#20 Atkinson

I hope you will all indulge me as I feature my favourite item from Pembroke’s Collection.

It’s a small, unassuming notebook that was probably present at one of the most famous moments in British history.

1. This notebook was owned by Thomas Atkinson, Master of HMS Victory under Nelson.

2. It measures 160 by 100mm and is a fairly cheap type of notebook of the period.

3. It covers the period of January-June 1805, when Nelson was chasing the French fleet across the Atlantic and back, then around the Mediterranean. Frustratingly, the account of the battle of Trafalgar, which took place in October, was in a later notebook. This certainly existed, and was sold at auction in the 19th century, but since then, it has disappeared from sight.

4. This is not the ship’s log, but Atkinson’s personal notebook, in which he kept his own notes and measurements. They show him tracking the ship’s position and provisions.

5. Nelson once described Atkinson as ‘the finest Master in the British Navy’, and personally asked him to come on board HMS Victory in 1801.

6. The two men were close, to the point where Nelson was godfather to one of Atkinson’s children.

7. Atkinson is said to have held Nelson when he had his arm amputated, and he also features in Benjamin West’s great portrait of the death of Nelson.

8. He was the only non-peer to be in Nelson’s funeral barge, indicating the regard in which Nelson held him. Masters on ships in the British Navy of the period occupied a position between the regular crew and the officers, not really being part of either group.

9. This book was in a box purchased at auction by the then Master of Pembroke, GW Hall in 1815. This means Atkinson was living at the time it came to Pembroke

10. Atkinson was a master map maker, and many of his maps can still be seen at the Greenwich museum library. For more on mapmaking and wayfinding in Nelson’s Navy, Michael Barritt’s article in the 2022 Trafalgar Chronicle gives a good starting point.