Nelson & His World

As stated elsewhere in this list, the Royal Naval Asylum was originally the British National Endeavour School. I am interested specifically in the BNE School and how it was financed. One "patron" was Lord St Vincent who in April 1800 took command of the Channel Fleet, and then received a letter from the BNE School (probably from Andrew Thompson), and reacted as generously as ever. The letter from England caused the admiral to host a dinner aboard his flagship for fifty of the officers whom he felt closest to. At the dinner he revealed that the letter was from an orphanage near Paddington in London (BNE). The orphanage had run out of money to support the children of sailors who had died in the service of their country. St Vincent solicited from each captain and lieutenant a sum of money and then added his own donation. A cutter then sailed back to England the same evening [Tucker. Vol. 2, p.45–49]. St Vincent gave the orphanage £1,000.00 [Tucker. Vol. 2, p.93–94]

Lord Nelson appears to have been treated in the same way as Lord St Vincent by BNE school, and they both had powers to nominate children for attendance. I thus hypothesize that Nelson too received a letter from the BNE School asking for assistance, and that he organised a means of donating a considerable sum too. However I can find no evidence in my rather cursory examination of Nelson's life. Can anyone help please?

Nelson was serving in the Mediterranean in April 1800 and not long afterwards made the journey home to England overland by a meandering route. I'm not sure what arrangements were made to receive mail in those days, but contacting an itinerant admiral would have been difficult, I imagine. There are no letters concerning the British National Endeavour School in the Letters and Dispatches of Lord Nelson edited by Harris Nicolas, nor in the Hamilton & Nelson Papers, privately printed by Morrison in 1893. No mention is made in any of the major biographies either. Nelson was conspicuously solicitous of, and generous to, former seamen and their families, and it is safe to assume he would have responded positively had an appeal such as the one made to St Vincent, also been made to him.

Sorry not to be more helpful; maybe others on the forum better informed than I will come up with something. Also, the second, and long-awaited volume of John Sugden's life of Nelson, due in the autumn, might reveal something of interest. Vol 1 was by far the most comprehensive study of Nelson's life and had several fascinating digressions into Georgian naval life such as the area you are exploring.

Thanks Anna. You seem much more into Nelson than I am, even though I lived for 7 years in Nelson House at the Royal Hospital School. Much memorabilia of Nelson is held by the school, so keep an eye out for a future "Antiques Roadshow" on BBC, which will show some of the items. We are planning to have a museum at the school in the near future where some of its memorablia will be on show.

By the way, I am the RHS archivist.

Perhaps the financial scandal that swamped Andrew Thompson had overtaken him by the time Nelson arrived back in England in November, 1800?

Did the Royal Naval Asylum/BNE school have any connection with the 'Asylum for Female Orphans' based at that time in St. George's Fields, London? The AFFO seems to have been primarily linked to the Magdalene Hospital, but perhaps a connection with your area of research existed at some time. Both were charitable institutions, essentially provided the same programmes of care for their inmates and followed the same route of allowing subscribers to nominate and vote for the admittance of children through elections (obviously girls only in the case of the AFFO.)

The reason I'm wondering is that I have some very incomplete copies of Nelson's accounts with his banker William Marsh for the period in question. Also his more private account kept with Alexander Davison at that time, in which Davison records a series of what I can only term 'very generous' donations from Nelson to the AFFO shortly after his arrival back in England.

Alaric. In the past, I've read a little about a Hoxton Workhouse (it was often called the 'Madhouse' by those writing about it at the time.) The inmates I looked at didn't have naval connections that I can see, but do you know if the Naval Asylum you refer to took in afflicted members of the general public or not? I'm wondering if we're looking at two different asylums or the same one?

As far as I can tell there was no direct connection between the "Asylum for Female Orphans" and the British National Endeavour School. However following the various battles with the French of the times there were a great many orphans of men who had fallen in defence of their country, with roughly equal numbers of males and femaies, and this must have generated a groudswell of public sympathy, which led to the establishment of such institutions. The Royal Militray Asylum (now the Duke of York's Royal Military School) also began at this time for the orphans of soldiers who had died in defence of Britain. The British National Endeavour School may well have been the precursor of all these schools (I haven't checked), and it certainly predated both the RMA and the Royal Naval Asylum. By the way, whilst I can find evidence of two indictments against Andrew Thompson, founder of BNE School, I can only find details of one trial in which he was founf "not guilty". I can find nothing giving details of a second trial for fraud against "members of the nobility and some members of the Royal Family"! Following Thompson's first indictment in December 1800, the BNE School was renamed the "Naval Asylum" in January 1801. In November 1805, following Nelson's victory at Trafalgar, it was taken "under the wing" of King George III and renamed the "Royal Naval Asylum", backdated to 21 October 1805.

At present, in the light of the (lack of) evidence I suspect that Andrew Thompson was "elbowed" out of the way because of the political potential of his great idea.