Nelson at Home in Bath

Trafalgar Bicentenary Lecture chaired by Don Lovell

Louis Hodgkin

Past chairman of the Nelson Society

9 February 2005

14^th February is the anniversary of the Battle of St Vincent, Nelson's first victory in 1797. I feel it opportune to outline how Nelson established his career, which lead to this Battle, bringing him to the public's attention, and to show how Bath played a part in the story.

Horace or Horatio (named after the Prime Minister Horace Walpole) was the second son of a country parson, Edmund Nelson and his wife Catherine, of Burnham Thorpe in North Norfolk. The family consisted of four sons and three daughters. His mother died soon after the birth their daughter Catherine, when Horace Nelson was aged nine. During their teenage years, the boys attended school while the girls were apprenticed, one to a lace maker on Ludgate Hill London, and the younger two to a milliner's in Bath.

It might be argued that Nelson came from a humble background, although his father a Cambridge graduate of 'divinity', and his mother had the family connections, which helped the young Horatio. His mother’s family Suckling, was a well-established Norfolk family, which was related to the Walpoles of Houghton Hall. Horace was the second son to bear his name (the first having died in childbirth). One of Catherine's brothers was a Captain in the Royal Navy; the other was in the Customs Service. Both were married but with no children, which enabled them in due course to benefit the Nelson children.

Admiral Nelson, by William Beechey
(History Today November 2004)

Nelson's brother William, the eldest, followed his father into the church. Maurice, the second brother, worked in the Admiralty, and Suckling the youngest, became a shopkeeper in Norfolk. Their widowed father Edmund Nelson suffered poor health and would come to Bath to take the waters every January to escape the cold Norfolk winters. In 1771 he received a letter from his eldest son seeking his approval for Horatio to join the Royal Navy and join his uncle Maurice Suckling, who was fitting out his ship Raisonable in Chatham. Captain Suckling seemed shocked at the suggestion and asked 'what has poor Horace done to deserve such a fate?' Judging by his uncle's reaction, Nelson was a sickly child but his choice of career may be due in part to the family celebrating Captain Suckling's capture of a small French squadron on the 21^st October 1765 in the West Indies. Captain Suckling was to rise to Comptroller to the Navy, a position on the Board of the Admiralty.

Nelson's early career is sketchy, and was embellished once he became famous; nonetheless for someone from rural Norfolk it was certainly adventurous. Entered as an Able Seaman, Nelson served in the Arctic, the West and East Indies, to return home to take his Lieutenant's exam at the age of eighteen.

The life of an ambitious young naval officer seeking fame and fortune in his first command, the brig Badger, was a struggle for the want of opportunity. If the chance of any engagement did not present itself, then his next priority was to find a wife (not easy for anyone serving in the Royal Navy at this time when a cruise might last up to three years – or longer. Naval officers were also considered a poor catch compared to an army officer who would have purchased his commission and would not disappear to a perilous life at sea).

While in the West Indies, an opportunity arose for Nelson to participate in a mad scheme devised primary by the Military Governor of Jamaica (in the wrong season) for an expedition to Nicaragua on the 'mosquito coast', to capture the San Juan Castle on a river of the same name, to disrupt the Spanish empire. The army could not cope and 80% of Nelson's crew succumbed to tropical sprue. This did not deter the ambitious naval officer from taking command of the boats and taking the raiders up the river into the tropical forest. The castle was besieged and briefly surrendered before the inhospitable terrain forced the British to the mosquito shore.

Sick and paralysed, Nelson returned to England, and decided to accompany his father to Bath for a cure in January 1781. In a busy season Nelson was lucky to find digs with the apothecary Joseph Spry at 2 Pierrepont Street. News of the expedition in Nicaragua reached Bath as one of the army officers was also recovering his health in the city. Paralysed down one side of his body, Nelson’s treatment consisted of massage, bathing and drinking the waters under the guidance of Dr Woodward of Gay Street Bath. Careful to avoid the crowds and the busy rush of public assembly, he chose the early evening to bathe in the vacant baths, once the crowd had moved onto the pleasure of the gaming tables. As his health improved, he was able to participate in what was quite a familiar milieu, with familiar faces of West Indian merchants and naval officers with whom he had dealt quite recently.

On returning again to the West Indies, he began to make his presence felt with the implementation of the Navigation Acts, which were not popular amongst those who felt they could get away with the odd illicit trade. The merchants threatened him with legal action. This brought him into contact with Mr Herbert, the President of the Island of Nevis, who lent his support to Nelson's actions and offered to stand bail for him.

This support brought Nelson into contact with Mr Herbert's widowed niece, Frances Nisbet, whose father had been the Chief Justice of the Island and who had originated from Redland in Bristol. Soon a close relationship developed between the two. For Nelson, Frances' appeal was her directness and her standing in Nevis society. Writing to his uncle on his proposal of marriage, Nelson hinted that he hoped to gain from a substantial legacy should Mr Herbert die. Nelson also asked his uncle for a hundred pounds a year or a lump sum of a thousand pounds to help the young couple.

The couple married on Nevis in March 1787 and returned to England in separate ships in 1788. Nelson and Fanny came to Bath for a holiday, so that Nelson could meet her Bristol relations. With the end of hostilities Nelson was on half-pay, so they returned to Norfolk to live with his father, Edmund Nelson. Life 'on the beach' was to last five frustrating years - even his good friend Lord Hood a member of the Admiralty Board could not help. Nelson’s only achievement was to dig a pond in the shape of his first command, the brig Badger.

In 1793 Nelson rejoiced at the new command of Agamemnon, in which he took his stepson Josiah as Midshipman. Fanny travelled around the country visiting relatives before settling in Bath as a 'sea widow'. In the Mediterranean, Nelson was determined to establish a reputation, and whilst he was at sea, he hoped his wife would collect useful gossip amongst the naval officers and families who came to Bath. Fanny's response was purely in a sense of duty and despite the encouragement of her father in law who came to stay; she had a deep-seated reluctance to socialise. In her letters she apologised for spending his money on a piano, and was proud of the sensibly priced accommodation. Fanny's concerns were for her son and her husband's safe return. Gradually she got to know various officers wives who would keep her in the picture, but she had little time for the tittle-tattle of society. Fanny tried but just could not live up to the requirements of a naval officer's wife.

Lord Hood (whom Nelson had met in America) gave Nelson an independent squadron, enabling him to show his worth - which he did in his actions off Leghorn and Corsica. (This is also when Nelson met Emma Hamilton for the first when he visited Naples to reinforce Hood's defence of Toulon.) In Corsica he lost the sight in his eye whilst besieging Calvi during the brief occupation of the island.

With the arrival of John Jervis as commander in the Mediterranean, Nelson's talents were recognised as someone who shared his aspirations. The growing unrest in the Fleets in 1797, which culminated in the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore, unnerved those at home, including the naval families in Bath, and unsettled Fanny.

On the 14^th February Jervis' Fleet encountered a Spanish Fleet in convoy for the Americas. Jervis attacked. Because of bad weather conditions and misunderstanding of signals, the Fleets might have failed to engage had it not been for Nelson breaking the line and engaging the Spanish. As a result, Nelson captured two first rate Spanish Ships San Nicolas and the San Josef. Jervis was grateful for his actions and gaining a victory, and this caught the public's imagination at home.

Nelson's father wrote to his son ‘the name of Nelson in Bath is on everyone's lips’. Bath, along with many others cities across the country, bestowed him with the Freedom of the City. For Fanny, it meant seeing her husband safely home. Nelson at last had public recognition. He felt he had achieved enough to retire, but surprisingly, he was not been mentioned in the official report!

However, Nelson did not return home. Instead he remained on station, but sent witnessed accounts of his exploits to the newspapers of his recent actions. In July he persuaded his commander to seize a ship in the port of Santa Cruz in Tenerife in the Canary Islands. A bungled attack left him shot in his right arm as he went ashore. His life was saved by a tourniquet applied by his stepson Josiah, but his arm was later amputated above the elbow. Jervis in a note to Fanny, told her not to worry about his injury.

Susannah, Nelson's sister, was visiting her father in Bath when they received a scribbled note. As they were trying to decipher it, a familiar voice barked orders as a coach approached New King Street. Nelson had returned after four years apart.

The Nelsons, as a couple, made a final visit to Bath in 1798 to escape the fumes of London. They were staying at Abbey Green when Nelson left once more for the Mediterranean. Fanny and his father Edmund Nelson visited Bath for many more years. On their last visit, Nelson and his wife were negotiating for the small cottage Nelson craved when exhausted by life at sea. The house ‘Roundwood’ near Ipswich was quite substantial with farm buildings and sixty acres of ground.

Promoted to Rear Admiral and made a Knight of the Bath, Nelson had now established himself as a man of property. His father died in Bath in 1802. Fanny was severely ill in 1805. She received news of Trafalgar as she arrived in the city for the cure. She continued to visit the city unti1 1815. Nelson eventually lived in Merton House, Wimbledon near London with his daughter and his 'companion' dearest Emma Hamilton, possibly his only real personal success.

Louis Hodgkin