[NELSON, Horatio, Viscount (1758-1805)] – NELSON’S QUILL PEN.

[NELSON, Horatio, Viscount (1758-1805)] – NELSON’S QUILL PEN.

A trimmed goose quill pen, 20cm long, ink stains to nib testifying to use. Modern wooden storage tube. [With:] Contemporary statement written and initialled by Major R. Wright, 2 November 1805, describing the gift of the quill by Captain Hardy, with a later ownership inscription on the verso. [And:] a small quantity of later material.

Provenance: Horatio, Viscount Nelson – Major R. Wright; presented by Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy (1769-1839) from Nelson’s writing desk on 2 November 1805 – Robert Mayne Esquire; gift from R. Wright, according to the ownership inscription of – 'G.S.' Edinburgh, 1845, his inscription on the verso of Wright’s statement – sold through Asprey & Garrard – Christie’s, Trafalgar Bicentenary sale, 19 October 2005, lot 44.

Nelson’s quill pen: retrieved by Captain Hardy from the admiral’s desk aboard the Victory following his death at the Battle of Trafalgar, where it lay beside an unfinished letter to Emma Hamilton. The contemporary statement by Major R. Wright recording his acquisition of the quill reads: ‘This pen was taken by Major Wright out of Lord Nelsons writing Desk on the 2nd of Novr 1805 in the presence of capt Hardy of the Victory who desired him to keep it as being the pen with which his Lordship had written for the last time in the morn[ing] of the action. It was lying beside an unfinished le[tter to] Lady Hamilton’. The most likely candidate for the Major Wright who identifies himself in the statement is one Major Robert Wright of the Royal Artillery, then stationed at the Gibraltar garrison. The Victory limped into Gibraltar on 29 October (for an emergency refit) with Nelson's body, pickled in a cask of brandy and lashed to the main mast. Hardy was concerned to effect repairs speedily at Gibraltar so he could return Nelson's body to England, and, by the afternoon of 2 November, Victory and Belleisle were able to set sail for home.

For Nelson's writing box from the Victory, see the exhibition catalogue Nelson and Napoléon, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 2005, pp.208-9, no.239.