Features
Relive the Battle of Trafalgar, and experience a little of what it was like to serve in the 19th-century Navy. And what about Admiral Nelson's famous affair with Lady Hamilton? We spill the beans…
The Battle of Trafalgar
The sea battle that British forces under Admiral Horatio Nelson won on October 21, 1805, was then the single most important military victory in the nation’s history since the stand-off with the Spanish Armada in Elizabethan times. It was achieved at a time of national peril, and against considerably superior forces. Not only did it evoke a sense of deliverance at home, but it also confirmed Britain as the pre-eminent world power on the high seas for the next century.
Nelson the Man
"I will be a hero and, confiding in Providence, I will brave every danger!" Horatio Nelson was only 18 when he made this declaration in 1776. By the time of his death in 1805 he had won fame as a brilliant fighting commander and naval tactician. His reputation as one of England's greatest naval heroes has lasted for more than two centuries and shows no signs of fading, but what was he really like?
Food and Drink aboard the Victory
We might imagine that the average English crewman aboard a 19th-century ship was overworked (which may have been near the truth), but it is wrong to think that they were undernourished.
Life at Sea
"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned. A man in a jail has more room, better food and commonly better company." Dr Samuel Johnson
The story of Nelson and Emma
Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Edward and Mrs Simpson. It is impossible to talk about Nelson without mentioning Emma Hamilton, the great love of his life. Their passionate affair, which scandalised the same society which worshipped Nelson for his military prowess, has resonated through the centuries.
Interview: HMS Victory's Commanding Officer, Lt Cdr John Scivier
What's it like running the oldest Commissioned Warship in the world? ICONS visited the Victory's commanding officer in Portsmouth to find out - and asked him why he thinks the ship is an Icon of England.
Interview: HMS Victory's Commanding Officer, Lt Cdr John Scivier
Nelson's Column
Join TV historian Dan Snow as he gives us the one-minute lowdown on one of London's best-known landmarks, the statue of Admiral Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Square
