Naval battle of 21 October 1805 with a direct Manx connection through Captain John Quilliam.

Quilliam was born in the south of the Isle of Man in 1771. A. W. Moore’s account of his naval career records that he first came prominently to notice at the Battle of Camperdown, where Admiral Duncan promoted him to lieutenant.

At Copenhagen in 1801 Quilliam served in a shallow-draught frigate operating close beneath the Danish batteries. After the officers senior to him were killed, he was left in command. Moore repeated the later story that Nelson came aboard during the action, asked how things were going and received Quilliam’s characteristically brief reply: “middlin’”.

Nelson subsequently appointed him first lieutenant of HMS Victory. At Trafalgar Quilliam therefore served aboard Nelson’s flagship during the action in which the combined French and Spanish fleet was defeated.

Moore wrote that Quilliam helped steer the Victory into battle. The precise details of his role have been treated differently in later accounts, but his service aboard the flagship at Trafalgar is firmly established in the Manx biographical tradition.