Category: Community (Warminster)

There once was an inn called The Admiral Vernon at Silver Street, Warminster.

Some notes about the fall from grace of Admiral Vernon, the person:

Admiral Vernon was court-martialled in 1746, for publishing defamatory pamphlets against the Government. The King directed their Lordships in the House of Lords to strike Vernon’s name from the list of flag officers.

In days gone by, the fall from popularity of public figures and the rising stardom of others was obviously good enough reason for changing the signs of inns named after real persons.

Horace Walpole, in a letter to a Mr Conway, dated 16th April 1747, said “I was yesterday out of town, and the very signs, as I passed through the villages, made me make very quaint reflections on the mortality of fame and popularity. I observed how the Duke’s head [Duke William] had succeeded almost universally to Admiral Vernon’s, as his had left but few traces of the Duke of Ormond’s. I pondered these things in my heart, and said unto myself, surely all glory is but a sign!”

Vernon died suddenly on 30th October 1757, aged 72. Six years later his nephew, Francis Vernon, who was Lord Otwell (later the Earl of Shipbrook), erected a monument to Admiral Vernon in the north transept of Westminster Abbey.

His name lives on though, not just for inn names. Admiral Vernon is the name of an antiques market and arcade at Portobello Road, London.