Scots at Trafalgar

21^st October 2005
200th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, 21st October 1805

2005 marks the bicentenary of the The Battle of Trafalgar, the facts of which are well known to most.  Less well appreciated is the strong Scots element in Nelson’s fleet.  Over 30% of his 18,000 men were Scots, 5 of his 27 captains were Scots, the surgeon who attended his fatal injury was Scots, as was the woman who embalmed his body, and the youngest sailor a 10 year old cabin boy from Leith.  Many of the fleet’s sails were from the jute mills in Dundee, and a number of the fleet’s cannon were from the Carron iron works in Falkirk.

Nelson/Trafalgar Monuments in Scotland include one on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, Forres Tower, Cluny Hill, Moray, Glasgow Green and Taynuilt, Loch Etive.

2005 sees the planting of 6 Trafalgar woods in Scotland, named after the 5 ships that were mostly manned by Scots: “DEFIANCE” at Tomintoul in Moray, “DEFENCE”, at Dumfries, “NAIAD”, at Lundie, Near Dundee, Angus “PICKLE”, Auchterader, Perth and Kinross, “SWIFTSURE” at Carnbo, near Kinross, Perth & Kinross and a community woodland for the people of the Camperdown Estate in Dundee to commemorate Nelson’s mentor, Admiral Adam Duncan, who hailed from the area, and a single oak on Glasgow Green.
 

Links

Trafalgar 200
Defence - Tree For All
Scottish Fisheries Museum - Battle of Trafalgar Exhibition
HMS VICTORY
History of Leith, Edinburgh » The Trafalgar Veteran
The Battle of Trafalgar
The National Archives | Trafalgar ancestors
Wake Up to Nelson