Blazon Arms: Or, a cross flory sable surmounted by a bend gules thereon another bend engrailed of the field charged with three hand-grenades of the second fired proper a chief of augmentation wavy argent thereon waves of the sea from which issuant in the centre a palm tree between a disabled ship on the dexter and a battery in ruins on the sinister all proper.

[1] Crests: 1st: On a naval crown or the Chelenk or Diamond Plume of Triumph, presented to Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson by the Grand Signor, Sultan Selim III.

He married Catherine Suckling, whose maternal grandmother Mary was the sister of both the 1st Earl of Orford and the 1st Baron Walpole of Wolterton.

He was succeeded in the barony of 1801 according to the special remainder (and also in the dukedom of Bronte) by his elder brother the Reverend William Nelson, who became the second Baron.

The first Earl died without surviving male issue and was succeeded in the dukedom of Bronte by his daughter Charlotte, wife of the 2nd Baron Bridport.

Nelson's paternal arms (Or, a cross flory sable over all a bendlet gules) were augmented to honour his naval victories.

After the Battle of Cape St Vincent (14 February 1797), Nelson was created a Knight of the Bath and was granted heraldic supporters (appropriate for peers) of a sailor and a lion.

[7] In honour of the Battle of the Nile in 1798, the Crown granted him an augmentation of honour blazoned On a chief wavy argent a palm tree between a disabled ship and a ruinous battery all issuant from waves of the sea all proper, the Latin motto Palmam qui meruit ferat ("let him who has earned it bear the palm"), and added to his supporters a palm branch in the hand of the sailor and in the paw of the lion, and a "tri-colored flag and staff in the mouth of the latter".

[1] The heir apparent is the present holder's only son, Thomas John Horatio Nelson, Viscount Merton (b. 2010).