10. Oct, 2021

10. Oct, 2021

10. Oct, 2021

When Lord Nelson died at 4.30 pm on 21 October 1805, there was no lead on board HMS Victory for a coffin, so a cask called a Leaguer (the largest size aboard) was chosen for the reception of his body. The hair was cut off (and given to Emma Lady Hamilton, as Nelson had asked), the body stripped of clothes (except for a shirt) and put in the cask which was then filled with brandy. The cask was then put under the charge of a Marine sentry on the Middle Deck. It stood on its end, having a closed aperture at its top and another below. In that way the old brandy could be drawn off and new brandy poured in, without disturbing the body.

On 24 October there was a “disengagement” of air from the body; the sentry became alarmed when the lid of the cask opened to allow the discharge of gas from inside. The brandy was then drawn off and the cask filled again.

Nelson’s body arrived at Rosia Bay, Gibraltar onboard HMS Victory which was being towed in to port, arriving there on 28th October 1805 where his body was changed from the barrel of brandy to one of alcohol (spirit of wine) for the return journey home. HMS Victory set sail from Gibraltar and passed through the Straits during the night of 4 November. At noon the next day they joined Collingwood off Cadiz.

It took the Victory five weeks to arrive at Spithead, reaching England on 4 December 1805, during which time the brandy was renewed twice more.

Back in London on 11 December 1805 Victory’s surgeon William Beatty performed an autopsy on Nelson’s body, extracting the musket ball that had killed him. Nelson’s body was then placed in a lead coffin filled with brandy. On the 21 December the lead coffin was opened and the body was placed in another coffin made from L’Orient’s mainmast - a French ship that had been destroyed in the Battle of the Nile - a present given to Nelson in 1799 from Benjamin Hallowell, then captain of HMS Swiftsure. The coffin was then placed in another made of lead and then another of wood. The coffin was collected by the Sheerness dockyard commissioner George Grey’s official yacht Chatham on 23 December from HMS Victory moored in the River Medway and taken up the River Thames to Greenwich Hospital. The coffin was collected on 25 December at Greenwich Hospital and placed in a private room until 4 January 1806.

For three days from 4 January 1806 Nelson’s body lay in state in Greenwich Hospital’s Painted Hall. It is estimated that nearly 100,000 people visited the Hall to pay their last respects. On 8 January 1806 the coffin was transported by the King’s Barge up the River Thames - followed by a two-mile procession of boats - to Whitehall Steps and from there taken to The Admiralty in Whitehall. The day of Nelson’s funeral, 9 January 1806, was fine and bright. Thousands of people lined the streets, along with 30,000 troops, to watch the funeral procession march from Whitehall to St Paul’s Cathedral. The procession included royalty, nobles, ministers, high-ranking military officers and at least 10,000 soldiers. The funeral service itself was attended by 7,000 people including seven royal dukes, 16 earls, 32 admirals and over 100 captains together with 48 seamen and 12 marines from HMS Victory. The service, which commenced at 13:00, ended at 18:00 when Nelson’s coffin was lowered into a marble sarcophagus originally intended for Cardinal Wolsey in St Paul’s Cathedral’s crypt. The order of proceedings was interrupted when seamen from HMS Victory ripped the flag from their ship, which had been draped over the coffin, into pieces for personal mementos.

10. Oct, 2021

10. Oct, 2021

After Nelson’s death, command passed to Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood. His main priority was to get more than 50 damaged ships to the safety of Gibraltar. This was hampered by a terrible storm that lasted seven days. A dying Nelson, knowing that a storm was imminent, had ordered Captain Hardy to anchor the ships to avoid any loss but it was an order that was not followed. In the ensuing storm the captured ship Redoutable sank on 22 October 1805 and the French flagship Bucentaure, captured by the British and recaptured by the French, sank off Cadiz when it struck a rock. Collingwood, fearing British ships towing captured ships could be lost owing to the storm’s ferocity, ordered all men on these ships to be placed on British ships and the captured ships to be destroyed. This led to severe overcrowding and loss of life during the operation to bring the men aboard the British ships. Of the 19 ships captured by the British fleet only four were finally brought into Gibraltar as prizes.

Nelson’s surgeon, William Beatty, was exceptionally competent. At Trafalgar, 96 of 102 casualties treated by Beatty survived, including 9 of 11 amputees. For context,  battlefield statistics collected in 1816 found amputation’s mortality rate in the best case scenario was 33 percent, and in less optimal conditions more like 46 percent. Beatty was not working in the best case scenario, he was in a small, poorly-lit cabin on a ship under attack, and then in a hurricane. To make matters worse, he was understaffed. Beatty’s staggering survival rate is all the more remarkable when you remember that Pasteur’s work on germ theory and Lister’s development of antiseptic surgery wouldn’t happen for another 50 years.