Nelson & His World

I could never have predicted this latest strange turn of events.

I was speaking with my sister on the phone today and discussing a few bits of family research that we have been doing.

Then she said - "Oh! - there's something I've been meaning to tell you. Bill's cousin (Bill is her husband - surname Haycraft) has been compiling a family tree, and she has found a Horatio Nelson".

Well blow me down it's true!! On 26th July 1801 was born (?baptised) one Samuel Horatio Nelson Haycraft. There are then Horatios in the next 2 generations - although there doesn't seem to be another Horatio Nelson.

The proximity of his birth to the Battle of Copenhagen makes it 99% certain that was the reason for his illustrious forenames.

So in no way shape or form a blood relative of mine - but definitely closer to home than I would ever have expected to find a HN.

I don't have access to Ancestry.com at home but when I get the chance I will look him up on the later censuses - just to see if he is named in full on the census and to see what sort of occupation he was in.

You really don't know what will turn up next!!

MB

What an interesting discovery, Mark!

Naming children after Nelson at the time of Copenhagen was not unknown. Flora Fraser in her biography of Lady H. 'Beloved Emma', mentions the occasion when Lady Hamilton went to the Foundling Hospital and stood sponsor to a girl named Emma. A boy at the same ceremony was named Baltic Nelson!

N.B. it was this public ceremony, which Lady Hamilton attended owing to her connection with Lord Nelson, that gave rise to the canard that she had sent one of her children by Nelson to the Foundling Hospital.