by Roy Adkins
At the same battle the seaman John Nicol was stationed in the gunpowder magazine of the Goliath and afterwards acknowledged that he ‘was much indebted to the gunner’s wife, who gave her husband and me a drink of wine every now and then, which lessened our fatigue much. There were some of the women wounded, and one woman belonging to Leith [in Scotland] died of her wounds, and was buried on a small island in the bay. One woman bore a son in the heat of the action; she belonged to Edinburgh.’61 It was not unusual for women to give birth during a battle, as the noise and stress of the situation tended to induce labour. Nor was it unusual for the women to have their children with them. Mary Campbell, whose parents were Thomas Watson and Mary Buek, was born at sea on board the Ardent during the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 and spent her early years with her mother aboard navy ships.
Young children are much less frequently recorded than women. In newspaper coverage of shipwrecks, there are occasional glimpses of children being saved or having tragically drowned, with scattered mentions elsewhere, as on Thursday 12 July 1798 when Aaron Thomas jotted in his journal: ‘A girl called Peg Robinson who lives with [William] Woodcock a gunners mate, had a premature birth this day’,62 while two months later in the Mediterranean Robert Bailey noted in his journal that ‘Sept 4th The wife of Wm White a midshipman was delivered of a girl at 4 o’clock in the morning.’63 In the frigate Macedonian in 1812 Samuel Leech talked about two more births:
Sailing from Madeira, we next made St. Michael’s. At this place we had an increase to our crew, in the person of a fine, plump boy – born to the wife of one of our men. The captain christened the new comer, Michael, naming him after the island. This birth was followed by another. Whether the captain did not like the idea of such interesting episodes in sea life, or whether any other motive inspired him, I cannot tell; but when, shortly after, we returned to Lisbon, he ordered all the women home to England, by a ship just returning thither. Before this, however, one of our little Tritons had died, and found a grave under the billows, leaving its disconsolate mother in a state little short of distraction. A man of war is no place for a woman.64
Children occasionally appear in other incidents that were considered noteworthy, such as the action on 16 June 1812 between the sloop Swallow and two more heavily armed French ships off Fréjus. In this case, the story about twenty-six-year-old Joseph Phelan from Waterford, his wife and their baby Tommy was related by an unnamed officer and published in the Annual Register:
In the gallant and sanguinary action … there was a seaman named Phelan, who had his wife on board; she was stationed (as is usual when women are on board in time of battle) to assist the surgeon in the care of the wounded. From the close manner in which the Swallow engaged the enemy, yard-arm and yard-arm, the wounded, as may be expected, were brought below very fast; amongst the rest a messmate of her husband’s … who had received a musket ball through the side. Her exertions were used to console the poor fellow, who was in great agonies and nearly breathing his last: when, by some chance, she heard her husband was wounded, on the deck … she rushed instantly on deck, and received the wounded tar in her arms; he faintly raised his head to kiss her – she burst into a flood of tears, and told him to take courage, ‘all would yet be well,’ but had scarcely pronounced the last syllable, when an ill-directed shot took her head off. The poor tar, who was closely wrapt in her arms, opened his eyes once more – then shut them for ever.65
The seamen were particularly affected because a child was involved:
The poor creature had been only three weeks delivered of a fine boy, who was thus in a moment deprived of a father and a mother. As soon as the action subsided … the tars were all interested for poor Tommy (for so he was called); many said, and all feared, he must die; they all agreed he should have an hundred fathers, but what could be the substitute of a nurse and a mother! However, the mind of humanity soon discovered there was a Maltese goat on board, belonging to the officers, which gave an abundance of milk; and as there was no better expedient, she was resorted to, for the purpose of suckling the child, who, singular to say, is thriving and getting one of the finest little fellows in the world … Phelan and his wife were sewed up in one hammock, and it is needless to say, buried in one grave.66
The ship’s log merely stated: ‘found the killed to be as follows – Mr William Jackson (clerk), Joseph Phelan (S), John Beckford (S), Nicholas Defons (S), Richard Millington (S) and Thomas Millard (marine) and seventeen wounded’,67 with no mention of Phelan’s wife because technically she did not exist.
Several women claimed to have been at the Battle of Trafalgar, including Mary Sperring and Sarah Pitt on board the Victory and Jane Townsend in the Defiance. When, in 1847, it was decided that Queen Victoria would award a Naval General Service Medal to those survivors of the major battles fought between 1793 and 1840 who were still living, Jane Townsend applied. Sir Thomas Byam Martin was one of the men deciding about eligibility for the medal, and he wrote:
The Queen, in the Gazette of the 1st of June, directs that all who were present in this action shall have a medal, without any reservation as to sex, and as this woman [ Jane Townsend] produces from the Captain of the Defiance strong and highly satisfactory certificates of her useful services during the action, she is fully entitled to a medal. Upon further consideration this cannot be allowed. There were many women in the fleet equally useful, and it will leave the Army exposed to innumerable applications of the same nature.68
There was certainly a fear that hundreds of women might apply, because large numbers of wives and other camp followers had accompanied the army regiments abroad. This fear led to discrimination against the wives of seamen and soldiers, while the medal was awarded to a few male civilian passengers caught up in various battles. Ann Hopping and Mary Ann Riley also applied for the medal, and were similarly refused.
While the awarding or refusal of medals was dictated by a concern for maintaining appearances, the authorities could occasionally be persuaded to acknowledge the contribution of the women aboard navy ships in a less public manner. In 1780 Eleanor Moor was awarded an annual pension of £4 for a fractured skull sustained on board the Apollo earlier that year, after the administrators wrote to the Admiralty for permission:
We beg leave to acquaint you that at our last sitting we were applied to by Eleanor Moor, having a certificate that she was wounded on board His Majesty’s Ship Apollo, when in action with a French frigate on the 15th June 1780, by receiving a gun shot wound on the head, being then actually on service carrying powder to the gun at which her husband was quartered. And though we have no precedent of any persons being relieved who have not been born on the ships books, yet we hope their lordships will approve of our giving this woman the allowance that would have been given to a man under the same circumstance.69
Many women during battle, like Eleanor Moor, acted as powder monkeys, carrying gunpowder cartridges from the magazine to the guns on the decks above. Other women helped the surgeon, but there is some evidence that they also played a more active role in battles. At the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782, the quarter gunner John Peace noted that ‘the damage on board the Prince George was severe, we had nine men killed and 24 wounded, amongst the wounded was a woman which stood at her gun till she had a musquet shot through her arm some[what] dangerously’.70 Most women who sailed in navy ships received no official recognition, although in later life a few made capital from their experiences. One woman, arrested as a vagrant in 1807, claimed she had served in the navy for many years, disguised as a man:
At the Public Office, Queen Square, an old woman, generally known by the name of Tom Bowling, was lately brought before the Magistrate, for sleeping all night in the street; and was committed as a rogue and vagabond, and passed to her parish. She served as Boatswain’s Mate on board a man of war for upwards of 20 years, and has a pension from Chatham Chest. When waked at midnight by the watchman in the street, covered with snow, she cried ‘Where the devil would you have me sleep
?’ She has generally slept in this way, and dresses like a man; and is so hardy at a very advanced age, that she never catches cold.71
Bowling was a name derived from the rope known as the bowline, and ‘Tom Bowling’ was a common name for fictional sailors in songs and plays, so if her story about a pension from Admiralty funds (the Chatham Chest) was true, it was probably not the name she actually used when claiming her pension.
While some might doubt Tom Bowling’s story, there were other well-documented instances of women disguised as men, such as Mary Anne Talbot. The story of her life was written by a London publisher, Robert Kirby, for whom she worked as a servant. Published in 1804, the book sold so well that Kirby brought out an enlarged edition in 1809, a year after her early death at the age of thirty. Although the first book brought Mary Anne temporary fame, she may not have seen much of the profit, because she subsequently fell into debt and spent some time in Newgate prison. Perhaps inevitably with such a sensational celebrity biography, subsequent research72 into her life has suggested that much of the book was embellishment, if not total fabrication.
This, and other books telling similar stories, were part of a long tradition that went back at least to 1750 when an account was published of the experiences of Hannah Snell, who served as a soldier and marine disguised as a man and later built a stage act on this impersonation. More widespread than the books were popular songs that often had the theme of a woman disguised as a man. Examples of these ballads have survived as traditional folk songs, such as ‘Susan’s Adventures in a Man-of-War’, ‘William Taylor’ and ‘The Female Tar’. This romanticisation may have inspired some young girls to follow suit, as in one incident at London:
This day [probably 6 May 1809] two females, who, disguised in seamen’s clothes, had entered a few days since on board the tender, in the River, underwent an examination at the Thames Police Office. A respectable tradesman from Holborn claimed the younger, who is only 18 years of age, as his daughter; and stated that the other had been his servant; but that they had without any known cause, eloped together a fortnight ago. The Magistrate dismissed them with a severe reprimand.73
Other stories appeared of women who maintained the deception for longer:
Amongst the crew of the Queen Charlotte, 110 guns, recently paid off, it is now discovered, was a female African, who has served as a seaman in the Royal Navy for upwards of 11 years, several of which she has been rated able on the books of the above ship by the name of William Brown, and has served for some time as the captain of the fore-top, highly to the satisfaction of the officers. She is a smart well formed figure, about five feet four inches in height, possessed of considerable strength and great activity; her features are rather handsome for a black, and she appears to be about 26 years of age. Her share of prize money is said to be considerable, respecting which she has been several times within the last few days at Somerset-place. In her manner she exhibits all the traits of a British tar and takes her grog with her late messmates with the greatest gaiety. She says she is a married woman, and went to sea in consequence of a quarrel with her husband, who, it is said, has entered a caveat against her receiving her prize money. She declares her intention of again entering the service as a volunteer.74
Despite being a contemporary account in The Times, the woman’s story was probably taken at face value and the facts were not checked. Recent research has shown that the service careers of three William Browns, seamen aboard the Queen Charlotte, were conflated.75 The female William Brown only served for a few weeks before being discovered and discharged, and the ship was in port the entire time.
A song that has proved particularly durable is ‘The Female Cabin Boy’, and there are various documented instances of young women passing themselves off as boys on both merchant and naval ships. One girl was persuaded by the steward of Captain Philip Beaver to dress as a cabin boy so that she could come on board the Nisus frigate, but Beaver found out her true identity:
Before sailing [from Plymouth in 1810], I wanted a lad as an under servant, and my steward, George, recommended me one. Last night this youth was discovered to be a buxom girl, dressed in boy’s clothes, a wench of the rascally steward’s, who … has a respectable wife. I have ordered her to dress ‘en femme’ again, and never to appear in my presence. I shall send her home by the first opportunity; but I am thus deprived of one servant, and have lost all confidence in the other by this abominable deception.76
In another case it proved fatal for a first lieutenant when a girl disguised as a boy was a key witness at his court martial. Elizabeth Bowden, born at Truro in Cornwall, was fourteen years old and had been on board for six weeks before it was discovered that she was a girl: ‘Her father and mother being dead, she had walked from Truro to Plymouth to her sister; but not being able to gain any knowledge of her abode, was obliged, through want, to disguise herself, and volunteer into his majesty’s service. Since she made known her sex, the captain and officers have paid every attention to her; they gave her an apartment to sleep in and she still remains on board the Hazard as an attendant on the officers of the ship.’77
The Morning Chronicle of 6 October 1807 reported the trial at which she was a witness:
On the 2nd instant a Court Martial was held on board the Salvador del Mundo, in Hamoaze, Plymouth, on charges exhibited by Captain [Charles] Dilkes, of his Majesty’s ship Hazard, against William Berry, First Lieutenant of the said ship, for a breach of the 2d and 29th articles; the former respecting uncleanness, and the latter the horrid and abominable crime which delicacy forbids us to name. THOMAS GIBBS, a boy belonging to the ship, proved the offence, as charged to have been committed on the 23d August, 1807. Several other witnesses were called in corroboration, among whom was ELIZABETH BOWDEN, a little female, who has been on board the Hazard these eight months; curiosity had prompted her to look through the key hole of the cabin door, and it was thus she became possessed of the evidence which she gave. She appeared in Court dressed in a long jacket and blue trowsers …… The unfortunate prisoner [William Berry] is above six feet high, remarkably well made, and as fine and handsome a man as is in the British navy. He was to have been married on his return to port.78
At that time the term homosexuality was not used, and despite the reputation of sailors for cursing and blaspheming, ‘buggery’ and ‘sodomy’ were taboo words. In 1786, the captain of the Pegasus – Prince William, the future king – included in his orders that ‘As it is but the too frequent practice on board His Majesty’s ships to make use of that horrid expression Bugger, so disgraceful to a British seaman; if any person shall be heard using this expression they may be assured they will be severely punished.’79 Homosexuality between consenting adults, homosexual rape, paedophilia and bestiality were all covered by a euphemistic form of words such as ‘unclean and unnatural acts’ and were regarded with horror and severely punished. In this case Thomas Gibbs, being under fourteen years of age, was considered blameless – if older, he would also have been convicted of the crime, despite the evidence that he had been forced against his will. He was probably fortunate in escaping punishment, since the crew list of the Hazard showed him to be at least sixteen years old. The background of Elizabeth Bowden remains uncertain, and the court martial simply stated her to be ‘Elizabeth alias John Bowden (a Girl) borne on the Hazard books as a Boy 3rd Class’.80 She was subject to a cross-examination:
Prosecutor: Did you ever, during the time you have been on board the Hazard, look through the keyhole of Mr. Berry’s cabin door and see the boy Thomas Gibbs in any way in an indecent manner employed with his hands with the prisoner.
Answer. Yes, once, a little before we came in. I looked through the keyhole and I saw Thomas Gibbs playing with the prisoner’s privates …
Court. Are you sure that it was the prisoner’s private parts that you saw Thomas Gibbs have hold of.
A. Yes.
Court. What light was there in the Cabin at the time.
A. One candle.81
Although Elizabeth Bowden was the only eyewitness of sexual relations between Berry and Gibbs, the boy had complained of abuse for some time, and there was plenty of circumstantial evidence to back up his story. Berry was found guilty and sentenced to death – he was hanged a few days later, and The Times noted that ‘He was a native of Lancaster, and only 22 years of age. For the last week he seemed very penitent, and perfectly resigned.’82
Many men were court-martialled for similar crimes, with terrible penalties for those found guilty. It was very difficult for the seamen to engage in illicit homosexual acts, as there was so little privacy, but being an officer, Lieutenant Berry had his own cabin and would not have expected to be discovered. Some men were caught in acts of bestiality, as happened to William Bouch, an ordinary seaman of HMS Hotspur, who was court-martialled for the offence. On the night of 28 June 1812, in the Bay of Biscay, Lieutenant Charles Kirkwood related,