A FRESH ACCOUNT OF LORD

NELSON’S “DEAR SISTER” aNN

at

St. swithun’s, bathford

——————————————————————

TTTTHE French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars were

fought over the whole globe. Conflict took place across much of

western and central Europe, the Middle East, southern Africa and

the West Indies. At sea, rival navies battled for supremacy in all the

waters around Europe, the Atlantic, the Caribbean, the Indian

Ocean and beyond. People of the time referred to these conflicts,

as ‘the Great War’.

During this time one of our greatest national heroes, Horatio Nelson

suffered a private loss with the death of his younger sister Ann, or

“Nancy” or “Nan” as he called her. This is her story.

Ann nelson

A distant relative of the Nelsons claimed, in 1911 that this portrait was of Ann by John Opie, a Cornishman who arrived in London in 1781. This claim is unsubstantiated.

2 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ann nelson Ann nelson Ann nelson Ann nelson

(1760 (1760 (1760 (1760 ---- 1783) 1783) 1783) 1783)

Table Tomb

St. Swithun’s Church

Bathford

20th. September 1760 Birth of Ann Nelson at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk.

26th. December 1767 Death of mother, Catherine from pneumonia.

5th. April 1775 Apprenticeship with Alice Lilly’s ‘Capital Lace Warehouse’ at

9, Ludgate Street, London.

5th. February 1777 Apprenticeship “turned over by consent” to milliner Mary Ann

Jackson, also of Ludgate Street.

14th. July 1778 Uncle Maurice Suckling dies leaving £1,000 to Ann.

1780 / 1781 Living with father and sister in the parsonage at Norfolk.

End of October 1783 Ann falls ill in Bath winter whilst spending the winter months

with her father in the city.

2nd. November 1783 Ann makes her will in the lodgings at New King Street.

15th. November 1783 Death of Ann Nelson. New King Street, Bath.

Ludgate Hill, London circa 1830

3 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ann was born on the 20th. September 1760. She was the fifth surviving child and middle daughter of the Rev. Edmund Nelson and Catherine Nelson – née Suckling.

Catherine died on the 26th.September 1767 leaving the Rev. Edmund Nelson with the care

of eight children, the youngest nine months old.

On leaving school, probably at age fifteen, Ann was apprenticed to Alice Lilly of the

‘Capital Lace Warehouse’, 9, Ludgate Street, London. The date was the 5th. April 1775

and she was to serve a seven-year apprenticeship, for which her father paid a sum of

£105.00.

Ann did not complete her apprenticeship. When aged nineteen, she abandoned her trade,

almost certainly because of a legacy she received from her uncle Maurice Suckling in 1779

for the sum of £1,000.00.

In 1780 or 1781 Ann returned to Norfolk to care for her father and younger sister Cath-

erine. Her life became a contrast between the isolation of Burnham Thorpe in North Nor-

folk and the liveliness of Bath, where the Rev. Edmund Nelson liked to spend the winter.

Ann’s social life at Bath may have been her undoing. It is supposed she caught a chill

whilst leaving a ballroom and pneumonia set in. She died on 15th. November 1783 at her

father’s lodgings in New King Street. Ann was buried in the peaceful little church yard of St.

Swithun, Bathford. The incumbent was the Rev. John Berjeu, a friend to Edmund Nelson.

At the time of Ann’s death, her brother Horatio was at St. Omer in France, attempting to

learn the French language, something he never successfully accomplished. Nelson left his

London lodgings off the Strand on Tuesday 21st. October, just a week before Ann became

ill. He wrote to his friend William Locker of Malling, Kent on the 26th. November 1783 :-

“Since I wrote last I have been very near coming to England, occasioned by the melan-

choly account I have received of my dear Sister’s death. My father, whose grief upon the

occasion was intolerable, is, I hope, better; therefore I shall not come over. She died at

Bath after a nine days’ illness ...it was occasioned by coming out of the ball-room immedi-

ately after dancing...my mind is too much taken up with the recent account of my dear sis-

ter’s death to partake of any amusements.”

Ann’s character and personality remain unknown apart from the description by her father

as winsome, neat and taciturn. Edmund Nelson in 1793, ten years after Ann’s death, makes

a curious comparison between his errant and troublesome son, Suckling and the dear de-

parted Ann: -

“ My hopes are still kept up respecting Suckling, that former errors are and will be re-

claimed. Not only his person, allowing for differences, but also his neatness and taciturnity,

calls to my remembrance your dear Sister who is gone before to a Place of Happiness.”

4 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

TA

SR

The Churchyard of St. Swithun’s

BREATHE NEW LIFE INTO NEARBY TARS BY VISITING

the tombs of Trafalgar Captains at Bath Abbey and St. Swithin’s Walcot.

Contact e-mail: tars1758@yahoo.co.uk

April 2013

St

ra

IN

Memory of

ANN Daughter of the Revd. EDMUND NELSON

Of Burnham Thorpe Norfolk

Who died Nov. 15th. 1783

Aged 23 Years

Next to Ann’s tomb is that of Elizabeth Matcham who died in 1803. She was the mother–in-law of Ann’s

younger sister. William Alexander Matcham, Elizabeth’s grandson is also here. He died in 1805.

�