Born in Germany as Heinz Lachmann, Hans Lachman began his musical career in film music and light music. After the Second World War, which he survived by hiding in the Limburg province in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, he started composing in a modern classical idiom, building up a considerable body of work, including Jewish liturgical music. It is hard to believe that his music, which had been so frequently broadcast, was later completely forgotten until 2008, when his scores were discovered in a damp garden shed.

Heinz Lachmann was born in Berlin on 7 March 1906, the son of Sigmund Lachmann, a physician, and Emma Löwy, a pianist who had studied at the Stern Conservatoire in Berlin. She gave him his first piano lessons. When his father died, the family ran into financial difficulties and his piano teacher Eugen Tetzel (1870–1936) offered to teach him free of charge. Embarrassed, Heinz refused; no one in his family believed in a career for him as a musician. In the 1920s he enrolled at the university to study mathematics and physics. To finance his studies, he played the trombone. His professors, to name only a few, were the likes of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and Max Planck, and they predicted for him a successful scientific future. Instead, Lachmann chose music.

In 1930, Carl Lindström AG, then a major record company, offered him a position as an arranger of light music for the orchestras of the bandleaders Dajos Béla (a Russian jazz violinist) and Otto Dobrindt (a German film-music composer). Lachmann played several wind and keyboard instruments. He also worked for Sid Kay's Fellows, Berlin's first jazz band, and the house band of the renowned swing establishment Haus Vaterland. At that time, he was also engaged as a musician and arranger for the Nelson Revue, a cabaret troupe in 1930s Berlin, and the film company Universal.

In 1931, he married Tea Warszawski, an illustrator. Shortly after the National Socialists’ seizure of power in 1933, they fled Berlin. They settled in Amsterdam, on the Haarlemmermeerstraat 62-II, and Lachmann joined the Tuschinski Orchestra led by Max Tak, working as a trombonist and arranger. In 1935, their son Michael was born.

On 11 December 1942, Samuel Schuijer was murdered in Auschwitz. His home and music school had been plundered by the Nazis. With the loss of his life and the destruction of his belongings, all traces of this significant Dutch musician seemed to have been obliterated. But in the 1990s, a group of children in The Hague found a box containing music manuscripts, waiting for the bin lorry. They took their treasure home, and it became the first step in rediscovering a lost fragment of Dutch music-history.

Samuel Schuijer was born in The Hague on 9 September 1873, the son of Roosje van Kam and Abraham Schuijer. The family had a jewellery shop at Heerengracht 18. Five of the nine Schuijer children became professional musicians. Samuel studied violin, cello, bassoon and music theory at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Shortly after graduating, he worked primarily as the principal bassoonist in various Dutch orchestras and also made a European tour with the Eduard Strauss Orchestra as its principal solo bassoon. In 1894, he married Elizabeth Alter, an opera singer and actress. They had three sons: Abraham, who became a pianist, Marinus, who died in infancy, and Louis, who became a cellist.

In 1902, Schuijer was appointed as the conductor at the opera house in Ghent, Belgium, for opéra comique and operetta, and he also worked for some time in Paris. He settled permanently in The Hague in 1916, where he conducted the Kurhaus Orchestra. During the evening suppers at the luxurious Kurhaus Hotel, he performed into the early hours with the much-loved cabaret artists Louis Davids and Margie Morris; the trio became known as ‘he, she and the piano’. From 1918, he was second Kapellmeister and répétiteur of the French opera in The Hague. Schuijer acquired a reputation as a conductor, composer and violinist, and as the proprietor of Sam Schuijer's Music School.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, Schuijer composed numerous songs ‘in the popular genre’, for which he received awards from the Flemish Willemsfonds. And although his own music dramas and operas were performed successfully during this period, his compositions did not earn enough to support his family.

When Durham’s tenure as port admiral at Portsmouth was drawing to its close, The Times (11 January 1839) reproduced a report from the Edinburgh Evening Post, which in an attack on ‘the Minto clique’ stated that Charles Elphinstone Fleeming was expected to relieve him, and had eyed that plum command for some time. ‘The authority of Admiral Fleming [sic] on all points connected with the present administration of the navy is indeed beneath contempt,’ the report stated. ‘He is a mere tool of the Mintos, with which grasping family he is connected through his relationship to Admiral Adam.’ Fleeming did indeed succeed Durham – but was himself replaced in November 1839 by Sir Edward Codrington. The comparatively undistinguished but inordinately favoured Fleeming, who was Lord Keith’s nephew and had been port-admiral at Sheerness earlier in the decade, was with blatant political partiality plucked from the Portsmouth posting to fill what was widely regarded as the most desirable of shore appointments, the governor-generalship of Greenwich Hospital, which had the advantage of life tenure. That he was selected to replace in ‘the almost consecrated post’ Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, who had died in September, sparked resentment and outrage – hence the remark in [928], written by the husband of yet another of the Murray siblings, Marianne. The widespread view was that one of ‘a galaxy of glorious names’, admirals ‘prominent in the public eye and estimation’ – an officer, we may suppose, such as Durham – should have succeeded Nelson’s captain.

From the cessation of his Portsmouth command onwards, references to Durham in The Times hint at his continuing activity: sitting on the committee of the Nelson Memorial under the chairmanship of the Marquis of Anglesey (The Times, 3 June 1839); attending the annual Navy Club dinner for the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Haddington, at the Thatched House Tavern, St. James’s Street, not far from his Hill Street home (The Times, 2 July 1842); introducing his great-nephew, Lieutenant Alexander Murray, to Prince Albert at a levée at St James’s Palace in June 1843 (The Times, 22 June 1843); hosting the Duke of Bordeaux at Fordel that autumn (The Times, 21 Ocober 1843); and subscribing to the fund, chaired by Sir Edward Codrington, for a dinner in Trafalgar Square for Greenwich pensioners (The Times, 2 August 1844).

In November 1813, Durham was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Leeward Islands station [805], in succession to Sir Francis Laforey, with whose inert tenure the colonists, their merchantmen plagued by American privateers, gratefully contrasted Durham’s vigilance and activity – despite the small size of the force at his disposal – in ridding the Caribbean of such vessels.The items in this Part include a fascinating list of canned foods from Bryan Donkin’s pioneering firm (with instructions for opening) [806], which Durham took out to Barbados aboard his flagship Venerable, accounts of his cunning pursuit and capture en voyage of two brand new French frigates [807–809], and addresses of gratitude from merchants at various locations within the Leeward and Windward group for his outstanding command, which resulted in innumerable captures. In addition to encomiums reproduced here [810, 817, 823], there are others in John Marshall’s Royal Naval Biography. The merchants of St Thomas, delighted that he had restored their island’s status as the final rendezvous for fleets bound for England, presented him with a star appropriate to his order of knighthood, the KCB that he received in 1815 [848–850, 863]. (A beautiful ceremonial sword worth 100 guineas presented to him by the merchants of Trinidad is portrayed with him in an oil painting by Sir Francis Grant and is now in the National War Museum of Scotland at Edinburgh Castle, along with William Ward’s engraving, issued in 1837, of the Grant portrait.)

It was reported in March 1815 that: ‘The merchants at St Vincent’s addressed a memorial to Admiral Durham stating that a privateer (the Chasseur ) had blockaded them for five days, doing much damage and requesting that he would send them at least “a heavy sloop of war” on which the admiral sent them the Barrosa frigate [36 guns].’ This incident has inspired an American work of naval fiction in which Durham is depicted inaccurately as grey-haired, ‘old’ and ‘crusty’.

This Part also contains Durham ‘ s correspondence with Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane (Commander-in-Chief on the North American Station) [812, 813, 821, 825, 832, 833, 839, 842, 858, 883, 904], and material pertaining to Durham ‘ s controversial refusal to allow his squadron to take captured vessels to the Vice-Admiralty Court at Antigua (alleging extortionate charges) [830, 843–846, 852–855, 903].

With the Treaty of Amiens (25 March 1802) Durham found himself ‘on the beach’ for the first time since the start of the Revolutionary Wars. He and Lady Charlotte spent some of this interval of peace in Scotland, as well as at their London home in Gloucester Place. On 10 April 1803, amid rumours of impending war, Durham was appointed to the 98-gun Windsor Castle, fitting out at Portsmouth. Following the declaration of war on 18 May he was transferred to the 74-gun Defiance, undergoing repairs at Portsmouth prior to joining the Channel Fleet. On 2 June he took command of that ship – described as ‘the fastest-sailing ship of her rate in the Navy’ – and in her, following a period of activity off Brest under Cornwallis [222], he fought in Sir Robert Calder’s action off Cape Finisterre in July 1805 and at Trafalgar. The Defiance was assigned to Calder’s squadron in the spring of 1804, and on 22 July 1805 signalled Calder that Villeneuve’s fleet was in sight. Durham never forgave Calder for neglecting to mention that fact in despatches that told of the ensuing action, and despised him for failing to re-engage the French the next day. The following extract from a despatch, in the London Gazette Extraordinary of 31 July 1805 (reprinted in The Times the following day), further illustrates the snub to Durham: ‘Yesterday at noon, lat. 43 deg. 30 min. N, long. 11 deg., 17 min. W., I was favoured with a view of the Combined Squadrons of France and Spain …’

When, after Trafalgar, the Defiance returned to England for repairs, Durham unhesitatingly played his part in stirring up that feeling against Calder which led to the latter requesting a court martial on himself. Embittered, and determined to fight under Nelson, whom he had met in the Admiralty Waiting Room early in September, Durham on joining Nelson’s force off Cadiz refused the option of returning home with Calder to give evidence as two other the captains did [252], and thus shared in the glory of battle, in which he was ‘slightly’ wounded by a large splinter: wrote the young Countess of Elgin to her husband, Durham’s brother-in-law, on 3 December: ‘Durham is arrived at Spithead – he was not wounded in the mouth, in the leg and side – he feels it a good deal.’

This Part covers Durham’s years as captain of, successively, the Hind [53–70], Anson [71–186], and Endymion [187–205]. On 24 June 1793, the ambitious, prize-hungry, increasingly cocksure young man who had been so impressive in command of the Spitfire was posted to the 20-gun frigate Narcissus, but no cruise appears to have been undertaken and, following a brief visit to Scotland he was, on 20 October 1793, given command of the Hind (28), complement 200 men, fitting out for Channel service at Sheerness. On the morning of 10 January 1794, returning from Guernsey, where he had landed troops, he was chased by ‘six large French frigates and a cutter’ and it was only when two British ships of the line, Impregnable (90) and Majestic (74), appeared to leeward off Portland Bill that his pursuers, who were catching up to him, abandoned pursuit [55]. On 11 February, he wrote from Spithead to his maiden great-aunt Elizabeth Steuart of Coltness:

In June, in company with the Thalia (36), Captain Grindall, and the Fox (32), Captain Drury, the Hind escorted a convoy of 157 British merchant vessels from the Gulf of Cadiz to the Downs [62–65]. A few leagues west of the Lizard, Grindall and Drury somehow parted company, leaving Durham to get the large and valuable convoy safely home. In gratitude for his feat the merchants at Lloyd’s suggested to the Admiralty that he be rewarded. And in October, following further months of escort duty in which he found little scope for prize-taking, he was.

Although he had been a post-captain for only 16 months, he was in October 1794 given command of the rasée frigate Anson, mounting 44 guns.

As previously noted, Philip Durham forged his naval reputation as a vigorous, adroit commander (and subsequently consolidated that reputation, as a young post-captain) in the Channel Fleet. This Part covers his command in the Channel of the converted fireship Spitfire, in which he achieved notable success as a taker of enemy craft. Her previous commander was another of the Royal Navy’s brightest prospects, John Woodley, who had been made a master and commander ahead of Durham on the same day and now became a post-captain; he lost his life when the frigate Leda was wrecked off Madeira in 1796.

War with France broke out on 1 February 1793, and on 12 February Durham took command of the Spitfire at Spithead. Fast-sailing, but woefully underarmed, carrying only eight four-pounders [51], she was far short of her complement of about 100 men, and it would be several weeks before this notice appeared in the Caledonian Mercury (21 May 1793):

Sat 18 May 1793

Succeeded as Commander-in-Chief, Leeward Islands, by Rear-Admiral John Harvey, Durham reached Spithead in the Venerable on 16 April 1816. In February that year his wife, Lady Charlotte, had died suddenly in Edinburgh. Her widower was soon the talk of Edinburgh society, for with indecent haste he was openly boasting to friends that he intended to woo and win a certain heiress and make himself as rich as he could out of the marriage settlement. The intended target of his affections – though neither she, being abroad, nor her long-widowed invalid father, sequestered in his home at Fordel near Inverkeithing, knew it yet – was his distant cousin, 34-year-old Anne Isabella Henderson, who was a nearer relative of Captain Thomas Cochrane, the future Earl of Dundonald, and of Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane. Anne had once lived next door to the Durhams in London’s Gloucester Place, in her paternal uncle’s house.

At the end of the wars Durham was already a wealthy man. A financial statement written in his own hand in 1817 (NAS GD172/585/7) is instructive, showing how this able and avaricious third son of a financially overstretched laird had profited from his profession, despite the fact that early in his captaincy he had lent the bulk of his takings in prize money to his eldest brother, whose bank had soon afterwards collapsed, and the sum loaned lost. The statement shows that Durham was worth £5,000,000 in today’s money. We must assume that, apart from the stated annuities from relatives, most of his wealth derived from prize money.

A tale of intrigue lies behind this statement of his financial position, which was drawn up for the head of Anne Henderson’s trustees, James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale (1759–1839), father of the two Captains Maitland, so recently under Durham’s command. Lauderdale believed that Durham’s motive for marriage was solely pecuniary – Anne’s potential worth was about £80,000 in Scotland (equivalent to about £8,000,000 today) and £50,000 in England – and told him so in no uncertain terms. In pursuit of his quarry, who was living economically in Paris with her impecunious cousin Isabella, daughter of superannuated Rear-Admiral William Lockhart, Durham – who was good at a phrase when he had to be – penned endearments worthy of a romantic novelist, including ‘I … strike my red flag not to the enemy but to an angel I love with all my heart and soul’.

A flag-officer from 31 July 1810, Durham – who enjoyed the approbation of his former detractor Charles Yorke, First Lord of the Admiralty from May 1810 to March 1812, as well as the patronage of the (Whig) Elliots and the (Tory) Dundases – was fortunate in having a number of opportunities to fly his flag. He narrowly missed obtaining command of a squadron off Cadiz, and then in the spring of 1811, with his flag in the 64-gun Ardent, joined the Baltic fleet under Vice-Admiral James Saumarez, and commanded a squadron off Wingo Sound [432–43]. The two men were of different temperaments and of contrasting outlooks regarding the fate of captured coastal craft, a contemporary writing that Durham ‘is of a more greedy mind and does not like the generosities of Saumarez very much’. There is a curious anecdote pertaining to Durham and Saumarez, although the period to which it relates is unclear. According to Byam Martin (a former shipmate of Durham on the Salisbury ), who cautioned that anything Durham ever said had to be taken ‘with pounds of allowance’, Durham claimed to have rescued Saumarez from a ‘madhouse’! Some of Saumarez’s letters to Durham during the Wingo Sound period and some other items have appeared in two earlier NRS volumes and are, therefore, not replicated here.

In September 1811, with his flag in the 74-gun Hannibal, Durham joined Admiral William Young [274] in the North Sea, where he commanded the inshore detachment off the Texel. If the enemy came out, he was to lead Young ‘ s fleet into battle [452]. In March 1812, following Young ‘ s replacement as Commander-in-Chief, North Sea, by Admiral Lord Keith, Durham ‘ s next assignment was to intercept a French squadron that had sailed out of Lorient. He sailed in the Venerable, and had three other 74s under his squadron, but the quarry returned to port, and he struck his flag.

Then, on 27 April 1812, the Admiralty put him in charge of a sizeable squadron at Basque Roads, the sheltered bay between the isles of Ré and Oléron, watching developments at La Rochelle and Rochefort.

It was in the Channel Fleet that Philip Durham came to the Admiralty’s attention as one of the Royal Navy’s ablest young commanders, and it was in that fleet that much of his career as a post-captain was spent. In July 1781, like several other protégés of Captain John Elliot glad to come into a flag-officer’s orbit given what that could mean for promotion, he was transferred from Elliot’s Edgar into the Victory, flagship of Rear-Admiral Kempenfelt, formerly captain of the fleet and now a divisional commander under Vice-Admiral Darby, whose flag flew in the Britannia. Kempenfelt was still refining the numerical signal code upon which he had been working for a number of years, and chose the sharp-minded Durham to be his signal officer, in the role of acting lieutenant. Durham was present at Kempenfelt’s heroic rout off Ushant, on 12 December 1781, of the Comte de Guichen’s Caribbean-bound transports, with the audacious capture of many despite de Guichen’s vastly superior strength. He continued as Kempenfelt’s signal officer following Darby’s replacement as commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet by Admiral Lord Howe, who in April 1782 raised his flag aboard the Victory. Kempenfelt – now the fleet’s third in command, under Howe and Barrington – raised his on board the Royal George, mounting 108 guns, with Martin Waghorn (written Waghorne in the documents below) as his flag-captain. When imminently due with the rest of the fleet to sail to the relief of Gibraltar, the Royal George sank at Spithead on the morning of 29 August while undergoing a ‘parliament heel’ so that a faulty starboard pipe leading to the cistern in her orlop could be replaced, provisions for the already well-stocked ship being simultaneously unloaded from a lighter that lay alongside.

Having examined the course and causes of this famous disaster in a recently completed but not yet published work, I will confine remarks here to the situation only in relation to Durham, who from 8am was officer of the watch. Nobody voiced concern regarding the extent of the heel, which seemed no steeper than when she was previously heeled, and though at length the worried carpenter, Thomas Williams, told Waghorn of nearly three feet of water in her hold, it proved too late to right her. Durham survived in common with Waghorn and most of the men on deck.