Nelson Road is just north of Salisbury city centre, just inside the ring road.

I think that Nelson Road is almost certainly named after Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson.

The puzzle with the name of Nelson Road is its proximity to Hamilton Road. I don’t know if this is a reference to the relationship between Nelson and Lady Hamilton. I’m going to write about this aspect of the naming of the road. This isn’t because the facts of the relationship are particularly interesting, but more because Nelson’s life story is well told in many other places and because it’s interesting in terms of the naming of the roads.

There are three reasons to suppose that Nelson Road and Hamilton Road were named in reference to the relationship:

• the fact that the Salisbury roads are so close
• the pairing of Hamilton and Nelson Roads in other towns
• the nearby Marlborough and Woodstock Roads

On the other hand, there is something to be said for the idea that:

• Hamilton Road is named after Bishop Hamilton

Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton

Very briefly, Lord Nelson was of course a national hero. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica says that:

There is no figure in English history at once so magnificent in battle, and so penetrating in its appeal to the emotions, as was Nelson on that last day [at Trafalgar] 1

Nelson was voted 9th in the BBC’s poll of the ‘Greatest Britons’2. He is commemorated by Nelson’s Column, in Trafalgar Square and is buried in Saint Pauls Cathedral.

According to Wikipedia,

‘he came to be regarded as one of Britain’s greatest military heroes, ranked alongside the Duke of Marlborough and the Duke of Wellington’3

The conjunction of Nelson with the Duke of Marlborough is worth noting - see below!

Nelson was, however, seen as a flawed hero, largely because of his adulterous relationship with Lady Emma Hamilton, who was the wife of his friend Sir William Hamilton. Nelson, Lady Emma and Sir William lived as what they called a tria juncta in uno from 1800 until Sir William’s death in 1803.4

In 1801 Lady Hamilton gave birth to a daughter who was name Horatia Thompson, Thompson being a pseudonym used by Nelson in his letters.

Just before his death Nelson said ‘I leave Lady Emma Hamilton …. as a legacy to my King and Country’.4

Salisbury’s Nelson and Hamilton Roads

Nelson Road and Hamilton Road in Salisbury are very close together - a literal stone’s throw if it wasn’t for the railway. You can see this from the Google map which is hopefully embedded below:

View Larger Map

However, it could be that they were even closer when they were built. I don’t whether Nelson Road continued north of Castle Street before the building of the railway, or, more probable, the ring road. If so Nelson and Hamilton Roads would have run parallel to each other.

I don’t know if the two roads pre-date the railway or not. If so it could be that Nelson Road continued north of Castle Street - I just don’t know. I don’t currently have access to a map from that time.

Other pairings of Nelson Road and Hamilton Road

I did some searching on Google to try to find out whether other towns also have a Hamilton Road close to a Nelson Road.

In Merton in South West London there is a Nelson Road and a Hamilton Road, and also roads named Hardy Road, Victory Road, and Trafalgar Road, all in the same area. Looking at Google’s street view it looks as if the houses are of the same period as Salisbury’s Nelson and Hamilton Roads. 6

In Horsham, Sussex there is a group of roads named after Nelson, Hardy, Trafalgar, Churchill, Spencer, Trafalgar and Hamilton 7 - I’ll return to Churchill and Spencer in the next section!

There are two roads in fairly close proximity in Southsea, Hampshire 8

Finally, in Scarsdale in New York State there are parallel Nelson and Hamilton Roads 9

So, in other towns there are neighbouring Nelson and Hamilton Roads - but does this constitute a pattern? And how strong is the implication that the Salisbury roads were named as a pair?

Well, in my opinion, it is likely that the Scarsdale roads are a coincidence because I can see no other roads in the area that refer to English history. Perhaps Scarsdale had a Mayor Nelson and a Mayor Hamilton.

The Merton area has a strong connection to both Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton, in that they lived there, so there was a good reason for the couple to be commemorated as a couple in that particular area. There is no such compelling connection in Salisbury.

The roads in Horsham look, at least from Google’s satellite view, to be of a much later date than Salisbury’s Nelson and Hamilton Roads. It’s probably fair to say that Lady Hamilton has been more kindly judged by history as time has gone on.

The view has changed from that of a

‘a somewhat shadowy, scandalous figure, often kept in the background of the Nelson legend’

to that of an

‘an important foil and stimulant to the genius of Nelson and a forceful character in her own right’. 10.

Therefore the fact of Nelson and Hamilton Roads being ‘paired’ in Horsham in perhaps the 1950s, does not imply very strongly that the same thing would have happened in Salisbury at the turn of the century.

Southsea has a strong connection to the navy and to Nelson. I’m not convinced that the commemoration of Nelson and Hamilton in Southsea would be replicated in Salisbury.

Also, there aren’t a great number of these pairings. If every other English city had a Nelson Road close to a Hamilton Road, you would have to guess that they had been named to commemorate the couple, but this is not the case.

My opinion, for what little it’s worth, then is that, on balance, the fact that Nelson Road is close to Hamilton Road in some other towns does not necessarily show a pattern which has been followed by Salisbury’s Nelson Road being close to Hamilton Road.

There is, though, another factor. A link exists between another pair of roads in the same area - and it might imply that Nelson and Hamilton roads are also linked. Maybe.

Marlborough and Woodstock - another military hero, another ‘pair’ of road names

At one end of Hamilton Road is Marlborough Road. Woodstock Road, in turns, leads off of Marlborough Road.

I’m writing these pages in reverse alphabetical order. When I first wrote the entry on Woodstock Road I discussed the etymology of the word ‘Woodstock’ (’Stock’ means something like ‘outlying farm buildings’. Wood speaks for itself.) and mentioned the rock festival.

I didn’t know that there was a link between Woodstock and Marlborough.

The link is this - in 1705, John Churchill the first duke of Marlborough was granted the former royal manor of Woodstock.11

The Duke was also granted funds to enable him to build a house that would not only be his residence, but also a national memorial to his greatest victory - Blenheim.

So there is a link between Marlborough and Woodstock.

Is there a link between Marlborough and Nelson?

Well, the link is their status as national military heroes. The fame of the Duke of Marlborough has dulled over time, and has perhaps been eclipsed by his famous descendant Winston Churchill, but he was a great hero.

The Dictionary of National Biography says that he was ‘one of the greatest generals in British history’.11

The military historian John Tincey says that ‘John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough is the foremost general in modern British history’. 13

Wikipedia currently says on the page for Lord Nelson that:

Nelson’s fame reached new heights after his death, and he came to be regarded as one of Britain’s greatest military heroes, ranked alongside the Duke of Marlborough and the Duke of Wellington.3

So, although the Duke of Marlborough is not now as well known as Lord Nelson, you can see an equivalence between the two men in terms of their status as military heroes.

Conclusion

So, Woodstock Road is linked to Marlborough Road because John Churchill was the Duke of Marlborough and he lived at Woodstock. Marlborough Road is linked to Nelson Road in that they were both national military heroes. Is it likely that Hamilton Road is linked to Nelson Road by the fact of their romance?

The short answer is that I don’t know.

Bishop Hamilton

Another alternative is that Hamilton Road is named after Bishop Walter Hamilton.

This is a particularly attractive when you have a quick look at a map - Hamilton Road is close to Ridgeway Road, Wordsworth Road, Donaldson Road and Moberly Road, which are all named after Bishops.

Moreover, these five men were successive bishops:
1854-1869 Walter Kerr Hamilton
1869-1885 George Moberly
1885-1911 John Wordsworth
1911-1921 Frederick Edward Ridgeway
1921-1935 St. Clair Donaldson

However the link between the first named Hamilton and the subsequent four is much weaker ‘on the ground’ than it is on the map. Both the railway and the ring road run between Donaldson Road and Hamilton Road.

Hamilton Road is, I would think, Victorian. The other roads were probably built between the wars. This makes it seem to me unlikely that the roads are named after a common theme. It’s not impossible, but it seems to me unlikely.

The answer

The answer is possibly available in the minutes of meetings of Salisbury Council for the time when the roads were being developed.

A study on the road names of Salisbury has been completed by, I think, a Mr Reid. I’ve only had a cursory look at this study 15, but it looks like the work of a ‘proper historian’ who has gone through the Council’s minutes. When I finish my catalogue of the road names, I’ll refer to this work and update appropriately.

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