A tattered panel of red, white and blue woollen fabric, an unusually large surviving piece of the union flag flown at Trafalgar from Lord Nelson’s ship Victory – one of hundreds of battle-stained souvenir fragments to which the flag was reduced by sailors grieving for their lost admiral – is to be auctioned by Sotheby’s at an estimated price of up to £100,000.

On Nelson’s orders, his fleet flew the union flag as well as the white ensign at the battle against the French on 21 October 1805, which became his greatest victory but which cost him his life. The flags from HMS Victory came back to the UK with his body and were displayed as he lay in state in the Painted Hall at Greenwich, before being carried in his funeral procession to St Paul’s Cathedral in January 1806.

The ceremony was supposed to end with the sailors who carried the union flag folding it reverently and laying it on Nelson’s coffin before it was lowered into the grave. The Naval Chronicle recorded what actually happened: “These brave fellows, however, desirous of retaining some memorials of their great and favourite commander, had torn off a considerable part of the largest flag, of which most of them obtained a portion.”

Many of the surviving fragments are in museums, including the Maritime Museum at Greenwich, and sales from private collections are rare. This piece was apparently once even larger: it was owned by Capt William Hugh Dobbie – who was not at Trafalgar but serving with the East India Company – and was left by him to the museum of the Royal United Services Institute, which was broken up in the 1960s.



Collectors are avid for any Trafalgar memorabilia: the last complete flag from the fleet to be auctioned, from HMS Spartiate, went for almost £400,000 in 2009, 40 times the estimate. The Victory fragment will be sold with other Nelson items, including a cache of his letters, on 17 January.