Trident Memorial, Portsmouth, Portsmouth
This memorial was built in c1860. It has the inscription "To the memory of forty-four Officers and Men of H.M.S. Trident who died of yellow fever in the short space of six weeks during the unusual epidemic at Sierra Leone 1859". The British had been in Sierra Leone since the 1620s and it had become an important centre for the transatlantic slave trade. Following the Abolition Act of 1807 the Royal Navy created the West Africa Squadron to prevent the trading of slaves by patroling the coast of West Africa. The main naval station for this was in Freetown on Sierra Leone, which had become a Crown Colony in 1808. Sailors disliked being posted to this Squadron as their chance of dying from disease was more than 5 times higher than in any other posting.
