Nelson’s Hospital

“An extraordinary insight into life in the late 18th century Navy.”

THE EXPRESS

DIRECTOR

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In the 18th century, the Royal Navy urgently needed better ways of looking after its sick and wounded. It built the best hospital the country had ever seen. For over 250 years Haslar treated casualties from the Battle of Trafalgar to the Gulf War. Thousands of men are believed to have been buried in unmarked graves in the hospital’s cemetery between 1757 and 1826. As the hospital closes its doors for the last time, an archaeological dig to exhume their remains uncovers shocking insights into life and death in the Georgian Navy.

PRESENTED BY TONY ROBINSON

“Chilling. Teases out the threads of the history with skill and sensitivity.” 

RADIO TIMES

“Reveals a life of appalling hardship in Nelson’s Navy.”

THE TIMES

“Painstaking research builds a picture of how and why the men ended up anonymously buried at the hospital.” 

THE EXPRESS

“The skeletons of lads as young as 10, failed amputees, the remnants of crude post-mortems. Nelson’s Hospital unearths some real horrors.” 

THE GUARDIAN