88 years in the history of HMS Victory

by Kathryn Hadley

HMS Victory was moved to Number 2 Dock, His Majesty’s Dockyard Portsmouth, 88 years ago today, on January 12th, 1922, amid fears for her continued survival and following a national appeal led by the Society for Nautical Research. Preservation work began soon after in an effort to restore the ship to her 1805 appearance.

HMS Victory was launched at Chatham Dockyard in 1765 and was commissioned in 1778. The ship continued in active service for the following 34 years and was the flagship of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

HMS Victory was retired from frontline duty in 1812. Following a warrant from Thomas Hardy (1769-1839), Flag Captain to Nelson and commander of Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar, to save the ship from disposal, Victory was moored in Portsmouth Harbour.

The ship remained at her moorings in Portsmouth Harbour for the next 110 years, where she was notably fitted up as a Naval School of Telegraphy and Signal School. The school operated from 1889 to 1906, when it was transferred to Chatham Royal Naval Barracks.

HMS Victory is still in commission as the flagship of the Second Sea Lord in his role as Commander in Chief of the Royal Navy's Home Command. She is the oldest commissioned warship in the world, although the USS Constitution launched 32 years later, in 1797, is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat.

In Nelson, Trafalgar and the Meaning of Victory Andrew Lambert explains why Nelson’s life and death should never be forgotten.

Images:
- HMS Victory in circa 1922 (Royal Naval Museum)
- HMS Victory today (Portsmouth Historic Dockyard)

Nelson’s Heroic Facial Traits Part II: Images of the Hero

by Kathryn Hadley

Yesterday, I wrote about the latest research by the personologist Naomi Tickle to identify the key facial traits that epitomised heroism. She applied these traits, which included a Roman nose, a pointed chin, set back ears, oval eyebrows and exposed eyelids, to a portrait of Viscount Horatio Nelson and concluded that had the facial characteristics of a hero. I was very skeptical about her conclusions and decided to carry out further research. In particular, what portrait was the study based on? How accurate a representation of Nelson would it have been?

The main image used for the study was the above portrait, which was allegedly studied alongside various other portraits.

The story of this wax effigy of Nelson, which I used to illustrate my article yesterday, provides an insight into some of the limitations of Tickle’s study based on portraits and moulded masks. The wax effigy is a modern reconstruction held at the Royal Naval Museum, which is based on two of three surviving masks of Nelson. The first is known as the Queen Mary mask because it was discovered by Queen Mary, the wife of King George V, in an antique shop on the Isle of Wight. The second is the Nelson-Weekes mask owned by the Weekes family, who are descendents of Nelson’s daughter Horatio. The third mask is held at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. It is known as the Nelson-Ward mask and shows Nelson with his eyes open.

Making life masks was a very popular style of portraiture in the 19th century. Subjects were sat in a tilted chair with their eyes closed. Straws were placed in each nostril to enable the subject to breathe and wet plaster was moulded over the face. When the plaster was dry the mould was then removed.

Although the three masks were originally believed to be death masks taken from Nelson’s face in December 1805, two months after the Battle of Trafalgar, when HMS Victory returned to Portsmouth, there is no evidence to confirm this theory. Moreover, according to scientists, Nelson’s face would have been too decomposed to make a mask. If the masks were therefore taken during Nelson’s lifetime, it would suggest that they were accurate representations of his facial traits.

However, in the Nelson-Ward mask the eyes are open, thus revealing that the mould was touched up shortly afterwards. As for the Nelson-Weekes mask, it is believed that it was cast from a marble bust of Nelson. The Queen Mary mask is considered the most accurate representation because Nelson’s eyes are closed. It was allegedly taken in Vienna at the time of Nelson’s return to Britain from the Mediterranean in 1800.

How can one draw up conclusions about Nelson’s personality based on interpretative forms of arts such as portraits? Even if the portraits were made during the hero’s lifetime, the artists could have flattered their subject in accordance with their own ideals of heroism. Had Tickle based her study primarily on the moulded masks of Nelson, these would not have provided entirely accurate representations of his facial traits either.

Nelson’s heroism written all over his face?

by Kathryn Hadley

To celebrate their 150th anniversary and its strong naval heritage, Woods’ 100 Old Navy Rum recently launched a project to find out what it means to be a hero for people in the UK today. During the month of June researchers interviewed 1,000 people from across the UK. The results of their research revealed that for 41% of people members of the army and the navy were considered the most heroic. A quarter of those questioned viewed doctors and paramedics as particularly heroic, followed by the police and fire services (23%). You may ask, however, where history fits into the survey...

The second part of the research project was carried out by Naomi Tickle, an international personologist and author of You Can Read a Face Like a Book, who identified the key facial characteristics that epitomise heroism. To test her theory, she applied these characteristics to a portrait of Viscount Horatio Nelson in order to ascertain whether or not he displayed the traits and whether they were common among today’s heroes and leaders. According to Tickle, Nelson had a Roman nose, a square forehead that was also high and sloped back, set back ears, a pointed chin, oval eyebrows and exposed eyelids. The outer corners of his eyes were also lower than the inner corners and his head was wider at the back. All these traits are allegedly symbols of heroism. A Roman nose reveals, for example, management skills and an ability to delegate and oversee people. A pointed chin is a sign of stubbornness and tenacity and oval eyebrows show that Nelson was good at bringing ideas together, organising his thoughts and expressing them clearly.

Naomi Tickle explained her findings:

‘The relationship between the physical facial structure and personality has been
well researched since the 1920's. Whether it’s traditionally heroic traits like
a Roman nose or more obscure characteristics such as a square forehead, heroic
people do share similar facial features, and Nelson is no exception. These are
also present on the faces of powerful figures today, whether it’s world leaders,
sportsmen, or simply brave people we know.’

Personology is the relationship between physical features and personality. Research was first carried out by Edward Jones, a California judge, in the 1930s, when he noticed a pattern between the facial traits and the behaviour of hundreds of people who appeared before him in court. It has allegedly proved to be 92% accurate.

Personally, I am not entirely convinced. I wonder if the study has been extended to other historic heroes. Do these conclusions mean that someone who does not have a Roman nose, a pointed chin, exposed eyelids and oval eyebrows cannot be a hero? Reversely, were then any heroes in history that had none of these facial features? Lastly, how do we define a hero? Do our historic heroes not go up and down in popularity in accordance with the political trends of a particular time and as their careers and lives are increasingly researched?

Was it Horatio Nelson’s successful and surprisingly modern leadership strategy that made him a hero? For further information read our article Nelson and Mission Command
For further information on how public art was used in Britain to celebrate Nelson as a national hero, both during and after his lifetime, read our article Painting, Propaganda and Patriotism
For an insight into some of the complexities of Nelson’s character, read our article Nelson: Admirable Lord

Pictures:

- Wax effigy of Nelson in the Royal Naval Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

- One of the portraits of Nelson used in the study

www.historicdockyard.co.uk

Victory for Gurkha Veterans

by Kathryn Hadley

Yesterday, Thursday May 21st, the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, announced in parliament that all Gurkha veterans who had served in the British Army for at least four years would be eligible for settlement in the UK.

‘Generations of Gurkhas have served the United Kingdom with great courage, sacrifice and distinction and they continue to make a vital and valued contribution to our operations around the world. Following the clear view expressed by the House of Commons - we have now amended our guidance to ensure that all Gurkhas who served for four years or more can have settlement rights. We will now welcome all those former Gurkhas who wish to live in the UK and we will begin to work through the outstanding cases that have not yet been granted settlement.’

The final victory came after an extremely lengthy campaign, which has been hugely publicised over the past months. The campaign showed initial signs of success in 2004, when the government granted the first Gurkhas the right to settle in the UK if they had served on, or after, July 1st, 1997. On July 1st, the Brigade of Gurkhas base was moved from Hong Kong to the UK. UK residence remained prohibited, however, to Gurkhas who had retired before July 1st, 1997. Whereas the majority of foreign soldiers in the British Army are granted the right to settle in the UK following four years service anywhere in the world, Gurkhas who retired before 1997 were forced to apply for individual visas.

A second victory came at the end of last September, when the London High Court ruled in favour of five Gurkha veterans and a Gurkha widow who had condemned the immigration law. However, it was estimated at the time that 2,000 Gurkhas were still refused UK residence and the judge, Mr Blake, set the Home Office a three-month deadline to review the specific immigration restrictions applicable to Gurkhas. The ensuing battle lasted a further six months. At the end of last year, the government demanded a three-month extension to draft proposals for new legislation and to review the remaining appeals and the deadline was pushed back.

All Gurkhas who have served in the British Army for at least four years will now be allowed to settle in the UK with their spouses and dependent children under the age of 18. The Home Office is expected to receive between 10,000 and 15,000 applications over the next two years. Jacqui Smith also announced yesterday that approximately 1,400 outstanding applications for settlement would be dealt with before June 11th.

An article reporting on the decision was published yesterday on the website of the Ministry of Defence. http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/DefencePolicyAndBusiness/GurkhasGrantedSettlementInTheUk.htm

Chemical Warfare in Roman Times

by Kathryn Hadley

In a recent colloquium held as part of the 110th annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Dr Simon James, from the University of Leicester, presented evidence for what may be the earliest archeological signs of “gas warfare”. He argued that around twenty Roman soldiers found in a siege-mine at the city of Dura-Europos, Syria, died not as a result of sword or spear, but instead through asphyxiation.

The site of Dura-Europos on the banks of the Euphrates was conquered by the Romans around AD 160. In approximately AD 256 it was, however, attacked and subjected to a violent siege by an army from the rising Sasanian Persian Empire. There are no written records of the attack, the dramatic story of which is merely told by archeological remains. The Sasanians notably employed mining operations in an attempt to breach the walls of the Roman city, to which Roman defenders responded with counter-mines.

By studying the position of the bodies of the Roman soldiers found in a tunnel entrance, Dr James concluded that they had been deliberately stacked there in order to hinder the advance of remaining Roman army. Evidence of bitumen and sulphur in the tunnels provided that vital clues: the materials were used to start fires, which when ignited give off clouds of choking gases. Scars of severe burns on the corpses confirm that the bodies were indeed set on fire.

Dr James explained how:

“Careful analysis of the disposition of the corpses shows they had been stacked
at the mouth of the countermine by the Persians, using their victims to create a
wall of bodies and shields, keeping Roman counterattack at bay while they set
fire to the countermine, collapsing it, allowing the Persians to resume sapping
the walls. This explains why the bodies were where they were found. But how did
they die? For the Persians to kill twenty men in a space less than 2m high or
wide, and about 11m long, required superhuman combat powers – or something more
insidious.”

“The Persians will have heard the Romans tunneling and prepared a nasty surprise
for them. I think the Sasanians placed braziers and bellows in their gallery,
and when the Romans broke through, added the chemicals and pumped choking clouds
into the Roman tunnel. The Roman assault party was unconscious in seconds, dead
in minutes.”

Ironically however, this Persian mine failed in the end to destroy the city walls. Archaeological evidence reveals, nevertheless, that the Sasanians did manage to break into the city. Its inhabitants were massacred or deported to Persia and the city was abandoned forever. The site was only rediscovered in 1920. Recent excavations are part of a new research project on the archeology of Dura in order to build on previous campaigns of excavations conducted French and American teams in the 1920s and 1930s.

For more information about the history and archaeology of Dura, visit

http://www.le.ac.uk/archaeology/stj/dura/index.htm
For more information on the Archaeological Institute of America and its last annual meeting, visit www.archaeological.org

For further general information on the relationship between the Roman Empire and Syria, read our article The Syrian Cuckoo: Rome and the Unconquered Sun

Israel & Palestine: Charting a Disastrous Century

by Derry Nairn

As missiles rain down on Gaza and rockets land in southern Israel, perhaps it is timely to consider how exactly history has conspired to lead the holy land into such chaos.

1920s - Policing Palestine

James Barker reveals how parsimony and muddle in Whitehall in the first years of the British Mandate in Palestine almost led to disaster in August 1929.

1930s - Weizmann and Ben-Gurion

With their differing approaches, the founding fathers of the state of Israel laboured to give Zionism unity, force, world respect and, ultimately, a homeland.

1940s - The Bombing of the King David Hotel

James Barker considers the role of terrorism in the establishment of Israel, on the 60th anniversary of the attack on the British military headquarters in Jerusalem.

1950s - Britain's Zionist Misadventure

Robert Carr argues that Britain's handling of, and withdrawal from, Palestine made bloody Arab-Israeli confrontation inevitable at a later date.

1960s - America, Israel and the Six Day War

The Six Day War spawned the special relationship between Israel and the United States of America. Elizabeth Stephens explores the cultural backdrop to this momentous development which resonates in the Middle East to this day.


1970s - The Yom Kippur War

Elizabeth Stephens examines how in 1973 the surprise invasion of Israel by Egypt and its allies started the process that led to Camp David.

1980s - Waltz with Bashir and the 1982 Lebanon War

Kathryn Hadley reviews a recent film which reopens debate over the role played by both sides in Israel's conflict with Hezbollah in the early 1980s.

Gurkhas veterans gain ground

by Kathryn Hadley

Last week, Gurkha veterans won an initial battle in their fight for the right for UK residence when the London High Court ruled in favour of five Gurkha veterans and a Gurkha widow, who had condemned the immigration law, which prohibited UK residence to Gurkhas who had retired before July 1997, when the Brigade of Gurkhas base was moved from Hong Kong to the UK.

The majority of foreign soldiers in the British Army are granted the right to settle in the UK following four years service anywhere in the world. Gurkhas who had retired before 1997 were, however, forced to apply for individual visas in order to be permitted to stay in the UK. The judge Mr Blake set the Home Office a deadline of three months to review the specific immigration restrictions which apply to Gurkhas.

The Nepalese Gurkha soldiers form an integral part of the British Army and have fought for Britain for almost 200 years. More than 200,000 Gurkhas notably fought for Britain during the two world wars and have since notably been involved in the Falklands, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Following its invasion of Nepal, the British East India Company signed a peace treaty in 1815 which notably allowed it to recruit from the ranks of the former enemy. More than 130 years later, following the partition of Nepal in 1947, an agreement was signed between Britain, India and Nepal which provided for the transfer of four Gurkha regiments from the Indian Army into the British Army.

Their recent legal victory is, however, part of a wider campaign for equal rights to British soldiers, which is not over yet. It is hoped that the court ruling will be a first step towards granting UK residence to the 2,000 other veterans who were refused residence as a result of their retirement prior to 1997. The battle continues and will now focus on legislation to ensure that all Gurkha veterans have the same settlement rights as any soldiers in the British Army.

Mapping History

by Derry Nairn

Tools such as Google's My Maps and Yahoo's Pipes allow users to a take information from one source (a normal website, for example) and then apply it onto a map so it is represented visually. It can be done either manually, or, for larger amounts of information, by using code to automatically update the map. Both are relatively simple, and fun.

How about this Spot Crime map as an interesting and practical example? The creator has taken official Police crime figures, wizarded an icon to represent each type of crime, and then mapped the data onto a Google Map so that the best and worst locations for crime can be visualised, according to date.

On the face of it, history would appear to be a discipline extremely conducive to these trends in online mapping. After all, many historical events are defined and later referred to by their location: the Normandy landings; Pearl Harbour; Gallipoli; the Marco Polo bridge incident; and so on. However, the distinct lack of interactive maps which use history as a theme is somewhat odd. So it was interesting this week, to unearth some historical types making the most of these tools.

The first was a new project called Forth's Timeline (www.forthstimeline.net). A quirkily attractive map allows the visitor to zoom up and down the many and various historical sites of the Forth region in Scotland. This was the result of a collaboration between the sites featured on the map itself, and a grant from Museum Galleries Scotland.

While sorting out links at History Today this week, I also came across two interesting historical maps. The first was a Cambridge University project of several years ago, aiming to portray Ferrol, an old naval port in Spain (find the site here). The site is unconventional in that it doesn't use maps, but isometric-style aerial period paintings of the port. Although the iconography and information portrayed is basic, the idea of using this type of layout is intriguing - and due an update!

Another good link is to History World, an American online education portal who are very up to speed on utilising interactivity to enliven what would otherwise be static (and boring) textual data. Their maps page takes several regions and maps History World timelines onto them, displaying the major dates and battles.

Which brings me neatly onto History Today. We have been ferreting away on a few mapping projects of our own of late. The most complete can be found in our new and improved military history section where we have mapped over fifty of history's most famous battlefields onto a world map. Each one is linked back to a HT article, and to make things more interesting, there are several free articles hidden on each continent!

This is only the first such History Today map - there are big plans afoot. Soon we'll have dedicated maps for each sub-section of our site. In the longer term, we plan to geo-tag each of our archived articles (thats over 10,000 in total!) and map them dynamically. So watch this space!

History in the News: Assassins’ weapons on display

by Tom Bowers

A pistol and bomb used by the assassins of Franz Ferdinand are to go on display in Britain for the first time. The assassination of the Austrian Archduke and his wife in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914 sparked the First World War. The items are part of the exhibition In Memoriam: Remembering the Great War at the Imperial War Museum, London, from September 30th.

In Memoriam, which runs until September 6th 2009, marks the 90th anniversary of the Armistice using evidence and memorabilia to highlight notable events in the conflict. Other artefacts on display include the Victoria Cross awarded to one of its youngest recipients, Jack Cornwell, who died at the Battle of Jutland; Wilfred Owen’s Military Cross; and a wreath given to David Lloyd George after the Treaty of Versailles.

For more info on the exhibition, just click here.