By Peter Warwick and John Curtis

The 1805 Club is dedicated to preserving the historic environment of the sailing navy of the Georgian era, as represented by its memorials, graves and monuments. We value it, nurture it and seek to pass it on to generations to come.

It is worth reminding ourselves that no other organisation exists specifically to preserve these memorials. Yet they are the very stuff of a significant part of our rich maritime history – passports to the past and the means of exploring it. The memorials are about real people. They are the touching reminder of their bravery, adventures and achievements which helped to both shape the world and form our understanding of it.

It is our ambition through preservation to highlight what and how our Georgian sailing ancestors achieved across a multitude of oceans and latitudes in terms of seamanship, exploration and war. In particular our work highlights what is loosely referred to as ‘Nelson’s Navy’.

The force of nature is a constant challenge as stones crack and mosses creep, as roots pry into fissures and acid rain dissolves. The preservation work of the Club seeks to slow down this poignant and ironically beautiful process of decay. Our mission is to identify and preserve these graves and monuments so that we can all enjoy, and more importantly learn from, the wonderful tales associated with those memorialised as we seek to bring them ‘alive’ through original research and with imaginative and exciting Club events – the other often more visible charitable objects of the Club!

Preservation, conservation and restoration

There are a multitude of threats to outdoor monuments and memorials. Neglect is the most common, but pollution, bird droppings, salt contamination, leaf staining, acid rain, rusting ironwork, tree and shrub intrusion, subsidence, vandalism and accidental damage can all take their toll.

The action required depends on the nature and extent of the threat and the philosophy inspiring the nature of repairs.

Preservation

• is an all-encompassing term because it also involves maintaining the surrounding environment in order to preserve the memorial.

Conservation

• is a professional approach far removed from well-meaning interference, such as indiscriminate cleaning, which may do more harm than good. It aims to safeguard the long term future of the memorial at its original site with the minimum possible intervention. Typically it does not replace parts of the structure that have gone missing, such as railings. The historical roots of this philosophy go back to William Morris, the founder of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877. He favoured sensitive repair rather than destructive restoration.

Restoration

• aims to return a memorial to a previous state in its history. This is a much more invasive approach and one that can sometimes have destructive rather than constructive results.   

There is an ongoing discussion about the margin between the meaning and applicability of conservation and restoration and in this respect each project is assessed according to its particular circumstances. If in doubt the Club will leave well alone, but it is now recognised that intervention, for example, to replace missing letters or words in an inscription or missing railings can be acceptable.  Mindful of these distinctions The 1805 Club has drawn up Preservation Guidelines which are reviewed regularly. The latest revision was made in 2018 with the pro bono contributions of DBR (London) Ltd, the award winning company providing a full range of masonry conservation and repair services for historic buildings, including Nelson’s Column, Trafalgar Square, and the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and also that of Donald Insall Associates, the leading firm of heritage architects specialising in the care, repair and adaptation of historic buildings. The new Guidelines have been approved by the Club’s Council and will be reviewed as and when necessary in future.

The Club’s conservation activity

Since its foundation in 1990, the Club has carried out work on close to 50 sites.  These include major new works, such as the erection of a monument to Emma Lady Hamilton in Calais and the installation of plaques in the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College Greenwich to mark the spot where Nelson and Collingwood’s coffins lay in state, as well as the more typical conservations of sailors’ graves, such as seven graves of Trafalgar captains. These also include locations where it has been decided to install a plaque next to a grave, in order to mark it and to provide some background to the person who rests there.  Additional information about each site may be found on the Club’s website.

The Club has also carried out a major project which sought to identify, research, survey and where necessary conserve the graves and memorials of all of the Royal Navy captains at the battles of the Nile (16 captains) and Copenhagen (43 captains). The work was undertaken in a similar way to the successful Trafalgar Captains’ Memorial and culminated in the publication of the book “Nelson’s Band of Brothers” by Peter Hore.

Every project has several stages: identifying and researching the sites of the memorials, recording them, surveying the sites and assessing their risk status, costing the works, fundraising, supervising the preservation work, and recording the whole exercise and ultimately publishing the results. In some cases there is also a service of rededication.

Research is the essential pre-condition of every project. It can be a lengthy and time-consuming process, especially when correspondence has to be conducted at long distance, and it is not possible to visit local archives in person. Local Club members can play an important role in this stage and without their efforts many of the graves may not have been discovered. As part of the research stage the Club may commission a professional photographer to make a full and proper record.

The Club ascertains who has responsibility for the given memorial, which is typically in a churchyard or on church property, but which may be in a public thoroughfare or on private property. In the case of a churchyard faculties are usually required before any work can be undertaken.

The second stage involves comprehensive survey of each grave to assess its condition and this is also often undertaken by Club members who live close by. Where appropriate the Club appoints an architect to project manage the work who in turn commissions a ground survey and quantity report from a recognized conservation contractor approved by English Heritage who is briefed with the Club’s Preservation Guidelines. It is the architect’s responsibility to check the schedule of works, monitor progress to completion and ensure a full record documenting the whole process, including a description of the technical aspects, such as the treatment of stone and metals.

Once the quotation has been agreed, fundraising can begin. Needless to say no work can be authorised until the funds are available. Predominantly the funds come from grant making bodies. Previously, the Club has been supported by The Francis Coales Charitable Foundation, The Idlewild Trust, The Leche Trust, The Manifold Trust and The Pilgrim Trust.  More recently the Club has been awarded LIBOR funds by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for six projects including on the island of Menorca the preservation of the oldest RN chapel, and the paper conservation of the Parish Register of the Figtree Church, Nevis, West Indies which includes the entry for Lord Nelson’s marriage to Frances Nisbet in 1787.  The latter is being conserved by the Borthwick Institute, University of York and is due to be returned to the island in 2020.

Increasingly, the Club is interested in the maintenance of the memorials after preservation and encourages members in their locality to take a watching interest and where feasible to ‘adopt a grave’ in association with a local school. The catalyst for this is often the re-dedication service which seeks to involve the local community at the outset, particularly younger people who are encouraged to learn more about the life and times of their ‘local hero’.

Inevitably there have been and will be ad hoc conservations. They are subjected to the same rigorous process.

This prospect gives the Club a coherent and consistent theme for the coming years. During this time it will seek to enhance the approachability and relevance of the Club through ‘living history’, especially with younger people and local communities, by bringing ‘back to life’ the people whom the monuments and memorials commemorate as much as preserving the stone. To this end and complementing the preservation work the Club has developed a Wooden Walls educational programme for Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 and has assumed custodianship of the Trafalgar Way which the Club founded for the 2005 bicentenary and is designed to reach the next generation.  It is also developing the web-based ‘International Memorials Log’ which seeks to record all the known graves, monuments and memorials of those who served in the Georgian Sailing navy.

Thither shall youthful heroes climb,
The Nelsons of an aftertime,
And round that sacred altar swear
Such glory and such graves to share.

John Wilson Croker from Songs of Trafalgar