Richard Powell of the Temeraire

Date Posted: 11/01/2010

Mr Colin Powell has kindly got in touch with some information about Richard Powell, who fought on the Temeraire at Trafalgar.

Richard Powell was born in Harwich on 13 August 1787 and was eighteen years old at the time of Trafalgar. Both his parents died when he was six years old and he was cared for by a family member, Elias Loveday. In 1802 he was apprenticed to a sailmaker in Harwich. The family lived in King Heads St. in Harwich, which was just around the corner from the Admiralty ship yard. He was pressed into service in Plymouth on the 19 March 1803 and after Trafalgar went back to Harwich and worked as a sail maker. There were Powell sail makers in Pin Mill on the Orwell River right up to the mid 1950’s working for the Thames barge trade.