RELICS OF TRAFALGAR

Evening Star, Issue 21138, 25 June 1932, Page 2

RELICS OF TRAFALGAR

Naval historians have always wranglet! over tho words which passed between the dying Nelson at. Trafalgar and his devoted hiend. Hardy; but there is no doubt about a few relics which Hardy treasured, especially that Union Jack which Victory flew at Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, says tho London * Daily Telegraph.’ These remained for many years in the Hardy family, but eventually they were purchased by Mr Hubert Palmer, of Eastbourne, and they are to be offered at Christie’s.

One might have expected to see a copy of tho famous Trafalgar Memorandum (as Nelson sent one to each of his captains on the eve of the fight), and it may bo recalled that tho lost original was found in 1906 to bo in the possession of an old Clapham Junction bus driver. This precious document is now in the British Museum, the gift of Mr Benjamin Wooilan, of Tunbridge Wells, who gave £3,600 for it. Perhaps one of the chief relics is a piece of the lead coffin which conveyed Nelson’s body to England, and there are such things as a snuff-box, inscribed: “ Horatio Nelson, 1783,” mado from tho oak top-mast of Raissonable, Nelson’s first ship, and a teak inkstand made from a niece of Victory. Prized treasures are the leather telescope which the boy Nelson had from his father when going to sea for the first time with his uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, iu Raissonable, 1770, and Nelson’s sword and dirk.

Nelson's Victory mahogany desk, engraved “ Horatio Nelson, R.N., 1783,” and his armchair arc lo be sold, and from another property will come a Georgian mahogany sideboard, originally part of tho Victory furniture at Trafalgar, other pieces of which were restored to tho old flagship last year through tho generosity of Mr R. W. Jacobs.

There are, too, Lady Hamilton’s Nelson memorial ring and her brooch in memory of her husband, Sir William Hamilton, win died two years before Trafalgar. Captain Hardy’s relics include the telescope used by him at Trafalgar, a boarding axe used in tho fight, ami his silver watch and snuff boxes.