Abstract
Shortly before 1 o’clock in the afternoon of 9 January 1806, infantry bands and cavalry trumpets heralded the imminent arrival of Admiral Lord Nelson’s funeral procession at St Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London (see Plate 26).1 Here was to end the journey of Britain’s pre-eminent naval hero, who had travelled from the vicarage of his lowly clergyman father in the Norfolk village of Burnham Thorpe to the triumphant victories of the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar. From there, Nelson’s body, preserved in a large cask filled with brandy, had made its way on the admiral’s flagship the Victory via Gibraltar, where it was embalmed, to the Painted Hall at Greenwich. The body lay in a coffin made from pieces of the mainmast of the French flagship at the Battle of the Nile, l’Orient, encased in further coffins of lead and elm. An outer coffin of mahogany was covered in black Genoa velvet and divided by countless double-gilt nails into several compartments containing designs of Grief, Fame, Nelson’s crests, a sphinx, and a crocodile. Over three days, 100,000 mourners filed past Nelson in the vast, heavily ornamented mourning chamber.
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Notes
For the funeral see T. Jenks, ‘Contesting the Hero: The Funeral of Admiral Lord Nelson’, JBS 39 (2000), 422–53;
J. Fairburn, Fairburn’s Second Edition of the Funeral of Lord Nelson (London: Fairburn, 1806);
T.O. Churchill, The Life of Lord Viscount Nelson … Illustrated by engravings of it’s most striking and memorable incidents (London: Bensley, 1808).
National Archives [PRO], T27/60.153, Henry Wellesley, Treasury Chambers, to Mr. Westmacott, Jun., Mount St, 4 Sept. 1807. Flaxman was asked to adopt part of the design, or ‘the sentiment’, of his rival Westmacott, but Flaxman insisted that the ‘composition of the figures will be his own’. K. Garlick, A. Macintyre and K. Cave (eds), The Diary of Joseph Farington, 16 vols (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978–84), VIII, 2993 (24 March 1807).
This chapter does not explore the political and partisan history of the St Paul’s pantheon, for which see Jenks, ‘Contesting the Hero’, and my ‘The British Military Pantheon in St Paul’s Cathedral: The State, Cultural Patriotism, and the Politics of National Monuments, c.1790–1820’, in M. Craske and R. Wrigley (eds), Pantheons: Transformations of a Monumental Idea (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 81–105, and forthcoming work on the politics of commemoration.
T. Nipperdey, ‘Nationalidee und Nationaldenkmal in Deutschland im 19. Jahrhundert’, Historische Zeitschrift 206 (1968), 529–85;
A. Ben-Arnos, ‘Monuments and Memory in French Nationalism’, History & Memory 5,2 (1990), 50–81.
By 1785, the full tour cost 14 pence per person: J. Mazzinghy, The New and Universal Guide through the Cities of London and Westminster (London, 1785), p. 230.
N. Aston, ‘St Paul’s and the Public Culture of Eighteenth-Century Britain’, in D. Keene, A. Burns and A. Saint (eds), St Paul’s. The Cathedral Church of London 604–2004 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 363–71, at 363.
Monthly Magazine, 20 (1 Jan. 1806). For totalitarian French Revolutionary use of the arts see J. A. Leith, The Idea of Art as Propaganda in France, 1750–1799: A Study in the History of Ideas (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969); Space and Revolution: Projects for Monuments, Squares, and Public Buildings in France 1789–1799 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991).
B. Silliman, A Journal of Travels in England, Holland and Scotland (New York, 1810), vol. II, p. 207.
R. Southey, The Life of Nelson, 2 vols (London: Murray, 1813), II, 267–8. Captain Hardinge’s heroic timing was less than perfect, as Parliamentarians acknowledged in stating that he had died ‘in the path to victory’. As if by way of compensation, together with the hero’s name the word ‘victory’ is set in larger letters than the rest of his monument’s inscription. For Abercromby as an army counterpart to Nelson see BL Add. MSS 38759, fos. 85f;
R. Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt, 2 vols, 2nd edn (London, 1803), II, p. 304; Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 71, 480f; [An Officer], The Life of Sir Ralph Abercromby (Ormskirk: Fowler, 1806), preface, n. p.
Anon., Brief Memoir, title-page; W. Beatty, Authentic Narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson (London: Cadell, 1807), pp. 68–71.
For Capt. Harvey’s successive mutilations on 1 June 1794 see N. Tracy (ed.), Naval Chronicle, consolidated edn (London: Chatham, 1998–99), I, p. 107.
Naval Chronicle, XIV, 478f. See M. Lincoln, Representing the Royal Navy: British Sea Power, 1750–1815 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), p. 32, on the endurance of physical pain as part of gender training and on admiration for seamen bearing amputation without complaint.
G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, 2 vols (London, 1826), II, p. 676.
Journals of the House of Commons, vol. 61, 17, 20 (28 and 31 Jan. 1806); Smyth, Monuments, II, p. 634 note. See also, on Abercromby, Duncan, Brock, Le Marchant, Craufurd, Hay, McKenzie, and Picton: Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt, pp. 75f; M. Hackett, A Popular Account of St Paul’s Cathedral (London, 1830), p. 31;
W. Wood, Select British Documents of the War of 1812, 3 vols (Toronto, 1920–28), I, p. 14;
D. Le Marchant, Memoirs of the Late Major General Le Marchant (London, 1841), p. 305;
J.V. Page (ed.), Intelligence Officer in the Peninsula: Letters and Diaries of Major the Hon. Edward Charles Cocks 1786–1812 (New York: Hippocrene; Tunbridge Wells: Spellmount, 1986), p. 166, diary entry for 26 Jan. 1811;
J.A. Hall (ed.), History of the Peninsular War, vol. 8, The Biographical Dictionary of British Officers Killed and Wounded, 1808–1814 (London: Greenhill, 1998), pp. 268, 373; Gentleman’s Magazine, 84,2 (1814), 517;
H.B. Robinson, Memoirs of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton, 2 vols, 2nd. rev. edn, (London: Bentley, 1836), II, p. 401.
BL Add. MSS 39790, fos. 28–9, John Flaxman to the Rev. William Gunn, Sept. 1814, quoted in M. Busco, Sir Richard Westmacott, Sculptor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 45.
J.P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum; or, an Ancient History and Modern Description of London, 4 vols (London, 1802–07), III, pp. 124ff.
A. Cunningham, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters and Sculptors, 6 vols (London: Murray, 1829–33), III, pp. 101, 102.
Cf., for the Seven Years War, M. Craske, Art in Europe 1700–1830. A History of the Visual Arts in an Era of Unprecedented Urban Economic Growth (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 263f;
D. Solkin, Painting for Money. The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth Century England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), ch. 5;
D. Bindman and M. Baker, Roubiliac and the Eighteenth-Century Monument (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 147ff, 172, 189, passim.
W. Wordsworth, ‘Character of the Happy Warrior’, in T. Hutchinson (ed.), Wordsworth. Poetical Works with Introduction and Notes edited by Thomas Hutchinson. A new edition, revised by E. de Selincourt (Oxford, 1974), pp. 386f.
E. Vincent Macleod, A War of Ideas. British Attitudes to the Wars against Revolutionary France 1792–1802 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), chs 1, 3, 5, 6.
J. Hervey, ‘Meditations among the Tombs’, in Meditations and Contemplations. To which is prefixed the Life of the Author (London: Rivington, 1818), pp. 46ff;
see also E. Young, ‘The Complaint Night I. On Life, Death, and Immortality’, in Night Thoughts (London, 1798), pp. 1–15. See my ‘The British Military Pantheon in St Paul’s Cathedral’, with further references to counter-traditions to the heroic.
For examples see Parliamentary History … to 1803 (1818), ‘Debate in the Commons on the Vote of Thanks to Lord Howe’, 16 June 1794, 906–7. From A Narrative of my Adventures (1790–1839) by Sir William Henry Dillon, K.C.H., Vice-Admiral of the Red, ed. by M.A. Lewis, in D. King and J. Hattendorf (eds), Every Man will do His Duty: Anthology of Firsthand Accounts from the Age of Nelson, 1793–1815 (London, 1997), p. 31; National Maritime Museum HIS/35/10.
Parliamentary Debates, vol. VI (21 Jan. to 26 May 1806), 28 Jan. 1806, cols. 97–107. See also J.S. Clarke and J. M’Arthur, The Life of Admiral Lord Nelson, 2 vols (London: Cadell & Davies, 1809), II, pp. 455–6, for an extension of the contrast to Spanish gallantry, French lack of humanity, and British humanity.
P. Hoare (ed.), Academic Correspondence, 1803 (London: Cadell, 1804), p. 28. When the monument was unveiled in 1806, The Times stressed that Hypocrisy’s real features were ‘expressive of the most ferocious and horrid barbarity’. Times, 7 Jan. 1806.
R. Lendon, Public Tokens of Sorrow due to brave Men who fall in the Service of their Country (London: Bye and Law, for the benefit of the Patriotic Fund, 1805), pp. 13–15. Lendon’s colleague at Bedford, Charles Abbott, stressed that Christians should ‘cherish the memory’ of Nelson primarily because ‘he was a pious man’ who knew ‘that earthly palms and victory’s dear-bought laurels are only the precursors of an eternal, a brighter and a heavenly recompense’:
C. Abbot, A Sermon preached in the parish church of St Mary, Bedford, on Sunday, November the 10th, 1805 (Bedford: Webb, 1805), pp. 14–16.
Quoted in E. Vincent, Nelson. Love & Fame (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 571.
For the terminology see W. Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture. Its Changing Aspects from Ancient Egypt to Bernini, ed. H.W. Janson (London: Thames & Hudson, 1964); Bindman and Baker, Roubiliac, ch. 3.
Countess of Minto (ed.), Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Eliot, First Earl of Minto from 1751 to 1806, 2 vols (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1874), II, p. 378.
E. Montagu, The Citizen: A Hudibrastic Poem in Five Cantos. To which is added, Nelson’s Ghost. A Poem in Two Parts (London: Hughes, 1806), pp. 6, 9.
J.M. Crook and M.H. Port, The History of the King’s Works, VI (London: HMSO, 1973), pp. 293–302; Busco, Westmacott, pp. 57–64. National Art Library, R.C. V.13, British Institution Minute Books, vol. III, n.p. [meetings on 20 Feb., 3 April, 18 July 1815, 8 and 25 April 1816].
C. Lloyd, The Royal Collection. A Thematic Exploration of the Paintings in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen. Foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992), pp. 166–74.
W. Matthews, British Autobiographies. An annotated Bibliography of British Autobiographies published or written before 1851 (Berkeley and Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 1955);
P. Krahé, ‘Admiral Nelson in der englischen Literatur: Wandlungen eines patriotischen Leitbildes’, Archiv ßr Kulturgeschichte, 66 (1984), 315–45;
S.H. Myerly, British Military Spectacle. From the Napoleonic Wars through the Crimea (Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 146–50.
Sir William F.P. Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France, from the Year 1807 to the Year 1814,6 vols (London, 1828–40).
Cf. the discussion in A. Yarrington, The Commemoration of the Hero, 1800–1864. Monuments to the British Victors of the Napoleonic Wars (New York and London: Garland, 1988), pp. 66–7.
Parliamentary Accounts and Papers (London: Hansard, 1837), 119, xxxvi.447, ‘Correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s’. J.T. Smith, Nollekens and His Times, 2 vols (S.l.: Henry Colburn, 1829), I, pp. 376f.
Cf. my ‘Reforming Culture. National Art Institutions in the Age of Reform’, in A. Burns and J. Innes (eds), Rethinking the Age of Reform: Britain 1780–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 254–70.
W. Turton (ed.), Luctus Nelsoniani. Poems on the Death of Lord Nelson (London, 1807), p. 147. For children as authors of commemorative culture see Nelson’s Death, the Words by a Young Lady, Eight Years of Age, The Music Composed by S. Ball, Organist Ipswich (London, n.d.).
Joan Bakewell, New Statesman, 18 Nov. 2002, <http://www.findarticles.com.
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Hoock, H. (2005). Nelson Entombed: The Military and Naval Pantheon in St Paul’s Cathedral. In: Cannadine, D. (eds) Admiral Lord Nelson. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230508705_7
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