FOR THIS week’s Flashback, we are sharing one of the columns written by the late historian and photographer Robert Brown for The Gazette in June 2005.
THERE has been a great deal of publicity about the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Lord Nelson.
And later this year [2005], there will be a reconstruction of the journey from Falmouth to London of the carriage of dispatches which had news of those events in October, 1805.
But the long trek along the rough tracks that allowed the carriages and coaches to reach their destinations in those days is a story in itself.
Nelson’s second in command, Vice Admiral Collingwood, wrote a detailed report on the many incidents which made up the events of that week in the English fleet of 27 ships, and he instructed the captain of the smallest ship, the schooner Pickle, to sail to England to deliver the dispatches to the Admiralty in London.
The captain, Lieutenant John Lapenotiere, sailed at top speed and arrived at Falmouth on November 4, and quickly made arrangements to travel the 271 miles to London.
He was given a post-chaise carriage with a fresh horse that would need to be changed every 10 to 12 miles along the route for a speedy journey to the capital.
A post-chaise was a four-wheeled, covered carriage pulled by one horse. The carriage was given new wheels and a chassis overhaul to combat any faults in its structure.
The captain was also given a list of the best inns or stations at the towns he would be passing through, which offered good service in both horses and refreshments.
A standard fee for the hiring of each horse was £1 and 14 shillings.
The captain allowed 15 minutes to change the horse at each staging post, and slightly longer to eat a meal and rest. (In those days, there were no sandwiches or bottles of drink for the journey.)
The route was via Truro, Bodmin, Okehampton, Exeter, Bridport, Dorchester and Salisbury.
At the 17th post-horse change, the captain stopped at the Crown inn, Winchester Street, Basingstoke (later to be used for John Joice’s coach and carriage works after 1896).
On his arrival, it was soon realised who he was and about his important errand to London, so a message was sent to the mayor of the town, Thomas May, who rushed to the inn to enquire about news of Nelson and his fleet.
The captain was under strict orders not to release any news of that nature but did tell of Nelson’s death. He was also asked about the local men who were on the ships, but this was not forthcoming because the captain did not know.
The men referred to were William Atkins on the Orion, Thomas Cowdray on the Ajax, and William Spencer on the Agamemnon, all of whom were young marines.
Two other men, James Gains, an ordinary seaman, was on the Prince, and George Tedbury, a landsman, was on the Africa.
The captain left Basingstoke and carried on to London, stopping at four more stageposts.
He arrived at the Admiralty, in London, at 1am on November 6 – about 37 hours after leaving Falmouth. (A car would have made the journey in five hours at an average speed of 50mph, and a train in half that time, but in 1805 there were none of those luxuries.)
After a rest and a good meal, captain Lapenotiere handed his dispatches over to the Admiralty office, which were then duplicated by hand to be sent to the Prime Minister, the King, and certain sections to the London newspapers.
The Prime Minister was William Pitt (the younger son of the First Earl of Chatham), who had been in office since 1785.
During the turbulent months leading up to the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, Mr Pitt had been unwell due, so it is believed, to the worry over Napoleon’s threats to invade Britain.
The news that the enemy had been defeated brought great joy to his heart, but just two weeks after Nelson’s funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral, in London, he died – on January 23, 1806.
The King, George III, was equally unwell because of bouts of insanity but, in his later years, he had improved in health and he was able to understand the dispatches sent to him about his naval fleet. George III had reigned since 1760.
He married a German royal lady called Charlotte and they had nine sons and six daughters.
George III died in 1820. The newspapers of the day produced as much detail of the Trafalgar conflict as they could, as well as the funeral service of Nelson.
One newspaper, the Observer, was able to describe the moment when Nelson was hit by the musket ball that caused his death. It stated: “The man who killed Lord Nelson was seen in the act of firing by a midshipman on the poop of the Victory. He fired back and saw the man fall down onto the quarterdeck of the Trinidada [the enemy ship]”.
There does not seem to be any reference to the fate of the Basingstoke men on the ships.
It is known that a great storm blew up as the fleet returned home, and many men died during the tempest, but who they were is not clear.
A former regular columnist for The Gazette, Robert Brown wrote eight books on Basingstoke history. He passed away on March 25, 2019.
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