The History of Britain in Blue Plaques

 

This weekend Carolyn and I'm off up to London to stay with friends for a long weekend and to take in a West End musical 'Moulin Rouge' followed by a bit of supper in town, so this weekend's post is coming out on the Friday instead.

My glorious 1798 map of Great Britain and Ireland below illustrates where exactly this particular post is focussed in relation to blue plaques, as I know there are lots of folks who read the blog who might not be quite so familiar with the layout of the territory as compared to those of us blessed with living here.

Tenby in Pembrokeshire, and my home of Exmouth and nearby Budleigh in East Devon, the focus of this particular post.

In a post looking at my most recent project to build my fleets for the Battle of Camperdown, I mentioned that much of British history is commemorated in the names of its streets, but it occurred to me that in addition to that we also have the delightful custom of putting up blue plaques on historically interesting buildings, that can reveal another layer of that history and the local characters associated with the building that helped to make it, and then I thought it would be fun to illustrate some blue plaques that caught my attention in recent weeks, and the stories of the folks involved.

I've passed Simcoe House many times, walking through Budleigh, and sometimes it's good to stop and acknowledge the amazing history on your own doorstep.

Following the death of his father, Captain John Simcoe RN, from pneumonia, commanding His Majesty's 60-gun ship HMS Pembroke in the mouth of the St Lawrence River on the 15th May 1759, just prior to the siege of Quebec, the seven year-old John Graves Simcoe and his mother Katherine Simcoe moved back to her parental home in Exeter; where he would be educated at Exeter Grammar School, then Eton College, before attending Merton College, Oxford, and then Lincoln's Inn, before deciding to follow a military career rather than a legal one.

John Graves Simcoe in the green uniform of the Queen's Rangers

The young Simcoe would begin his military career as an ensign with the 35th Foot, serving with them in the American War of Independence and seeing action at the siege of Boston, later being promoted to captain in the 40th Foot, serving with and later commanding the grenadier company through the New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia campaigns and at the Battle of Brandywine, where he was wounded, and reportedly prevented his men from firing at fleeing rebels, that included George Washington.

A Ranger and Hussar of the Queen's Rangers

In 1777 he would take command of the Queen's Rangers formed on Staten Island, famously leading this elite Loyalist Regiment, seeing action right through to the Siege of Yorktown before being invalided back home and gaining promotion to lieutenant-colonel, and recording his experiences in his 'A Journal of the Operations of the Queen's Rangers' published in Exeter in 1787.

Colonel John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada 1791-96 - George Theodore Berthon

Following convalescence at his home in Devon, Simcoe entered Parliament in 1790 as MP for St. Mawes in Cornwall, before taking up the role of Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada a year later, serving until 1796, and being appointed to the rank of Major-General before ill-health forced a return home, resigning his office in 1798. 

He would briefly serve as commander of the British expeditionary force to the captured French colony of Saint-Domingue itself dealing with a slave rebellion, and seeing action against the Haitian commander Toussant Louverture, then cooperating with the French, before being replaced in March 1797.

 

Simcoe House was acquired by General Simcoe as a seaside villa in 1797, here in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, as a welcome respite from his duties as the Military Commander for the Army in the West of England 

On return home he was appointed Colonel of the 81st Foot in 1798, exchanging to the 22nd Foot six months later and promoted lieutenant-general and commander of the Western District of Great Britain.

In 1806 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief, India in anticipation of his succeeding Lord Cornwallis, but died in Exeter on the 26th of October 1806 aged 54, before taking up his new role.

Nancy Perriam, one of only three British women to see service at sea during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

As well as Exmouth's association with Lady Frances 'Fanny' Nelson, Viscountess Nelson and Duchess of Bronte who lived in the town in her later years and is buried at St Margaret and St Andrew's Church in Littleham, we have an association from another lady from the complete other end of the social strata of Georgian England, also laid to rest in Littleham Church, Nancy Perriam, Royal Navy powder monkey, seamstress and surgeons mate.

My picture of Lady Nelson's grave back in 2020.

Nancy Ann Letton was born in April 1769 in Exmouth, marrying a Royal Navy seamen, Edward Hopping in 1788, he later serving aboard the 36-gun frigate HMS Crescent, commanded by Captain James Saumarez, then cruising the coast of France, with the Crescent returning to Plymouth, for repairs in 1795.

HMS Crescent under the command of Captain James Saumarez, capturing the French frigate Réunion off Cherbourg, 20th October 1793 - Thomas Whitcombe

Nancy went to Plymouth to meet her husband and being deemed of good character and a wife of one of the crew was allowed to come on board and sail with him, later following him to HMS Orion 74-guns when Saumarez was given command of her and selected Hopping to come with him to his new ship.

HMS Orion 74-guns - Nicholas Pocock

Hopping would serve on Orion as second gunner and Nancy would help him serving as a 'powder-monkey' preparing gun cartridges, seeing action at the Battle of Groix 23rd June 1795, in the Bay of Biscay during which Orion lost six killed and eighteen wounded.

Battle of Groix 23rd June 1795 - Nicholas Pocock

On the 14th February 1797 she was in action at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, with Orion suffering nine wounded in the chase of the Spanish fleet and with Nancy tasked with mending one of Samaurez's shirts as they went into battle, and later tending to the wounded.

She would recall her role vividly, recounting later about assisting the surgeon operating on a young midshipman;

"the boy bore the operation without a murmur, and when it was over turned to me and said: 'Have I not borne it like a man?' Having said this he immediately expired."

Battle of Cape St Vincent 14th February 1797 - Robert Cleveley

Her final battle was to be one of the greatest in British naval history, the Battle of the Nile fought on the 1st of August 1798, that would see one of the most decisive victories achieved in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and the French losing thirteen of the seventeen vessels that started the battle together with estimated casualties of between 3-5,000 men whilst the British squadron under Nelson escaped with 218 killed and 678 wounded and with the Orion suffering 13 killed and 29 wounded.

Battle of the Nile, 1st of August 1798 - Nicholas Pocock

Nancy gave birth to two daughters while serving on the Orion and her brother together with another twelve men from Exmouth also served aboard the ship, one later achieving flag rank and dying an admiral.

Edward Hopping was drowned in 1802 and Nancy would go on to marry John Perriam in 1805, surviving him after his death in 1812 and living out her life in Exmouth working as a street fish seller until the age of 80 when ill-health forced her to retire and, after locals campaigned for her to receive a government pension for her service, was given a pension of £10 a year.

This pretty little cottage in Tower Street, Exmouth was Nancy's home until her death in 1865

In 1847 she was one of only three women recommended to be awarded the Naval General Service Medal in 1847, alongside another Nile veteran, Mary Anne Ridley and Trafalgar veteran Jane Townshend, but all three were refused on the likely recommendation of Queen Victoria who was a known opponent of women's rights.

 

Nancy lived in Tower Street, Exmouth, in the little cottage seen above, until 1865 when she died in her 98th year, outliving her children and leaving a will worth £100.

The chain of Wetherspoon pubs are famous for reflecting the local history in the names of their establishments and thus we have the Powder Monkey pub in Exmouth recording the exploits of this remarkable Exmouth woman, Nancy Ann Perriam, former powder monkey of His Majesty's Ship Orion.

A few weeks ago I got to spend a very pleasant long-weekend in Tenby, in the beautiful Welsh county of Pembrokeshire, and as is my want to do, enjoyed soaking up the architecture of this wonderful coastal resort and its three miles of golden sandy beaches and its Norman stone wall complete with its five arches gate.

Whilst walking up from the harbour I noticed the blue plaque seen above relating to a famous King of England, Henry VII the first Tudor monarch who came out on top at the end of the so called Wars of the Roses or 'Cousins War' with his seizure of the crown on the 22nd August 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

 

A young Henry Tudor, dated between 1470 to 1480 looking as he might have when he made his desperate escape from Tenby

Henry was the nephew of Henry the VI, the Lancastrian king whose rather inept reign virtually ensured a civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York in the wake of the lost territories in France, with his tenuous grip on power seemingly restored in 1469 when Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, 'The Kingmaker' changed allegiances and went over to the House of Lancaster restoring Henry VI to the throne in 1470.

The deposed Yorkists and Edward IV were forced to flee the country and seek sanctuary abroad in Burgundy and in Ireland as they regrouped and plotted their return the following year that saw the Lancastrian cause routed at the Battle of Barnet on the 14th April 1471 and the death of Warwick. 

The Battle of Barnet - Graham Turner

Then the final coup de grâce took place on the 4th of May 1471 at the Battle of Tewkesbury when Edward completely defeated the Lancastrian army led by Edward Beaufort the Duke of Somerset and nominally the young Prince Edward and his mother Queen Margaret of Anjou, that would see both Somerset and the young prince dead at the end of it and his father Henry VI likely murdered in the Tower soon afterwards, thus seemingly ending any hope of a Lancastrian return to power.

Mr Steve and I visited the battlefield of Tewkesbury back in October 2020
JJ's Wargames - The Battlefield of Tewkesbury,1471

In the wake of Tewkesbury many surviving Lancastrians chose to flee abroad once again, including the young Henry Tudor where he would spend the next fourteen years under the protection of Francis II, Duke of Brittany, at one time managing to avoid being handed over to Yorkist envoys from King Edward when Francis fell ill, managing to claim sanctuary in a local monastery until the envoys were forced to depart.

 

The property in Tenby occupying the suspected site of where Henry Tudor made his escape to Brittany in the wake of the Lancastrian defeat at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471.

By 1483 he was being promoted by his mother, Margaret Beaufort, as an alternative to the new Yorkist monarch, King Richard III, and on Christmas Day 1483, Henry pledged to marry Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV, and Edward's heir since the presumed death of her brothers in the Tower, likely with the connivance of Richard.

Richard did his best to extradite Henry from Brittany, but Henry escaped to France, where he was welcomed and supplied with troops and equipment for a second invasion, landing at Mill Bay, Pembrokeshire on the 7th August 1485, making the most of his Welsh birth and ancestry by amassing an army of some 5-6,000 men on his march to Bosworth and his destiny to establish the new Tudor monarchy.

King Henry VII circa 1505

On my continued exploration of the streets of Tenby I came across my final example of another classic blue plaque and another great story from British history to end on.

The relationship that developed between Lord Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton scandalised Georgian society, particularly as her then much older husband Sir William Hamilton was still very much on the scene, and the liaison by the time Nelson had returned home, in the wake of his victory at the Battle of the Nile, would result in the birth of Horatia, Nelson's daughter, on the 1st of February 1801. 

The Pembrokeshire Gin Co. had an interesting blue plaque over one of its doors

Arriving at Great Yarmouth on the 6th November 1800, it seemed to many that Nelson had lost all sense of proper behaviour, sporting unauthorised foreign decorations on his uniform causing him to be shunned by King George III at his formal presentation to the king at St James' Palace on the 11th November 1800, and with his treatment of his wife Fanny, according to Lady Spencer, wife of the First Sea Lord, treating her 'with every mark of dislike and contempt' at the evening dinner in his honour held at the Admiralty. 

Even his former commander, Lord St Vincent commented;

'That foolish little fellow Nelson has sat to every painter in London. His head is turned by Lady Hamilton.'

A Georgian ménage à trois, Nelson, Emma and William Hamilton

Nelson's relationship with St Vincent was tense on his return home, and a dispute over prize money probably didn't help, but his abilities ensured he was made second in command of the British fleet sent to tackle the Danes at Copenhagen, and his significant contribution to the outcome of the campaign added further laurels to his reputation on his return home for nineteen months of leave during the subsequent peace that followed the Treaty of Amiens between France and Great Britain on the 25th March 1802.

By then Nelson and the Hamilton's had a new home in Merton, Surrey, and in the summer of 1802, Nelson accompanied them on a tour of Sir William's West of England and Welsh estates and were in Pembrokeshire overseeing progress on a scheme to develop the town of Milford Haven by promoting it as a naval dockyard, with Nelson instrumental in influencing the Navy Board to sign a fourteen year lease on land at Milford Haven in 1800.

The importance of the deal with the navy was only emphasised by the fact that Emma was a prodigious spender and the £8000 produced by Sir William's Pembrokeshire estates was not enough to keep up with her needs, that, following her surviving the other two, Hamilton dying in 1803 at the age of 72 and Nelson in 1805 at Trafalgar, and the subsequent falling through of the arrangements with the navy, would see her unable to service her debts and her dying in poverty in Calais in 1815.

Next up, work progresses on my British 74's for Camperdown, Mr Steve and my adventures in and around Oxford and I have a book review to do.

More anon

JJ