Is it true you are related to Captain Adair, the Commander of the Royal Marines on HMS Victory?
Perhaps I should start by explaining that Charles William Adair, who died at Trafalgar, is my 5th cousin, 6 times removed, so he is not exactly a close relation, but we do share the same Irish ancestors.

Over the years I have done some research into his branch of the family, Adair had a short, but distinguished career in the Marines.
The Globe and Laurel, writing 100 years after the battle, reported that he obtained his commission “at the early age of six”. It is hard to believe, investigative journalism in 1905 does not seem so exacting as it is today.
He joined Victory in 1803 and so Nelson would have known him well. Incidentally, earlier in Nelson’s life, one of his surgeons was Robert Adair, but I have not yet established a link between him and me.

Adair appears in Thomas Davidson’s famous painting Nelson’s Last Signal at Trafalgar, standing on deck rather distantly with his arms folded. In fact he appears to be the only person in the picture who is not doing anything! Obviously later in the battle he got a bit busier, when Secretary Scott was struck down by cannon fire, Adair, with the help of another sailor, removed his body from Nelson’s sight.

How was Adair killed at the Battle of Trafalgar?
Some moments later, eight marines in close formation on the poop were killed by a double-headed shot, and Nelson ordered Adair to disperse the rest of his men round the ship under cover of the hammock settings, so that they should not suffer so much from being crowded together.

Shortly afterwards HMS Victory closed the Redoubtable and that is when Adair was killed.
Now there are two accounts of this. The first is that,with a small party of Marines he was driving back the French boarders, and while he was standing on the poop of the gangway, a musket ball in the back of the head killed him. Thus itis possible that his own men killed him! The alternative, and my preferred account is that Nelson ordered Adair to lead some of his men aloft in order they might fire from the tops. “Come along” shouted Adair to his men “and I’ll make sailors of you”. He jumped upon the ratlines but before he got more than a fathom aloft, he fell down dead on the deck at Nelson’s feet with 18 musket balls in his body. It is recorded that Nelson’s last words before being hit himself were, “There goes poor Adair, I may be next to follow him”. The account continues that one of the Marine corporals, who had his arm shot off by a cannon ball, picked up Adair’s sash, bound it round the stump, collected a party to board the ship and was the first on the enemy’s deck.

Did Charles Adair have any family who later joined the Services?
Although Charles was married he had no children that survived to adulthood. He did have a brother who became a General in the Marines and who fathered a dynasty of distinguished Royal Marine and Naval Officers. There are five family portraits that hang in the Royal Marine’s museum at Eastney. In fact there was a great-grandson who fought at the Battle of Jutland who died in the late ’80s. But perhaps the most infamous was a grandson who managed to run the new battleship, HMS Montagu, ashore on the island of Lundy in thick fog during radio trials in May 1906. The ship was a total loss, he was court martialled, but still retired an Admiral and subsequently became an MP!

What do you think Nelson means to us today?
It is the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar, and I think we must honour Nelson, a truly remarkable man, who with his Captains, his band of brothers, led British sailors to victory in one of the key battles in world history.

For many years it has been fashionable to mock history and tradition, but to do so is both unwise and dangerous. On the other hand, to become obsessed with precedent and ceremonial and believe that the ritual remembrance of the great achievements of our predecessors will automatically bring success is, in many ways even more perilous. We must never forget that we have no divine right to victory at sea.

Do you feel that there are any qualities that Nelson’s Navy possessed that run through today’s British Fleet?
We should remember that, first and foremost, it is people who count in life, and that whilst to have a genius as a Commander is a great help, as are new and wonderful weapons, battles are in the end won by getting ordinary people to rise above themselves and their fears. It is getting them to make the best of what they have and to make the right decisions.
Humans are naturally fearful and reluctant to take risks, especially with their own lives. Bravery is not being without fear; bravery is rising above it. Problems cannot be solved by equipment alone, we rely now, as then, on the calibre of the men and women who operate that equipment and that is what we have in today’s Royal Navy.

It is recorded that Nelson’s last words before being hit himself were, “There goes poor Adair, I may be next to follow him”