Fighting Temeraire by Sam Willis

Author:Sam Willis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books

These sketches and notes would form the main source material for Turner’s two magnificent paintings of Trafalgar and would plant a seed in his mind that would germinate thirty years later.

The final piece of the puzzle of how the Temeraire’s fame became cemented into British history was the fate of Eliab Harvey. Much honoured on his return, he was one of the ‘supporters of the pall’ at Nelson’s funeral, was promoted to Rear-Admiral of the Red and received a gold medal and a sword of honour. The House of Commons, in which he still sat, added his name (and only his name) to those of Nelson and Collingwood in its vote of thanks to the heroes of Trafalgar. Never a man for modesty in victory, Harvey’s bragging irritated his fellow captains. The thoughtful and wise Captain Codrington of the Orion wrote to his wife: ‘There will always be some whose vanity leads them to paint their conduct in too warm a tint, and to sound their own trumpets without regard to concord or harmony, but above all I have ever heard of is Harvey … he is become the greatest bore I ever met with’,44 and Captain Thomas Fremantle of the Neptune wrote to his wife Betsey that ‘he thinks every ship was subdued by him, and he wears us all to death with his incessant jargon.’45

The honours lauded on him were still not enough, however, and Harvey demanded respect from his peers. In 1809 he was so outraged that he was overlooked to command a fireship attack on the French fleet at Basque Roads that he vehemently and publicly insulted his superior, Admiral Gambier, and was court-martialled and dismissed the service. With his reputation now in tatters, Harvey was determined that the world should never forget the role of the Temeraire, and by definition his role, in the success at Trafalgar. When he was made Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath some twenty years after the battle, he asked the College of Heralds for special permission to carry the name ‘Temeraire’ as a motto above his family crest, in the position usually associated with battle-cries. He also included the names of his prizes ‘Redoutable’ et Fougueux as another motto, and still further he decorated the White Horse of Hanover to the right of the arms with a gold naval crown, whose rim was lettered ‘Trafalgar’ and from it hung a gold Trafalgar medal. As an example of brash conceit displayed through arms it has few rivals, and it can be still viewed today in its full audacity at the little church of St Andrew in Hempstead near Saffron Walden in Essex, where Harvey is buried in his family tomb.

Perhaps here also lies the explanation for Harvey’s brazen self-promotion: he came from a large and successful family and one of his distant relatives, William Harvey, had for more than three generations enjoyed his position as the Harveys’ most famous son. An experimental physician famous for his discovery

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