museum planner, provides a biography of Peter Heywood, a ‘scientific sailor’ who became an oceanic surveyor and hydrographer, first with the Royal Navy and then with the East India Company. He charted about 350 locations around the Indian Ocean, surveyed South Atlantic islands and the River Plate, and perfected the use of chronometers for determining longitude, while commanding HM ships during the Anglo-French wars 1793–1815. Naval historian Andrew Venn examines the increased reliance on signalling in naval battles from the Seven Years War through to the Battle of Trafalgar and analyses how that reliance influenced the decisions of various naval commanders as they shifted between centralised and decentralised command styles. He concludes that Nelson’s ‘tactical revolution’ struck the perfect balance between those two styles. In the Age of Sail, more sailors died from diseases and infection than from battle wounds. It’s amazing that the shipboard mortality rate from illness dropped from one in eight, in 1780, to one in thirty in 1812. Linda Collison, a retired registered nurse, describes some of the advances in shipboard care hospital medicine that brought about this change. The 1805 Club stalwart, Tom Fremantle, has two distinguished ancestors who were naval officers in the time of Nelson. Mr Fremantle acquaints readers with Sir Joseph Banks, a navy naturalist who was influential with the Admiralty, the Navy Board and officers assigned to distant posts and unexplored lands. Club members Barry Jolly and Lily Style contribute to our section on ‘Biographical Portraits’ of Nelson’s contemporaries. Mr Jolly writes a followon to his piece in the 2021 issue on Sir Harry Neale, Baronet GCB, Member of Parliament, burgess, mayor, and a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty. In this year’s issue of the Trafalgar Chronicle, Mr Jolly tells of the controversy surrounding the name by which Sir Harry would be remembered after his death. The controversy stemmed from a stipulation in his wife’s grandfather’s will! Mr Barry goes on to solve three mysteries that emerged after Sir Harry’s death, involving a Canadian inlet, a telescope and a sword. Lily Style, a descendant of Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton, writes about her ancestor, George Matcham, Nelson’s brother-in-law, who made his fortune with the East India Company. Matcham and his family provided a home for Emma’s daughter, Horatia, when she became orphaned. Under ‘General Interest’, we are delighted to host Canadian naval history scholar, author and teacher, Nicholas Kaiser. His article gives readers a new appreciation of single ship actions in the War of 1812. Jakob Seerup, a museum curator in denmark, describes a futile danish expedition to Morocco. Let it suffice to say that the Moroccans did not play nicely with the visiting danish navy! His article was presented at the 2021 Biannual McMullen Naval History THE TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE 8
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