Author Description

William Hoste, Royal Navy captain, was Lord Nelson’s protégé and became one of the greatest captains in the Napoleonic Wars. Hoste entered the Navy in 1793 under the care of Nelson who had an affection for him. Following this he became a lieutenant in 1798 and was appointed commander of the Mutine brig after the battle of the Nile, at which he was present as the lieutenant of the Theseus. During all his active career, he was employed in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic and made a fortune by the capture of Italian and Dalmatian merchant ships. He also made many successful attacks on the French military posts on shore and his most brilliant feat was performed on the 13th of March 1811 when his outnumbered force defeated a French squadron at the Battle of Lissa. Said to have partly inspired Patrick O’Brian’s Captain Jack Aubrey, Hoste is a worthy successor to the legacy of Nelson. In Remember Nelson, Tom Pocock explores an often forgotten man in a perfect read for fans of naval history. Praise for Tom Pocock: ‘A moving and absorbing story, here told with distinction’ - The Literary Review Tom Pocock was the author of eighteen books (and editor of two more), mostly biographies but including two about his experiences as a newspaper war correspondent. Born in London in 1925, he was educated at Westminster School and Cheltenham College, joining the Royal Navy in 1943. He was at sea during the invasion of Normandy and, having suffered from ill health, returned to civilian life and in 1945 became a war correspondent at the age of nineteen, the youngest of the Second World War. He has contributed to many magazines and appeared on television documentaries about Nelson and the subject of another of his biographies, the novelist and imperialist Sir Rider Haggard.