Lord Nelson

 

 

The Nelson Hospital in Merton Park is named such I believe, because Lord Nelson who was born in East Anglia had a home in that part of the world.

A few days ago The times had an interesting article about Nelson in its weather report page: 

Britain’s most famous naval battle took place 220 years ago on Tuesday. In October 1805, a combined French and Spanish fleet was ready to sail out of Cadiz to the Mediterranean. Admiral Horatio Nelson raced to engage the enemy, although the French commander, Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, wanted to avoid a confrontation, despite his 33 warships outnumbering Nelson’s 27.

Reports that Villeneuve was about to be replaced as commander persuaded him to sail, in a heavy sea swell and strengthening winds, on October 20. Nelson realised a storm was brewing and that he needed to battle the enemy fleet urgently before conditions deteriorated. On October 21, however, the wind dropped, leaving both fleets wallowing in a heavy sea swell. Nelson was obliged to concoct an audacious battle plan — two columns of ships would sail into the enemy line for a head-on attack before launching broadsides at close quarters.

Villeneuve tried, and failed, to head back to Cadiz, but the two fleets met off Cape Trafalgar when Nelson launched his attack. His flagship, HMS Victory, bore down on the enemy and sustained heavy fire, before it ran under the stern of the French flagship, the Bucentaure, firing devastating broadsides that left the ship disabled.

The centre of the Franco-Spanish fleet was reduced to chaos, but the crew of the French ship Redoutable massed an attack on Victory that left Nelson mortally wounded, before HMS Temeraire crashed into Redoutable and caused mass casualties on the French crew.

As the battle raged on, the devastating British gunnery ground down the enemy ships until the Franco-Spanish force collapsed. Although many of the British ships were badly damaged, the allied fleet was devastated, with 20 of their ships captured and many of the crew killed, wounded or taken prisoner. The gathering storm now blew the ships towards a rocky shore, and by next morning, several of the captured ships sank while some of the Spanish ships ran for Cadiz. All told, 14 of the captured ships were destroyed, and the total loss of life in the storm was worse than during the battle. As a result of the engagement, the Battle of Trafalgar left Britain in command of the seas.

Today of course, the UK's Health and Safety Executive would doubtless not have permitted a man with one leg and blinded in one eye to work as an admiral on board a ship of the fleet.