The Master and Commander revealed: The real Captain Jack Aubrey, at your service

Master: Sea commander Edward Pellew is believed to be the 'real-life' Captain Jack Aubrey



Fearsome in battle, chivalrous to a worthy foe, a father figure to his men – for readers of maritime novels he is a familiar hero. Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey is the kind of fighting captain who made Nelson’s Navy supreme.

Fiction has been more successful than biography at bringing such men to life, whether in the shape of Aubrey or an earlier hero, Horatio Hornblower. Curiously, a real sea officer links both characters.

C.S. Forester gave Edward Pellew a fictional role as mentor to young Midshipman Hornblower. But, I believe, he was also a model for Aubrey, who was played by Russell Crowe in the 2003 film Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World.

Pellew’s beginnings were hard. Left fatherless aged eight in a humble Cornish home, he battled from the very bottom of the Navy to the top through pure seamanship and a series of brilliant frigate victories.



Yet the memory of poverty was never erased; he pursued wealth almost as avidly as he did a French man-of-war.

These facts were clear when I began to research Pellew’s life, but what I did not know was how often I would be drawn to the way his exploits echo O’Brian’s creation.

Both Pellew and Aubrey enjoyed spectacular success in single-ship actions, and were gunnery experts who drilled the crew hard for speed and accuracy of fire.

Both were strong swimmers who would dive overboard to rescue drunken hands.



Both formed long friendships with enemy captains, and were fiercely loyal to the crew who followed them devotedly from ship to ship.

While utterly single-minded in battle, both men were genial hosts in the captain’s great cabin, fond of claret and company, yet unworldly fellows who made a terrible hash of dealing with superiors. Big men who tended to bulk in later years, they were loving fathers and husbands, yet with an eye that might roam.

O’Brian, who died in 2000, was touchily guarded about his inspiration for Aubrey. Many cite Thomas Cochrane, a hero of the Napoleonic Wars who, like Aubrey, captured a Spanish frigate and was later disgraced in a Stock Exchange scandal.



But Cochrane, a socially awkward Scot, shared little else with genial, quintessentially English Aubrey. O’Brian denied any connection to Cochrane, insisting that the real model was his own brother, Michael.

O’Brian read vastly and cherry-picked shrewdly. He was clearly familiar with the life of Pellew by C. Northcote Parkinson. Published in 1934, it told, among other things, how Pellew was a powerful swimmer who plunged into the sea at least six times to save crew members.

Silver-screen: Russell Crowe portrayed Patrick O'Brian's beloved hero Captain Jack Aubrey in 2003 movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Nor could it have escaped O’Brian that the chivalrous Pellew formed a life-long friendship with a French captain, Jacques Bergeret, whom he bested in battle. O’Brian had Aubrey form a similarly enduring bond with gallant Captain Christy-Palliere.

My research turned up other echoes. While Pellew’s fighting record defines him as the greatest frigate captain in the age of sail, he attracted bitter resentment from his rivals and social betters. His dealings with senior officers were perilously clumsy, yet his love for his men was as transparent as his desire for honour.

Like Aubrey, Pellew’s career as a commander began in a blaze of glory. In four years from 1793, he captured three French frigates in single-ship actions and destroyed a 74-gun French warship. It is a matchless record.



His finest command, the frigate Indefatigable, became a byword for sailing brilliance. As well as the lure of prize money, seamen were drawn to serve with him by his reputation for fairness and luck.

Liek Captain Jack: Just as the man he inspired, Edward Pellew had a glorious start to his career with naval victories against the French in the late 18th century

His mentoring of proteges struck another chord. Closest of all was Jeremiah Coghlan, a young hand who volunteered to join his daring rescue of hundreds of men, women and children from the wreck of the troopship Dutton, off Plymouth, in 1796.

Seeing his young self in Coghlan, Pellew took him on as master’s mate and helped him rise to captaincy, much as Aubrey mentored another humble fellow, Tom Pullings. Two other Pellew followers, George Bell and William Kempthorne, enjoyed his support in his service before winning commands, as did Aubrey’s Babbington and Mowett.

Like all fictional characters, Aubrey is a subliminal fusion of the author’s imagination and learning. Yet Pellew’s personal papers reveal a voice as distinctive and somehow as familiar as that of Aubrey.

Sea officers are not renowned for the vividness of their letters. Stirring deeds are one thing, thoughtful reflections quite another.



Perhaps that’s why they often come across as stereotypes: on the one hand the romantic figure of Nelson; on the other, brutal tyrants, such as William Bligh (at least in some accounts).

Pellew’s letters reveal his human side. His education was scanty and his atrocious hand can defy transcription, but on paper his intimacy and sensibility are strikingly modern. Writing to a former shipmate in a chatty, confidential tone, he discusses his sons, to whom he was devoted, and even his ups and downs with his wife Susan.

Open ending: When O'Brian died he left dozens of handwritten pages on another novel about Capt. Aubrey but we will never know how he had intended to finish it

His flaws flowed from this same emotional temperament. Prize money made him a wealthy man, and his exploits earned him a knighthood and a viscountcy.



But having raised his family from poverty, he had a dread that they might be cast back into it. He helped to conceal the fallibility of his younger brother and fellow captain, Israel Pellew.

More damagingly, he took his two eldest sons on to his own quarterdeck and promoted both well beyond their capabilities. Even in the Navy, where nepotism was common, his conduct stood out and helped his enemies’ case.

We will never know how O’Brian would have had Aubrey’s career end. When the author died, he left just 65 handwritten pages of a 21st novel. All we know is that his hero had at last been promoted to the heights of flag rank: Rear Admiral of the Blue.

Pellew’s story ends more satisfyingly. Having suffered a decline precipitated by vengeful superiors – Lord Spencer and Lord St Vincent – he too reached flag rank. In the final episode of his life at sea, in 1816, he brought off a mission to rescue more than a thousand Christian slaves in Barbary. The Battle of Algiers, as it became known, was a feat as brilliant as any he achieved as a frigate captain – a victory crowned, moreover, with humanity.

He retired to the coast as Viscount Exmouth of Canonteign and spent his remaining years looking out to sea, surrounded by a loving family. In the end he was no Jack Aubrey. He was simply Edward Pellew.