The Nelson Monument, Portsdown Hill
Encyclopedia
Portsmouth Harbour
Portsmouth Harbour is a large natural harbour in Hampshire, England. Geographically it is a ria: formerly it was the valley of a stream flowing from Portsdown into the Solent River. The city of Portsmouth lies to the east on Portsea Island, and Gosport to the west on the mainland...
on the south coast of England. It was the eventual outcome of a movement started during Horatio Nelson's lifetime to “perpetuate the glorious victories of the British Navy.” By 1799 Nelson's prize agent Alexander Davison
Alexander Davison
Alexander Davison was an English businessman, born on 2 April 1750 in Lanton, Northumberland, England and who died in 1829 in Brighton, England. He was a contemporary and close friend of Admiral Lord Nelson....
was able to use the Nelson name to spearhead a campaign, to honour “Britain’s naval glory and pre-eminence”. It was, however, Nelson’s death at Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, that galvanized the campaign.
A design for the monument by John Thomas Groves of the Board of Works was exhibited at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
in 1807, and letters were written to The Times asking where the money Davison had raised had gone, but the £4050 he raised was never recovered. The final (and successful) attempt was paid for by the Navy itself. This time the fund’s driving force, Captain Thomas Freemantle, adopted a more altruistic approach, and the monument commenced construction on 4 July 1807 with the final checks to the inscription made just over a year later.
Today it is within the boundaries of Fareham Borough Council
Fareham
The market town of Fareham lies in the south east of Hampshire, England, between the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth, roughly in the centre of the South Hampshire conurbation.It gives its name to the borough comprising the town and the surrounding area...
. The nearby Fort Nelson, Portsmouth
Fort Nelson, Portsmouth
Fort Nelson, in the civil parish of Boarhunt in the English county of Hampshire, is one of five defensive forts built on the summit of Portsdown Hill in the 1860s, overlooking the important naval base of Portsmouth. It is now part of the Royal Armouries, housing their collection of...
, completed in 1871 as another Napoleon
Napoleon III of France
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...
threatened England's South Coast, is so named because of its proximity to the monument.