He died in the very moment of victory against the French, was pictured in his death throes in the arms of his comrades by the celebrated 18th-century artist Benjamin West, and was one of England’s greatest military heroes. But it is not Nelson whose significant anniversary is celebrated this year but that of General James Wolfe, the hero of Quebec.
The two men may have shared a similar destiny but it is a strange quirk of fate that Wolfe, who was greatly admired by Nelson, should have so faded from view over the past century. He is now rather the forgotten hero, and the 250th anniversary of his victory over the French in Canada has passed largely unnoticed in Britain. Wolfe was born in Westerham, Kent, and later lived in Greenwich, in a handsome house on the side of Greenwich Park, where his statue adorns Observatory Hill; he said that “nowhere did the air blow cleaner of purer than upon Shuter’s Hill or in the Park”. But most visitors who perch on his plinth to take photographs over London will be ignorant of his precise historical importance.
John McAleer, curator of 18th-century imperial and maritime history at the National Maritime Museum, is holding a talk about Wolfe and Britain’s “Year of Victories” in 1759 at the foot of the statue on November 19, and Richard Johns, the museum’s curator of prints and drawings, is giving a lecture on “General Wolfe and the art of dying a hero” on the same day; Frank McLynn, the author of 1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World, also gave a talk in October. But lectures, however good, do not really constitute a commemoration.
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Events to mark Wolfe’s death at Quebec, on September 13, 1759, and his funeral at St Alfege’s Church in Greenwich, on November 20, 1759, have been relatively few and far between; those that have taken place have been mainly local in nature. Wolfe is buried in the crypt at St Alfege; a special service to mark the the 250th anniversary of his victory was planned but was dropped when it was discovered how advanced preparations were for the “Wolfe weekend” at Westerham. Events there centred on Squerryes Court and Quebec House; a special exhibition at the latter, “The Making of Britain’s First Hero”, examined one of the original versions of The Death of General Wolfe. It was the first time that West’s masterpiece — borrowed from the National Trust collection at Ickworth House in Suffolk — had gone on display at his birthplace. Wolfe lived in Quebec House, then called Spiers, until he was 11 and then in Greenwich, first in the town centre and then in Macartney House, until he was 14, when he received his first commission.
The most high-profile celebration was held in the Grand Hall of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, where the Wolfe Society held its annual dinner and where the principal guest and speaker this year was the Duke of York. But the exception proves the rule and few other commemorations of note have taken place.
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The parallels with Nelson — the anniversary of whose death is, by contrast, widely commmemorated each year on Trafalgar Day, October 21 — are worth exploring, and are made clear in Stephen Brumwell’s book Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe. For a start, both men were heroically depicted by the American artist Benjamin West at the point of death. West had caused a sensation when he exhibited The Death of General Wolfe in London in 1771. In 1802, however, West had risen to become President of the Royal Academy. Meanwhile, Nelson was already a famous military celebrity after his victories at the Battle of the Nile and at Copenhagen. At a dinner that year, the two men conversed about art. Nelson remarked that there was one notable exception to his ignorance of art: “I never pass a print-shop, where your Death of Wolfe is in the window, without being stopped by it.” In response to Nelson’s questioning, West explained that he had refrained from painting anything similar owing to the lack of suitable subjects, although he feared that the admiral’s legendary bravery might yet provide him with another such scene. West’s macabre offer, with its promise of immortality akin to Wolfe’s, caused Nelson to exclaim: “Then I hope I shall die in the next battle!”. Which, of course, he duly did, at Trafalgar in 1805.
Moreover, some years earlier, as part of the expeditionary force poised to assault the Corsican port of Bastia, Nelson, then a captain, hesitated and was heard to ask: “What would the immortal Wolfe have done?”. He then answered his own question: “As he did, beat the enemy, if he perished in the attempt.”
The story of Wolfe’s extraordinary victory and valour is the stuff of Boy’s Own. To break the siege of Quebec, he led his troops in boats down the river in the dead of night, then scaled the cliffs in silence to reach the Plains of Abraham as day broke. The French were taken completely unawares and the battle, in which Wolfe was shot dead, lasted only 15 minutes.
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John Rawlinson, custodian of Quebec House, explains: “Wolfe understood what his soldiers were capable of, he believed in the importance of training and the welfare of his men. When the troops were on the Plains of Abraham this training paid off, the disciplined British fire destroyed French resistance and became the standard tactical fire for generations of soldiers that followed — Wolfe had commanded the first thin red line.”
The victory at Quebec, together with the sea battle at Quiberon Bay in the Bay of Biscay two months later, in which the French fleet was hammered to pieces, were the turning points that led to eventual British victory in North America.
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As Dr McAleer put it, in a recent lecture to the Friends of Greenwich Park, Wolfe won one of the most significant battles that Britain ever fought against the French. In effect, 1759 was “the first world war” and Wolfe’s triumph at Quebec “ultimately laid the foundations of the British Empire”.
Time, perhaps, for Wolfe’s name to resonate as much as Nelson’s.
ENDS.