The inside story from a humble sailor in Lord Nelson's navy
He wears whiskers and a stovepipe hat as he stares proudly from the pages of the journal that he kept during 40 years at sea.
The self-portrait is the only known likeness of George Hodge, ordinary seaman, and one of the very few pictures of a humble sailor in Nelson’s navy. While officers and admirals were immortalised in oils, most sailors lived, and died, out of sight.
Hodge’s journal records the ships he served on, the oceans he sailed, the ports he visited and the actions in which he fought, between 1790 and his retirement from the sea in 1833. It includes everything from the lyrics of sea shanties to a picture of the first ship on which he served. His spelling may have been erratic - apparently he was self-educated – but his paintings were filled with naive charm.
Hodge’s naval career spanned an era when Britannia really did rule the oceans. He saw action in the Napoleonic Wars and the American War of 1812, from the West Coast of Africa to the Great Lakes. His watercolours include one of HMS Tremendous, forlorn in storm-tossed seas after an encounter with the French, and his own ship the Lancaster, all flags flying during a review off the Cape.
The 7-and-One-half inch journal was still in Hodge's family in the 1880s but its subsequent history is unknown until it was bought by an American collector, J. Welles Henderson, a lawyer, from a London bookdealer 20 years ago.
Mr Henderson, who founded a maritime museum in Philadelphia, died last year, and more than 600 items from his collection are being sold tomorrow by Northeast Auctions in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Hodge’s volume is expected to fetch up to $50,000 (£26,750).
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The self-portrait is the only known likeness of George Hodge, ordinary seaman, and one of the very few pictures of a humble sailor in Nelson’s navy. While officers and admirals were immortalised in oils, most sailors lived, and died, out of sight.
Hodge’s journal records the ships he served on, the oceans he sailed, the ports he visited and the actions in which he fought, between 1790 and his retirement from the sea in 1833. It includes everything from the lyrics of sea shanties to a picture of the first ship on which he served. His spelling may have been erratic - apparently he was self-educated – but his paintings were filled with naive charm.
Hodge’s naval career spanned an era when Britannia really did rule the oceans. He saw action in the Napoleonic Wars and the American War of 1812, from the West Coast of Africa to the Great Lakes. His watercolours include one of HMS Tremendous, forlorn in storm-tossed seas after an encounter with the French, and his own ship the Lancaster, all flags flying during a review off the Cape.
The 7-and-One-half inch journal was still in Hodge's family in the 1880s but its subsequent history is unknown until it was bought by an American collector, J. Welles Henderson, a lawyer, from a London bookdealer 20 years ago.
Mr Henderson, who founded a maritime museum in Philadelphia, died last year, and more than 600 items from his collection are being sold tomorrow by Northeast Auctions in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Hodge’s volume is expected to fetch up to $50,000 (£26,750).