Hannah Cunliffe - Historical Researcher & Maritime Consultant

Tuesday 22 December 2007: John Wells' letter

The 'Making History' team got in touch again recently with an interesting enquiry.  One of their listeners had submitted a letter, dated 30 October 1805 and written on the ship Britannia, which they had found inside an old book about shipping - purchased at a charity sale.  The big question was whether this letter was genuine...

I had my doubts as, despite old-fashioned handwriting, the paper did not feel like it originated in the early nineteenth century.  To help authenticate the letter, I did some background research using the following sources:

Published Sources

Roy Adkins, Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle (London, 2004)

Roger Knight, The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson (London, 2005)

Robert Holden Mackenzie, Trafalgar Roll: the Officers, the Men, the Ships (1913)

N.A.M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain 1649-1815 (London, 2004)

Peter Warwick, Voices from the Battle of Trafalgar (Newton Abbot, 2005)

Rif Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 (London, 2005)

The National Archives

The Trafalgar Database - www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/trafalgarancestors/

Manuscripts

National Maritime Museum

www.nmm.ac.uk

NA1/3/20 Collection: Naish, George Prideaux Brabant, 1909-1977

Letter by an officer of the Britannia describing the Battle of Trafalgar 1805

RUSI/NM/189 Collection: Royal United Services Institution, Naval Manuscripts

Copy of a letter of James West, Britannia, off Cadiz , 4 November 1805

My early suspicions eventually proved to be correct and the original letter was unearthed in the Manuscripts collection of the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth: 

The Royal Naval Museum

www.royalnavalmuseum.org/

MSS 225 Papers of John Wells 1803-1816

Two files of papers covering the career of Lieutenant John Wells (1784-1840) from Ordinary Seaman to Lieutenant. The collection includes; certificates, letters of appointment, and commissions for his career 1803-1816. Also a letter and sketch written as Quarter Master in HMS Britannia describing the Battle of Trafalgar, and a signal book and codes from HMS Excellent c.1808.