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Nelson and His Navy - What did women do?

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We know that women served on board his Majesty’s ships but what did they do and how long did they do it for? They obviously fall into two types, the ‘cross-dressers’ and the ones who remained openly as women.

In the first category there are such women as "William Brown", a black woman, served for 11 years as the ‘Captain of the Maintop’ aboard the Queen Charlotte to everyone’s satisfaction in 1815. The Captain of the Maintop was a responsible position only given to the more agile of sailors. Another woman, "Tom Bowling" was brought before a magistrate for petty theft and as evidence of her good character cited that she had served as a Boatswain’s Mate in the Royal Navy for 20 years and was even drawing a pension for the same!

How did they escape undetected in the close environment of a warship’s mess-deck? We assume that there was little privacy and that a man, lacking the necessary ‘appendages’ would quickly be discovered. The instances of cross-dressing were not confined to the Royal Navy either. Jeanette Colin, who abandoned the French ACHILLE at Trafalgar before she blew up was fished out of the water stark naked by the crew of the PICKLE and transferred to the REVENGE. Here the arrival of a naked woman caused not a little excitement and she was quickly given the wherewithal to make some clothes for herself (women’s at that, as she was given some sprigged muslin). The story emerged that when the fleet left Cadiz she had decided to stay with her husband, and dressing as a sailor, she served alongside him until during the battle he was killed. She then took passage to Gibraltar where she disappeared. At the same time the BRITANNIA also picked up a woman who had been serving on the ACHILLE.

It would be easier for a young woman to pass herself off as a boy and this is presumably what happened to Nellie Bowden, a woman on an American ship, who when eventually discovered had her rating on the ship’s books changed from Ship’s Boy to Domestic.

Although no proof exists I feel that women were often discovered and to avoid embarrassment an official ignorance was imposed or the men simply chose not to reveal their presence.
There were, of course many women carried to sea in there own right sometimes as stowaways but more often with the official ‘ignorance’ of the Captain. Ladies were rarely carried in this way but were often transported as honoured passengers, perhaps for a brother Captain serving on a foreign station. Indeed the carrying of wives was often extended to other officers, warrant officers and seamen. An example of this is when William Richardson was accompanied by his wife on a voyage to the West Indies in 1800. On board were also the wives of the Captain, the Master, the Boatswain, the Sergeant of Marines and six other men as well as the Boatswain’s daughter and the Captain’s wife’s maid. The Captain’s and the Boatswain’s wives were pregnant, the former delivering a boy at sea. The latter sadly died of Yellow Fever.

The births of children at sea were occasionally reported and perhaps the most famous is that of the son of Mrs McKenzie. He was delivered at the height of the Glorious First of June in 1794 in the bread room of the TREMENDOUS (I imagine the Purser must have had a fit!). Thereafter he rejoiced in the name of Daniel Tremendous McKenzie! He was also awarded the Naval General Service Medal for his part in the action and was rated ‘Baby’! In John Nichol’s account of the Battle of the Nile he states “… One woman bore a son in the heat of the action; she belonged to Edinburgh.". In Captain Glascombe’s log the following is recorded. "This day the surgeon informed me that a woman on board had been labouring in childbirth for twelve hours and if I could see my way to permit the firing of a broadside to leeward, nature would be assisted by the shock. I complied with the request, and she was delivered of a fine male child." Because of the place where children were born in the limited space on board a fighting ship they were often referred to as a ‘Son of a Gun‘.

What did these women do on board a ship? This is where we have problems as few clues remain. While again Nichol mentions that they worked with the gunners during the battle presumably fetching powder and helping the wounded there is little evidence. While some were evidently servants many simply carried on their wifely duties. Such a woman was Nancy Perriam, who served aboard the ORION. Her job was to make and mend the Captain’s clothes but was present at both Cape St. Vincent in 1797 and the Nile. At St Vincent she carried gunpowder and helped the surgeon in the cockpit. She also notes an indebtedness to the Gunner’s Wife who supplied her with wine. [As late as WW1 a woman, Kathleen Dyer, was rated as Captain’s Servant and served for two and a half years aboard HMS CALYPSO].

In 1798 four women appear on the GOLIATH’s muster books , "victualled at two-thirds allowance, per Captain's order, in consideration of their assistance in dressing and attending on the wounded, being widows of men slain in fight with the enemy on 1st August, I798.”
Admiral George Vernon Jackson remembered that when he was a midshipman serving aboard the Lapwing in 1801, the ship ran aground. "Whilst occupied in getting the ship off the Shoal, it was amusing to see how some women - forty or fifty in number - who were on board exerted themselves at the ropes."

Women it seems did not always acquit themselves well in an emergency. An officer on board the ORESTES recalls that when a fire broke out in the cabin directly above the powder magazine the blaze "occasioned the utmost terrors among the ship's company . . . It was ludicrous to see the captain with a speaking trumpet exerting himself to keep order, and the carpenter's wife catching him round the legs, and while he was calling for Water she was screaming out Fire".

There were of course a final group of women carried on board ship for immoral purposes. A shocked and puritanical officer stated in 1808 that the Captain of an unnamed ship “ allowed about nine women to go to sea in the ship. They were mustered on the forecastle on Sundays, and inspected by the Captain and the First Lieutenant. Their conduct was so infamous, that after our arrival in the Indies two or three were turned out into a brig, for a passage to England; and most of those that remained were common to the ship’s company. It was common for the midshipmen to have these women. Indeed the Captain himself did not hesitate to take a foreign girl to live with him for some time while we remained in those seas.

Even more alarming were the scenes in port where any ship returning from a cruise was liable to be surrounded by bumboats filled with local prostitutes keen to remove the hapless and presumably sex-starved sailors gold. The lower deck could quickly be turned into a vision of hell as men took one or sometimes two prostitutes on board. The same officer states “Men and women are turned by hundreds into one large compartment, and in sight and hearing of each other shamelessly and unblushingly couple like dogs”

It should also be stated that some ships were extremely moral places depending on the attitude of the Captain, many of whom were of an evangelical bent. Prostitutes were not allowed on such ships and in port a guard boat was often posted to stop the approach of the bumboats.

So we have a varied picture of the lives of women on board his Majesty’s vessels of war. They encompassed all social classes and indeed women seemed to have performed most of the roles that men did with the exception of holding a commission. Once again we see the ships of the sailing navy as truly a “Wooden World”. Perhaps the words of the romanticised folk song are not far from the truth when the women;

Put on a jolly sailor's dress
And daubed her hands with tar
To cross the raging sea
On board a man-of-war.