Nelson & His World

I am wondering if Nelson owned any other snuff boxes, one is listed in the book 'The Authentic Nelson' said to have been made out of the timber of the L'Orient and said to be Nelson's and presented to the Greenwich hospital in 1847 by H.T Woodburn Esq.
One other is mentioned in Colin White's 'The Nelson Companion' but he states that it belonged to one of the Earls Nelson.
So apart from those two mentioned, i have never seen any others, Nelson being a very generous host may have kept them for visitors and guests.

I had a quick look at the Sotheby's catalogue of the famous sale in 2005. The only snuff box there is Lot 87, but this was made, on Alexander Davison's instructions, of wood from the mainmast of Victory close to where Nelson fell, so it couldn't have belonged to Nelson.

I'll dig out the catalogue of the Nelson and Napoleon exhibition, held at the NMM in 2005, to see if there are any snuff boxes there.

I can't imagine Nelson taking snuff, somehow. He was very abstemious about drink, careful with his food, avoided gambling etc. so dependency on anything seems alien to his character.

I have managed to delete a Google Alert that I received a few hours ago. It gave a link to a travel blog which described a visit to the Lord Nelson Museum in Nevis, together with interesting photographs. It has a huge collection of memorabilia including snuff boxes. So maybe snuff taking was His Lordship's secret vice after all.

Anna

Just throwing in a suggestion.

Those may well be commemorative snuff boxes rather than ones owned by Nelson. There were many designs made under the generic term "Bilston enamels" - Bilston being a town just a few miles up the road from here.

I did an article about them once which I believe was published in the Nelson Dispatch.

I had some correspondence with a wealthy individual who had a mouth-watering private collection. When building up his collection he had a standing instruction with the London auction houses to buy every example that came through their sales - price no object!!

This might be a complete red herring - but nevertheless food for thought.

MB

Thanks, Mark - you might be on to something there.

I've tried Googling the Nelson Museum in Nevis but there are only a few pictures of the place and none of the memorabilia - so unless we find the lost painting of 'Nelson taking snuff with his captains' I suppose his habits will remain a mystery.