Nelson & His World

I am intrigued to discover that there were a number of Admiralty Steam Trawlers launched in World War One that were named after Trafalgar seamen. I only realised this when reading this interesting blog post about the descendants of Dominick Addison researching his Trafalgar NGSM, which is still owned by the family: http://nowrigglingoutofwriting.wordpres ... genealogy/ (Thanks to Jacqui for the heads up.)

Dominick Addison was an Able Seaman in the Royal Sovereign, and, born in Toulon, his story is a fascinating research challenge in itself. But a quick Google brought up the steam trawler named after him, launched in 1919, and later renamd Tenedos: http://www.fleetwood-trawlers.info/inde ... dos-fd277/

I haven't found a list of these trawlers, and many were renamed by subsequent owners, but a bit more Googling brought up a few more that match up:

John Baptish, 36, French, AB, Victory
Joseph Button, 23, English, LM, Victory
William Cale, 21, English, LM, Victory
Arthur Cavanagh, 17, Irish, Supply, Victory

As you can see, I haven't worked very far through the alphabet yet, but I can't work out how these names have been selected. The only common factor seems to be that they are from the Victory or the Royal Sovereign.

Does anyone know whether there is a list of these Royal Navy trawlers named after Trafalgar seamen?

And can anyone suggest how or why these names have been selected from the thousands that fought at Trafalgar?

Tony,

I found this list which I am sure, should you want to 'trawl' through it, would come up with more names. Right at the bottom is a selection of photographs, including one of the 'John Pasco': http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/n ... awlers.htm
Apparently there were quite a few of them, I think from three different classes, and another page I was looking at said there were 197 in all. (The phrase 'knock yourself out' comes to mind!). All the names were taken from the muster rolls of the Victory and RS.

Quite how they decided on which ones to use I have no idea, but I suggest that perhaps they had all distinguished themselves in some way.

Nelson was the first officer to mention in his dispatches someone who didn't hold a commission. (John Sykes, I think.) Did other officers follow soon afterwards? And could these men have been mentioned in dispatches, or in letters that got into the newspapers, for conspicuous gallantry? Just a thought.

Thanks for the (large!) list, Kester. Yes, scattered amongst the list are more names, but the list is of requisitioned trawlers taken back into Navy service in WWII, so those included are surviving vessels from WWI. A bit more Googling shows that it was the 'Castle Class' of trawlers built around 1916-1919. Around 200 were built, 145 of them completed during the war, and although some of them were named after castles, it looks as though perhaps the majority were named after Trafalgar seamen and officers from Victory and Royal Sovereign.

There seem to me to be far too many to be men who had particularly distinguished themselves, and I can't imagine the Admiralty in the First World War taking the time to trawl through newspaper reports from the previous 100 years. I suspect they would use lists already available to them. So far none of the names I have tried show up in Google Books or web search for anything else, other than some obvious ones such as John Pasco and William Beatty, and those listed in the NGSM Trafalgar roll. I feel sure that some would show up elsewhere if there were Admiralty records showing that they had distinguished themselves. There are a lot of names from early in the alphabet, but I don't think it is just an alphabetical selection.

Any more ideas?

In the meantime, here are a couple more snippets of info on Dominick Addison from the Ayshford Trafalgar Roll:

He joined Victory on 5 Jun 1803 from Cerberus [frigate]

He entered Greenwich Hospital on 5 Jun 1851, age 70, 15y 3m [RN] service + 5y merchant service (NA document reference ADM 73/47)

There is good information on Greenwich Hospital records in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=814