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The Wife’s Tale: Frances, Lady Nelson and the Break‐up of her Marriage 1

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09612020500440937

1747-583X

Colin White,

Australian History and Society

Abstract Frances, Lady Nelson, wife of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson, has been much wronged in most accounts of the break‐up of her marriage in 1801. Material from the Davison Papers, discovered in 2001 and now in the archive of the National Maritime Museum, shows that, contrary to popular myth, Frances Nelson did all that she could to save the marriage and was repeatedly rebuffed—and with increasing cruelty—by her husband. Using the newly discovered papers, and other recently located material from Nelson’s own papers, the story of the famous separation is told, throwing fresh and fascinating light on the problems faced by abandoned society wives in the early 1800s. Notes [1] This article first appeared in the Journal of Maritime Research, 2004, the online journal of the National Maritime Museum. I am most grateful to the Editor, Nigel Rigby, for allowing it to be reprinted here. The JMR may be accessed at http://www.jmr.nmm.ac.uk. Each of the three main correspondents quoted in this article—Nelson (HN), Frances Nelson (FN) and Emma Hamilton (EH)—used idiosyncratic spelling, capitalisation and punctuation. To avoid a proliferation of intrusive ‘sic’s, it may be assumed that all spellings etc. in the quoted passages are shown exactly as written, except where these notes show that they have been copied from printed sources. [2] FN to Alexander Davison (AD), 26 June 1801. Archive of the National Maritime Museum (NMM): DAV/2/50. [3] Alfred Mahan (1897) The Life of Nelson, 2 vols (London: Sampson and Low), 1, p. 386. [4] Geoffrey Bennett (1972) Nelson the Commander (London: Batsford), p. 184. [5] Frances Nelson’s letters to her husband only came into the public domain when the Nelson Papers were purchased from Lord Bridport by the British Museum in 1895. Even then, they were little used by biographers and it was not until 1958 that they were finally collected together by Katherine Lindsay‐MacDougall and published in G. Naish (1958) Nelson’s Letters to his Wife (London: Navy Records Society). Until then, they were known only from a few very selective, and unrepresentative, extracts quoted in Nicholas Harris Nicolas (1844–46) The Dispatches and Letters of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson (London: Henry Colburn). [6] Nelson did not destroy only his wife’s letters—it would seem that it was his usual practice to destroy personal letters, especially before a battle. So, for example, very few letters to him have survived from his father, or his early mentors such as Maurice Suckling or William Locker. [7] T. Coleman (2001) Nelson (London: Bloomsbury), p. 75. [8] Nicolas, The Dispatches and Letters, VII, p. 392. [9] The full catalogue is available online and may be viewed at http://www.nmm.ac.uk. [10] The Nelson Letters Project, sponsored jointly by the National Maritime and Royal Naval Museums, is currently undertaking a systematic survey of all the available collections of Nelson letters aimed at locating and cataloguing any that are unpublished. To date, over 1400 unpublished letters have been identified and they are currently being transcribed for publication in 2005. For a brief description of the Project, and an analysis of the type of material that is being discovered, see C. White, The Nelson Letters Project, Mariners Mirror, 87. [11] FN to AD, 2 March 1801. NMM: DAV/2/31. [12] FN to AD, 11 April 1799. NMM: DAV/2/7. [13] FN to AD, 18 July 1799. NMM: DAV/2/16. [14] Naish, Nelson’s Letters to his Wife, p. 496. [15] FN to AD, 20 October 1800. NMM: DAV/2/24. [16] Naish Nelson’s Letters to his Wife, p. 496. [17] For example, J. Russell (1969) Nelson and the Hamiltons (London: Anthony Blond), p. 142. [18] For example, T. Pocock (1987) Horatio Nelson (London: Bodley Head), p. 217. [19] The best account of this period to date is in Jack Russell, Nelson and the Hamiltons, which includes some of the material cited in this article (although not material from the Davison Archive). However, the book has no footnotes, and only a basic list of sources. So, much of the material that Russell consulted has only recently been relocated, and properly sourced, in the course of the Nelson Letters Project. Naish, Nelson’s Letters to his Wife also includes a good narrative of the marriage break‐up, as does Coleman, Nelson. [20] Edmund Nelson to Katherine Matcham, 24 November 1800. NMM: MAM/44. [21] Russell, Nelson and the Hamiltons, p. 142. [22] NMM: DAV/2/26. [23] Quoted in Richard Edgecombe (Ed.) (1912) The Diary of Frances Lady Shelley (London). [24] J. Harrison (1806) The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, II (London: Chapple), p. 270. [25] Ibid., II, p. 278. [26] Nicolas, Dispatches and Letters, IV, p. 267. [27] Royal Naval Museum (RNM), 1992/407. This portrait was discovered only recently and it has been established that is Hoppner’s original sketch, done from the life. See R. Walker (1998) The Nelson Portraits (Portsmouth: Royal Naval Museum), p. 242. It therefore gives us a fascinating glimpse into Nelson’s mood at this time. [28] HN to EH, 3 January 1801, Unpublished letter in private collection. [29] FN to AD, 18 July 1799. NMM: DAV/2/16. [30] Nicolas, The Dispatches and Letters, II, p. 354. [31] British Library (BL): Add Mss 28333 f.5. Published in Naish, Nelson’s Letters to His Wife, p. 580. The memorandum is undated. Naish dates it 4 March and subsequent biographers have followed this. I date it earlier for the following reasons: (1) Nelson signs himself simply ‘Nelson’ and, by 4 March he was using the ‘Nelson & Bronte’ form. (2) It is clear from a reference in one of Frances’s letters to Davison that Emma Hamilton knew of the amount of Frances’s allowance in early February (see Note 36 below). (3) Nelson refers to the allowance in a newly discovered letter to Frances dated 17 February (see Note 41 below). [32] HN to FN, 9 January 1801. BL: Add Mss 34902, f.181. [33] BL: Add Mss 30170, f.28. [34] FN to AD, 22 April 1799. NMM: DAV/2/10. [35] EH to FN, No date (? Mid January 1801). Private collection. This letter has always been in private collections and so has never before been transcribed in full. [36] FN to AD, 5 February 1801. NMM: DAV/2/27. [37] EH to Sarah Nelson, 20 February 1801. BL: Add Mss 34089, f.36/7. [38] Naish, Dispatches and Letters, p. 592. [39] FN to AD, 20 February 1801. NMM: DAV/2/29. [40] Russell, Nelson and the Hamiltons, p. 171. [41] Quoted in FN to AD, 24 February 1801. NMM: DAV/2/30. Until the discovery of this copy in the Davison Archive, the existence of this letter was unknown. [42] Naish, Nelson’s Letters to His Wife, p. 691. [43] FN to AD, 2 March 1801. NMM: DAV/2/31. [44] EH to Sarah Nelson, 26 February 1801. BL: Add Mss 34989, f. 42/3. [45] EH to Sarah Nelson, 2 March. BL: Add Mss 34989, f. 45/6. [46] FN to AD, 15 March 1801. NMM: DAV/2/32. [47] FN to AD, 2 March 1801. NMM: DAV/2/31. [48] NMM: AGC/17/10. [49] BL: Add Mss 28333, f.3/4. [50] FN to AD, 15 March 1801. NMM: DAV/2/32. [51] This phrase offers a good illustration of why it is important to transcribe Nelson’s letters as closely as possible to the way he wrote actually them. Earlier editors do not appear to have appreciated that Nelson often used capitals to emphasise words. So, here, the capitalisation of the phrase ‘Wish Me to Break my Neck’ makes it stand out from the rest of the text, as Nelson clearly intended, and vividly conveys the indignation with which he wrote the words. [52] Most of the text of the British Library letter has been cut away and the remaining text begins at the words, ‘or am left in the Baltic’. The surviving text is identical to the text of the draft. [53] The NMM draft is clearly dated 4 March. The section of the BL letter containing the date has been cut away but the envelope has survived and it is dated (in Nelson’s handwriting), ‘Yarmouth March Eleventh 1801.’ [54] For a full exposition of this story see Russell, Nelson and the Hamiltons, pp. 239–240. [55] Most of Frances Nelson’s letters from her husband are now in the archive of the Nelson Museum, Monmouth. However the ‘dismissal’ letter is in a separate file, along with the marriage certificate and the legal documents concerning the sale of Roundwood, in the British Library (Add Mss. 28333). It would seem that Frances deliberately filed these key documents relating to her marriage separately from the rest of her husband’s letters. [56] FN to AD, 2 March 1801. NMM: DAV/2/31. [57] FN to AD, 26 June 1801. NMM: DAV/2/50. [58] Naish, Nelson’s Letters to His Wife, p. 582. [59] HN to EH, 9 April 1801. Alfred Morrison (1893/94) The Hamilton and Nelson papers, II (Privately printed), p. 136. [60] Ibid., II, p. 112. [61] HN to AD, (Undated). BL: Eg 2240, f.47. [62] FN to AD, 20 February 1801. NMM: DAV/2/29. [63] Edward Parker to AD, 9 August 1801. Private collection. [64] Morrison Hamilton and Nelson, II, p. 123. [65] HN to EH, 17 March 1801. NMM: MON/1/8. [66] Naish, Nelson’s Letters to His Wife, p. 585. [67] FN to AD, 7 May 1801. NMM: DAV/2/44. [68] Nicolas, Dispatches and Letters, VII, p. ccix. [69] Naish, Nelson’s Letters to His Wife, p. 589. [70] Ibid., p. 588. [71] FN to AD, 22 July 1801. NMM: DAV/2/49. [72] FN to AD, 7 May 1801. NMM: DAV/2/44. [73] Naish, Nelson’s Letters to His Wife, p. 583. [74] FN to AD, Undated—but clearly dating from May 1801. NMM: DAV/2/71. [75] FN to AD, 27 June 1801. NMM: DAV/2/51. [76] FN to AD, 26 June 1801. NMM: DAV/2/50. [77] FN to AD, 20 February 1801. NMM: DAV/2/ 29. [78] Naish, Nelson’s Letters to His Wife, p. 582. [79] Ibid., p. 588. [80] Ibid., p. 596. [81] Nicolas, Dispatches and Letters, VII, p. 391. [82] J. Clarke & J. M’Arthur (1809) The Life of Admiral Lord Nelson, vol. II (London: Cadell & Davies & Miller), p. 380. [83] FN to AD, 27 June 1801. NMM: DAV/2/51. Additional informationNotes on contributorsColin White Colin White is Deputy Director of the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth and currently serving at the National Maritime Museum as guest curator of the Museum’s acclaimed Nelson & Napoleon exhibition. His most recent book is Nelson the admiral (Sutton Publishing, 2005).