Funds plea from St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery and Friends of Sir Harry to create Sir Harry Burrard Neale archive

NEW Forest residents are being called on to help a £22,500 archive project about a Napoleonic War hero from Lymington, Sir Harry Burrard Neale.

The Charles Burnett Memorial Fund has donated £13,500 to Lymington’s St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery and the Friends of Sir Harry, so they can establish a collection of documents and information.

The archive will be hosted at the museum, which is providing around £4,000 of staff time and resources – but a further £5,000 is needed from the public to complete the scheme.

Don Mackenzie, chair of the Friends group, said: “The Friends of Sir Harry and staff at St Barbe are thrilled to have been awarded this substantial grant from the Charles Burnett Memorial Fund to enable us to create an amazing archive of information about the Burrard family of Walhampton, Sir Harry Burrard Neale and the society of Lymington.

“We will now be launching a campaign to raise the matched funding needed to complete the project and will be looking for support from the community.

“The Burrard family was one of the principle drivers of the Lymington salt industry, which brought so much wealth to the town and the New Forest.”

Rear Admiral Sir Harry Burrard Neale, second baronet of Walhampton, joined the Royal Navy in 1778 and was present at the Siege of Charleston during the American Revolutionary War in 1780.

He later distinguished himself by helping to diffuse a naval mutiny at Nore, an anchorage on the Thames estuary, in 1797 and served on board HMS London during the Napoleonic War in 1806.

Sir Harry became commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet in 1823 and was later appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George.

He was also the MP for Lymington four times between 1790 and 1835 and was later given a position in the royal household as a Groom of the Bedchamber to King George III.

The new archive project on Sir Harry’s life will contain both digital and physical materials, with the digital material available to view on both the museum and Friends websites.

To help fund the archive project visit friendsofsirharry.org