Nelson Horatio

Nelson, Horatio, Viscount, was born at Burnham Thorpe in 1758, and was educated at the high school of Norwich and at a school at North Walsham. In 1770 he left North Walsham to join the navy. In 1773 he volunteered to accompany an Arctic expedition which was undertaken at the request of the Royal Society. On his return in October he, during a cruise to the East Indies, was rated a midshipman. His subsequent career may be thus summarised: 1777 promoted to be lieutenant; 1778 promoted to be commander; 1779 posted; 1780 naval commander of the expedition which reduced Fort Juan, Nicaragua; 1793 appointed captain of the Agamemnon, serving at the sieges of Bastia and Calvi, where he lost his right eye; 1796 commodore; 1797 present at the battle of St. Vincent, promoted to be rear-admiral; attacked Teneriffe, where he lost his right arm by a cannon shot; 1798 won the battle of the Nile, taking or destroying eleven ships and two frigates; made a vice-admiral 1801; in command of a detached squadron, won the battle of Copenhagen, taking or destroying fifteen Danish ships of war; 1801 left in supreme command in the Baltic, but was obliged to return to England on account of ill health; 1803 was appointed to the chief command in the Mediterranean; 1805 assumed the command off Cadiz, where the allied French and Spaniards lay; October 21,1805, perished gloriously in the moment of victory at the battle of Trafalgar. His body was brought to England in the Victory, and on January 9, 1806, buried in St. Paul's Cathedral crypt.