Strong Dorset links to Trafalgar history - Captain of HMS Africa

Admiral of the Blue Sir Henry Digby was in command of HMS Africa at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Having been separated from the main British fleet before the battle, the Africa arrived from a different direction without knowing the battle plan that Horatio Nelson had devised. As the rest of the fleet engaged the combined Franco-Spanish fleet in a pell-mell battle, Digby sailed the Africa down the line of enemy ships in a parallel fashion, exchanging broadsides.

The current owner of Minterne House in Dorset, is the 13th Baron Digby, Lord Henry Digby. He told BBC Radio Solent reporter Laurence Herdman about the action taken by his namesake, Captain Henry Digby on 21st October 1805 (his grandfather Robert Digby's nephew). It was on this fateful day that Lord Nelson died at the Battle of Trafalgar. Many letters, paintings and prizes remain at Minterne House from the Battle of Trafalgar.

Every year, on 21st October, Trafalgar Day marks a celebration of the victory won by the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, over the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Dorset has other strong connections with Nelson's fleet which won the Battle of Trafalgar. Highly decorated Vice Admiral Charles Bullen, the Flag Captain of the Britannia, spent his childhood in Weymouth. Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy, the Flag Captain of HMS Victory was born in Portesham with Hardy's monument erected in his memory nearby.

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