1805: Trafalgar round The Wrekin
October 2005 marked 200 years since Nelson’s crushing victory over the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar – an anniversary that inspired events around the UK as part of ‘Sea Britain 2005’. Such celebrations were rather thin on the ground here in landlocked Shropshire, but back in 1805 it was a different story. This was a victory that halted Napoleon’s ambitions of naval supremacy and once and for all quashed British fears of a French invasion – and as the archives of the Shrewsbury Chronicle newspaper reveal, Salopians were no less enraptured by this momentous maritime success than anyone else.
On 8th November 1805 (over a fortnight after the battle and Nelson’s simultaneous death) rumours of the events in the seas off Spain were only just beginning to filter through to the offices of the Chronicle. In our age of up-to-the-minute news, it is easy to forget that two centuries ago, overseas news travelled only as fast as the fastest vessel, and then once in Britain, no faster than the fastest man on horseback.
As the news broke, and over the subsequent weeks as it was digested, the nation found itself caught between elation and grief – it was a terrific victory, but their ‘Noble Chieftan’ had died winning it. The Chronicle’s issue of 15th November brimmed with the details of Napoleon’s defeat and dwelt solemnly on the ‘Further particulars of the death of Lord Nelson’. A poem had been penned in the admiral’s memory (the first of many to appear) and the full story of his final hours and last words was drawn out with relish – though updated some weeks later!
James Mason of Shrewsbury summed up the contradictions of the national mood, felt as strongly in Shropshire as anywhere: ‘Never was the double feeling of joy and sorrow, of exultation and lamentation, more strongly expressed… nothing, the public voice seemed to say, was ever more glorious than the victory, nothing more lamentable than the death of Lord Nelson.’
In mid-November, signs of rejoicing were manifest across the county. The Chronicle reported that Bridgnorth, Ironbridge and their vicinities were displaying their ‘unbounded exhilaration at the victories’ with ‘constant ringing of bells and other characteristics of joy’. In Shrewsbury, there was talk of building a county monument to the fallen Nelson in the same vein as the column dedicated to Admiral Rodney, guaranteeing that their hero’s memory would endure ‘as the Wrekin shall endure’.
Whilst this idea was being tossed around, a meeting of Shrewsbury’s principal inhabitants requested subscriptions for an evening of festivities on the forthcoming Friday. ‘The town was very brilliantly illuminated,’ the Chronicle told readers in its next issue, ‘and many beautiful and ingenious mottos and transparencies were exhibited, all expressive of the same feeling of grief for the loss of our Noble Chieftan, and gratitude for the splendid victory he had achieved’. Fifteen sheep were roasted, washed down with twelve barrels of ale ‘to regale the populace’, and with a ‘grand display of fireworks’ planned for the following Monday, there were still more celebrations to come.
But if Shrewsbury was leading the county’s celebratory merriment, it seems to have been Wellington – headed by its vicar Reverend Eyton – that led Shropshire’s charitable response. As Reverend Eyton was keen to remind his parishioners, the victory had cost not only the life of the great admiral, but also the lives of many sailors, who left husbandless and fatherless families behind them. He thus urged those proposing Wellington’s ‘illuminations’ to spend a little less money on fireworks and instead make donations to a fund for Trafalgar widows and orphans. Many ‘liberal donations’ were made, and ‘though it tended to lessen the illuminations,’ the Chronicle reported, it would ‘doubly aid the comfort’ of sailors’ families.
On 22nd November, the Chronicle carried a letter from one ‘W.J’, perhaps of Wellington, which sought to reinforce the clergyman’s message. The correspondent was unimpressed by proposals for a great monument to the nation’s dead hero, fearing that such a creation would be an excuse for vanity on the part of its funders. ‘The pillar that recorded the name of the Champion,’ he supposed, ‘would also say “and these are the People who had the Gratitude to acknowledge his Services”. Yes, when the Deeds of Nelson shall shoot forth their irradiations in after-ages, the memory of the Recorders will also be illuminated with his reflected glory!’
The correspondent went on to ask critically of the gents of Shrewsbury, ‘Would it not have been more praiseworthy to present the Subscription to the Widows and Orphans, than to have lavished it on illuminations and fireworks?’ Below, he enclosed a lengthy excerpt from Rev Eyton’s sermon on the matter, which chastised Britons for celebrating so indulgently while the families of dead sailors wept. Reflecting on the nation’s response to the victory, and its neglect of those bereaved by the battle, the sermon asked
‘How many, who, while their neighbours are running to and fro congratulating one another on the late event, are constrained to sit at home in solitude, weeping for their dear relations?’ …We have set the bells of our churches to ring, we have illuminated our windows, we have thrown open our doors, but for what purpose? For those of devotion, or of charity? No, but for the purpose of associating with our neighbours in the sins of gluttony and drunkenness… in short, our streets have been the scene of almost every species of disorder and intemperance.’ (Those of you familiar with Wellington on a Friday night might recognise the scene.)
Maybe Revered Eyton was being something of a killjoy, but his thoughtful words on the suffering of sailors’ families seem to have struck a chord, stirring the rest of Shropshire into similarly charitable efforts. Benefit funds sprang up across the county during the weeks ahead, and the running totals from various towns and parishes were proudly carried by the Shrewsbury Chronicle throughout December. The names of the most generous individual donors were published alongside the amounts they had pledged – an opportunity for self-promotion which no doubt vexed the letter-writing ‘W.J’ – but the result was an undeniably beneficent one nonetheless, and the money rolled in.
As a conveniently placed advert in the next column informed readers, the sermon could be purchased in its entirety for one shilling and six pence from Houlston’s of Wellington and other booksellers around the county – profits, of course, going to the benefit of the aforementioned widows and orphans ‘of the brave seamen.’
As we consider the impact of Trafalgar on the inhabitants of Shropshire back in 1805, it is also worth noting that amongst the eighteen thousand seamen who served on British vessels during the battle, fifty-one were Shropshire born. The youngest, Thomas Wheelwright and John Duddleston, were boys of just 14, and the eldest, at 52, was ‘Yeoman of the Powder Room’ Edward Bevans. ‘Place of birth’ for those listed often states no more than native county, but some entries are more specific, and show that these fifty-one history-making Salopians hailed from all corners of Shropshire – from Whitchurch to Ludlow, Oswestry to our own Oakengates. Just think; you might not come from the long line of landlubbers that you imagined.
To see the names of all 51 Shropshire born seamen involved in the battle, along with thousands of others, conduct a search at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/trafalgarancestors
