Trafalgar’s Black Greenwich Pensioners

With its ever-increasing establishment of bases and dockyards across the globe, the Royal Navy in the 18th Century became a major employer of Black seafarers, at a time when Britain was the largest trader in enslaved human lives. 

The Battle of Trafalgar, fought on 21 October 1805, is one of the most famous moments in Britain’s naval history, but the role of Black sailors in that story is often less well known. Men including Charles Phillips and Joseph Thomas served at Trafalgar and later became Greenwich Pensioners, linking this celebrated battle to the wider history of Black people in the Royal Navy. 

Black Greenwich Pensioners came from the Caribbean, West Africa, the Americas and Great Britain. Records of these men help make visible the place of Black sailors in Britain’s maritime past, with their lives traced through Greenwich Hospital records and external sources such as parish records and newspaper reports. 

Charles Phillips, born in Gorée, Senegal, served aboard HMS Ajax and survived the Battle of Trafalgar. Two years later, he lost his right leg in an accident on board and was invalided out of naval service. Admitted to Greenwich Hospital in March 1809 at the age of 25, Phillips remained there until his death nearly thirty years later. 

The records also show that his working life did not end at Greenwich. On two occasions, Phillips was lent out with other Pensioners to help fit out ships on the Thames and in dockyards, a common practice during the Napoleonic Wars when the Navy faced acute manpower shortages. A missing limb was not seen as a barrier to this type of work. Pensioners were paid a daily wage of 9d (nine old pence) a day and could be away from “home” for months at a time. Phillips was lent to HMS Blake in 1808 and, in 1814, to Sheerness Dockyard. 

Joseph Thomas, born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, was also a Trafalgar veteran, serving as a Landsman on HMS Conqueror. In March 1835, he entered Greenwich Hospital with 11 years’ service. One entry book noted injuries to his “leg & eye”, while another described him as blind. He was still resident in 1847, when the British government decided to issue the Naval General Service Medal to any man, of any rank, who had been present at a naval action between 1793 and 1840. Along with many of his fellow pensioners, Joseph Thomas applied for a medal with a Trafalgar clasp. 

It took several years to process the applications, mint the medals and issue them. By the time Thomas’s medal arrived at Greenwich, he had been “absent without leave” for some time and was marked “Run” in the registers on 9 February 1849. In the Visitor Centre at the Old Royal Naval College, a magnificent silver salver is on display. It is embedded with more than 100 unclaimed NGS medals belonging to deceased or “run” pensioners. Joseph Thomas’s medal may be among them. 

HMS Conqueror towing Africa off the shoals at Trafalgar, three days after the battle, painting by James Wilson Carmichael

Stories like those of Charles Phillips and Joseph Thomas show how the Greenwich Hospital records can help recover the contribution of Black sailors to Britain’s maritime history. 

At the Old Royal Naval College, a dedicated team of staff and volunteers has spent more than 10 years researching the records of Greenwich Pensioners to provide a deeper insight into the background and daily lives of those who resided in these magnificent buildings.  

To discover more, explore the Old Royal Naval College’s Black Greenwich Pensioners pages.

You can also visit our current exhibition, Cornwallis Cloth: Championing untold stories of WW2 in the Caribbean in the Visitor Centre or experience the Painted Hall, where art, myth and maritime history come together.