Nelson's Death

(Nelson's Monument)

This song references the life of Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) who was victorious in the Battle of Trafalgar on Oct. 21, 1805. Lord Collingwood was another Royal Navy admiral, the notable partner of Nelson during the Napoleonic Wars. By the middle of the 19th century, the song had apparently made its way onto American whaleships. It is distinct from Nelson's Death and Victory and other songs surrounding the famous Admiral.

The song was printed as a broadside and appears throughout the 19th century in the Bodleian Libraries archives. The oldest dating is "between 1819 and 1844". It is found in the journal of William Histed of the New Bedford whaler Cortes (1849). Recordings and transcriptions of the song were collected by Cecil Sharp (from a Mrs. Lock, 1904), Percy Grainger (from George Wray, 1906) and Ralph Vaughan Williams (multiple sources, c. 1908).