England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty - References in Popular Culture

References in Popular Culture

The phrase has become well known in Britain because of Lord Nelson's enduring fame and the importance of the Battle of Trafalgar in British history. Generations of British schoolchildren have been taught about Trafalgar, alongside other seminal moments of British history such as the Battle of Hastings, Magna Carta, the Gunpowder Plot, and the Battle of Britain.

Charles Dickens quotes it in Chapter 43 of Martin Chuzzlewit:

"...as the poet informs us, England expects Every man to do his duty, England is the most sanguine country on the face of the earth, and will find itself continually disappointed."

In Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, the Bellman says:

"For England Expects — I forbear to proceed. Tis a maxim tremendous, but trite."

In Ogden Nash's collection of poems I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938) there is a short poem "England Expects"

In Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds (1939) during the battle of cowboys in downtown Dublin "In no time wasn't there a crowd around the battlefield and them cheering and calling and asking every man of us to do his duty" (p. 58)

It was also referenced by Margaret Thatcher during her crucial speech to the cabinet which finally persuaded them to rally behind her over the divisive issue of the Poll Tax. Further afield, it has been used by James Joyce in his novel, Ulysses, which contains numerous repetitions of Nelson's message, including several that are deliberately fragmented or misquoted (even as "Ireland expects every man will do his duty"). In the United States, former Secretary of the Navy of the United States of America Gordon England wore a tie with the flags representing the famous quote when he visited naval vessels. The phrase is said by a character on a raft in Jaws 2 pretending that he is a British naval commander just before the shark attacks.

In the 1980s sitcom Blackadder the Third, the show's antihero, Mr. E. Blackadder, mocks Nelson's famous signal. In the episode Ink and Incapability, he announces that Nelson used a similar signal at the Battle of the Nile: "England knows Lady Hamilton is a virgin. Poke my eye out and cut off my arm if I'm wrong." This is a reference to Nelson losing an eye in battle in 1794 and an arm in 1797.

Today "England expects..." is often adapted for use in the media, especially in relation to the expectations for the victory of English sporting teams. Such is the sentence's connotation with sport that a recent book on the history of the England national football team by James Corbett was entitled England Expects. A BBC Scotland television drama also bears its name.