Footnotes

Prince Albert purchases the coat that Nelson was wearing at Trafalgar and presents it to the nation. This coat - undoubtedly the most famous of all Nelson relics - is now the centrepiece of the National Maritime Museum, founded in 1934 at Greenwich, a site that Prince Albert's generous gesture had helped to consolidate as the centre of Nelson pilgrimage. John Munday has described how this purchase was made: "The plain, undress uniform of a vice admiral, with a bullet hole in the left shoulder and the tattered bullion epaulette, came to light in 1845. The widow of a city alderman and West India merchant, J.J. Smith, who had known Nelson in Jamaica and had been Lady Nelson's principal financial helper, possessed certain personal relics, the chief of which were the blood-stained coat and white waistcoat. These had been brought to the distraught Emma Hamilton by Captain Hardy, following Nelson's wishes...The newly created first earl, no admirer of Emma, naturally felt that such a precious relic should be in the possession of the family and a rather unseemly wrangle followed. That a compromise was reached, expressly lending the coat to Emma during her life, is indicated by a letter now at Greenwich. Whatever the intended arrangement, in debt she fled to France and probably offered the garment as surety against monies advanced to facilitate her going! A press report said that they 'were transferred under peculiar circumstances' to the alderman. When it became known that such a treasured relic was 'on the market', Sir Harris Nicolas again took a hand; the widow was asking £150, a figure beyond his means and he intended launching a public subscription. However, Albert, the Prince Consort, in a characteristic personal intervention, bought the coat and waistcoat and presented them to Greenwich Hospital" ('The Nelson Relics' in The Nelson Companion, 1995 and 2005, p.68).