Notes

Alexander Davison came from a Northumberland family. He met Nelson in Quebec in 1782 during the American War of Independence when he was a merchant ship owner in the Canada trade and Nelson the captain of a frigate.

At the start of the French revolutionary wars he was connected with the commissariat of the Duke of York's army in Flanders and by 1795 he had made sufficient money to able to buy Swarland Park in Northumberland.

When after the Battle of the Nile he was appointed Nelson's agent for the sale of prizes he had medals struck in gratitude which were presented to every officer and man present in the engagement, a singular act of generosity which cost him over £20,000.

To the North of the site of Gefrin, on the top of a hill, stands a prominent obelisk. The hill is Lanton hill and the obelisk has northing at all to do with Gefrin though it is often mistaken for the Gefrin monument.

The obelisk adds it's 8m hight to Lanton hill's 208m and was erected in 1827 by Alexander Davison in memory of his older brother, John Davison, a local landowner. John Davison was succeeded by Sir William Davison and it was Sir William who added a plaque commemorating Alexander who died in 1829.

© Brian Cosgrove