Fighting Talk: One Boy’s Journey from Abandonment to Trafalgar

Fascinating exhibition at the Foundling Museum looking at the life of George King, a foundling at the hospital who fought at Trafalgar.

I love the way the Foundling Museum approach exhibitions, they are rich in research without being heavy and use a few key loans to illustrate the story they are telling well. In this case it was exciting to find the figure head of King’s ship, the Polyphemus alongside a wonderful painting of the Battle of Trafalgar. Obviously, the research was helped by the fact King wrote an autobiography and it was lovely that the handwritten copy was in the show.

The commentary told King’s story like a novel and, although the title gives away the two key facts about him, there was a lot more to learn from his apprenticeship to a confectioner where he was bullied by his fellow apprentices, to deliberately looking to be press ganged, though a spell in America, which was told via an excellent video, to his retirement at the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich and a second marriage.

A well told look at an extraordinary Georgian life.

Closes 27 February 2022

Review

Telegraph 

 

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