The Duke of Marlborough – Falmouth Packet Ship

From the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, England, we received new information about the ship on which Captain MacDonald served as Master** when the infamous and fateful all night battle with HMS Primrose took place in the Bay of Biscay in 1814. An AI depiction of the unfortunate night time battle for which Primrose’s Captain was court martialed is shown here. The story is covered more fully here https://bonniewilliam.com/2017/01/20/heroic-leadership-captain-william-macdonald-1814/

We now discover that the model of the Duke held with the swords in the display at the Museum was in fact crafted by a crew member on board the Duke, and presented to its captain in 1814 – thus we become aware we have an exact replica of the Duke – it is seen below. Its replication is confirmed by a Relief on the beautiful Falmouth home of Captain John Bull which may be seen via this link about the Falmouth Packet captains. https://nmmc.co.uk/2024/03/the-former-houses-of-packet-commanders/

Our quite dramatic Header Image is an AI generated depiction of ‘The Duke’ returning to its home port after a voyage about 1810. It was the second Duke of Marlborough captained by Captain Bull, launched in 1806 and lost in a storm off the English coast near Falmouth about 1815 – AI depicted below.

The ‘Duke’ and several other similar design ships of the ‘Packet Ship’ service out of Falmouth sailed scheduled voyages to many coastal ports along the Atlantic eastern seaboard and the Baltic, delivering freight and passengers. Other ‘Packet’ services sailed from other English coastal ports too.