The rise of two leaders

Captain Horatio Nelson, 1758-1805, John Francis Rigaud, 1781. Repro ID: BHC2901 ©National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, LondonHoratio Nelson was born in Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, on 29 September 1758. His father, Edmund, was a clergyman. His mother, Catherine, died on 26 December 1767, when Nelson was only nine.

Maurice Suckling, Nelson's uncle, was a captain in the Royal Navy. He had fought bravely during the Seven Years War (1756–63), but was unemployed on half-pay after the declaration of peace in 1763. In 1770, during a dispute between Britain and Spain over the Falkland Islands, Suckling was given a new command. He offered to take one of his nephews with him to become a naval officer and Horatio was keen to go. So, in March 1771, Nelson had his first taste of the sea.

In 1777, Nelson became a lieutenant – the first step in his promotion as a commissioned officer. His first appointment in this role was under Captain William Locker in the Lowestoffe.

'The merest boy' >>