LORD NELSON'S STATE FUNERAL ~ January 9, 1806

1806 – Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson receives a state funeral and is interred in St. Paul's Cathedral. His funeral was two and a half months after the Battle of Trafalgar.

Nelson's body was returned to Britain aboard the Victory. Unloaded at the Nore it was taken to Greenwich and placed in a lead coffin, and that in another wooden one, made from the mast of L'Orient which had been salvaged after the Battle of the Nile. He lay in state in the Painted Hall at Greenwich for three days, before being taken up river aboard a barge, accompanied by Lord Hood, Sir Peter Parker, and the Prince of Wales. The coffin was taken into the Admiralty for the night, attended by Nelson's chaplain, Alexander Scott. The next day, 9 January, a funeral procession consisting of 32 admirals, over a hundred captains, and an escort of 10,000 troops took the coffin from the Admiralty to St. Paul's Cathedral. After a four-hour service he was laid to rest within a sarcophagus originally carved for Thomas Cardinal Wolsey.

Nelson's most famous monument is his column in Trafalgar Square in central London.

Image & text:wikipedia.com