Press release archive

The only known hand-drawn sketch by Nelson illustrating the detailed tactics he was to use at the Battle of Trafalgar has been revealed at the National Maritime Museum and went on public display on Sunday 26 May.

The find was made during research currently being conducted at the Museum for the 'Nelson Letters Project'. The project is part of Trafalgar 200, a series of national and international initiatives being organized in the run-up to the celebration of the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar in 2005. As a result of this work, many unpublished Nelson letters have been identified and are being transcribed.

During the course of these searches, a page of notes in Nelson's handwriting was examined by Colin White, Director Trafalgar 200, from a file of letters in the Greenwich archive from Nelson to his elder brother, William. The notes take the form of a list of names and refer to promotions and other favours that Nelson was hoping to obtain for some of his protégés, and for men who had served with him in the Victory during the 1803-05 campaign in the Mediterranean. However, it is the reverse of the scrap of paper that is most interesting. On it is a very rough sketch and evidence would appear strongly to suggest that it is a diagram demonstrating the tactics Nelson planned to employ in his next battle.

A few sketches by Nelson of his earlier battles have survived but each was drawn after the event. This recent discovery will enable visitors to the Museum to see the only surviving detailed plan of the tactics for Nelson's most famous battle, drawn by Nelson himself.

Colin White, Director Trafalgar 200, National Maritime Museum said:

'This is a remarkable find. As I turned over the document I was astonished. What makes this discovery so fascinating is that it is not a finished drawing, with every line carefully worked out and accounted for. This is a swift doodle, drawn hurriedly by a busy man, to accompany an animated verbal description of his ideas. As such, it enables us to look briefly over Nelson's shoulder and to catch a faint echo of the excitement that, when they were told of the plan, reduced some of the dinner guests in the Victory on a late September evening in 1805 to tears, and Nelson's colleague, Captain Keats to stunned silence'.

Although the paper is undated, the juxtaposition of the names suggests that the notes must have been written in 1805. This supposition is supported by an expert analysis of the handwriting, which confirms it is similar to other documents written by Nelson in the last years of his life. It is likely that these notes were jotted down as an aide memoire, prior to one of Nelson's frequent meetings at the Admiralty or Navy Board during his period of leave in August/September 1805.

The full story of the discovery of Nelson's 1805 Battle Plan is available online on the Museum's Journal for Maritime Research (JMR) @ www.jmr.nmm.ac.uk

NOTE TO EDITORS

• The National Maritime Museum has one of the most significant Nelson collections in the world. Among the objects on display in the Museum's Nelson gallery are the bloodstained uniform worn by Nelson at Trafalgar and important paintings including J.M.W. Turner's Battle of Trafalgar.
  The Museum's archive also houses one of the largest and most important collections in the country of Nelson's letters and personal papers.
• Photography available:
  The Battle Plan Merton Place, Surrey. The house that Nelson shared with Emma Hamilton. It was in these gardens that he first explained his famous battle plan to Captain Richard Keats
  - "It was like an electric shock." Nelson explains his battle plan to his excited captains in the great cabin of HMS Victory on 29 September 1805. Watercolour by Daniel Orme
  - Nelson's promotions list
• Colin White MA, AMA, Director Trafalgar 200
  Colin White joined the Executive Board of the NMM on 1 October 2001 in a newly created post of Director, Trafalgar 200. His main task will be to co-ordinate all the planning for an ambitious series of national and international events to mark the bicentenary of Trafalgar in 2005. He will also act as Chairman of the Official Nelson Commemoration Committee (ONCC), which was set up jointly by the National Maritime Museum and Royal Naval Museum in 1995. Colin is carrying out a major review of all Nelson's correspondence, in public and private collections all over the world as a result of which a large amount of fascinating new material is emerging about Britain's most famous admiral.

Nelson's 1805 Battle Plan
By the autumn of 1805, Nelson had a good idea of how he would fight his next battle and he was sure enough of his plans to discuss, and even demonstrate it to his colleagues and friends. In early September 1805, Captain Richard Keats commanding officer of the 74-gun battleship HMS Superb, and one of Nelson's most trusted subordinates, called at Merton Place in Surrey, the home of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson and his mistress Emma, Lady Hamilton. As the two men walked together in the Merton grounds, Nelson began explaining how he proposed to fight his next battle, whenever it might happen:

'…I shall form the Fleet into three Divisions in three Lines. One Division shall be composed of twelve or fourteen of the fastest two-decked Ships, which I shall keep always to windward, or in a situation of advantage and I shall put them under an Officer who I am sure will employ them in the manner I wish if possible. I consider it will always be in my power to throw them into Battle in any part I may choose ..With the remaining part of the Fleet formed in two Lines I shall go at them at once, if I can about one Third of their line from their leading ship... But I'll tell you what I think of it. I think it will surprise and confound the Enemy. They won't know what I am about. It will bring forward a pell-mell battle and that is what I want.'

Keats was not the only person to whom Nelson explained his developing plan. A few days later he gave a similar description to his friend Lord Sidmouth (formerly Prime Minister Henry Addington) and this time he apparently illustrated his ideas by sketching them out with his finger on the surface of a small table. Sidmouth (who preserved the table as a relic) later recalled that Nelson had remarked,

'Rodney broke the line in one point; I will break it in two.' Most famously, he also described the plan to his assembled captains after dinner in the great cabin of the Victory on 29 September, reporting to Emma Hamilton, '…it was like an electric shock, some shed tears, all approved….'

The sketch itself appears to be in two halves; the division between the two being marked by the thin horizontal line. In the lower half, the enemy fleet is represented by the continuous thick diagonal line. The British fleet can be seen first forming into three divisions on the left of the page and then cutting the enemy line in two places; while the third division 'contains' part of the enemy line by ranging alongside it. It is even possible to sense the fervour with which Nelson has demonstrated the cutting of the centre of the enemy line - his pen has dug deeply into the paper and the ink has flowed thickly.

The upper diagram is less easy to interpret. One theory is that it may be intended to show how an attack by ships only in a single line (represented by the diagonal row of dots) could easily be countered by the enemy, if they altered their course, so as to take their attackers between two fires. Further research is being undertaken to test this theory.

Issued 24 May by the National Maritime Museum Press Office. Details of the Battle Plan attached. For further information or to arrange photography of the Plan or an interview with Colin White, Director Trafalgar 200 please call: 020 8312 6545/6790/6732, 077404 36909