'Poldark': Who Was the Real Ned Despard?
When we first meet Ned Despard (played by Vincent Regan) in the final season of Poldark, he's in prison and has written to his old friend Ross, with whom he served in the British Army in the American War of Independence, for help. Ross, always one for the underdog, jumps right in and that makes for big trouble, of the both fictional and historical varieties.
The real Edward Marcus Despard (1751-1803) was born in Ireland to an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family with French Huguenot roots. He was a younger son, and was expected to make his own way in the world, which he did by joining the army at the age of fifteen. He began as an Ensign in the Fifteenth Foot Regiment, was promoted to Lieutenant in 1772. During the American War of Independence, the regiment was stationed at Jamaica to maintain security for British interests, and it was there that he met and befriended the young Horatio Nelson. He also met his future wife Catherine (Kitty), a woman of color whose origins are not clear. One source says that she was the daughter of a freedwoman, another that she was enslaved or a servant. At some point, in between acts of derring-do and adventures with young Lt. Nelson, Despard and Kitty married.
The British were interested in expanding their territory inland on the Mosquito Coast and in 1782 Despard successfully recaptured the British settlement of Black River (Honduras) from the Spanish. It was short lived, as the Peace of Paris returned the colony to Spanish rule, but the coastal areas had a British population that settled there, ignoring sovereignty. Further negotiations carved out a niche of the Bay of Honduras (later Belize) for the British, and Despard, as a reward for his military prowess, was put in charge of resettling the British there and allocating land. But it wasn't just Brits--the population also included a group known as the Shoremen: laborers, brewers, smugglers, freed slaves, and ex-military volunteers. In other words, a mixed race group of the trades and occupations that had grown up around the elites, the Baymen, the all-white, wealthy mahogany dealers.
