HMS Temeraire fought immediately behind Victory at Trafalgar and engaged several enemy vessels during the fiercest part of the battle. Its crew helped secure the British victory off the Spanish coast. The ageing warship was eventually towed up the Thames for breaking in 1838.

Turner's painting The Fighting Temeraire gave the ship an elegiac cultural identity that poets repeatedly adopted. Henry Newbolt's The Fighting Temeraire turned its history into rhythmic patriotic verse while dwelling upon age, memory and the disappearance of sail.