Robert Burns

The latest in the Greatest Britons series, by Louise Scott, looks at the life of Scotland’s Robert Burns.

Early Years

Robert Burns was born on 25^th January 1759 in Alloway, two miles south of Ayr. He was the eldest child of William Burness (this was how Burns spelled his surname until 1786) and Agnes Broun. His father was a tenant farmer, who built the house where Robert was born and lived until he was seven (it is now the Burns Cottage Museum), before moving to a 70 acre farm (Mount Oliphant) southeast of Alloway.

Robert grew up enduring extreme poverty and hardship, and the hard work he undertook on the farm weakened him and left him with a stoop.

His father provided him with much of his early education, but he attended Dalrymple Parish School in the summer of 1772, until the harvest meant he had to return to full time farmwork. In 1773 he lodged with John Murdoch for three weeks studying Latin, French and grammar.

In 1777, the family moved from Mount Oliphant to a 130 acre farm at Lochlea, where they lived until 1784. Robert moved to Irvine temporarily in December 1781, to learn to be a flax dresser, but the flax shop caught fire during the New Year celebrations and he returned home.

In 1784, his father died, and Robert and his brother Gilbert tried unsuccessfully to keep the farm going before moving to Mossgiel, where they stayed for the next four years. During this time, he met Jean Armour, the daughter of a stonemason from Mauchline. He had a relationship with her, and also fathered an illegitimate child – Elizabeth Paton Burns – born to his mother’s servant Elizabeth Paton. His father-in-law objected to the marriage of Robert and Jean.

Burns became the father of twins in 1786 and went on to be a father of nine children, though only three survived past infancy. He had an affair with Mary Campbell in 1786, and he dedicated several poems (The Highland Lassie, O Highland Mary and To Mary in Heaven) to her. They had planned to emigrate to Jamaica so he could work on a plantation as a bookkeeper. However, he was dissuaded from doing this, and in the summer he published his first collection of poems – Poems Chiefly in the Scottish dialect.

Poems

Poems Chiefly in the Scottish dialect enjoyed immediate success in Scotland. It was brought out by a Kilmarnock printer, and was known as the “Kilmarnock volume”. Many of its poems had been written at Mossgiel farm, and they are regarded by some as his best writing. The poems included The Twa Dogs, The Cotter’s Saturday Night, To a Mouse and Hallowe’en. Burns soon became well known across Scotland.

In 1787, he visited Edinburgh, where he was well-received and attended many well-to-do gatherings. He met Walter Scott here, who was 16 at the time. He made a huge impression upon the young man, who spoke of him in deep admiration.

Burns made many good friends in Edinburgh, and entered into several relationships, one of which resulted in a son.

In the winter of 1787, he met James Johnson, who was a struggling music engraver and seller. Johnson loved traditional Scottish songs, and was determined to preserve them. Burns eagerly shared this passion, and he contributed to The Scots Musical Museum, which was published initially in 1787. This first volume included three songs by Burns, the second volume contained forty of Burns’ songs. In the end, he was responsible for around one third of the 600 songs contained in the whole collection. The final set was published in 1803.

He returned to Ayrshire, and Jean Armour, taking over the farm of Ellisland, which was near Dumfries. He also trained as an exciseman in case farming was to prove to be unsuccessful. In 1789 he began work in Customs and Excise, giving up his farm in 1791. He continued to write, and in 1790, Tam O’Shanter came along. This is a long, narrative poem based on folk tales.

After Burns gave up the farm, he moved to Dumfries. He was asked to write some lyrics for The Melodies of Scotland, and he ended up contributing more than one hundred songs for this. He also wrote for George Thomson’s A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice. He had to become used to singing the tunes before he wrote the words to the music.

As well as writing for other people’s collections, Burns also collected and preserved traditional Scottish songs. He sometimes worked on them – revising, expanding and adapting the lyrics. One of his more popular collections was The Merry Muses of Caledonia which contains popular Scottish music hall songs which were popular even in more recent times. Some of his most famous works are songs which had music based upon older traditional songs. The most famous of these – Auld Lang Syne – has the tune Can Ye Labour Lea.

Burns began to suffer ill health, he had a rheumatic heart complaint, and he died on 21^st July 1796, at the age of 37. A collection of his poems was published to raise money for his wife and children, and money quickly flooded in from across Scotland to support them.

Memorials

Robert Burns is regarded as Scotland’s national poet, thanks in part to his writing in Scottish dialect.

Many organisations worldwide are named in his honour and Burns in New York and Burns in Oregon are both named after him. Postage stamps have been issued in the UK to commemorate him, including a set issued to mark the bicentenary of his death in 1996. He has been pictured on the £5 note of the Clydesdale Bank, which, on its reverse, bore a field mouse with a rose in reference to the poem Ode to a Mouse. The notes were redesigned in 2007 and his statue is pictured on the reverse of the new £5.

Locomotives have been named after him – a steam one and later an electric one. His birthplace in Alloway has been turned into a museum.

However, arguably his most famous and enduring monument has to be the Burns Supper. This follows a set format. Guests are welcomed and announcements made. The announcements are followed by the Selkirk Grace, which is followed by the arrival of the haggis, accompanied by piping. Burns’ famous poem, Address to a Haggis is read and then the haggis is cut open. Assembled guests eat the haggis and other foods which may include cock-a-leekie soup. Speeches about his life and works are made, and toasts drunk. In conclusion, Auld Lang Syne is usually sung. These suppers take place across the world, testament to the enduring popularity of Scotland’s national poet.

Boadicea

The latest Greatest Britons feature, by Louise Scott, looks at the famous “”Warrior Queen” Boadicea.

There are several variations of the Warrior Queen’s name – until recent times she was known as “Boadicea” and as also been referred to as “Boudicea”, “Boudicca” and “Boudica”. In this article, she will be referred to as “Boadicea” as that is the name most familiar to the majority of people. The name is probably derived from the Celtic “bouda” or “victory”.

About Boadicea

Boadicea was of royal descent. She was said to be a striking woman, with long red hair down to her waist, a harsh voice and piercing stare. She was married to Prasutagus, who was the king of the Iceni tribe, who lived in the area now known as Norfolk, during Roman rule. The Iceni people were not directly under Roman control, as they had chosen to ally themselves to Rome after the conquest of AD43. The Iceni had revolted in AD47 after the governor, Publius Ostorius Scapula, had threatened to disarm them. Prasutagus was wealthy and hoped to preserve his line, so he made the Roman emperor a co-heir to his kingdom, alongside his wife and two daughters.

After the death of Prasutagus, his kingdom was annexed and land and property were confiscated and the people treated as slaves. Boadicea was flogged and both her daughters were raped.

Boadicea goes into action

In AD60 or 61, the Iceni and their neighbours the Trinovantes, conspired to revolt against the Romans. They were inspired by others who had driven the Romans from their lands – Arminius the prince of the Cherusci who drove them out of Germany in 9AD, and the ancient Britons who had driven Caesar from Britain. Boadicea was chosen to be the leader of the revolt.

Their first target was Camulodunum, which is now Colchester. The Romans were mistreating the locals, and they had erected a temple to the former Roman emperor Claudius at the locals’ expense. The Roman procurator, Catus Decianus, sent a small number of troops to defend the city, and Boadicea’s army destroyed the city, besieging its last troops for two days in the temple, before it too fell.

The Romans attempted to relieve the city, but they were annihilated – only the commander and a few of the cavalry managed to escape and Catus Decianus escaped to Gaul.

The thriving commercial centre of Londinium (which later became London) was also destroyed by the rebels, followed by Verulamium (later known as St Albans). It is believed that between 70-80,000 people were killed in the three cities. The Britons did not want to take prisoners, instead they preferred to slaughter.

Suetonius gathered almost 10,000 men and made a stand somewhere along the Roman road known as Watling Street. However, his side was heavily outnumbered, and sources estimate that Boadicea’s side consisted of 230,000 men.

Boadicea encouraged her troops from her chariot, alongside her daughters. She is said to have made a speech in which she presented herself as an ordinary person, as opposed to an aristocrat, who wanted to avenge lost freedom, brutality and the rape of her daughters. She claimed that the gods were on their side and the only legion that had battled them had been totally destroyed. She would win, or she would die.

The Britons were at an immediate disadvantage – they had little or no experience of open field tactics and the Romans were a better equipped and more disciplined force.

Thousands of Britons were killed by the Roman javelins (pila). As they fled, they were hemmed in by their own families who had been stationed in wagons around the edges of the battlefield. The Romans killed them on the edge of the field.

Boadicea was not killed in the battle. Instead she drank poison and killed herself rather than be taken prisoner or killed by the enemy. She was given a lavish burial.

Where did the battle take place?

The exact location is not known. It is widely accepted that it was somewhere along the Roman road known as Watling Street. It may have been near High Cross in Leicestershire, or close to Atherstone in Warwickshire or Kings Norton. Another idea is that it was somewhere in Northamptonshire.

Remembering Boadicea

Boadicea had been forgotten in the Middle Ages, but in Victorian times she was revived when Queen Victoria was regarded as “Boadicea’s namesake”. Several ships were named after her, and a large bronze statue, showing the warrior queen in her chariot, commissioned by Prince Albert and built by Thomas Thornycroft, was completed in 1905 and placed next to Westminster Bridge in London.

Boadicea is said to haunt places in Lincolnshire. A fabricated tale says she was buried under a platform at King’s Cross station in London and other burial sites to be suggested include Hampstead and Suffolk.

Boadicea represented all that is great about Britain – her refusal to back down in the face of the enemy and the courage to fight for what she believed in.

Cemetery official detained for “assaulting” vandal

A cemetery official in Sheffield has been detained on suspicion of  “assaulting” a vandal.

The 43 year old warden of Sharrow Cemetery was claimed that the youth was  vandalising a funeral car.  He was arrested after holding the man on the ground for more than half an hour.

He said that the individual sustained cuts and bruises after falling from his car. His alleged accomplice managed to escape.

Police took 45 minutes to arrive after they had been called, and the warden was worried that the young man would overpower him.

The warden was arrested on suspicion of assault and then released on police bail pending further inquiries.

A sad state of affairs when you are arrested for detaining those who commit crime.

More here.

Isaac Newton

Early Life

Isaac Newton was born on 25^th December 1642 at Woolsthorpe Manor, near Grantham, Lincolnshire. His father died three months before he was born, and Isaac, born prematurely, was small. When he was three his mother, Hannah Ayscough, remarried and lived with her new husband, leaving her son to be cared for by his maternal grandmother. Newton did not like his stepfather, and harboured animosity to his mother for marrying him.

After attending village schools, Newton went to the King’s School in Grantham, lodging with a local apothecary (William Clarke), as the distance between Woolsthorpe and Grantham was too great to make daily travelling an option.  While staying at the apothecary, he discovered an interest in chemicals, remedies and medicines as he watched Clarke at work. Newton kept a notebook detailing various remedies and cures, and he used many of these on himself, as well as offering them to other people.

The headmaster of King’s School, Henry Stokes, recognised that Newton had academic talents, and by the time he was 16, he was already viewed as a candidate for university. His mother disapproved, and removed him from school, as she wanted someone to run the farm at Woolsthorpe.

Newton showed little interest in farmwork, and often allowed the animals he was in charge of to roam. Eventually, his mother was persuaded to let him return to education, and, on 5^th June 1661, Isaac Newton enrolled as a student at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Cambridge University

When Newton entered Cambridge, the teachings were based upon Aristotle, but he preferred the more modern philosophers like Descartes and Galileo. He attended all his lectures, but privately he was beginning to question the validity of the Greek classical ideas which were being taught. In his notebooks, he created headings such as Of Water and Salt, Attraction Magnetical, Of the Sun, Stars, Planets and Comets and Of Gravity and Levity. He wrote a hypothesis to explain the movement of the sea, and began questioning and searching for answers rather than just accepting what had always been traditionally believed. He began developing his mathematical theory which in later years would become calculus. Newton had very little mathematical instruction prior to entering university, so it is a mark of his genius that he taught himself advanced mathematics and was able to develop calculus.

In 1664, Newton began his experiments into the nature of light. He became interested in the subject after buying a glass prism at the Stourbridge fair, held about a mile from Cambridge. He used the prism to demonstrate how white light is made up of component colours, and when it is split up into the colours of the spectrum, blue light is refracted more than red light at the other end of the spectrum. He worked out that the colour of an object depends on which part of the spectrum is absorbed and which is reflected.  An object would appear red if the object absorbed more colours than the red light, which would be reflected.

Throughout the year, he conducted more light experiments with other materials, such as feathers and various fabrics. He almost blinded himself in the pursuit of his knowledge after looking at the sun for too long in order to observe coloured rings and spots before his eyes, and after he stuck a small knife into his eye.  Thankfully, Newton did not suffer permanent damage and his work on light was published years later (1704) as the Opticks.

 

Newton and his apple

In 1665, Newton left Cambridge University after it closed down owing to the plague, and returned to Woolsthorpe. It is here that, according to legend, he made some of his greatest discoveries, including the theory of gravity.

Next to the Woolsthorpe Manor was an apple orchard, and on one occasion, Newton was sitting in the orchard when an apple fell to the ground. This made him ponder on why things always fell to earth rather than going upwards, or to the side.

Newton returned to Cambridge in 1667 after the university reopened.

 

The Greatest Scientist

Newton was elected as Lucasian professor of Mathematics at Cambridge in 1669. Between the years 1670 and 1672, he lectured on optics, demonstrating his experiments with the prism. He invented a reflecting telescope which was demonstrated to the Royal Society in 1671. His telescope was superior to the refracting telescope owing to the wider diameter of its mirror. He published notes On Colour which was later expanded into Opticks. His ideas were criticised by Robert Hooke, which displeased Newton, the two men remaining enemies until Hooke died.

Opticks came along in 1704.

In 1677, he returned to working on gravitation and its effect on planetary orbit. He published his results in 1684, and these paved the way for his laws of motion. The laws of motion appeared in what was arguably Newton’s most famous work – Philosophie Naturalis Principia Mathematica (which is now known simply as the Principia), which was published on 5^th July 1687 with the encouragement and financial assistance of his friend Edmund Halley. The Principia contained the three laws of motion, which went unimproved for more than 200 years, and the word “gravitas” (meaning “weight”) was used for the force that would eventually become known as “gravity”. He defined the law of universal gravitation and gave the first analytical determination of the speed of sound through air.

The Principia gave Newton universal recognition. His three laws of motion are as follows:

Newton’s First Law (which is also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay that way and an object in uniform motion tends to stay that way unless acted upon by a net external force.

Newton’s Second Law states that an applied force (F) on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum (p). In current systems of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second and force in newtons, which was named after Isaac.

Newton’s Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

He became involved in a bitter dispute with Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz over the development of calculus. Newton’s allies claimed that the Englishman had worked out the method years before Leibniz but had published nothing until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, whereas Leibniz published his methods in 1684.

The dispute began in 1699, when several members of the Royal Society accused Leibniz of plagiarism and the dispute broke out fully in 1711. The Royal Society claimed that Newton was the true discoverer and Leibniz was classed as a fraud. The feud lasted right up to Leibniz’s death in 1716.

Newton’s Other Roles

Isaac Newton served as a Member of Parliament for Cambridge University for one year, but contributed very little in parliamentary sessions.

In 1696, he moved down to London to take up the position of Warden of the Royal Mint, taking charge of the recoining of England. In 1699, he became Master of the Mint, which he held until his death in 1727. For his work at the Mint, he received a Knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.

Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703.

Sir Isaac Newton died on 31^st March 1727 in London. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Monuments

Newton is regarded as the founding father of physical sciences, as the unit of force bears his name.

He featured on the old £1 note before it was withdrawn from use.

His tomb is to be found in Westminster Abbey.

His old home, Woolsthorpe Manor, is now owned by the National Trust, who claim that an apple tree in the garden is the one which inspired the theory of gravity. A descendant of the tree grows outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and is below the room Newton lived in when he was studying there.

 

George Stephenson

The latest in the series on Greatest Britons looks at railway pioneer George Stephenson.

Early Life

George Stephenson was born at Wylam, near Newcastle upon Tyne, on 9^th June 1781, the second child of Robert and Mabel. His father was a colliery fireman, and the family lived next to the Wylam Wagonway. This closeness to the transport system is believed to have contributed to his love of machinery from an early age. George began working at Dewley Colliery and paid to go to night school to learn reading, writing and arithmetic.

In 1802, Stephenson became a colliery engine man and in that same year he married Frances (Fanny) Henderson. On 16^th October 1803, their only son Robert was born. Fanny suffered from ill health and died of consumption in 1806.

Stephenson later took a job as engineman at Killingworth Colliery. Each weekend he would dismantle the engines to enable him to learn how they were built. As he increased his knowledge, he was employed as the colliery’s enginewright. Working in the colliery also enabled him to see the danger of explosive gases, and as a spare time project, Stephenson worked on developing a safety lamp to be used in the mines. It was proved safe in areas which were full of explosive gases. Unfortunately for him, Humphry Davy was also producing a safety lamp (Davy will be featured in a later article in Greatest Britons). Davy accused Stephenson of stealing his idea, but the two men had developed the lamps independently of each other. The lamp designed by Stephenson was used in the north east, Davy’s was used everywhere else.

In 1820 he married for the second time, but this time they had no children and his second wife died in 1845.

Locomotives

George Stephenson was best known for his work with steam locomotives. The first locomotive had been built by Richard Trevithick in 1804 so he is the one credited with inventing the locomotive. Stephenson managed to convince his colliery manager to allow him to design and build a steam locomotive, and in 1814 this emerged. The machine was named Blutcher and it was able to pull 30 tons uphill at a speed of four miles per hour.

Stephenson built a total of sixteen locomotives over the next five years at Killingworth. He impressed the owners of the local colliery and was given the task of building an eight mile long railway between Hetton and the River Wear in Sunderland. This was to be the first ever railway to operate without using any animal power at all.

In 1821, parliament passed a bill allowing a company owned by Edward Pease to build a railway between Stockton and Darlington. This line would run for 25 miles and connect collieries along the way to the River Tees at Stockton. Originally, the idea was to have horses pulling coal carts along metal rails, but Pease changed his mind about his after a meeting with Stephenson. The route of the line was surveyed and construction began in 1821.

Stephenson was offered the position of chief engineer of the Stockton & Darlington Company. Parliament gave permission for the company to make locomotives and then the rails were developed. William Losh worked alongside Stephenson and they patented their own make of cast iron rails, but in 1821, Bedlington Ironworks developed a new method of rolling wrought iron rails. Stephenson decided that he preferred the Bedlington rails to the ones he had made, and so, at great cost, he decided that these would be the rails to be used on the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The gauge of the track would be 4 ft 8½ in which was to become a standard gauge throughout the world.

In 1823, the world’s first locomotive building company was formed at Forth Street, Newcastle – The Robert Stephenson & Company. The first locomotive to be built for the company – Locomotion – was completed in September 1825, and was similar to the ones made for the Killingworth and Heaton collieries.

The Stockton & Darlington Railway opened on 27^th September 1825. Large crowds flocked to the event and George Stephenson drove Locomotion as it pulled 36 wagons which were filled with sacks of coal and flour. Also in the wagon train was a passenger carriage containing dignitaries – this was the first time passenger traffic had been carried on a steam railway. It took just under two hours to complete the nine mile journey. The locomotive managed to reach a speed of 15 mph during its final descent into Stockton. The railway was instrumental in reducing the transport costs for coal, and Stephenson was appointed the engineer and locomotive supplier for the Bolton & Leigh Railway, and also the chief engineer of the proposed Liverpool & Manchester line.

Rocket and the Rainhill Trials

Directors at the Liverpool & Manchester Railway had not decided whether to use locomotives or stationary engines on the route. Their final decision would be swayed by a competition in which the winning locomotive would win £500. If the loco was good enough in the competition then it would be the one to be used on the new line.

The competition was held at Rainhill in October 1829. Each loco in the contest had to pull a load three times its own weight at a speed of no less than 10mph. They had to run along the track twenty times, making an equivalent distance of a return journey between Liverpool and Manchester. Only locos weighing less than six tons were allowed in the competition, for fear of heavier ones breaking the rails. There were ten locos entered for the trials, but on the day only five turned up and of these two were withdrawn with mechanical problems. Novelty and Sans Pariel performed well, but the winner was Rocket, the loco entered by the Stephensons.

The railway opened on 15^th September 1830, with a parade of locomotives, one of which knocked down and killed William Huskisson, a government minister. However, the railway was a resounding success, and after this Stephenson was made chief engineer with the Manchester & Leeds Railway, Birmingham & Derby, Normanton & York and Sheffield and Rotherham. As well as this, he continued to improve the locos he had made, including fitting a steam jet to Rocket which increased its speed to 29 mph.

In 1838, he bought Tapton House near Chesterfield. Going into partnership with George Hudson and James Sanders, he opened coalmines, ironworks and limestone quarries in the region.
Stephenson married again in 1848, this time to his housekeeper. Six months later, he developed pleurisy and died on 12^th August 1848. He was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Chesterfield, beside his second wife.

Remembering Stephenson

Stephenson’s monument is all around us in the modern world – the railway. Although he was not the inventor of the locomotive, he worked on the first passenger railways and devised the standard gauge in use in many countries today. Britain led the world in the development of the railway through the work of men such as Joseph Locke, Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel (who shall feature in a later article in the series).

The museum in Chesterfield contains Stephenson memorabilia, and the George Stephenson College was founded in 2001 on the University of Durham’s Queen’s Campus, Stockton on Tees. Also bearing his name is the George Stephenson High School in Killingworth, the Stephenson Railway Museum in North Shields and the Stephenson Locomotive Society. There is a bronze statue of Stephenson at Chesterfield station, which is overlooked by his old home, and he featured on the £5 note between 1990 and 2003.

As for his famous locomotive Rocket – the original is on display in the Science Museum in London with a replica displayed in the National Railway Museum in York.

George Stephenson is one Briton whose work has had a massive impact upon the modern world.

Horatio Nelson

Early Life

Horatio Nelson was born on 29^th September 1758 in the rectory at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk. He was the sixth of eleven children.

He joined the Navy when he was 12 years old, and his first ship posting was on the Raisonnable as an Ordinary Seaman and Coxswain.  Shortly after, Nelson became midshipman and commenced his officer training.  He also discovered a lifelong affliction by seasickness.

Nelson’s maternal uncle, Maurice Suckling, was commander of the Raisonnable, and in 1775 he became Controller of the Navy, using this potion to advance Nelson’s Naval career.  After six years in the Navy, Nelson became Lieutenant, and was posted to the West Indies, where he met his future wife, Frances Nisbet. They were married on 11^th March 1787.

In June 1779, Nelson was made post-captain, and his first command in this rank came on the captured 28-gun French frigate Hinchinbroke.

Battles

Britain entered the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, and Nelson was given command of the Agamemnon, which had 64 guns. This period saw the beginning of his rise to fame and his place in history.

His first assignment at this time was in Naples, and in 1794, he was wounded in the face when stones and debris were thrown into the air by a close cannon shot in a joint operation in Corsica. This caused him to lose the sight of his right eye, and part of his eyebrow.

Agamemnon was sent back to the UK for repairs in 1796, and Nelson was appointed Commodore and given independent command over ships blockading the French coast.

On 14^th February 1797, Nelson played a major part in the British victory at the Battle of Cape St Vincent.  He disobeyed orders in order to prevent Spanish ships from escaping, and then led parties who boarded the two enemy ships in succession, something not normally carried out by high ranking officers.  After this he was knighted as Order of the Bath (with KB after his name), and in April he was promoted to Rear Admiral of the Blue, which is the ninth highest rank in the Royal Navy. Later in that same year, when commanding the Theseus in an unsuccessful attempt to conquer Santa Cruz de Tenerife, he was shot in the right arm with a musketball, causing a severe fracture of the humerus.  The only treatment for this was amputation, in order to prevent gangrene, so as well as losing his sight in the right eye, Nelson had now lost his right arm.

In 1798, there was another victory against the French, this time it was the Battle of the Nile, which took place on 1^st August. This ended Napoleon’s idea of taking the war to the British in India, as his troops were now stranded in Egypt.  Napoleon later escaped back to France, leaving his soldiers behind.

In December of 1798, Nelson met Emma Hamilton, the wife of the British ambassador.  She returned to Britain with him and they had a daughter, Horatia, in 1801.

In 1800, Nelson and his wife moved to Ipswich and he became High Steward of Ipswich, though not the town’s MP.

In January 1801, Nelson was promoted to Vice Admiral of the Blue, the sixth highest Naval rank, and in April of that year he took part in the Battle of Copenhagen, which was fought in order to break up the armed neutrality of Denmark, Sweden and Russia. During the battle, he raised his telescope to his blind eye in order to ignore a signal to retreat.  The battle had a successful outcome for the British.

Napoleon had started to mass his forces for an attack against Britain, and Nelson was put in charge of defending the English Channel. However, on 22^nd October, an armistice was signed between Britain and France and Nelson returned to England.

The peace between Britain and France did not last long, and in May 1803, Nelson was assigned to HMS Victory. He later was promoted to Vice Admiral of the White (fifth highest rank) in 1804.

Nelson’s last battle was on 21^st October 1805.  Nelson had 27 ships, the opponents had 33. As the two fleets approached each other, Nelson raised a 31 flag signal to the rest of the fleet, which spelt out “England expects that every man will do his duty”.  The French ship Bucentaure was crippled by the British, who then moved on to the Redoutable. The ships became entangled, and the French snipers were easily able to fire onto the British ship. A bullet hit Nelson from about fifty feet, entering his left shoulder, piercing his lung and travelling as far as the base of his spine. Britain’s naval hero died after the British won the Battle of Trafalgar.  His body was preserved in a barrel of brandy, and on return was given a state funeral on 9^th January 1806 (one of only a very few non-Royal Britons to receive a state funeral) and entombment in St Paul’s.

Monuments

There are many monuments to Nelson across the world:

Nelson’s Column and Trafalgar Square in London; a pillar on Glasgow Green; Nelson’s Monument on Calton Hill in Edinburgh; memorials in Birmingham, Liverpool and Barbados sculpted by Richard Westmacott; statue in Norwich Cathedral grounds; Castle Green, Hereford; banks of Menai Straits; Swarland, Northumberland; Nelson in New Zealand; Nelson Island, British Columbia; Montreal and finally on Nevis where Nelson met and married his wife, there are Nelson’s Spring and Nelson’s Lookout.

Some have suggested that 21^st October also be made a Bank Holiday to remember the Battle of Trafalgar.

The men and women who will feature in this series of articles have all helped to shape our country and its history, making important scientific discoveries, inventing the devices we all take for granted today, keeping our shores free of invading forces and making Britain Great.  All British schoolchildren should learn the important people from our past, and what they achieved.