Nelson & His World

Can anyone help with information on the sword owned by Nelson's Uncle - Captain Maurice Suckling- which had been bequeathed to Nelson by Suckling at his death - I believe it had perviously been owned by Suckling's ancestor, Captain Galfidus Walpole, RN,1673 - 1715, and made by Nixon , Sword Cutlers, in the Strand. Any information greatly appreciated! Tay.

The best information that I can see is the lot description for the Sotheby’s sale in 2003 here: http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/Lo ... t_id=45W74 But you may have that already, Tay. It is all most interesting, but it pours a bit of cold water on the notion that the same sword was being used by both Nelson and Galfridus Walpole at the actual time they both lost their right arms.

There certainly seem to have been some problems with various swords incorrectly identified as being this one, and also the question of how it passed from Galfridus Walpole to Maurice Suckling.

The NMM have a dodgy one here: http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/nelson ... ID=WPN1063

There were various notes and correspondence in Notes & Queries in 1922. The first page of an article is here: http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/content/s1 ... matter.pdf The rest is pay-per-view here: http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/content/s1 ... l.pdf+html I think there were also some other replies in other issues.

Thanks, Tony - some new info for me!