El directorio enciclopédico desde la Wikipedia.
Horatia Nelson, christened as Horatia Nelson Thompson[1] (January 29, 1801, 23 Piccadilly, London - March 6, 1881, Beaufort Villa, Woodridings, Pinner) was the illegitimate daughter of Emma Hamilton and Horatio Nelson.
[edit] Life[edit] Early lifeBorn in a house of Sir William Hamilton (Emma's husband) at 23 Piccadilly, as Nelson was at anchor in Torbay preparing to sail to the Battle of Copenhagen (news reached him before he set sail), she was given to a wet nurse called Mrs Gibson, who was informed that the child, about a week old, was born six weeks earlier, at a time when Emma was in Vienna. Once Emma's husband had died on 6 April 1803, and before Nelson had to go board HMS Victory on 18 May that year, Horatia was christened aged two at St Marylebone Parish Church, with Emma and Horatio as the "godparents" and a cover-story naming her as the daughter of Vice-Admiral Charles Thompson of Portsmouth Dockyard (with his agreement). Her natural parents then later adopted her as an orphan. Nelson was delighted at Horatia's birth (the more so as his second child with Emma, another girl, died a few weeks after her birth in early 1803), and spent as often as he could during his brief times onshore from 1803 to 1805 enjoying domestic life with her and Emma at Merton Place, more frequently and easily once Sir William was dead. As the Battle of Trafalgar approached, Nelson wrote a letter to Horatia with his parental blessing:
One of Nelson's last wishes was that she should take the name Nelson, leaving her £200 a year in his will and adding :
Though Horatia soon learnt of her real father and agreed to his wish, she never accepted that Emma was her mother. This was due in part to their spending ten months in a prison cell, the result of Emma's financial difficulties soon after Horatio's death and partly due to Emma's insistence after Nelson's death that she was not her mother but her guardian. Before debt set in, Emma introduced Horatia to high society. Emma died in January 1815 and Horatia, who was still living with her, made the funeral arrangements with the British Consul and then returned to England disguised as a boy so as to escape arrest for the debts Emma had run up in France. On arrival in Dover, she was met by one of Nelson's brothers-in-law (Nelson's sisters doted on her) and from then until she married, Horatia stayed with Nelson's sister, Mrs Catherine Matcham in Sussex. Biographers describing her in her youth saw her as being tall, intelligent, able to speak her mind and surprisingly well read. She was good at languages (Emma had taught her Italian, French and German), music and needlework, with a lively temperament and an animal-lover. [edit] Marriage and ChildrenOn 19 February 1822 she married the Revd. Philip Ward (1795-1861) at Burnham Westgate Church, where he was then curate near her father’s home village in north Norfolk. Horatia's grandfather had also been a clergyman. A third generation Anglican clergyman, Philip was a poet and scholar, and the couple was described as handsome and intelligent at their wedding.[3] Horatia's biographer described the marriage as "the one certain good that befell" Horatia.[4] Their 10 children - seven boys and three girls, with the former educated by their father at home before going to university or the professions - were:
[edit] StrugglesThe living at Stanhoe in Norfolk was next granted to Philip, and it brought a better income in tithes and glebe lands, and then fairly shortly afterwards the family moved to another living at Bircham Newton, which had ?? play a major role in protracted negotiations to buy Nelson’s uniform coat and waistcoat (eventually bought by The Prince Consort for Greenwich Hospital in 1845, later passing from there to the National Maritime Museum). This growing public interest in Nelson (Nelson's Column and Trafalgar Square were erected in 1843, for example) brought her recompense for the perceived national neglect of her immediately after Nelson's death. An appeal committee of Lord Nelson's friends and naval colleagues, met frequently in London by Horatia herself, brought about a deputation to the Prime Minister and a national appeal (launched in 1850 and closed four years later; it only raised £1457). At Horatia's insistence, the money thus raised was divided between her three sons in military service (Marmaduke, Philip and William), and so that same year (1854) Queen Victoria stepped in and allocated public funds for a £100 annual pension for each Nelson-Ward daughter. nd to g Two of their nine children are buried with her (jght son and her eldest daughter), though the couple do have living descendants, including Anna Horatia Tribe, and the Nelson-Ward family branch.[5] Philip died from a liver problem soon after returning to England from India (he is commemorated by a plaque near the altar in St Mildred's, on the south wall), and her eldest daughter Eleanor Philippa (whilst still unmarried) was knocked down by a horse bolting from an innyard - the Queen's Head in Pinner High Street, carried into a draper's shop near to where the accident occurred, and died there. Her husband also predeceased her, dying suddenly on 16th January 1859 and being buried at the east of St Mildred's Tenterden with his children Caroline Mary and Edmund Nelson (a memorial stained glass window was also put up to him in the church). [edit] Later life and deathAfter her husband's death, she had to leave Tenterden, and lived for 22 years until her death at Elmdene, Pinner and later at Beaufort Villas, Woodridings, both near to her son Nelson. On her death, Horatia was buried in Pinner Parish old cemetery, in Paines Lane in Pinner. Her epitaph, after mentioning her husband and children, runs:
[edit] References
[edit] External links[edit] Bibliography
Kate Williams, England's Mistress - The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton, Hutchinson, London, 2006 Página espejo de la WikipediaDirectorio de Enlaces Directorio dmoz Directorio espejo dmoz Pedro Bernardo |