Nelson & His World

An item on today's news from the BBC says that the Prime Minister, visiting President Obama in Washington, has given him a symbolic gift - a desk plaque (?) - 'made from the wood of HMS Gannet which was used to help suppress the slave trade', and was also a sister ship of HMS Resolute. Wood from this ship was used to make the desk in the Oval Office.

Since BBC reporters so often seem to get it wrong (Captain Hardy VC, Victory's cargo of cannons etc.,) can anyone confirm that they've got this right?

A 'desk plaque' is apparently a pen holder. A suitably modest gift for these credit-crunched times.

Anna,

I've heard the desk features in the second 'National Treasure - Book of Secrets', film with Nicholas Cage.

That's probably the only reason I'd watch and it even then I'd be wondering if it was the actual desk!

The only 'Gannet' I know of is the Victorian steam sloop now preserved at Chatham, but she was not built until 1878 - a bit late for the period we are talking of. There were others of the same name previously, so maybe some timber remained from one of those. Or as you say maybe the BBC...

I suspect the Gannet referred to is the sloop of 1878 now preserved at Chatham Dockyard. The claim that it was used to suppress the slave trade is not incorrect...but not the Atlantic slave trade. She conducted anti-slavery patrols in the Red Sea/Indian Ocean in the mid-1880s, to prevent slaves being taken to the Arabian ports.

The claim that she was a 'sister ship of HMS Resolute' is total nonsense; the latter was a former merchant barque, purchased for use as an exploration vessel in 1850 and renamed; she was abandoned in the ice in 1854 and recovered by an American ship.

Tycho,

Thinking more about it, the wood from the plaque may indeed have come from the present HMS 'Gannet'. At the end of her seagoing career, she was moored in the Hamble river as the training ship 'Mercury', from where she ended up in Portsmouth Harbour. I remember seeing her there in a very run down state back in the seventies and was able to go aboard. To restore the ship to her present condition took some years, and not a little money, during which time quite a few of the old timbers from the ship were replaced. My guess is that perhaps the material for the plaque came from one of these. As PN says however, she was not a sister ship of HMS 'Resolute'.

I came across this about the desk from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolute_desk

Thank you for the information above. Perhaps we should have a thread on 'Journalists' Howlers.' ( I have notes on several that I haven't got round to posting.)

I was interested to discover that it was a naval officer who inspired Wilberforce to take up the abolitionist cause in the first place.

'Amongst naval officers who had experienced the evils of the [slave] trade at first hand, there were views quite contrary to Nelson's 'good old school'. In fact, the origin of the Abolitionist movement can be traced to a naval 'conversion' experience. This occurred when Captain Charles Middleton [later Lord Barham] commanding the Arundel (24) met the Swift, a slaver from Bristol, in which an epidemic was raging. The Arundel's surgeon, James Ramsay, did what he could for the sick. Soon after, he left the navy, was ordained, and dedicated himself to improving the treatment of slaves in the plantations of St Kitts, where he remained for nineteen years. In 1781, he came back to England, at the invitation of Middleton, to take up the living of Teston, Kent, Middleton's country seat. Together with Lady Middleton, a moving spirit in the cause, Ramsay and Sir Charles made Teston a gathering place for like-minded reformers......Sir Charles and Lady Middleton set about persuading Wilberfoce to undertake the leadership of the parliamentary campaign.'

from 'Jane Austen and the Navy' by Brian Southam, (NMM Publications 2005)

Anna,

Not so surprising I would imagine, that many officers and men would have thought differently to Nelson as regards their feelings about slavery - and one gets the feeling that although Nelson himself may have written that in a letter, he may perhaps have had a few misgivings in private.

I think one has to bear in mind too that members of the armed forces, today as in times past, see and have first hand knowledge of things which the rest of the population don't and are mercifally spared. After all, when you're in the middle of the situation, it appears rather different from those who only read about it in the newspaper. In Nelson's day too, men in the navy and army would have seen horrors which they wouldn't or couldn't tell those at home about as they probably wouldn't have understood. Nelson too very likely saw things which he wouldn't have told either Fanny, Emma, or the members of his family.

Kester:

here is some information about another Royal Navy captain, Philip Beaver, who was involved in the anti-slavery movement, this time in trying to stamp it out in Africa, where many rulers were complicit with the traders in selling their own people.

http://www.cornishwonder.com/page3.htm

They are remarkable portraits. He has a very kindly, rather sad face, I think. I have never seen an officer's coat buttoned up in that way (and with a button missing, or unfastened.)

Does anyone have more biographical detail? It would make an interesting area of study to reclaim all these vanished naval humanitarians.

I came across this when I was looking for a portrait of John Braham, the famous Georgian singer, whose 'Death of Nelson' was his standard encore. Click on his name on the left to read more about him and his 'stirring sea songs'. It confirms that the theatre of the day was a vehicle for patriotic pride, but I digress.......

Anna,

Thanks for the interesting link to Captain Philip Beaver and his interest in the abolition of the slave trade. Obviously this interest, and that of Opie's wife, stems from the late eighteenth century, some little while before the actual abolition of slavery – which highlights the fact that, of course, there would probably have been many people opposed to the trade long before Wiberforce had his act passed.

As to the uniform this shows that lapels could be buttoned across the throat and chest, as a practical measure against the weather and using the same buttonholes - the lapel merely being unbuttoned from one side and rebuttoned on the other. The differences between the two portraits is interesting. In the second, unfinished one, Opie seems to have thought that the crossed over lapel in the first was overlong and shortened it at the point. The unbuttoned button might of course have been artistic flair, perhaps to lighten Beaver's expression, but one gets the impression that the good captain himself would have had it fastened. (It reminds me somehow of Rigaud's painting of the young Captain Nelson, but here the unbuttoned, flopping, lapel rather seems to have illustrated the 'devil may care attitude' that some say Nelson had at that age with respect to his dress.)

It is interesting too that the medal in the second picture occupies almost exactly the position of the missing button in the first. I wonder too exactly what the medal was, seemingly awarded at some time between 1805 and 1807, the text merely stating that it 'made him some sort of Turkish knight'. It is a pity that the portrait was never finished. Perhaps a bit of 'googling' will provide the answer regarding the medal, or does anyone know?

Many thanks for those observations, Kester.

Actually, there is quite a lot of information about Captain Beaver on the internet - wiki etc; but also a proper biography:

http://www.archive.org/stream/lifeservi ... t_djvu.txt

There's a copy on abebooks for £245 for the un-creditcrunched.

A quick glance at the text reveals (in addition to numerous typos) that he is referred to as 'our hero', so maybe it's more of a hagiography than a bio.

I''d need to print that off to read it though. Another one for the 'to read' pile.

Philip Beaver was Keith’s flag captain in the Foudroyant at Alexandria in 1801, and along with other captains, received the Gold Medal (1st Class) of the Imperial Ottoman Order of the Crescent. Admiral Bickerton and a few of the captains received their medals and were knighted in a formal ceremony, but the majority of the medals were distributed by Bickerton and Keith without a formal investiture. There is much information on this and a medal roll of the recipients in Douglas-Morris, ‘Navy Medals 1793 – 1856’.

Of course the Order of the Crescent was first instituted to honour Nelson as a Knight Companion after the Battle of the Nile .

Many thanks, Tony, for that.

Another officer involved in the abolitionist cause was Captain John Samuel Smith. He was the captain of the Captain who, being ill, exchanged with Nelson in 1796, but died in Gibraltar before he could return to England. Smith had served in the West Indies and in 1786 allowed James Ramsay to publish a letter of his in support of an essay by Ramsay. His letter, after some personal remarks, opens “The ill treatment of slaves is too well known, and too universal, to be denied.” and then goes on:


He regarded this sort of cruelty as the norm that he had seen on many plantations on many islands, but he had come across one single estate in Grenada where slaves were well treated. He quotes this one example as evidence that the cruelty was not necessary and was even counter-productive. He provides much more detail and entirely rejects the idea that anyone who has visited the Islands can believe slaves are well treated, saying “It is astonishing that any man will presume to affirm that the negroes are better treated than the peasantry in England. The real fact is, that the first sentiment entertained, by a stranger, of a set or gang of negroes going to work, or at work, is neither more nor less than of a drove of cattle going to Smithfield market, or cattle working under unmerciful drivers. It shocks me much to recollect the comparison.”

In 1789 John Samuel Smith gave evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee appointed to take the examination of witnesses respecting the African slave trade.

As a biographical note, Smith’s son, also John Samuel Smith, was wounded at the Battle of Trafalgar while a midshipman in the Minotaur, whose captain, Mansfield, had previously served under Smith senior.

Having been away for a while, I'd like to thank Lesley (for your post back in February) and for all the pointers about your ancestors the Este family.

I'm particularly interested in the life of the Rev. Charles Este, particularly around 1803-4, but this is a truly fascinating thread overall, and opens up many doors of interest far beyond the Este family.

Many thanks.

An interesting comment by Christa Dierkheide of the University of Virginia, who has a special interest in the intellectual history of the colonisation of Africa. In her view it is a mistake to assume, because supporters of slavery were imperialists, that abolitionists were also anti-imperialist.

'Social progress is always rooted in a nexus of conflicting motives and agendas....British abolition, for example, was not the clear-cut social movement [it is often] made out to be. Rather, British concepts of evangelical religion, political economy and race often blurred the boundaries between what was anti slavery and what was not. Like their slave-holding opponents, most abolitionists ...had imperial aspirations of their own. Anti-slavery they were, but abolitionists were also global reformers who wanted Britain and its empire to expand under the aegis of Christian progress....'

And of course, the days of Victorian high imperialism were marked not only by the presence of the military and the civil service in the colonies but also vast numbers of Christian missionaries.

The Government of Barbados has announced their solution to the long running controversy over the presence of Nelson's statue in Heroes Square (formerly Trafalgar Square) in Bridgetown.

The plan is to redesign and rename Heroes Square so that the statue of Lord Nelson is no longer part of it. Heroes Square will now be renamed a second time as Parliament Square. In addition, the entire area will be redesigned so that the controversial statue will be a part of of the city called 'The Cage', situated between Parliament Square and the recently renamed Slave Gate in Upper Broad Street. The name 'The Cage' further remembers the history of African slavery in Barbados and refers to the large cage that was positioned there to imprison Blacks.

Reaction seems mixed - see here: http://www.nationnews.com/news/local/fe ... re-5-13-09