A TRAFALGAR HERO.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 271, 24 April 1875, Page 3

A TRAFALGAR HERO.

Another naval hero has passed away in the person of Admiral Sir George Augustus Westphal, Knight, who died at his residence, 2, Brunswick square, Brighton, on the 12th January last, at the advanced age of ninety years. Intimate friends in boyhood, and through life with the late distinguished Admiral James Lillicrap, Superintendent of her Majesty’s Dockyard at Portsmouth, and Naval Aide-de-Camp to George the Fourth, who entered the navy at the early age of nine years in 1780 on board the Racehorse sloop. They both served on board the Victory with the immortal Nelson, and fought at the glorious battle of Trafalgar—the former officer with England’s greatest Admiral ; the latter in the gallant Sir Samuel Hood’s ship the Venerable. In this battle Sir George was laid in the cockpit by the side of his dying chief. When bleeding from the wound Sir George’s head was placed on the coat of Nelson, who had just been brought down stricken to death. Afterwards it was found that three of the bullions from Nelson’s epaulette had got into the gaping wound in Sir George’s head, and as they could not be got out then they had to be cut off. Some years after, when Sir George was asked if he would be able to recognise a coat offered to Greenwich Hospital as that worn by Nelson, the circumstance led him to identify it directly. He found the bullions which had stuck in his wounded head missing from it. Sir George was Naval Aide-de-Camp to the Queen, and was the last surviving officer of those who were on board the Victory at Trafalgar. The coffin bore the plain inscription;—“ Sir George Augustus Westphal, Admiral, died January 12, 1875, in his ninetieth year.” Faithful below they did their duty, And now they are gone aloft.