As a commodore he commanded the East India squadron to which Nelson belonged in 1773–76.
15. Sir Charles Morice Pole (1757–1811), from a painting by James Northcote. As one of the ‘young gentlemen’ of the Salisbury, the flagship of Commodore Hughes, he formed a lifelong friendship with Nelson in the East Indies.
16. Captain William Locker (1731–1800), Nelson’s ‘sea-daddy’, portrayed with his wife, Lucy, and their children by Rigaud about 1779. Their eldest daughter (on her mother’s left), the ‘Little Lucy’ for whom Nelson’s first independent command was named, died a nun in Bruges. Left is the oldest boy, William, whom Nelson illicitly entered on the books of the Badger and Hinchinbroke.
17. Admiral Sir Peter Parker, Bt. (1721–1811), an engraving of the 1799 portrait by Lemuel Abbott. A friend of Captain Suckling, Parker guided Nelson’s earlycareer in the West Indies.
18. Captain Cuthbert Collingwood (1748–1810), portrayed by his friend, Horatio Nelson. Probably done in Windsor, English Harbour, Antigua, in 1785, this only known example of Nelson’s artwork was kept by Mary Moutray and eventually passed to Collingwood’s daughter.
19. Mary Moutray (c.1750–1841), sketched by John Downman three years before her amiability, lively conversation and attentiveness fascinated Nelson in English Harbour.
20. English Harbour, by Walter Tremenheere. The view is from the west shore of the inner anchorage, looking southeast across the dockyard. The house on the summit of the hill on the eastern side of the narrows, identified by a flag, may have been Windsor or another property later built on the same side.
21. William IV (1765–1837), formerly Prince William, Duke of Clarence, who cast a unique shadow over Nelson’s service in the Leeward Islands.
22. Frances, Lady Nelson (1761–1831), sketched by Daniel Orme about 1798.
23. The house of William Suckling (10), Nelson’s uncle, in Kentish Town, drawn by James Frederick King, whose father owned the Castle Tavern to the right. The property was a favourite resort of Nelson and his wife, and tradition credited the captain with planting some of the shrubs and box trees in the garden.
BOREAS PROTEGES
24. The Hon. Courtenay Boyle (1770–1844). The son of the 7th Earl of Cork, he apparently joined Nelson’s Boreas at the behest of Admiral Hood. Later Boyle became a trusted frigate captain under Nelson in the Mediterranean (1803–1805) and rose to flag rank. This portrait was painted about 1810.
25. George Andrews (1765–1810), the brother of Elizabeth Andrews, and another of the ‘young gentlemen’ of the Boreas. Subsequently, Andrews served with distinction on Nelson’s Agamemnon and rose to the rank of post-captain, but his career disintegrated amid ill-health, drink and bad luck. This portrait of a post-captain is thought to show Andrews before the darkness enveloped him.
PATRONS
26. Samuel, Viscount Hood (1724–1816), an irascible commander-in-chief, who gave Nelson crucial opportunities in the Mediterranean and moulded many of his ideas. Nelson complained that he was inadequately noticed in the admiral’s public dispatches, but generally saw only the best of Hood’s professional side. The portrait was painted by Reynolds.
27. Sir John Jervis, later Earl St. Vincent (1735–1823), an effective fleet commander who restored Nelson’s morale in 1795–96. Although he could be merciless on mutineers or the incompetent, Jervis indulged Nelson and many other industrious officers. An engraving of a portrait by T. Stuart, painted about five years before Jervis took Nelson under his command.
28. Sir Gilbert Elliot, Earl of Minto (1751–1814), viceroy of Corsica and governor-general of India, painted by G. Chinnery. A close associate and confidant of Nelson in the Mediterranean, he witnessed his part in the battle of Cape St. Vincent and wrote that ‘Commodore Nelson [was] a hero beyond Homer’s. It is impossible to give … a notion of his exploits.’
29. General Charles Stuart (1753-1801), by George Romney. A son of the Earl of Bute, Stuart joined the army in 1768 and rose to become a brilliant but difficult officer. Though he maintained good relations with Nelson during the siege of Calvi in 1794, he feuded with Hood, and drove Elliot to report that working with him was like being ‘locked up with a madman in a cell’.
30. Francis Drake (1764–1821), engraved from a portrait by William Beechey. As the British minister-plenipotentiary in Genoa, and representative to the Austrian allies on the Italian Riviera, Drake formed a remarkably close partnership with Nelson in 1795–96. His confidence in Nelson was unbounded, and he urged the allied governments to supply him with ships, troops and small boats to facilitate amphibious assaults on French positions ashore.
31. John Trevor, 3rd Viscount Hampden (1749–1824), by Thomas Lawrence. The son of the first viscount, Trevor was a career diplomat at the court of Sardinia-Piedmont in Turin, and served as ministerplenipotentiary from 1789. Supporting Nelson’s Riviera operations of 1795–96, he developed a great admiration for the ‘worthy and excellent officer’, urging his superiors to promote him, and regretting that he was not commander-in-chief of the British fleet.
NELSON’S CAPTAINS
32. Thomas Francis Fremantle (1765–1819), painted by Domenico Pellegrini in 1800, one of Nelson’s ablest colleagues and subordinates. Fremantle did not always agree with Nelson. Unlike Nelson, he was a critic of Hood and an admirer of Admiral Hyde Parker, but the two co-operated brilliantly in many of the major actions between 1794 and 1797 and became close friends.
33. Thomas Troubridge (1758–1807), from a portrait by Beechey. An outstanding no-holds-barred sea fighter, Troubridge became a great favourite of Sir John Jervis, who thought him ‘capable of commanding the fleet of England’. His partnership with Nelson, which led to the ill-fated Tenerife operation of 1797, dissolved in jealousies several years later. Troubridge served on the board of the Admiralty and became a rear admiral but was drowned off Madagascar.
AGAMEMNONS
34. Thomas Ramsay, sketched by Philip James de Loutherbourg in 1797. An able seaman from Berwick-on-Tweed, he became quartermaster’s mate, and followed Nelson from the Agamemnon to the Captain and Theseus. Ramsay boarded the San Nicolas and San Josef at Cape St. Vincent, but lost an arm off Cadiz and was invalided home with Nelson in 1797. Musters suggest a birth date as early as 1753, but de Loutherbourg recorded his age as thirty-six
. This is the only portrait of a lower-deck Agamemnon made close to the time.
35. Captain Sir William Hoste, Bt. (1780–1828), painted by Charles Taylor. The most successful ‘young gentleman’ of the Agamemnon, Captain and Theseus, Hoste became a renowned frigate captain. Six years after his mentor’s death he successfully led a British squadron into battle against a superior enemy off Lissa flying the signal, ‘Remember Nelson’.
36. The battle of Cape St. Vincent, 1797, painted by Nicholas Pocock about 1809. It shows Nelson’s Captain (left) running upon the San Nicolas (centre), with the San Josef behind (right). The evidence divides as to whether the San Nicolas had lost her mizzen topmast, as shown here, or the San Josef, but the artist had been a professional seaman, was said to have used a sketch made by Nelson’s flag-captain, and may have produced a reliable reconstruction.
37. One of the better interpretations of the boarding of the San Nicolas, showing Nelson’s party using the cathead of the Captain and Berry’s in the distance, reaching the enemy poop by means of the bowsprit.