Heller Victory Research - Clarkson Stanfield Trafalgar painting for the United Service Club 1833

Clarkson Stanfield’s “Battle of Trafalgar” painting for the United Service club, London 1833
Wouldn’t it be perfect if there was a sailor on board the Victory at the battle of Trafalgar who turned out to be a fabulous maritime painter and could render an image of the battle with all of the details a sailor (and a ship modeler) would appreciate? Well… we don’t have that. No such person existed. But we do have… a sailor of the Napoleonic period who turned out to be one of England’s finest Marine painters. And a bunch of veterans of the battle who wanted a painting that represented the battle as they saw it. 

Clarkson Stanfield (often erroneously cited as William Clarkson Stanfield) started sailing on coal colliers in 1808. He was inevitably pressed into HM service where he ended up a midshipman aboard a frigate. Eventually discharged in 1814 after a fall from the rigging, Stanfield made one more commercial cruise to China where he apparently earned enough to set himself up in the London theater district as a scene painter. He built a nice reputation for fast accurate brushwork on a grand scale and worked on big theatrical extravaganzas that came as close to a 3D IMAX film as the 1820’s could produce. He was a member of the R.A. and a close pal of Dickens.

The United Service club of London was founded by a bunch of officers of both services idled by the end of the Napoleonic wars. To become a member you needed to have achieved a minimum rank (Commander in the Navy, Major in the Army?) and pay an exorbitant annual fee. Membership was restricted to 1200 or so… Sometime deep in the 1820’s, as these gentlemen got long in the tooth, they decided they needed two great paintings to commemorate their experiences – one for Waterloo and one for Trafalgar. For Trafalgar they commissioned Clarkson Stanfield and gave him full access to official records, after battle reports, etc. as well as first person insights from the members themselves. In addition to officers who were midshipmen, lieutenants, etc. at the time of the battle, membership included Sir Edward Codrington, captain of HMS Orion, and Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy himself – who was now First Sea Lord. Above all, these guys wanted to avoid the debacle that accompanied the Turner painting and have a final product that completely and accurately represented what it was like to be at the battle of Trafalgar. They purportedly supervised all the details and signed off on galley versions (some in the NMM collection) before the final painting was produced – an enormous 18 x 11 foot masterpiece of smoldering, battle damaged ships healing into wind and swell. Incidentally, whenever this painting shows up in books, it is usually the very inferior knockoff copy produced by George Chambers.

Here is a current link to a URL originally created by the National Geographic Society that allows you to zoom over the details: 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/The_Battle_of_Trafalgar_by_William_Clarkson_Stanfield.jpg



Ostensibly the battle is depicted at @2:30pm as Victory disengages from Redoubtable. I think the famous incident of the prize crew being politely escorted off of Santisima Trinidad is depicted on the far right even though the timing may not quite align.

Take a quick pass across the canvas to get an overall sense of the accuracy. The British ships all show iron bands around the masts while the combined fleet all have rope wooldings. That’s a good detail that few landlubber artists are probably going to incorporate. The relative position of the combatants generally aligns with the battle state depicted in the excellent Mark Adkin book. From the left Royal Sovereign lies alongside the dismasted Santa Ana - the stern of the hard fought Belleisle pokes out behind. The French Fougueaux gets pounded by both the Mars and Temeraire - which in turn is locked against Redoubtable by her fallen mizzen. Victory is in the center. The shattered stern of the Bucentaure underscores the devastation of Victory's initial treble-shotted broadside. Intrepide is firing her stern guns at Neptune as she emerges from an exchange with Santisima Trinidad on the far right. Achille burns astern of the whole scene. 

Other accurate detail: all of Nelson’s ships are flying an ensign from a forestay as an IFF measure. The Redoubtable has her ports closed – Captain Lucas had figured his ship couldn’t compete in a gunnery duel and had trained his crew for boarding. The closed gun ports were part of his plan to ensure his opponent could not counter board through any open ports. Victory correctly appears to have lost her mizzen topmast. Midshipman Rivers' journal notes that the starboard cathead was damaged and the anchor cast loose - we see the anchor being fished back aboard. We also see the stuns'l booms deployed and splintered. An officer waves to the Santisima Trinidad from the taffrail of the French flagship. Villenueve was criticized for not transferring his flag to another ship to continue directing the battle. His after battle report stated that his boats were all useless after the initial broadsides and he asked an officer to hail the nearest allied ship to send over a boat. So overall this seems to suggest a high degree of accurate detail – some of which didn’t come to light until long after the painting appeared.

Look at the Victory: The bands clearly extend around the cutwater - as they do on all the visible British ships. The bulwarks are built up on the Focs'le. The bow shows similarities to the dockyard model. She does not appear to have an entry port. The masts have the bands painted out. When Victory emerged from her early 20th century restoration she had black iron bands around the masts. In fact they weren’t painted out until the 1970’s while this painting (and Turner’s) sat for 140 years clearly showing her with solid ochre masts. I think the evidence of Victory's signal log with an entry from Nelson yelling at Polyphemus and Belleisle to paint out their @$@%! bands to conform to the rest of the fleet finally triggered the change. Interestingly, not only the mast, but the tops are painted ochre - only the masthead appears to be black. And while we're on the tops - have a look at another detail: crows feet. Before we think Stanfield didn't realize they had gone out of style we should note that none of the other ships show them. Only the Victory having them strongly suggests, at least to me, it was an insight from an eyewitness to enrich the detail - possibly Hardy himself. The bowsprit is entirely ochre - no black at all. A few more tidbits; Clarkson Stanfield was very Catholic and he inserted a cross in the form of a bobbing topmast to mark the spot within Victory's hull where Nelson lay dying. Zoom in up forward - Stanfield shows two spars thrust out of the lower gun ports. Apparently when disengaging from Redoubtable the crew used these to push the bow away from her adversary to gain headway. A very cool detail only a witness could probably provide.

This painting is clearly problematic if you’re of the opinion that the Victory as represented in Portsmouth today is the Victory of Trafalgar (aside from the overly shiny finish). It begs the obvious question: With so much apparent pedigree behind it, why doesn’t the Victory in Portsmouth look more like the one in this painting?

While I very much admire the effort it took to bring the great ship to her current condition, I believe it is a bit disingenuous that she is represented as preserved in her Trafalgar state - particularly in regard to her paint scheme. More accurately I would think she is represented in the closest state to her Trafalgar condition that official, written historical documents allow (dockyard records, carpenters logs, manifests, captain orders, etc.). I have no idea what goes on in the back room meetings of the VATC or how they approve changes, but I think it very likely that a painting or model is prohibited from serving as a direct source for her restoration and preservation. That would be unfortunate because certain facts may only exist in a painting. It is entirely likely that Nelson and his captains discussed and agreed on ways to implement easy identification in the coming battle during Nelson's famous "band of brothers" dinners on the flagship and nobody felt compelled to transcribe them into written orders. Perhaps the recent shenanigans with Peter Goodwin using the Devis painting to move the site of Nelson’s death will open a door in this respect. Most likely, these types of contemporary sources won't be considered anytime soon.

I, of course, operate under no such limitations and I'm hoping to incorporate much of what we see here into my build. Will it look exactly like Victory at Trafalgar? No way it could - too much is lost and obscured in the mists of history. But when they finally build HG Wells' time machine and spin the dials to October 21st 1805 and pull the lever in a hiss of steam... I bet Nelson's flagship will look more like Stanfield's Victory than the scrupulously documented grand relic in Portsmouth.

(This post is one of three associated with research for my Heller Victory build: