Nelson: The Hero and the Man

Page 1 of 7

• 1. Birth of a legend
• 2. Some facts
• 3. Nelson Letters Project
• 4. Special contribution
• 5. The private man
• 6. The human hero
• 7. Find out more
• Print entire article

Birth of a legend

My London taxi driver was absolutely certain. 'Of course Nelson wore an eye-patch' he told me, 'look at the statue in Trafalgar Square - there's a ruddy great patch on it!' As it happens, however, the massive statue on the top of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square does not portray the great hero with an eye-patch. Nor indeed does any contemporary portrait of Nelson. He never wore one because he did not need to. His blind right eye was externally undamaged and so there was no unsightly disfigurement to be concealed.

'It was during this process that Nelson the Man became overshadowed by Nelson the Hero.'

The black patch is nevertheless a powerful part of the Nelson legend, as my conversation with the taxi driver shows, and it has taken a great deal of careful PR work in the run-up to the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar to start to displace it from the public consciousness. And although it is a comparatively unimportant aspect of Nelson's story, the eye-patch is certainly a useful symbol for the way in which the story of Nelson has been mythologised in the years since our greatest admiral died, at the moment of his greatest triumph, at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. It was during this process that Nelson the Man became overshadowed by Nelson the Hero.

Next 

Published: 2005-08-15