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Learning Schools Useful Links Popham's Code
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KS 2 Maths, Literacy and Art
 Signals were vital for communication between ships in the fleet, ship-to shore and getting messages and orders from the Admiralty in London to the fleets stationed along the south coast. Ship to ship, and ship to shore communication was done mainly with coloured flags, which were flown from specific masts of the ship during daylight. At night signalling was restricted to the use of groups of coloured lanthorns.
The flag code used by Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar was designed by Sir Admiral Home Popham. Popham had changed his code in 1803 after the French captured a British ship and its code-book. The code-book should have been kept in a bag weighted with lead that would be thrown overboard before a ship was captured. The flag code code-books contained up to 6,000 words and useful phrases set as number codes. The last signal that Nelson ordered to be flown at the Battle of Trafalgar was Engage the Enemy more closely which was only two flags number 1 and number 6 making the number 16 which was the code for the whole phrase. A signal officer would read the flags from top to bottom and look up the number of the code in his signal book.
Draw the flags that made up Nelson’s famous code.
ENGLAND = 253 EXPECTS = 269 THAT = 463 EVERY = 261 MAN = 471 WILL = 985 DO = 220 HIS = 370 D = 4 U = 20 T = 19 Y = 24 Make up code numbers of your own for words for phrases that you use a lot. You can pick any number for any phrase; but you must keep a code book so that you know what your flag code stands for. Give a copy of your code book to your friends so that they know what your secret message is. |
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