Rare insight into life under Nelson

Aug 20 2008 by Tony Henderson, The Journal

THE emergence of a rare journal kept by a Tyneside sailor who fought in Lord Nelson’s fleet was hailed yesterday by a North East maritime historian.

The astonishing 500-page account is by George Hodge, and describes his life at sea from 1790 until his retirement in 1833.

It features his own watercolour illustrations, including a self-portrait of him in stove pipe hat, blue jacket and sporting side whiskers.

There are also his paintings of ships – including the Royal Navy ship Mary on the stocks at North Shields – ports, and foreign flags.

Hodge was born in 1777 in Tynemouth, and went to sea at the age of 13 aboard the coal brig Margery. His diary includes descriptions of day-to-day life, as well as his experiences as a press-ganged seaman and prisoner during the Napoleonic Wars, and the words of sea shanties.

His below-decks experiences cover the time when Britain ruled the waves.

The diary has just been sold by Northeast Auctions in New Hampshire in the United States, fetching £69,000 – more than double the pre-auction estimate.

Tony Barrow lives in Embleton in Northumberland and three years ago published the book Trafalgar Geordies, on the 500 North East sailors who fought in the battle and on the role of the region’s seamen in Nelson’s Navy from 1793-1815.

“The local history value of George Hodge’s journal is immense,” said Mr Barrow, who retired last year from his post as history lecturer at Newcastle College.

It is very rare to have a below decks account from those who served in times of war. Most journals which survive are from an officer or warrant officer perspective, and in any case many accounts have been lost over the years.

“North and South Shields, Newcastle and Sunderland provided more men for naval service than any place other than London.”

The Admiralty was well aware of the talents of the seamen who crewed the collier ships which exported coal from the North East, and press-ganged them frequently. “There was a fantastic concentration of skilled mariners in the North East and the Admiralty recruited them legitimately and otherwise,” said Mr Barrow, who next month will lead a 10-week course on Life and Death at Sea in the Age of Sail at Holy Saviours church hall in Hodge’s home village of Tynemouth.

Hodge’s journal opens with: “George Hodge his Book Consisting of Difrint ports & ships that I have sailed in since the year 1790. Aged 13 years.”

At that age Hodge was sailing to London from the Tyne on a collier and four years later he was taken prisoner by the French while on a voyage to the Baltic.

In 1798 he was press-ganged into service on HMS Lancaster. In the next nine years he sailed to the West African coast, Ceylon and the East Indies. In 1808 he was on board the 74-gun HMS Marlborough which on the outbreak of war with America in 1812 was involved in attacks on Osewgo, New York.

In 1815 Hodge left the Royal Navy after more than 17 years service and then joined the merchant fleet.

An addition after Hodge’s death shows that he had children, and the diary was held by his descendants until the 1880s.

It was sold as part of the extensive nautical collection of American lawyer J Welles Henderson, who bought the diary in London in 1988.