A pair of buckles once used to keep Admiral Lord Nelson’s shoes on have been auctioned for £2,000.
A Hampshire collector is reported to have bought the fastenings from Hansons Auctioneers of Derbyshire, UK.
The buckles were worn by Nelson during the Napoleonic Wars and given away in 1804.
A year after he had gifted them to his second-in-command and friend Sir Richard Hussey Bickerton, Britain’s greatest naval history was shot down on the deck of his ship, Victory, just as he completed the defeat of the French fleet at Trafalgar.
Bicketon was luckier. He stepped ashore in 1805, but remained in the Royal Navy and later served as Lord of the Admiralty, First Naval Lord and Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.
He died, aged 72, in Bath.
Bickerton out-lived Nelson and had a successful bureaucratic and political career after his naval exploits.
The buckles, said Charles Hanson, came directly from the Bickerton family.
He told the Southampton Daily Echo: “It was wonderful to meet his descendant and discover the story of the buckles, their provenance and place in history.
“Nelson and Bickerton knew each other well. In 1804 Bickerton served as Second-in-Command to Nelson during a blockade of the French port of Toulon.”
Bicketon helped Nelson blockade the French and Spanish fleets in Toulon a year before Trafalgar.
Although the enemy navies escaped – chased to the West Indies – Bickerton impressed Nelson enough to win his praise and this very personal gift.
In the end, they realised £2,000, an extraordinary amount for very run-of-the-mill fashion history elevated only by its connection to Nelson.
The legend of Nelson makes him highly collectible to this day.
Much potentially collectible material is safely locked away in museum and national collections.
But sales that private collectors can access do happen. His famous star medal was sold privately for a fee believed to be around £300,000 in the early 2010s.
Union flags from his ships have made £400,000 at auction. In 2013 a will he prepared before taking on the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile made nearly £20,000 at auction.
His colourful personal life is also rich ground for collectors.
Autographs and letters are usually worth thousands of pounds and items related to his mistress, Lady Hamilton, including stylized portraits, have sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds. In 2022, a miniature portrait of Emma Hamilton sold for £75,600.
