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Admirals as Heroes: Patriotism and Liberty in Hanoverian England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Gerald Jordan  and
Nicholas Rogers
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Extract

In recent years historians have significantly broadened the parameters of popular politics in the eighteenth century to include the ceremonial and associational aspects of political life, what might be aptly described as popular political culture. Whereas the subject of popular politics was conventionally confined to the programmatic campaigns of post-1760 radicals and to the crucial but episodic phenomenon of popular disturbance, historians have become increasingly attentive to the anniversaries, thanksgivings, processions, and parades—to the realm of symbolism and ritual—that were very much a part of Georgian society. This cultural perspective has radically revised our notion of the “popular,” which can no longer be consigned unproblematically to the actions and aspirations of the subaltern classes but to the complex interplay of all groups that had a stake in the extraparliamentary terrain. It has also broadened our notion of the “political” beyond the confines of Parliament, the hustings, and even the press to include the theater of the street and the marketplace with their balladry, pageantry, and iconography, both ribald and solemn.

Within this context, the theme of the admiral-as-hero in Georgian society will be explored by focusing on Admiral Edward Vernon, the most popular admiral of the mid-eighteenth century, and Horatio Nelson, whose feats and flamboyance are better known. Of particular interest is the way in which their popularity was ideologically constructed and exploited at home. This might seem an unorthodox position to take. Naval biographers have assumed that the popularity of admirals flowed naturally and spontaneously from their spectacular victories and exemplary feats of valor. This may be taken as a truism. But it does not entirely explain their appeal.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , July 1989 , pp. 201 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1989

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References

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3 Baugh, Daniel A., British Naval Administration in the Age of Walpole (Princeton, N.J., 1965), p. 144Google Scholar. Rogers explores Vernon's popularity in Whigs and Cities, chaps. 7, 10. So, too, does Wilson, Kathleen in “Empire, Trade and Popular Politics in Mid-Hanoverian England: The Case of Admiral Vernon,” Past and Present, no. 121 (November 1988), pp. 74–109Google Scholar; and in “The Sense of the People”: Urban Political Culture in England, 1715—1785 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, in press)Google Scholar.

4 For eighteen months between 1717 and 1719, Vernon was on half-pay. He saw active service again between April 1726 and May 1728, and then again from July 1739 until April 1746. Most officers entered the navy before the age of fourteen. See Rodger, N. A. M., The Wooden World (London, 1988), p. 254Google Scholar.

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14 The Poll for Members of Parliament for the Borough of Ipswich 8 May 1741, and A Supplement to the poll for Members of Parliament for the Borough of Ipswich (Ipswich, 1741)Google Scholar. The turnout was 91 percent. The only placeman who did not vote for Vernon was John Martin, serjeant to the senior bailiff.

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36 London Evening Post (October 29/31, 1741).

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38 London Evening Post (November 1/4, 1740); Common Sense (November 22, 1740).

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41 Rogers argues this more fully in Whigs and Cities: Popular Politics in the Age of Walpole and Pitt (n. 1 above), chap. 7. For the orthodox view, see Kramnick, Isaac, Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole (Cambridge, Mass., 1967)Google Scholar.

42 Vernon's birthday was celebrated in Southampton in 1742 despite the opposition of the military and the customs and excise officers in the town. Apart from the admiral himself, the toasts were devoted to leading Tories, the London M.P.s, and the “glorious citizens of York” who deplored the reconciliation of Pulteney and other opposition Whigs with the Pelhams. See the London Evening Post (November 13/16, 1742).

43 Lewis, ed. (n. 24 above), 27:466, 28:135.

44 True Patriot (January 7, 1746).

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46 Anti-Jacobin (November 20, December 18, 25, 1797).

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58 Morning Chronicle (October 17, 1797).

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64 Sussex Weekly Advertiser (October 8, 1798).

65 Sun (October 9, 1798). At least sixty celebrations were reported in the London press and in three provincial newspapers, the Sussex Weekly Advertiser, the Northampton Mercury, and Banner and Middleton's Bristol Journal.

66 Sun (October 6, 8, 9, 10, 19, 20, 31, 1798); London Chronicle (October 6/8, 9/11, 1798). One French newspaper noted that the “English mob” enthused about the victory but added that “the British Administration” was “careful to add as much as possible to the general satisfaction.” See the report in the Sun (October 8, 1798).

67 At Dorchester the mayor would not permit any illuminations on the night when the news of Nelson's victory was received, but it is not clear that political considerations were involved. As at Bath, the order may have been prompted by a water shortage. Even so, on the following night, notwithstanding the double watch, the mobbroke all the windows that were not illuminated. At Brighton, there were attacks on houses “most forward in illuminating,” presumably those of staunch loyalists. See the London Chronicle (October 6/8, 1798), the Sussex Weekly Advertiser (October 8, 1798), and the Bath Journal (October 8, 1798).

68 Thale, ed. (n. 49 above), p. 442; Sussex Weekly Advertiser (October 15, 1798). The motion was made by Alderman H. C. Combe and seconded by Samuel Dixon. Combe was a Foxite brewer who ran successfully for the City in 1796 in conjunction with the radical William Pickett. He was one of the leaders of the “independent liverymen.” See Hone, J. Ann, For the Cause of Truth: Radicalism in London, 1796–1821 (Oxford, 1982), pp. 26–27Google Scholar.

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79 The same was said of Admiral Duncan. See the Morning Chronicle (October 17, 1797).

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81 Characteristically, Nelson signed his name as “Nelson and Bronte” after 1798, not Nelson of Burnhamthorpe.

82 BMC 9550 (n. 34 above), entitled A Mansion House Treat: or Smoking Attitudes, November 18, 1800.

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84 See May, John and May, Jennifer, Commemorative Pottery, 1780–1900 (New York, 1972)Google Scholar; Hardy, Thomas A., Nelson Commemorative Medals, 1797–1905, Nelson Society (North Walsham, Norfolk, 1985)Google Scholar. On friendly societies, see The Rules of the Admiral Nelson Society, Leeds (Leeds, 1832)Google Scholar. (The Admiral Nelson Society was established October 5, 1801.) Monuments in Nelson's honor were raised by public subscription at Dublin, Edinburgh, Great Yarmouth, Liverpool, London, Sheffield, and York. In addition, Sir Richard Westmacott erected a statue of Nelson in 1809 in the Bull Ring, Birmingham. See Tomlinson, Margaret, “Secular Architecture,” in V.C.H. Warwickshire, ed. Stephen, W. B. (London, 1964), 7:46Google Scholar.

85 Silliman, Benjamin, A Journal of Travels in England, Holland, Scotland, and of Two Passages over the Atlantic, in the years 1805 and 1806, 2 vols. (New York, 1810), cited by Allison Lockwood in “Nelson as Seen by an American Just Before Trafalgar, 1805,” Nelson Dispatch 2, no. 2 (April 1985): 33.Google Scholar

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88 Nelson was angry that the City of London did not thank him for the victory. See Nicolas, ed. (n. 77 above), 5:18. St. Vincent recognized the naval feat: “You have greatly outstripped yourself, and all who have gone before you, in the late most glorious conflict.” See Letters of Lord St. Vincent, 1801–4, Publication of the Navy Records Society, no. 55 (London, 1921), p. 91Google Scholar.

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95 BMC 10276 (1804).

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