Cemetery surprise......

alexjack

alexjack

zhe welsh wizard
Joined
May 17, 2019
Messages
184
Reaction score
193
Our town newspaper reported today that buried in the local municipal cemetery is one John Phillips who had joined the Royal Navy at the age of twelve and fought under Nelson at the battles of Copenhagen and Trafalgar.
 
diane

diane

that gal
Joined
Mar 18, 2020
Messages
2,418
Reaction score
3,054
That's cool! Somewhere before Trafalgar, Nelson, the lovely Emma and her elderly hubby took a grand tour of South Wales - Emma had kin there. Nelson recruited a lot of young Welsh just by walking down the street! Captain Thomas Foley, who was one of Nelson's Band of Brothers, was from Pembrokeshire and had Nelson stop by for dinner. Just about drowned in recruits - a large number ended up on Foley's ship at Trafalgar. They were very, very good, too.
 
diane

diane

that gal
Joined
Mar 18, 2020
Messages
2,418
Reaction score
3,054
That was the HMS Raisonnable, under his uncle Captain Maurice Suckling. Floating close by it was the brand-new HMS Victory. The Victory was commissioned in 1758, the year Nelson was born - nothing like a little bit of fate to start you off! Captain Suckling was also one-armed, having lost his in a battle with the French which happened to take place on October 21. Nelson's father gave him a gold coin, in case he needed something before pay day - but Nelson kept it as a good luck piece for the rest of his life. It mysteriously disappeared just a short time before Trafalgar. He replaced it with 21 gold pieces, which were found in a green purse he was carrying when he was shot at Trafalgar.
 
diane

diane

that gal
Joined
Mar 18, 2020
Messages
2,418
Reaction score
3,054
Just the other day I was reading about the orphan problem Britain had during the 19th century because of all the imperial wars. No wonder Dickens started writing about it! Nelson had a program to at least do his part about this and that was to send around to these orphanages and jails to round up kids about to be a real problem for society. Every voyage he had at least a dozen of these boys from 7 to 15, all fixing to be major messes, and he'd train them. (He'd also pocket their paycheck but that was to keep them from going ashore with the men and getting rowdy...well, that's what he said!) Thing was, the kid got his three squares and learned a trade of some sort. Quite a number remained sailors, and a handful became officers but the rest learned various trades like sail making, upholstery, barrel making, carpentry - something they could use to make a living ashore. (One time he discovered one of his boys was a girl...Tried to find her family but...it was as she said - I ain't got nobody! Nelson did some head scratching over that one then decided to let her keep on pretending to be a boy. She was a stout hand!)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top