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00:00This is Portsmouth, home of the Royal Navy, and a vital part of Britain's defences for centuries.
00:13Nelson set off from here when he went to command the fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar,
00:18and way over there, built at a time when we really did rule the waves, is Britain's first naval hospital.
00:24But it's in the grounds of the hospital that you find the real story,
00:30because an unmarked cemetery contains the bodies of thousands of sailors who made it here alive, but would never leave.
00:39He's young, very young, about 17 and 18, and can see that the turd mourner is just coming up.
00:46Now, archaeologists are uncovering fascinating insights into the lives and deaths of the men who served their country
00:54during this pivotal time in British history.
01:05For much of the 18th century, Britain's security depended on the power of the Royal Navy.
01:11It was the most successful fighting force in the world, and in 1805, its supremacy was spectacularly confirmed.
01:19The British fleet defeated the combined might of the French and Spanish navies off the southwest coast of Spain
01:26without the loss of a single ship.
01:29The Battle of Trafalgar was a tremendous success, the most celebrated in British naval history.
01:35And when the fleet arrived triumphantly back in Portsmouth six weeks later,
01:40Haslar Naval Hospital was the first stop for the sick and the wounded.
01:45Some were nursed back to health, others died and are buried in the hospital grounds.
01:52For 250 years, Haslar has treated members of the Navy, but in 2009, it's closing down.
02:01As part of the closure programme, archaeologists from Cranfield University
02:05have been called in to investigate the hospital's cemetery.
02:09Time teams Helen Geek and Phil Harding are following the dig,
02:13which is being overseen by Dr Andrew Shortland.
02:16A plan of Haslar Farm, purchased by the Crown in the year...
02:21What's that, 1745?
02:221745, yeah.
02:24To erect a hospital for sick and hurt seamen of the Royal Navy.
02:29So, obviously, within that, they had to make contingencies for the fact that people were going to die
02:34and it's labelled here a burial ground, which is this sort of extremity at the end.
02:40Is that more or less where we are now?
02:42Yes, it is. We're standing just here, just in the corner of the burial ground marked on this.
02:47And it says nine acres. How big is it?
02:50Well, about four or five football pitches.
02:53That's quite a sizable area.
02:55The sheer scale of the plot suggests the Navy knew that many patients would never recover.
03:02Thousands are believed to be buried here, but no-one knows exactly how many,
03:06because any burial markers were removed long ago.
03:11Flip!
03:12OK, stop.
03:14So, who would have been buried in this burial ground?
03:18Simon from the hospital, and then Simon who died in the...
03:23Matt Anchorage at Spithead over here.
03:24So, I mean, this would have included officers, able seamen, ratings, everybody who died would have been buried here.
03:32All ranks.
03:33Don't take any more off him.
03:35Just, um, tiny round the edges.
03:38Presumably, there would have been a seriously regular transport of little ships going in and out,
03:45in and out, bringing the casualties and sick off of the ships.
03:48Absolutely, yes.
03:50But equally, you know how this steady stream of fatalities coming out of the hospital,
03:55the people who didn't make it, into the burial ground.
03:58Yeah, that's right.
03:58In one end of the hospital and out of the other.
04:01He's got wisdom teeth.
04:03Haslar's cemetery buried men of all ranks on an industrial scale.
04:08Many would have been casualties of battle, because Britain was at war for much of the 18th century,
04:14and needed a constant supply of sailors to man the fleet.
04:20Bolstered by the manufacturing muscle of the royal dockyards,
04:23the navy became the largest industrial unit in the world.
04:27And I'm off to try and find out what part Haslar played in this mighty machine.
04:40This is the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour,
04:43and in the middle of the 18th century,
04:45it would have been littered with boats coming in and out of the harbour,
04:49and going to and from the big battleships,
04:51which were anchored just off the coast.
04:53The sick and wounded would have been ferried to Haslar in those boats from the big ships.
04:59And I'm going to make the same journey that they made,
05:01although in a much faster and more comfortable boat.
05:07The hospital was built on Haslar Creek, on the western side of the harbour.
05:12Indeed, the phrase up the creek is supposed to have originated with sailors,
05:16who thought if they were ever rowed up Haslar Creek,
05:19that would mean they were in serious trouble.
05:23After they landed at the jetty,
05:27the sick and the wounded were put into hand carts
05:29and pushed about 300 yards
05:32until they came to the entrance of the hospital.
05:35That is until the 1870s,
05:37when the navy put in these tram tracks
05:40for a kind of tram ambulance to speed up the transfers.
05:44Haslar provided the blueprint for further naval hospitals at Plymouth and Chatham.
05:49They were built near major ports
05:51to save the cost of transporting sick sailors to London.
05:56Built in 1746,
05:58Haslar had beds for 1,800 patients and cost £100,000.
06:03It's really magnificent.
06:05At the time, it was the largest construction project in Britain.
06:09For the next 250 years,
06:12the hospital treated the wounded from major battles such as Trafalgar and Waterloo,
06:17as well as from both world wars.
06:20It later took in casualties from the First Gulf War and the conflict in Iraq.
06:26I've come to meet naval historian Professor Andrew Lambert,
06:30who's going to help me piece together its early history.
06:33Hi, Andrew.
06:34This place is huge.
06:36Why did they build it?
06:37And why did they build it so big?
06:39In the middle of the 18th century,
06:41the Royal Navy is the biggest military organisation in the world.
06:43It's the key to Britain's world power.
06:45The British control the world trading network,
06:47and the navy gives them the ability to stop everybody else trading,
06:50to tax that trade,
06:52to direct it into British harbours.
06:54Without the navy,
06:55Britain goes from being a world power
06:57to being a peripheral bit part player.
06:59So the navy is everything,
07:01and keeping the sailors fit and healthy,
07:03keeping the supply of sailors in wartime up to the right level,
07:06that's what this place is all about.
07:08When the navy was short of men,
07:11press gangs forced sailors into service.
07:14Thousands of these unwilling recruits
07:16would take the opportunity to desert while being ashore sick.
07:20So, in a bid to stop patients escaping,
07:23Haslar was built at the end of an isolated peninsula,
07:26a valuable deterrent in the 18th century
07:29when most sailors couldn't swim.
07:31Would-be deserters were faced with the prospect
07:33of drowning in the sea on one side,
07:36or in Haslar Creek on the other.
07:39Desertion was such a problem in the Georgian navy
07:42that Haslar was as much of a prison as it was a hospital.
07:45Down here is the outlet of the main hospital sewer,
07:50and a lot of patients risked the delights of escaping through it
07:54by lowering themselves through the hospital bogs.
07:57Yes, they really were called bogs in those days.
08:00In fact, the problem grew so widespread
08:03that at low tide, a marine was posted here
08:07to prevent further escapes.
08:09Others escaped by tying bedsheets together
08:12and letting themselves down from the upper floors.
08:15The hospital responded by putting guards on the gates,
08:18iron bars on the windows,
08:20and locking the wards at night.
08:22One patient even bled to death
08:24because doctors couldn't get past
08:26the large number of padlocks securing the doors.
08:30So, Haslar was a hospital, but not as we know it.
08:34It carefully controlled departures as well as admissions.
08:38Men either left cured and went back out on ships,
08:41or they went out the back of the hospital into the cemetery.
08:45So, we're going to lift the mandible, each half, into the box.
08:52He's young, very young.
08:54You can see that the third molar is just coming up,
08:57and that usually happens between the ages of about 17 and 18.
09:01He has a very long hume, right?
09:02He does, doesn't he?
09:03He must be very tall.
09:05As part of their task,
09:07the Cranfield University archaeologists
09:09need to estimate how many people are buried here.
09:12So, they've calculated the density of burials in their trenches.
09:16We can look at how many burials lie completely within the trench,
09:21and if we do that, we can see that there are nine.
09:23And then, obviously, there are lots of partials here.
09:26So, if we look at how many partials there are,
09:28and add up the halves and the quarters and all the little bits,
09:31we come up with another 11 full burials,
09:34making 20 full burials.
09:36And it's a 2-metre trench, and it's 25 metres long.
09:40So, the maths is relatively simple.
09:4250 square metres there.
09:43And then, you calculate the density of burials for that trench.
09:48Yeah, just divide one by the other.
09:50Which, in this instance, is 0.4 burials per square metre.
09:55That's right.
09:55We do this with all of the trenches that we have,
09:57and we work out the area of the entire burial ground,
10:01and we come up with a number, and that's just under 8,000.
10:04It's a lot of burials.
10:06Yeah, it is.
10:07It's a very significant number of burials.
10:08Just under 8,000, purely on the archaeology.
10:13These are just 30 of those 8,000 men.
10:21Their bodies reveal stories of childhood poverty,
10:25traumatic injury, and crippling disease.
10:29It's an extraordinary insight into life at sea in the 18th century,
10:33and death at Haslar.
10:43The dig at Haslar Naval Hospital has revealed
10:50that an estimated 8,000 bodies are buried in this unmarked cemetery.
10:55The skeletons exhumed so far are now providing clues
10:59as to how these men died,
11:01and the gruelling existence of sailors in the 18th century navy.
11:05Extra bony growth is where...
11:07Cranfield University's Dr Anna Williams has been analysing the bones.
11:11This one, we think, has suffered a major accident,
11:15such as falling off the rigging,
11:17and he's broken six bones in his body all at the same time.
11:21Six bones?
11:22So where's the first break?
11:24Here, on his right upper arm,
11:26we can see that this bone broke in two places,
11:29and this little fragment of bone got moved out of place.
11:33And where else is the next fracture?
11:36There's another one.
11:37Here, on his left forearm, we can see another break.
11:41So he's lost the use of both arms.
11:44Yes, and his leg.
11:46There's a big fracture to his leg.
11:48We can see that there's new bony formation here,
11:51which shows that he survived.
11:52So we've got two arms and a leg.
11:54What else?
11:55He also suffered a massive fracture to the centre of his jaw.
11:59He's gone up the middle of his jaw.
12:01So he's literally probably falling from a great height,
12:04landing slapped face down on the deck.
12:07Bang!
12:07Yes, and the force would have travelled up his jaw
12:10and broken off the two joints
12:12where his jaw articulates with his skull.
12:15We can see that these ends have broken off.
12:17But it may not be the breaks that killed him.
12:19No, we know that he survived the breaks for a few months,
12:22but it's likely that he eventually succumbed to infection.
12:26Serving on a Royal Naval Man of War
12:28was clearly not for the faint-hearted.
12:31The very design of these ships
12:33meant any sailor on board
12:34could all too easily end up at Haslar.
12:38Life on a ship like this, as you can see,
12:40it's all about this enormous amount of rigging.
12:43This is what powers the ship.
12:44So you've got men pulling on ropes,
12:46you've got men running up there and lifting and moving things,
12:49you've got men having to haul the anchor out of the ground.
12:51So it's an enormously physical, strenuous kind of life.
12:55Was it dangerous?
12:56Very dangerous.
12:57No ship got through a cruise
12:58without somebody falling out of the rigging
13:00and landing on the deck or hitting the sea.
13:03If you fell from the main yard, the first one, you might survive.
13:07If you fell from the higher yards and hit the deck, you were dead.
13:11High risk. Dangerous.
13:13In fact, life at sea was so dangerous
13:17that grave digging at Haslar must have been a full-time job.
13:21We've actually got tool marks on the top of the grave
13:23so you can see the original spade marks.
13:26It's lovely.
13:27I mean, they really are very, very clear
13:29and literally they do go all the way along.
13:33That's right.
13:34Right.
13:34It really is nice to see somebody else's work
13:37and knowing that, you know, it's nearly 200 years old
13:39is quite astonishing.
13:42Most of the bodies here appear to be buried respectfully
13:45in neatly aligned single graves,
13:47but previous digs have revealed evidence
13:50that that wasn't always the case.
13:51Oh, yeah, I mean, that's clearly a multiple burial.
13:56I mean, you've got one, two, three skulls in there.
14:05That's right, yeah.
14:06This practice of burying several bodies in one grave
14:10is surprisingly confirmed by a complaint
14:12about a local curate suspected of conducting job lot funerals here.
14:18Curate, cause of Alverstoke, where's that?
14:20Alverstoke is the next little tale
14:22that's just a little bit over the wall, about a mile away.
14:25Okay, so Curate Collis counters the query
14:28by pointing out that the convenient practice
14:31of burying four or even six or eight coffins
14:35in one grave has been superseded.
14:38That's right.
14:39Now, he writes, in the burying ground at Haslar,
14:43the order is to dig a single grave
14:46for every seaman that dies in the hospital.
14:48And the minister is expected to go that mile,
14:53too right he's got to go that mile,
14:55winter as well as summer,
14:57through a dirty road into a bleak field,
15:01and with the pleasing reflection of him having earned one shilling.
15:06It says,
15:07I would hope that the commissioner
15:08will endeavour to procure such an augmentation of allowance,
15:12presumably a bit more.
15:13He's saying, yes,
15:15a journey for one shilling,
15:17his time through the bleak midwinter,
15:19is not quite what he wants,
15:22and yes, he'd like an augmentation of allowance.
15:24That's right.
15:24The bleak midwinter and frozen ground
15:29would have made it difficult
15:30to dig the number of graves needed,
15:33particularly if Haslar was dealing with casualties
15:37from a major battle.
15:38What was 18th century warfare like?
15:47This is close quarters,
15:49naval battle,
15:49line of battleships firing broadsides at each other.
15:53You don't win these battles by skill,
15:54you don't win by single knockout blows.
15:56You basically have to kill and wound so many people
15:59on the opposing ship,
16:01they can't carry on.
16:03So what would it have been like here on deck
16:05in the heat of battle?
16:07These guns would have been going off
16:08probably twice a minute,
16:10so there's an enormous amount of noise,
16:11thick, acrid, choking smoke,
16:13and the enemy projectiles will be coming in,
16:15round shot,
16:16punching through the side of the ship,
16:18and then huge oak splinters being knocked off,
16:21razor sharp,
16:22they'll take limbs off,
16:23they'll disembowel you.
16:24So the injuries that are suffered on this gun deck
16:27are absolutely appalling,
16:29and in many cases,
16:29the only treatment is to pick the remains up
16:31and throw them overboard.
16:33So many of the worst injured
16:34wouldn't have even made it to Haslar.
16:37Those that didn't die immediately from their wounds
16:39were taken below
16:41and confronted with these
16:42and the ship's surgeon.
16:44Most 19th century butchers
16:46would have recognised these instruments,
16:48they used them every day to saw up carcasses.
16:50This looks a bit brutal.
16:52That's bone saw,
16:53and that's a critical part of the surgeon's kit.
16:56The biggest operation that the surgeon
16:58will perform on a regular basis
17:00is a major limb amputation.
17:02So if you're Nelson, for example,
17:05here's the 20k clamp.
17:06It goes right up high on your right arm,
17:08which is shattered at the elbow.
17:10Scalpel.
17:11Strip away the flesh
17:12and the muscle from the bone,
17:14and then you get the bone saw at work.
17:1630 seconds and you should be through.
17:19There's no anaesthetic.
17:20It's got to be quick.
17:20Survival rates for major arm and leg amputations,
17:2650-50.
17:31So here,
17:33we have a very early example of surgery.
17:36Yes, it's a fantastic example
17:37of a below-the-knee amputation.
17:40We have very clear marks
17:42made by the surgeon's sore.
17:44I mean,
17:45the pain
17:46that this person
17:47must have gone through,
17:48not only when they had the injury,
17:50presumably to the foot
17:51or something like that,
17:52but presumably the only way
17:53to actually chop this off
17:54was literally to strap them down
17:56on the operating table
17:57and literally saw it off.
17:59Yes,
17:59and in fact,
18:00we think that this individual
18:01actually died on the operating table
18:03because there's no evidence
18:05of any new bone formation.
18:07When we excavated the skeleton,
18:09we didn't find
18:10any evidence
18:12of his lower limb,
18:13but we did find
18:14another limb,
18:17an arm,
18:18was found
18:19in the burial
18:20with him,
18:21and it clearly
18:21isn't his arm
18:23as he has both of his.
18:24So is this an amputation again?
18:26Yes, it is.
18:27It's an amputated limb.
18:28And in this case,
18:29the individual
18:30probably survived?
18:32Very possibly,
18:33yeah.
18:35Amputation
18:36was so common
18:36at Haslar
18:37that this is just
18:38one of several
18:39amputated limbs
18:40that doesn't belong
18:42to the occupant
18:42of the grave.
18:45I'm concerned
18:46he might have a hand.
18:48What?
18:48What?
18:49I'm concerned
18:50he's got a hand down here.
18:51Do you reckon
18:51that's also an amputated ender?
18:53That's of the humerus.
18:54Yeah.
18:55Amputations
18:56were performed
18:56to save life,
18:58but the operation
18:59itself was risky.
19:01You could die
19:01from blood loss,
19:02and if you survived that,
19:04secondary infection loomed.
19:06But many deaths
19:07continued to puzzle
19:08doctors at Haslar.
19:10What on earth
19:11has happened
19:13to the skull?
19:14He has had
19:15an autopsy
19:16to determine
19:17the cause of death,
19:18and the top
19:19of his skull
19:20has been removed
19:21as part of
19:22the post-mortem
19:22examination.
19:23They've literally
19:24sawn through.
19:27The cut goes
19:28from there
19:28all the way around.
19:30Right the way
19:31around to there.
19:32So they've gone
19:32that way,
19:34and then they've
19:35gone that way.
19:37Yes, we think
19:38they've either used
19:39sharp knives
19:41or a wire
19:42to cut through
19:43his skull.
19:44And if we take
19:45the cranium off,
19:47we can see
19:49the surgeon's tool
19:50marks here.
19:52Oh, good Lord,
19:53yeah.
19:54I mean, it's a sort of
19:54very, very brutal
19:56piece of carpentry,
19:57but absolutely amazing.
19:59Post-mortems
20:01like this one
20:01were performed
20:02regularly by
20:03doctors at Haslar,
20:05either in response
20:06to outbreaks
20:07of disease
20:07or to investigate
20:09illnesses
20:09that sailors
20:10contracted overseas.
20:12They're able
20:13to see a wide
20:14range of diseases,
20:15including many
20:16exotic diseases,
20:18and so the
20:19physicians who
20:19were working
20:20there had the
20:21opportunity to
20:22dissect people
20:24who died from
20:25diseases,
20:25not only like
20:26typhus and
20:27consumption,
20:29which were
20:29common in Britain,
20:30but also diseases
20:31such as malaria
20:32and yellow fever.
20:33And these were
20:33opportunities that
20:34many physicians
20:35working in Britain
20:36simply did not have.
20:38Haslar was in
20:39the vanguard of
20:40medicine in other
20:41ways, too.
20:42It had one of the
20:43lowest mortality
20:44rates of any
20:45hospital in Europe,
20:46thanks largely
20:47to this man.
20:49If anyone embodied
20:50the pioneering spirit
20:51of Haslar,
20:52it was its chief
20:53physician, James
20:54Lind.
20:55Lind was a
20:56surgeon's apprentice
20:57before joining the
20:58Navy, and worked
20:59his way up to
20:59ship's surgeon.
21:01During his time
21:02at sea, he saw
21:03for himself what
21:04killed most sailors
21:05in the 18th century.
21:08There's a bit of a
21:09tight squeeze
21:10between the bunks.
21:12Yeah, you've got to
21:13get nearly 300 men
21:14on board on this
21:15deck, and that's
21:17all the space you've
21:17got.
21:18That's your hammock
21:18stretcher, about
21:2014 inches.
21:20Everybody's cheek
21:21by gel, jammed
21:22together, head to
21:23toe, head to toe,
21:24all the way along
21:25the deck here.
21:26There must have
21:26been quite a risk
21:27of infection.
21:28Once you get an
21:29infectious disease on
21:30board, something like
21:31typhus, which is
21:32spread by lice on
21:33dirty bodies, unwashed
21:34clothes, it's going to
21:36spread through the
21:36whole ship.
21:37It's almost impossible
21:38to stop it.
21:39And some ships were
21:41in such a bad state,
21:42they could hardly
21:42navigate, let alone
21:43fight a battle.
21:45So disease is the
21:46biggest single problem
21:47in the 18th century
21:48Navy.
21:48Linde recommended a
21:53series of reforms
21:54which turned
21:55cleanliness into a
21:56royal naval mania.
21:58He proposed slop
21:59ships to de-louse
22:00new recruits, better
22:02ventilation and
22:03fumigation, and the
22:04quarantine of
22:05contagious ships.
22:07And in 1758, when
22:08Linde arrived at
22:09Haslar, he introduced
22:11a radical system of
22:12infection control.
22:15Linde insisted that
22:16all newly admitted
22:17patients should be
22:18given a bath in hot
22:19soapy water and
22:21provided with clean
22:22clothing for the
22:23duration of their
22:24stay.
22:25He separated patients
22:26with different
22:27infectious diseases,
22:28and he separated the
22:29surgical wards from
22:31the fever wards.
22:32This was a remarkable
22:34advance for its time,
22:36an enlightened attempt
22:37to prevent cross
22:38infection and the
22:39spread of diseases.
22:43Linde reforms
22:44dramatically reduced the
22:46mortality rate at
22:47Haslar.
22:47and kept infectious
22:48diseases under
22:49control.
22:51But there was still
22:52something deadly
22:53stalking the decks,
22:54an illness even
22:56Linde couldn't
22:57fathom.
22:58There was one disease
23:08that killed more sailors
23:10than war, shipwreck and
23:11all the other illnesses
23:12combined.
23:14It was the scourge of the
23:15royal navy and the great
23:16medical mystery of the
23:17age of sail.
23:19It had baffled doctors
23:20since the days of the
23:22ancient Greeks.
23:23That killer was scurvy.
23:25scurvy is caused by a
23:28deficiency of vitamin C
23:30preventing the body
23:31producing connective tissue.
23:33Its symptoms range from
23:35spots on the skin,
23:36bleeding gums and tooth
23:38loss, to the reopening of
23:39old wounds and severe
23:41blood loss.
23:42If untreated, it's fatal.
23:43There were officers in
23:46Nelson's day who were
23:47covered in bayonet and
23:49cutlass wounds and if
23:50they got the scurvy, the
23:51wounds just opened up, even
23:52a decade after the event.
23:54So it gradually turns you
23:56into a complete invalid and
23:58then you die.
24:01Haslar's chief physician,
24:02James Lind, treated
24:03thousands of patients with
24:05scurvy and the dig has
24:07found potential evidence of
24:08the disease on many of its
24:10skeletons.
24:12We can't tell conclusively
24:13how he died, but we can
24:14tell that he has some
24:16evidence of vitamin
24:18deficiency.
24:19We can see unusual porosity
24:22in his orbits, these
24:24little dots in here.
24:25Oh, what you mean is
24:26like the honeycombing
24:27pattern in the roof of the
24:28eye socket?
24:29Yes, he could either have
24:31been suffering from iron
24:32deficiency anemia or from
24:34scurvy.
24:35Which, of course, was the
24:36scourge of the British
24:37Navy, wouldn't it?
24:38Yes, especially because
24:40this one is so young.
24:41How can you tell that?
24:42We can tell by looking at
24:44the formation of his bones.
24:46These blobs on the ends of
24:47the bones, they gradually
24:49fuse on to the rest of the
24:50bone as a person grows up.
24:52And because these are not
24:53fused, we can tell that he's
24:55about 14 to 16.
24:5714 to 16?
24:59Well, that's virtually no
25:00more than a boy, really.
25:02Indeed.
25:03The risk of scurvy increased
25:05the longer a ship stayed at
25:07sea, and in the 18th century
25:09that could be for months or
25:10even years.
25:12Six weeks into a voyage,
25:13all fresh food ran out,
25:16leaving only the ship's
25:17stores of preserved food.
25:20Was this standard fare for
25:21an 18th century English
25:22sailor?
25:23Yep, this is about it.
25:24You've got some salt meat
25:26and you've got some split
25:27peas.
25:29Well, peas are all right,
25:30but they're a bit salty.
25:31Well, salt is the standard
25:32preservative.
25:33This has got to stay on the
25:34ship for months and even
25:36years on end.
25:38Biscuit's a bit hard.
25:39Just baked flour and water,
25:41that's all it is.
25:42It'll last forever.
25:46I'm going to break my teeth
25:47trying to look at this.
25:48Yep.
25:48Was it good for you,
25:49a diet like this, though?
25:50This is a really good diet,
25:52so far as it goes, but it's
25:54missing critical vitamins.
25:55There are no fresh
25:56vegetables.
25:56You're going to be short of
25:57things that we now know are
25:59vital to sustained long-term
26:01health.
26:03Scurvy caused one of the
26:04worst disasters in naval
26:06history.
26:071,400 men died as
26:09Commodore George Anson sailed
26:11a squadron of six warships
26:13round the world in 1740.
26:16Lind had recently joined the
26:18Navy, and it was the shadow
26:19of this disaster that drove
26:21him to find a cure.
26:23The defeat of Scurvy would
26:24transform the capabilities of
26:26the Navy and rank as one of
26:28the great medical advances of
26:29the time.
26:31Lind put some so-called scurvy
26:33cures to the test by conducting
26:35the first known medical trial,
26:37and found that the answer lay
26:39in this, the humble lemon.
26:45Lind conducted his trial while
26:47serving as a ship surgeon in
26:481747.
26:50He took six pairs of sailors with
26:52scurvy and gave each pair a
26:54different scurvy remedy.
26:55A sulphuric acid mixture, vinegar,
26:59seawater, a laxative, cider, and
27:02oranges and lemons.
27:05Only the pair-given fruit
27:06recovered.
27:08But in an age before people
27:09understood what vitamins were,
27:12even Lind failed to grasp the
27:14significance of his own results.
27:16And when he published his
27:18findings, they were virtually
27:20ignored.
27:23Lind's own recommendations were
27:26very mixed.
27:27He didn't pick out any single
27:28cure.
27:29He didn't say it was just simply
27:31the lack of citrus fruits or the
27:33lack of fresh vegetables.
27:35He thought there were other
27:36factors involved, like the lack of
27:38pure air, poor sanitation and
27:41hygiene and laziness, because a
27:43lack of physical discipline would
27:45actually predispose the body to
27:48rotting, which he thought was one
27:50of the things that actually gave
27:54rise to scurvy.
27:56Lind retired from Hasla believing he
27:58still hadn't found a cure.
28:01But his research survived and was
28:03rediscovered by other naval
28:04physicians who realised that Lind had
28:07found the answer.
28:09The Admiralty was finally persuaded to
28:12issue daily rations of lemon juice,
28:14in 1795, 48 years after Lind's
28:18experiment, and tragically, a year
28:21after his death.
28:25Is that pretty consistent, Beth, the
28:27way the hams are kind of just
28:30draped down to the side, or are they
28:31brought across the pelvis?
28:33Quite often in the pelvis.
28:34In the pelvis?
28:35Yeah.
28:35So do you think that they've been
28:36tied, even there to all the coffins
28:39have been made very, very narrow?
28:41The reforms to diet and hygiene led to
28:45naval health improving dramatically in
28:47the late 18th century.
28:49Sickness rates fell by three quarters, and the
28:51death rate by two thirds.
28:54By the time it came to the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, the men in Nelson's fleet was significantly healthier and so more effective than their French and Spanish opponents.
29:05Come and have a look at this one, it's an absolute cracker, just, just, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, isn't that amazing, isn't that amazing?
29:12That's really very different, isn't it?
29:13Isn't that amazing?
29:14This piece here might actually well be the corner of the coffin when it's collapsed.
29:20That kind of joint?
29:21That may well be the joint at the corner.
29:23I mean, that's what you're looking at there, what, 200-year-old wood?
29:26Yeah.
29:27What I would still find slightly frustrating is you never get a coffin plate or something like that.
29:32It said, here lo is so-and-so, and you could, you know, it would be lovely.
29:38Identifying individual skeletons here looks like a lost cause, because there appear to be no coffin plates or fragments of uniform.
29:48But the dig has now exhumed 30 skeletons, and surprisingly, it's the bones themselves that may identify which men are likely to be officers or ratings.
29:59It's an opportunity for some detective work by Cranfield University's anthropologist, Dr. Anna Williams, and Time Team's osteoarchaeologist, Jackie McKinley.
30:09Can we get any impression of the jobs that people were doing from looking at their skeletons generally?
30:14Can you see if some people were engaged in things that might use their upper bodies more, say, as opposed to, I don't know, the officers who might be just wondering around?
30:22Well, we have noticed the robust muscle attachments in the upper arms in particular.
30:27This is one of the taller ones in our sample.
30:29Right.
30:30Look at that.
30:31That's one of the forearm bones, and you can see this big crest sticking up here.
30:37That's called the supinator crest, and that enables you to turn those muscles.
30:41He's been turning those arm muscles quite strongly.
30:44His legs are strong as well, so he's been doing sort of maybe a multiplicity of tasks that have made all parts of his body strong.
30:53While Phil and Jackie continue to look for evidence on the bones, Helen's off to the National Archives to meet naval historian Professor Eric Grove.
31:02Haslar treated many casualties from the Battle of Trafalgar when the fleet returned from southern Spain, and they're keen to find out if any ended up in the cemetery.
31:13Their starting point is Haslar's muster book, which lists the name and the ship of every man admitted to the hospital.
31:20There's hundreds and hundreds. I mean, how can we find the people who came from Trafalgar?
31:24Well, we know that the ships which had fought at Trafalgar began to arrive at Portsmouth from the beginning of December 1805.
31:30Here we are. Those are the names of the ships, yes.
31:32Illustrious Colossus Amazon. Amazon. Amazon.
31:34Oh, that's Assault. Do we have any from Victory?
31:36Oh, there, I think. Oh, yes. Victory.
31:39There's just one. Just one, yes.
31:41Richard Colliver. Oh, look, Consumption. Consumption.
31:46Dee Dee, what's that? Discharged Dead.
31:48Oh, I suppose you would have to be discharged. The last thing on your report, yes. Yes.
31:52The wounded at Trafalgar, including many from HMS Victory, were taken initially to the Naval Hospital in Gibraltar.
32:0222-year-old Richard Colliver survived the battle and the six-week journey home, only to die of tuberculosis the day after he reached Haslar.
32:13Death from disease was always a far greater threat to sailors than war.
32:19What can you tell us about things like that would have happened to him while they were in service, maybe infections and things like that?
32:25Here we've got a nice example of periostitis, which is an inflammation of the periosteum, which is the outer sheath of the bone.
32:34See these striations here? This is new bone formation that's being laid down as a result of inflammation.
32:41Is this, therefore, a wound that this person's had on the leg that's got infected?
32:46Being on the shin bone, it could be related to some kind of ulceration, some long-running sore in the soft tissue overlying the bone directly.
32:55Or it could have travelled on some focus of infection elsewhere in the body because the tibia, the lower leg particularly, is prone to getting infections like that.
33:04And if you look at this, you can see it's a woven appearance to the bone. Now, that tells us that this was actually active at the time of death.
33:11How many other examples among the collection have you got of infection?
33:15About 40% of our collection has this non-specific infection of the periosteum.
33:20At the archives, Helen and Eric have now found 129 men from the Trafalgar ships who were admitted to Haslar.
33:3052 of them came from one ship, HMS Temeraire, and half of them were treated for the sort of infection Phil and Jackie have seen on the bones from the cemetery.
33:41What does that say?
33:43Ulcer.
33:44Ulcer?
33:45Ulcer, yes.
33:46A very common complaint among sailors at that time, these are infected sores on the skin, some of them quite big.
33:53Oh, my goodness, how horrible.
33:55Now, it could have been caused by a wound, getting infected, and not healing.
34:00So, hence, it became an ulcer.
34:01The Temeraire does seem to be the ship, yes, but there's pages and pages of Temeraire people.
34:06She suffered quite serious casualties, not the worst, but she was very heavily engaged in the battle, and you can see all these wounded people here.
34:13Wounded, ditto, ditto, ditto, yes.
34:15Yes, yes, yes.
34:16Is there any way of finding out what kinds of wounds they might have had?
34:19We have amputation thigh, fractured arm, amputated arm, fractured arm, amputation, another amputation.
34:27Wow.
34:28Lacerated wound on left leg, yes.
34:31Gosh, they're horrific, aren't they?
34:32Yes, they are, that's right.
34:33Oh, that's right.
34:34Lacerated wound on thigh, and so on.
34:37So, what was the Temeraire's role in the Battle of Trafalgar?
34:40She saved HMS Victory.
34:44In the Trafalgar battle plan, the Temeraire was to play a critical role.
34:49Nelson's now famous tactic was to attack in two columns to break up the enemy line and force a close quarters contest.
34:56He waited his column for maximum impact, placing HMS Victory at the head and the Temeraire directly behind in support.
35:04How did the crew of the Temeraire behave? Why do you think they fought so bravely?
35:08The astonishing thing about life in the Navy in Nelson's day is, after a few weeks, a few months, the whole world is the ship.
35:18And within the ship, it's your mess, your mates, your watch, your little unit. They're fighting for each other.
35:24So, beyond the whole business of small unit camaraderie, there's something else. There's Nelson. He really is unique.
35:31Nelson is the first Admiral in the history of war at sea to send a signal to every man in his fleet.
35:36He says England expects that every man will do his duty. And, of course, that's exactly what he does during the battle.
35:42Where is he? He's right in the most dangerous part of the most exposed ship in the whole battle.
35:47Nelson was shot right there on the quarter-deck of HMS Victory by a sharpshooter from the French ship Redoubtable.
35:56The French then attempted to board the victory, but were thwarted by the arrival of HMS Temeraire, which fired a devastating broadside at the French.
36:06After raking the Redoubtable with fire, the Temeraire then came under attack from the French ship, the Fouguer.
36:12Sandwiched between these two enemy ships, the Temeraire fought both to a standstill.
36:17A lot of the men from the Temeraire were badly injured. And when the fleet arrived back in port, those men went to Hasla.
36:27Temeraire, as the ship that came through the smoke of battle and rescued the victory and played this decisive heroic part in the melee around Nelson's flagship,
36:36was right up there, after victory, the most famous ship in the country.
36:41And that was a reputation that would endure until it became something absolutely iconic.
36:46The Temeraire, immortalised by Turner, was right at the heart of the fighting and played a critical part in Nelson's victory.
36:53But did any of those wounded sailors who made it to Hasla get out of the hospital alive?
36:59Or did they all end up here, among the 8,000 buried in the cemetery?
37:12OK, so we're going to lift the right. Humerus.
37:17An estimated 8,000 men are buried at Hasla Naval Hospital, some having served under Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar.
37:26Oh, it's too long.
37:27Spread at Diaglet.
37:29Yeah. Cool.
37:30We're keen to uncover any clues as to what rank these men were, either from the excavated bones or through naval records.
37:38At the National Archives, Helen and Eric are searching HMS Temeraire's muster book.
37:4752 wounded members of her crew were treated at Hasla after saving Nelson's flagship.
37:53Landsmen? I mean, this turns up a lot in this column. What was a land called?
37:57A large proportion of landsmen there. They're the unskilled labourers of the ship.
38:00The Temeraire's records show that a quarter of her crew were landsmen, logged here as LM, all with less than a year's experience at sea.
38:11The ages here are quite interesting. I mean, they're mainly young men, about 20 or 21, but there were people much younger in the ship.
38:18Boys of the third class. And modern people find it, I think, very surprising, the ages of the people here who were serving in a combat zone.
38:29My goodness. 12 when he joined the ship.
38:3110 when he joined the ship. That's pretty young, even by the standards of the day.
38:35One thing that was done was it's seen as a way of getting poor boys, without much of a future, a life.
38:41Better to go to sea than live in the gutters of a British city.
38:44Do we know of anybody who's sent to Hasla?
38:47Well, let's have a look down the column. Yes, this Irishman.
38:50John McManagall.
38:52McManagall, yes. And he ends up in Hasla Hospital.
38:55Ah, yes. Gosh, and how old is he? He's 12. He's 12, yes.
38:59Wow.
39:01We've discovered that the Temeraire wounded, who fought so bravely and ended up here at Hasla, were all ratings.
39:08Men and boys from the lower deck of Nelson's Navy. And the bones recovered from the cemetery are beginning to paint a picture of the background of those sailors.
39:19A quarter of these men suffered from a deficiency of iron in their diet as children, and a fifth show another condition caused by childhood deprivation.
39:29There is some evidence of childhood rickets that has now healed, and you can see that this shin bone is really quite bowed along this area.
39:39So how old was he when he died?
39:41Between 17 and 25.
39:43So when he's a child, he's had a deficiency of vitamin D, which is contained in what sort of...?
39:50Things like milk and dairy products.
39:52Is it curable?
39:54We get a lot of vitamin D from sunlight. If this chap's then become a sailor as a young man, he will have got all the sunlight he required in order to be able to mend those bones.
40:04By the time he was in the Navy, his diet was probably better than he'd had as he was growing up, but obviously he died as quite a young man.
40:13One of the other things that struck me looking around actually, it's so little dental tooth decay, and that is one of the things that also suggests that they're not coming from a very wealthy background.
40:22Because at that time, you had to be middle class to be able to afford sugar, but if you could afford sugar, you had rotten teeth, absolutely rotten.
40:31So these guys are actually far better off than a lot of the people who were better off than they were.
40:37The high proportion of skeletons showing signs of childhood deprivation makes it likely that these men are Navy rank and file, drawn from the working classes.
40:47For many, the Navy presented an escape from the widespread poverty of Georgian Britain, but they almost certainly died younger than their civilian counterparts.
40:58More than a third died as teenagers, most were under 35, and no one here lived beyond the age of 45.
41:06Our research into those who were wounded on the Temeraire and were treated here at Haslar has revealed that more than a third of them were so badly injured, they had to be discharged from the Navy.
41:23But nearly half recovered and were sent back to active service.
41:27Clearly, the hospital was doing what the Navy wanted it to do, curing the sick and wounded and sending them back to work at sea.
41:36And at least two were among many Trafalgar veterans who ended up here, Greenwich Hospital.
41:45Now the old Royal Naval College, the hospital was originally built in 1696 as a retirement home for old and injured sailors.
41:54It just seems absolutely incredible that somebody who comes from, you know, who was quite low-born in a sense, from the working classes, could go into the Navy and yet end their days in a place like this.
42:06It's a sign, I think, of how important the Navy was.
42:10Of course, it's a great statement as well.
42:12This is British sea power in the stone.
42:14Look what we do for our sailors.
42:21Welcome to one of the greatest rooms in the world.
42:24My goodness.
42:25That's amazing, isn't it?
42:27Pretty overwhelming.
42:29And of course, one of the greatest protagonists of Britain's naval power, Nelson, lay in state here.
42:35Oh, my goodness.
42:36We've pieced together a picture of what happened to the Temeraire men after they left Haslar.
42:45There were always many more applicants than spaces at Greenwich, but landsman Archibald Anderson was one of the lucky few who secured a place.
42:54Archibald Anderson, a Scotsman, he'd been wounded at Trafalgar.
42:58Blown up at Trafalgar.
42:59Blown up at Trafalgar.
43:01At Trafalgar, yes.
43:02Some kind of concussion, presumably.
43:03Yes.
43:04But he goes back to service.
43:05He's discharged.
43:07And he comes here when he's 57.
43:09When he's 57 years.
43:11And then he dies here...
43:12In 1855.
43:1320 years later.
43:14So he dies at 77.
43:15That's pretty good going.
43:16Exactly.
43:17He was here for 20 years.
43:18Yes.
43:20Surprisingly, Archibald Anderson's longevity was typical for Greenwich pensioners.
43:25Like a third of the Temeraire wounded, many of these hardened survivors would have been discharged from the Navy because of the severity of their injuries.
43:35But lived well into old age nonetheless.
43:40So what do we know in general about our Temeraire wounded who made it back to Haslar?
43:45I mean, 21 of them, of the 52, they recover and they go back to service.
43:49And one of the ones which I think pleases one most is one of the youngest, a young Irishman who he found in the... in the Mustables.
43:57John...
43:58There it is.
43:59McManigal.
44:00McManigal, yes.
44:01Boy third class, age 12.
44:02He was discharged to another ship in 1806 and then went on and rejoined the fleet.
44:08So those would be the success stories.
44:10What about those who didn't make it out of the hospital?
44:12Four of them, in fact.
44:13And interestingly, they all died of infection.
44:15They all died of ulcers.
44:17So those would have been the people who'd be buried in our cemetery at the hospital?
44:20Those are the people buried in the cemetery, yes.
44:22And one of the most touching stories here, Lansman Willis, 21, from Carmarthen.
44:28And because he's nobody else, he isn't married or anything, he leaves his prize money and his parliamentary award to his mother.
44:37Poor chap.
44:38A story, sadly, without a happy ending.
44:40Hmm.
44:41So William Willis is somewhere amongst the 8,000 buried here.
44:47What's that?
44:48A pin!
44:49A pin!
44:50We found a pin.
44:51It's broken as it is.
44:52It's...
44:53It seems to have come from...
44:55Well, from the radius, perhaps.
44:58There's a bandage around his arm.
45:01That's... that's very exciting.
45:02We can't find his grave, as any burial markers above ground were removed long ago.
45:08But as the dig draws to a close, the finds below ground continue to shed light on the burials afforded to men like Willis.
45:15That's very cool.
45:17All the individuals that we've excavated have been buried in wooden coffins.
45:23They have been tests done and all of the coffins have come up as being pined.
45:26Right.
45:27And pine's quite a cheap wood, isn't it?
45:29Yes, yes, it would have been.
45:30So they had really bargain basement coffins.
45:33What about inside the coffins?
45:34Were they buried in their clothes?
45:35Well, there's no evidence at all that we found that they actually wore their own clothes.
45:39We believe that the individuals would have been buried in shrouds.
45:43What happened to all their personal effects and clothing and so on?
45:46Well, the clothing and personal effects would have either been given to the family, if the family was known,
45:51or it was given to the messmates, who then auctioned off the clothes or the personal effects to pay for the burial.
45:58I suppose it just emphasises how poor the people were who were buried.
46:01Absolutely, yes, yes, it would have done.
46:048,000 men who died while fighting for their country are buried underneath the ground I'm now walking on.
46:11We now know that most of them were naval rank and file rather than officers,
46:17who were perhaps more likely to have been buried in some family churchyard somewhere.
46:22What really strikes me is how much we know about their lives from the naval records,
46:28whereas in death, they're completely anonymous.
46:31In life, sailors were a valuable commodity, but their deaths reflect how poor they really were.
46:38If there were ever any grave markers here, it's likely they weren't grand tombstones, but simple wooden ones.
46:49This old burial grounds will continue to remind us of the cost of Britain's hard-won naval supremacy.
46:56And Haslar itself stands as a very visible monument to the importance of the navy to Britain.
47:02Its sheer scale, a reflection of the need for a steady supply of battle-ready sailors.
47:09All the bodies that have been exhumed from the cemetery by the archaeologists are to be given a military reburial with due honours.
47:20It's a sobering thought that that's probably far more than they had first time round.
47:26From the Middle Ages to the present day, stuff of culinary dreams tomorrow on 4 as Heston's compiling his ultimate feast at 9.
47:38Next tonight, do you really need your eyes to see? Derren Brown investigates.
47:44THE END
47:56THE END
48:00THE END
48:02THE END
48:04THE END
48:06THE END
48:20THE END
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