Compiled by John Curtis, former Secretary of The 1805 Club

Introduction

One of the original objectives of The 1805 Club was the conservation of graves and other memorials of the men who fought in the Georgian Royal Navy 1700-1837.  As the Club developed the conservation programme in the build-up to the Trafalgar bicentenary in 2005, I was asked by Colin White, the Chairman at the time, to help to find the graves of the Trafalgar captains, a research project which I found extremely interesting and which found fulfilment in the publication of “The Trafalgar Captains” book in 2005.  This developed further with research on the graves of all the captains at the Battles of the Nile and Copenhagen, and all three sets of captains were written up in Peter Hore’s book “Band of brothers” (2015).

The idea of Memlog came out of a meeting in the early 2000s between myself, Peter Warwick and Alison Reijman, so the gestation period has been extremely long.  The original objective was to record all the graves, monuments, statues and other memorials which were known to us or to anyone in The 1805 Club and to make this information available on the website.  This extends to the memorials of all ranks, not just officers, although information for ordinary seamen is much more difficult to find.  The Club’s objectives have altered in recent years, so the emphasis now is on recording graves and other memorials rather than undertaking expensive conservation work which may need renewing over time.  This is where Memlog comes in.

I started with the memorials of men (and a few women) whose graves have formed the basis of the Club’s conservation work over the years, including the captains who fought with Nelson at his main three battles.  At present Memlog just consists of a basic list or index of memorials, but I hope that in future more information can be added, including photographs.   I then moved on to researching the memorials of the officers in Mackenzie’s “The Trafalgar Roll”.  Also the National Maritime Museum’s “Maritime Memorials” database has been invaluable and the source of many memorials that would otherwise have been unknown to me.

Further research will continue as long as I am able, so Memlog will always be an ongoing project and it is likely that it will never be completed.  If anyone knows of a grave or other memorial that is not included, I should like to hear from you.  Please bear in mind the qualifying criteria – someone who fought in the Georgian Royal Navy 1700-1837 - and email me on jscurtis@btinternet.com