" Inglaterra espera que cada hombre cumpla con su deber. "
Con estas palabras, Nelson motivó a sus hombres antes de la batalla de Trafalgar.

Nelson, el hijo de un rector, nació en la casa parroquial de Burnham Thorpe en Norfolk. Su relación con el mar se fraguó muy pronto, y cuando era aún muy joven, pronto se vio que se haría un héroe. Fue tan precoz que con 20 años ya era un capitán, y desde 1793 estuvo peleando contra franceses y españoles en el Mediterráneo.

Para sus estadísticas y sus tácticas, en el recuerdo queda la batalla del cabo de San Vicente, en 1797, bajo las órdenes del Admirante Jervis, quien fue aclamado en el país como un heroe. Una bomba le dejó tuerto, y al año siguiente perdió su brazo derecho en una batalla en Tenerife, en las Islas Canarias.

Él persiguió a los franceses por todo el Mediterráneo antes de derrotarlos por completo en la Batalla de Nilo en 1789.

El Almirante Lord Nelson, comandante en jefe de los barcos de Su Majestad la Reina en el Mediterráneo, fue abatido por españoles y franceses en la Batalla de Trafalgar el 21 de octubre de 1805.

This Cemetery was consecrated in June 1798, seven years before the battle of Trafalgar. It was then known as the Southport Ditch Cemetery, and was sometimes regarded as a part of the old St. Jago’s Cemetery, which was situated at the other side of Charles V Wall. The association with the battle of Trafalgar does not seem to have been made until many years after the event.

Southport Ditch, outside Southport Gate, formed part of the town defences at least as far back as Spanish times: it appears in the 1627 map of Gibraltar by Luis Bravo in the British Museum, as a “Fosso” just south of “Puerta de Africa” (Southport Gate). The western half of the ditch, which had been used as a market garden in the nineteenth century, was filled in when Referendum arch was opened in 1967.

The cemetery was used for burials between 1798 and 1814, and thereafter fell into disuse, although there is one isolated tomb from 1838 near the far north-east corner (no.60 in the plan on the south wall). Earlier gravestones from St.Jago’s cemetery were set into the eastern wall in 1932, and there are also a few free-standing stones, some of which date back to the 1780s, which have been transferred over the years from the Alameda Gardens.

Although the name of the cemetery commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, only two of those who are buried here actually died of wounds suffered in the battle (Lieut. William Forster of the Royal Marine Corps of H.M.S. Mars and Lieut.Thomas Norman of H.M.S. Columbus-grave numbers 121 and 101). Most of those who died at Trafalgar were buried at sea, and Lord Nelson’s body was transported to London for a state funeral. Wounded seamen were brought to Gibraltar, and those who died later of their wounds were buried just to the north of Charles V Wall, on the opposite side of Trafalgar Cemetery, a small plaque was recently placed there to commemorate the site.

Many of the tombstones (see pictures) in the cemetery commemorate the dead of three terrible yellow fever epidemics in 1804, 1813 and 1814. Also buried here are victims of other sea battles of the Napoleonic Wars-the Battle of Algeciras (1801) and actions off Cadiz (1810) and Malaga (1812).