Greek School 19th Century

1799: Rear-Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson
1800: Revd. Edmund Nelson his father, by gift
1802: George Matchamhis son-in-law, by gift
By descent to the present owners.

1891: Royal Naval Exhibition, Chelsea, cat. no. 3228 ‘Diamond headed cane presented to Lord Nelson by the inhabitants of the Island of Yuaba [sic]’
1905: Exhibition of Nelson Relics, Royal United Services Institute, cat. no. 3038
Formerly on loan to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

Rina Prentice, The Authentic Nelson, (2005), p.156
Matcham M Eyre, The Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, (1911), p.196
Colin White, (ed.), The Nelson Companion, (1997, first pub. 1995), p.73

This cane was one of the many precious objects and trophies Nelson received in tribute of his victory at the battle of the Nile.  The cane was the gift of the people of Zante, a small island in the Ionian Sea which was struggling beneath the yoke of French occupation. Every diamond on the island was said to have been donated to set in the cane. 

The cane was presented at an elaborate ceremony in Palermo—where Nelson had escorted the Hamiltons and Neapolitan Royal Family after the fall of Naples—during the evening of 27 November 1799. The next day, Nelson described his gift in a letter as ‘a beautiful Cane enriched with Diamonds, these flattering marks of approbations from all Religions cannot but afford me the greatest pleasure.’

In a list of ‘Presents to Lord Nelson for his Services in the Mediterranean between October the First 1798 and October the First 1799’ published by the Naval Chronicle in April 1800—and prepared by the admiral himself—the cane is identified as:  ‘an acknowledgement that had it not been for the battle of the Nile, they could not have been liberated from French cruelty’. Of the twelve trophies identified by Nelson on his list, the silver ‘Turkey’ cup, presented by the ‘Merchants of the Levant’ (now in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich), is the only known survivor besides the cane.

On his return to England in November 1800, Nelson evidently gave the cane to his father as, following the death of the Revd. Edmund Nelson two years later, the admiral wrote to George Matcham to inform him that: ‘The Cane my Father always told me was for You therefore for his & my sake keep it’.