HMS Agamemnon (1781) - Legacy

Legacy

In 1993 the wreck was located north of Gorriti Island in Maldonado Bay. Expeditions led by Mensun Bound have documented the remains and recovered a number of artefacts, including a seal bearing the name 'Nelson,' and one of Agamemnon's 24-pounder guns from her main gundeck.

The historical novelist Patrick O'Brian selected Agamemnon as one of the ships on which Jack Aubrey served as lieutenant, before the events of Master and Commander, the first novel in his Aubrey–Maturin series. Agamemnon has also been the subject of at least two paintings by the British artist Geoff Hunt, currently the president of the Royal Society of Marine Artists.

To mark the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar, in 2005 the Woodland Trust planted 33 woods named after Royal Navy ships that fought in the battle: one each for the 27 ships of the line, and six others for the frigates and smaller support craft. Agamemnon wood was planted in November 2005 on the Beaulieu Estate in Hampshire, near Agamemnon's birthplace, Buckler's Hard.

After the wreck of Agamemnon in 1809, the name was only reused by the Royal Navy for three other ships: the 91-gun second-rate steam ship of the line Agamemnon of 1852, the Ajax-class battleship Agamemnon in 1879, and the Lord Nelson-class battleship Agamemnon of 1906.

Agamemnon Channel in the Sunshine Coast region of British Columbia, at the mouth of Jervis Inlet between Nelson Island and the Sechelt Peninsula, was named for the Agamemnon (Nelson Island being named for Lord Nelson) by Captain George Henry Richards of HMS Plumper in 1860.