Nelson & His World

Had lunch with friends today, and a fellow-guest, knowing my enthusiasm for Nelson and his navy, gave me a present of a little leather bound book 'The Adventures of Gil Blas' which was recommended reading for young midshipmen of the day.

An inscription on the flyleaf reads:

Edward Smith RN, a present from V.A. Sir Richard Strachan, November 1815.

Wiki has a great deal on Sir Richard Strachan, 6th Baronet and ultimately an admiral. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Richar ... th_Baronet.

But I am curious about Edward Smith R.N. and why he might have caught the attention of the Admiral. Was he perhaps a young mid he had recommended and to whom he gave this book as suitable reading? The name Smith is something of a challenge to researchers but can anyone here throw any light on him? There is a bookplate bearing the name William Hart Smith - perhaps Edward's son?

Thanks in advance for any help.

While 'Googling' for something else, I came across this account of Trafalgar by a French participant - from recently discovered document in the National Archives - which seredipitously mentions Sir Richard Strachan's role in the battle.



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/th ... 13881.html

One candidate for your Edward Smith, who would have been a midshipman in 1815, was Lieutenant Edward Smith, who met a heroic end as commander of the schooner Magpie when she capsized in shark-infested waters off Cuba in a sudden squall in 1826. He twice supervised the righting and bailing out of a boat for the survivors. On the second occasion while he and the other survivors were in the water hanging from the gunwhales as the boat was bailed, he kept them calm as the sharks attacked and in order to prevent panic, suppressed even the slightest cry when his own leg was bitten off.

The full story starts half way down this page: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/ ... agpie.html

If the Edward Smith of the Magpie is the same man as the owner of my little book, then I shall count myself privileged to own it.

Thanks, Tony, for unearthing that heroic and poignant story. How many others we know nothing of set examples of heroism and right conduct in adversity that must have stayed in the memory of those around them even though their deeds were lost to the wider world? But their influence must be felt somewhere. I am reminded of the ending of George Eliot's 'Middlemarch' - the greatest novel in the English language IMHO - '..for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.'

Well, the Edward Smiths of the Royal Navy were a heroic set. I can identify one other Edward Smith who would have been a midshipman in 1815, and that is Edward Garrow Smith, who entered the Navy in 1809, passed his lieutenant's examination in 1817, but was not promoted lieutenant until 1827. He then served in the Coast Guard as a lieutenant for many years and was still a lieutenant in 1858. He risked his own life during the rescue of HM Brig Skylark off the Isle of Wight in 1845: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=c4IE ... &q&f=false