—- Captain George Duff– Henry Raeburn (copy of c.1800 original)
“The son of a solicitor, George Duff first went to sea as a stowaway on a merchant vessel. Aged 13, he joined his uncle, Captain Robert Duff, in the Mediterranean and, through his uncle’s interest, became a lieutenant
at 16. He saw action in the ‘Montagu’, 74 guns, at the Battle of the
Saints in 1782. He was promoted commander in 1790 and post captain in
1793, a meteoric rise resulting from the growth of the Navy in the build up to war during this period. It was at this time that he married his
childhood sweetheart, Sophia Dirom (sister of Alexander Dirom) in Edinburgh, and that his son Norwich Duff (later to become an admiral in his own right) was born.
Duff was a proud Scotsman as well as a strict disciplinarian. He enforced cleanliness parades every week, and made every effort to make
sure that as many Scots as possible served on his ships, although he
never gave them preferential treatment over their English comrades. He
was also a devoted husband and wrote lengthy letters to his wife during
every journey. He and his wife felt that the letters were so personal
that they destroyed them after reading, and so the only survivor is his
final letter home, which Sophia reportedly was unable to destroy.
A series of commands followed, culminating in the ‘Mars’, 74 guns,
which he took into action at Trafalgar as part of Collingwood’s lee
division.
Such was Duff’s reputation, that Nelson entrusted him with the command of the inshore squadron, which watched the harbour entrance for an enemy
appearance. The job was dangerous due to the proximity of the shore,
and unpleasant because ships stationed at this point were exposed to the
enemy and the threat of failure if the enemy were able to escape. Duff
handled the job excellently however, and on 21 October reported that the
enemy had left Cadiz and were heading out to sea.
Duff entrusted a final letter addressed to his wife, Sophia, to his thirteen-year-old son,
Norwich, who was serving as a first-class volunteer in the ‘Mars’:
‘Dearest Sophia, I have just time to tell you we are going into Action
with the Combined Fleet. I hope and trust in God that we shall all
behave as becomes us, and that I may yet have the happiness of taking my
beloved wife and children in my arms. Norwich is quite well and happy. I
have, however, ordered him off the quarter-deck. Yours ever, and most
truly, George.’
Despite the hopes of his letter, Duff’s battle was brutally short. As
the ‘Mars’ engaged the ‘Fougueux’ and ‘Pluton’, a cannonball from the
former raked across the quarterdeck and struck Duff in the neck,
severing his head completely. Midshipman James Robinson later told his
father that, upon realizing the event, the crew ‘held his body up and
gave three cheers to show they were not discouraged by it’. Duff’s
headless body was covered in a Union flag and the crew returned to the
guns. He was buried at sea, along with his 28 shipmates who had been killed in the battle, after a service conducted in the pouring rain
by Lieutenant William Hennah, attended by Norwich Duff, who survived
the battle, and the defeated French commander Pierre Villeneuve.
Norwich
continued in naval service, reaching the rank of vice-admiral in 1857.
His own letter to his widowed mother opens ‘Dearest Mamma, You cannot
possibly imagine how unwilling I am to begin this melancholy letter…’
The horror of Duff’s death and magnitude of his loss to his family is
captured in the letter Hennah wrote to Sophia Duff on 27 October 1805:
‘I believe that a more unpleasant task, than that which is now imposed
upon me, can scarely fall to the lot of a person … as being myself the
husband of a beloved partner, and the father of children…’
Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund granted Sophia honours and money. A large marble monument with
the inscription “Erected at the Public Expense to the memory of Captain
George Duff who was killed the XXIst of Octr MDCCCV. commanding the Mars
in the battle of Trafalgar in the forty-second year of his age and the
twenty-ninth of his service.” was raised in St Paul’s Cathedral on the wall on the south side of a passage, next to Nelson’s tomb, where it can still be seen.” (x) (x)
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