Hello, sailor! The British museum trying to sink Nelson by turning him gay

This very website recently carried a piece about contemporary attempts to ruin Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson’s reputation by disingenuously smearing him as an avid supporter of the transatlantic slave-trade. The National Maritime Museum (NMM) in London has just tried the opposite line, attempting to “improve” the Admiral’s standing in the eyes of contemporary woke opinion instead … by implying he was gay.

This is how the story was reported in right-leaning British newspapers like The Daily Telegraph and The Sun, in any case; the NMM itself subsequently claimed such stories were “misleading”. Were they? Arguably not quite as misleading as the NMM’s denial and displays themselves.

Kiss me, Hardy

According to the evil homophobic British Press, in order to celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month this February, the NMM had decided to examine the great naval hero’s life “through a queer lens”, as part of what was termed on social media to be a #NELSONFEST. A talk was to be hosted on NMM premises by something called the “Queer History Club”, about Nelson and the “men who loved him”, even though the Admiral was famously heterosexual, at least to judge by his notorious adulterous dalliance with Lady Emma Hamilton who, as her title implies, was very much an actual female lady, with corresponding female lady-parts to boot.

Nonetheless, implied the Queer History Club, this infamous romance still sort of made Nelson “queer”, as in “non-normative“, leading all the Queer Historians involved to begin incontinently “crushing on the ghosts of the Nelson-Hamilton thruple”. That’s right: Nelson, Lady Emma and her cuckolded husband Sir William were actually an early polyamorous trio. Promotional material to this apparent effect was seen by journalists, but then mysteriously disappeared from the NMM’s website once reporters began making queries (or “making queeries”, as the NMM themselves would surely prefer).

Fortunately, one intrepid online archaeologist from the Telegraph managed to archive some of the NMM’s deleted web-material before it could be consigned to Davy Jones’ Locker forever – just have a look at this incredibly bizarre video about a series of drag queens and activist artists with names like Bird la Bird and The Mollusc Dimension queering the NMM’s famous “Armada Portrait” of Queen Elizabeth I at presumable taxpayer expense.

All the nice girls love a sailor

Once certain actual naval historians out there were alerted to this nonsense and began objecting that Nelson was not gay at all, the NMM jumped into action and denied point-blank they were really seeking to see Lord Nelson “be reimagined as a gay icon”. Instead, they were just handing over part of their premises temporarily to a wholly benign and independent outside organisation who sought not to begin “questioning Nelson’s sexuality, but [exploring] how men within a male environment establish friendship and devotion” towards one another – by giving Horatio fellatio, presumably.

“Nelson has been used as a starting point to engage new audiences,” they further explained, the words “new audiences” here really meaning “a gang of obsessive homosexuals”. Whilst the NMM itself “approaches its historical sources from an evidence-based position”, and thus was wholly unable to give any talks implying Nelson was gay themselves, as there was no evidence whatsoever to back up this false claim, when it came to outside visitors, the case was very different. In such circumstances, the institution “also gives space to more emotive and creative responses to people, events and objects, as a way of engaging audiences.”

The likely translation of this is as follows: “Being wholly captured by the Far-Left, we would love to suggest that Lord Nelson was gay, in order to publicly signal how right-on and woke we are. However, Nelson was clearly not gay, and we would receive huge amounts of criticism from the general, non-gay public, if we ever dared suggest otherwise. Therefore, we deliberately invited a load of random unqualified queers in to make the suggestion for us at arm’s-length, based upon “more emotive and creative” lines of reasoning [i.e., making things up], so we can then deny we did any such thing at all, should we ever get rumbled by the newspapers.” Just imagine if the National Holocaust Memorial Museum were to begin facilitating lectures by neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers about how Auschwitz didn’t really exist, in the name of “widening audience participation to all” likewise, and you can see how clearly faulty is the NMM’s logic here.

However, it seems also seems possible the Queer History Club were not necessarily acclaiming Nelson as literally being gay, just creatively exploring, as a group of enthusiastic homosexuals themselves, what it might have been like on-board HMS Victory if he had been gay – a non-stop orgy of rum, sodomy and the lash. Arguably, the Queer Historians were just pointlessly and self-indulgently exploring Nelson as an imaginary gay icon in their valuable public talks, rather than as a an actual, historically existing, heterosexual figure. Again, however, to see just how spurious this entire exercise would be, just imagine if the British Library had allowed a group of amateur enthusiasts from the Hetero History Club to hold a talk there exploring the life of Oscar Wilde as if he was a straight icon: after all, young Oscar was married to a woman, wasn’t he?

Unanchored from reality

Maybe the NMM aren’t entirely responsible for absolutely every last stupid little thing the outside speakers they invite in say on their premises. But surely they are responsible for every last stupid little thing they put on display inside their own actual exhibition rooms? If so, then it becomes immediately obvious that the NMM directors are currently engaged in an institutionally all-encompassing programme of steadily transforming what was once a place of politically neutral military-historical education into a place of Far-Left political, racial, sexual and moral pseudo-historical re-education instead.

This February half-term, for example, for all those parents disturbed enough to wish to celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month by dragging their offspring along to be groomed into gayness by curators, the NMM are putting on an entire suite of homo-tastic activities for kids, such as the following “Penguin Pride” activity:

Penguin pride   
Thursday 15 February | 11am-1pm | 2pm-4pm   
Learn about penguin pride and make your own pocket penguin to take home! During Captain Scott’s Terra Nova expedition to the Antarctic in 1910-13, scientists first discovered same-sex behaviour between penguins. They decided to cover up their findings by writing them in Greek alphabet code. The story was forgotten for decades until it was finally published in 2012. Today, penguins feature on the symbol for the organisation Pride in Polar Research – there’s even a book about a same-sex penguin couple who lived in Central Park Zoo! 

Alternatively, queerphilic parents and their children visiting the NMM could just as easily pretend polar exploration heroes of old were every bit as gay as the mincing sea-birds they so frequently encountered:

This is incredibly, insanely mad stuff, of a self-evident Far-Left political nature, and it is, unambiguously, not the Queer History Club putting on these activities as an “independent outside body” -- it is the NMM themselves, or people they have specifically hired to do so. And, elsewhere within their building, Lord Nelson himself specifically does not escape the gaze of their deranged woke lens.

 

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The crimes of the ancient mariners

Head towards the NMM’s “Sea Things Gallery“, for example, and you can certainly see a few Sea Things worth seeing: an artwork depicting “a genderless being born of the sea” arguing with the bust of the obscure 19th-century British naval officer Captain Francis Liardet, for example. This mermaid/merman-type entity piously informs him that it is “neither male nor female, neither human nor fish”, which is much as you might expect, given that it was created in close consultation with the children’s charity (or so it is legally registered as being) Mermaids UK, a reprehensible organisation devoted to facilitating sex-change procedures amongst British children.

“Move over admirals, captains and politicians!” blares a Great Replacement-echoing sign for this wide-ranging new display promoting sexual and racial diversity in the hitherto hideously-white maritime sphere (the polar regions suffer particularly badly in this regard, I believe). “Some unsung heroes of the sea are joining you.” Unsung “heroes” like, for example, transsexual merpeople.

As a demonstrable one-armed cyclops, you may think Lord Nelson was also a leading figure of ocean-based diversity, but evidently not, as his own bust has now furthermore been placed next to a newly-commissioned sculpture of an angry-looking black woman with spiky hair instead, like a BLM Statue of Liberty, so she can shout anti-colonial abuse at him whenever you press a special button nearby.

Created by artist Eve Shepherd in consultation with the local pressure group Action for Refugees Lewisham as part of the NMM’s new sacred policy of “working with stakeholders” to “offer more varied historical perspectives” (where’s your display obediently parroting the direct views of an anti-migrant “stakeholder” pressure group, then?), the bust represents a new, invented deity of the waves to replace the more traditional, trident-waving Britannia; she is described as being a “god-like protector of all migrants”, a bit like George Soros.

Press the button to hear her speak, and you actually find Nelson springing to verbal life first: “Is anything more glorious than fighting for your country? England expects it.”

Not any more. Now, an Englishman’s only remaining actual duty, at least as imagined by the NMM and Action for Refugees Lewisham, is to obediently dismantle his national borders completely and allow the whole of Africa and the Middle East to sail in there unopposed before demanding an immediate free council house. According to the migrant goddess’ haughtily self-righteous reply:

“Listen to me. You are not the only ones who have shown bravery and resilience at sea. Many people are forced to make treacherous journeys escaping war. As a protector of migrants I have no need for your fancy medals and uniform. My armour and lifejacket protect people from harm. [Wouldn’t armour actually make a migrant gone overboard sink?] I carry essential supplies and the precious memories and dreams of every person I protect. What can be more important than that?”

How about defeating Napoleon, love?

There is a growing trend in museums across the West today to see exhibits be popularised, trivialised and dumbed down to the nth degree - the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam just ran a display entirely about Pokemon, for example! This fashion is bad enough, but woke galleries like Britain’s National Maritime Museum are infinitely worse. At least dumbed down museums just tell us the West today no longer has any past to speak of. Woke ones tell us something far worse: that, with cretinous ideologues like these in charge, the West no longer has any future, either. 

Is history itself now a thing of the past? 


Steven Tucker is a UK-based writer with over ten books to his name. His next, Hitler’s & Stalin’s Misuse of Science, comparing the woke pseudoscience of today to the totalitarian pseudoscience of the past, will be published in summer 2023.

Image credit: HMS Pride, in Royal Museums Greenwich


 

Showing 17 reactions

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  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-02-09 13:08:05 +1100
    Trotsky lives

    People focusing on piddling and insignificant trivia delight Jamie Dimon
  • mrscracker
    “So, other than on Trafalgar Day, when last did anyone here think about Nelson?”
    ***********
    Quite a bit over the last few weeks actually. I enjoy history & was reading about Nelson, Napoleon, the Battle of the Pyramids, the French defeat in Egypt, etc.
  • Trotsky Lives!
    commented 2024-02-08 15:59:16 +1100
    I have made my pointless. Piddling and insignificant trivia is so much more fun than real issues. Thanks for your patience.
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-02-08 15:46:24 +1100
    Trotsky Lives

    OK, fair enough. I didn’t see the movie. So more people than I thought have been thinking about Nelson recently
  • Trotsky Lives!
    commented 2024-02-08 15:27:09 +1100
    Lots of people have thought about Nelson in recent days, largely because of Ridley Scott’s biopic, Napoleon. He left out the sea battle of Trafalgar, but innumerable bloggers and history pundits have noted the absence, thereby mentioning Nelson innumerable times. Take, for instance, Dominic Sandbrook’s column
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12443477/Napoleon-Putin-Hitler-Kim-Jong-Ridley-Scott.html
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-02-08 14:53:08 +1100
    Trotsky Lives,

    I didn’t know there was such a thing as “Trafalgar Day.” If the Brits celebrate it maybe they do give Nelson an annual passing thought.

    So, other than on Trafalgar Day, when last did anyone here think about Nelson?

    As for this article, I’m also sure Rishi Sunak and Keith Starmer are both happy with it. Especially the former.
  • Trotsky Lives!
    commented 2024-02-08 14:32:55 +1100
    This is really weird! You mean to say that you don’t celebrate Trafalgar Day in your country, wherever you are from? October 21 is one of the big ones, up there with the King’s birthday and George Washington’s birthday. There was a huge celebration in 2005.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jun/28/military
    I am sorry that you missed out!
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-02-08 14:09:42 +1100
    Trotsky Live

    Did Nelson support slavery?

    I don’t know but given the times, and his position in society, I would be surprised if he didn’t.

    David Page,

    Was Nelson gay. I don’t know. For all we know he was bisexual. Who cares about the sex life of a long dead British admiral who fought in a war nobody except the French still thinks about?

    In fact, at the risk of sounding repetitive, who actually cares about Nelson?
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-02-08 10:47:52 +1100
    Out of curiosity, when was the last time Nelson appeared on your mental radar?

    Anybody?

    Oddly enough, I thought about him a few weeks ago.

    “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort,” he said. The Houthi rebels in Yemen are putting that theory to the test. With the aid of a few primitive drones they’ve disrupted world shipping.

    But, seriously, when last did anyone here think about Nelson?
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-02-08 10:31:27 +1100
    Another man laughing all the way to the bank, in this case the bank he himself, manages, is Coimbatore Sundararajan Venkatakrishnan
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-02-08 10:24:17 +1100
    I doubt Darren Woods knows much, if anything, about Nelson. That’s not the point.

    And, by the way, full confession, all I know about Nelson I learned from reading The Comet in the mid-1950s

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Comet_(British_comics)
  • Trotsky Lives!
    commented 2024-02-08 09:49:52 +1100
    I’ll bite. What does Darren Woods and Exxon have to do with Nelson?
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-02-08 09:16:39 +1100
    Darren Woods is laughing all the way to the bank
  • Trotsky Lives!
    commented 2024-02-08 08:48:38 +1100
    This stuff about Nelson being ardently pro-slavery is probably fake news. It got legs after an article in The Guardian was published smearing him as a white supremacist.
    https://nelson-society.com/nelson-and-the-slave-trade-a-position-statement-by-the-nelson-society/

    A recent book examines the issue. The author found that the main evidence for this claim was a forgery.
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/NELSON-SLAVE-TRADE-Chris-Brett-ebook/dp/B0CKKB8M2N
  • mrscracker
    From what I’ve read, Mrs. Hamilton’s husband appears to have looked the other way during her relationship with Nelson. I don’t think that translates to polyamory though.
    I’m pretty grateful to the British Navy. Minus their evacuation efforts my family probably wouldn’t be here today.
  • David Page
    commented 2024-02-07 20:59:43 +1100
    Nelson was an avid supporter of slavery, and hated Wilberforce. I doubt if he was gay, considering that he had a second family; a mistress and child.
  • Steven Tucker
    published this page in The Latest 2024-02-07 08:42:50 +1100