Overall: 17cm (6.6in) x 21cm (8.2in)
Printed card with inked inscriptions and wax seal of the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s. Ticket for the ‘Funeral of Lord Nelson / St Paul’s, Jan.1806’ to ‘Admit the bearer at the North Door’. Additionally annotated in the 19th century hand of chorister ‘J.M.’. Signed by the Right Reverend Sir George Pretyman Tomline, Bt, FRS, Bishop of Lincoln (1750-1827) in his capacity as Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Ticket: 7.5cm x 12cm,
Invitations to apply for tickets for the burial service Britain’s greatest naval hero were published in the London Gazette as soon as the Admiral’s body was landed at Greenwich on 23 December 1805. The Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s decided who would receive one. All were signed ‘Lincoln’ under by Pretyman’s authority. Interestingly, Pretyman was formerly tutor, friend and confidant of William Pitt the Younger who was himself only a fortnight from death (23 January 1806) - killed it is said by the shock news of Napoleon’s triumph at Austerlitz. When Pitt became Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24, he chose Pretyman as his special adviser. Moreover it was Pitt who appointed Pretyman Bishop of Lincoln, having overcome the opposition of George III who objected to Pretyman’s then youth.
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The recipient of this ticket was assured his place at the state funeral of Lord Viscount Nelson, Duke of Bronte, by virtue of his role as a professional chorister at Westminster Abbey. For this great occasion the choir of St Paul’s was reinforced by those of the Chapel Royal and the Abbey, of which the chorister JM was the bass ‘Lay Vicar’. His name and seat number, 13 in the Organ Gallery, appear on the back of the ticket. The day’s proceedings must have tested the staying powers of all who took part. The cathedral doors were opened at 7am, but the service did not begin until 4.30pm, the coffin being lowered into the crypt 'at thirty-three and a half minutes past five precisely’. This inevitably gave JM time to acquire the autographs of the Rev. John Pridden (a Minor Canon of Westminster Abbey and noted antiquary) and John Page, Vicar Choral, on the back of the present ticket as a momento of the day.
John Pridden (1758-1825) had an important role to play that day. One of these was signalling to the organist who was out of sight of the proceedings, as The Gentleman’s Magazine reported: 'One of Mr. Pridden's signals to the attendant on the organist (who was himself out of sight of the ceremony) was the holding up of a book; at one time, however, another gentleman near Mr. P. passing his hand (with such a book in it) over his face, it was mistaken for the signal, and the organ struck up about three minutes too soon. It had not, however, played above two or three of clot bars before the mistake was corrected.’
Notwithstanding the blunder, the music of Croft, Attwood, Purcell and Handel as arranged by JM’s friend Mr Page, inevitably impressed the huge congregation estimated at 10,000 people and including two future Kings of England (George IV and William IV) in addition to their five royal brothers. The scene was described in The Times, as 'too dear and sacred to Britons to be forgotten,' while the Morning Post said 'nothing could be more sublimely awful, nor more solemnly affecting.’ Darkness fell before the last rites had been concluded, and the dull light of a winter’s day gave place to a weird illumination of torches in the Choir and temporary galleries, while in the dome, said to be illuminated for the first time, was suspended a huge ‘temporary lanthorn' containing 130 lamps. ‘Highlanders lined the nave and the circle under the dome, with their firelocks clubbed’. After Nelson’s coffin, made from the mainmast of the French ship L’Orient, was lowered into the crypt, it had been intended that the service should end with sailors folding and placing a union flag from HMS Victory into Nelson’s grave; however, large parts of it were torn to shreds by sailors intent on their own mementoes.
Ref: The Music at Nelson's Funeral in St. Paul's Cathedral. The Musical Times, Vol. 46, No. 752 (Oct. 1, 1905), pp. 645-649.