England expects every man to do his duty. Lord Nelson explaining to the Officers the Plan of Attack previous to the Battle of Trafalgar, and Position of the Combined Forces of France & Spain by William Marshall Craig (artist), published 9 January 1806 © National Maritime Museum, London, Greenwich Hospital collection. Repro ID: PX9025 Vice-Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson, used the phrase 'Band of Brothers', on a number of occasions to describe the remarkably close and friendly relationship that existed between him and the captains who served under his command at the Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798. It is a quotation from the famous Agincourt speech in Nelson's favourite Shakespeare play, King Henry V.

By extension it has come to encompass all those officers who were particularly close to Nelson, or who had served with him in his battles, and thus has become a metaphor for his distinctively 'collegiate' style of leadership – a style that set him apart from most other admirals of his time.

In fact the phrase is most apt when applied to the original Nile captains. They represented the élite of the Royal Navy at that time – a group of highly professional and experienced men. Most were the same age as Nelson and in their late thirties or early forties, and most had known him and served with him for a number of years.

Part of the Nelson A to Z, Edited extracts taken from The Nelson Encyclopædia by Dr Colin White, Chatham Publishing London, 2002.