Women Sailors & Sailors' Women (39 page)

13. Letter dated July 21, 1748,
Admiral's Wife: Being the Life and Letters of the Hon. Mrs. Edward Boscawen from 1719 to 1761,
ed. Cecil Aspinall-Oglander (London, 1940), 96.

14. Letter written from HMS
Torbay,
at sea, May 3, 1755, “Boscawen's Letters to His Wife, 1755–1756,” ed. Peter Kemp, in
The Naval Miscellany
IV (1952), 177.

15. Letter written from HMS
Torbay,
at sea, May 7, 1755, in Kemp, 180.

16. Letter written from HMS
Torbay,
at sea, April 22, 1755, in Kemp, 175.

17. Letter written from HMS
Invincible,
at sea, May 31, 1756, in Kemp, 215.

18. The spelling has been modernized here. The original (quoted by Peter Kemp in his
The British Sailor,
76) is “i am and so is every Man of us resolved either to lose our lifes or conker our enemys. true british spirit revives and by G-d we will support our King and contry so long as a drap of blood remains.”

19. Baynham, 95.

20. Nevens, 81.

10. Women and Water, Sirens and Mermaids

1. Letter written from HMS
Ocean,
August 9, 1808.
The Private Correspondence of Admiral Lord Collingwood,
ed. Edward Hughes (Navy Records Society, London, 1957), 251.

2. Linda Greenlaw,
The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey
(London, 1999), 137.

3. Nelson to Admiral Jervis, 1801,
Memoirs of Admiral the Right Honourable the Earl of St. Vincent
2, ed. J. S. Tucker (London, 1844), 120.

4.
The Natural History of Pliny V,
translated with notes by J. Bostock and H. T. Riley (London, 1855), 304.

5. Margarita Russell,
Visions of the Sea: Hendrick C. Vroom and the Origins of Dutch Marine Painting
(Leiden, Netherlands, 1983), 65–68; and Sylvia Rogers,
The Symbolism of Ship Launching in the Royal Navy
(D.Phil. thesis, Oxford), 531–37. There is a copy in the Caird Library, National Maritime Museum, London.

6.
Sigmund Freud: Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis,
eds. James Strachey and Angela Richards (London, 1973; edition cited, 1991), 194.

7. Hans Soop,
The Power and the Glory: The Sculptures of the Warship Wasa
(Stockholm, 1986).

8. P. N. Thomas,
British Figurehead and Ship Carvers
(Wolverhampton, U.K., 1995), 66.

9. Thomas, 76.

10. Giancarlo Costa,
Figureheads: Carving on Ships from Ancient Times to the Twentieth Century,
translated from the Italian by Brian Dolley (Lymington, U.K., 1981).

11. Thomas, 40.

12. For a more detailed discussion of the image of Britannia, see Marina Warner,
Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form
(London, 1985; edition cited, 1996), 45–49.

13. Among the books consulted on the subject of sirens and mermaids, the following proved most useful: Angelo S. Rappoport,
Superstitions of Sailors
(London, 1928); F. S. Bassett,
Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and Sailors in All Lands and at All Times
(Chicago and New York, 1885); Helen King, “Half-human Creatures,” in
Mythical Beasts,
ed. John Cherry (London, 1995); Gwen Benwell and Arthur Waugh,
Sea Enchantress: The Tale of the Mermaid and Her Kin
(London, 1961); Beatrice Phillpotts,
Mermaids
(London, 1980).

14. Quoted by Benwell and Waugh, 42.

15. Benwell and Waugh, 95.

16. Ibid., 96.

17. Ibid., 97.

18. See Beatrice Phillpotts's book,
Mermaids,
for an excellent selection of paintings, woodcuts, and book illustrations of sirens and mermaids.

11. A Wife in Every Port

1. The details of Hervey's life are taken from: M. J. R. Holmes,
Augustus Hervey, a Naval Casanova
(Edinburgh and Cambridge, 1996);
August Hervey's Journal: Being the Intimate Account of the Life of a Captain in the Royal Navy Ashore and Afloat, 1746–1759,
ed. David Erskine (London, 1953); Obituary of Augustus Hervey in the
Gentleman's Magazine
53 (1783), 1007; and the entries for Hervey and for Elizabeth Chudleigh in the
Dictionary of National Biography
(London).

2. Holmes, 71.

3. Quoted by Erskine in his Introduction to
Augustus Hervey's Journal.

4.
Hervey's Journal,
76.

5. Ibid., 101.

6. Ibid., 190.

7. Mrs. Nesbitt's origins are obscure: “This lady, whose origin may be traced to a wheelbarrow, made acquaintance to Mr. Nesbitt, a worthy young gentleman then in partnerships in the banking business. . . .”
Town and Country,
January 1775, 9.

8. Holmes, 238.

9. David Proctor,
Music of the Sea
(London, 1992), 78.

10. PROB 11/960 f. 383.

11. ADM 6/332.

12. See Commander Charles N. Robinson,
The British Tar in Fact and Fiction: The Poetry, Pathos and Humour of the Sailor's Life
(London and New York, 1909). This fascinating book contains a rich selection of illustrations after contemporary woodcuts and engravings, as well as many examples of nautical songs and ballads.

13.
Naval Songs and Ballads,
ed. C. H. Firth (Navy Records Society, London, 1908), 143–44.

14.
Ramblin' Jack: The Journal of Captain John Cremer, 1700–1774,
ed. R. Reynell Bellamy (London, 1936), 131.

15. ADM 101/102/11.

16. Edward Thompson,
A Sailor's Letters, Written to His Select Friends in England During His Voyages and Travels in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, from the Year 1754 to 1759
2 (London, 1767), 24.

17. George Robertson,
The Discovery of Tahiti: A Journal of the Second Voyage of HMS Dolphin Round the World . . . Written by Her Master George Robertson,
ed. Hugh Carrington, (London, 1948), 136.

18. Ibid., 166.

19. See J. C. Beaglehole,
The Life of Captain James Cook
(London, 1974), 172.

20. Patrick O'Brian,
Joseph Banks, a Life
(London, 1987; edition cited, Chicago, 1997), 91.

21. Lynne Withey,
Voyages of Discovery: Captain Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific
(London, 1987), 102.

22. David Lewis,
From Maui to Cook: The Discovery and Settlement of the Pacific
(Sydney, 1977), 161.

23. Richard Hough,
Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian: The Men and the Mutiny
(London, 1972; edition cited, London, 1988), 196.

24. Brian W. Scott, “Pitcairn: What Happened,” in
Mutiny on the Bounty, 1789–1989
(catalogue of exhibition held at the National Maritime Museum, London, 1989), 131.

12. Two Naval Heroes and Their Women

1. The details for the life of John Paul Jones are taken from Samuel Eliot Morison,
John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography
(Boston, 1959), which contains a very comprehensive bibliography; William Gilkerson,
The Ships of John Paul Jones
(Annapolis, Md., 1987); and G. W. Allen,
A Naval History of the American Revolution
(Boston, 1913).

2. Morison, 250.

3. Ibid., 280.

4. Ibid., 286. The original letter was written in French.

5. Ibid., 347.

6. Ibid., 376.

7. The details of the lives of Nelson and Lady Hamilton are taken from Flora Fraser,
Beloved Emma
(London, 1986); George P. Naish,
Nelson's Letters to His Wife
(London, 1958); David Howarth,
Trafalgar: The Nelson Touch
(London, 1969); Tom Pocock,
Horatio Nelson
(London, 1987); Tom Pocock,
Nelson's Women
(London, 1999);
Nelson: An Illustrated History,
ed. Pieter van der Merwe (London, 1995); and Oliver Warner,
A Portrait of Lord Nelson
(London, 1958).

8. Fraser, 249.

9. Naish, 353.

10. Pocock,
Horatio Nelson,
165.

11. Fraser, 220.

12. Warner, 168.

13. Ibid., 268–69.

14. Pocock,
Nelson's Women,
156.

15. Naish, 586.

16. Pocock,
Nelson's Women,
193.

17. Ibid., 214.

18. Ibid., 223.

19. Naish, 605–6.

20. Fraser, 326.

21. The friend was Lady Elizabeth Foster; see Pocock,
Nelson's Women,
227.

13. The Lighthouse Women

1. The details for Grace Darling's story are taken from Constance Smedley,
Grace Darling and Her Times
(London, 1932); Richard Armstrong,
Grace Darling, Maid and Myth
(London, 1965); William Darling,
The Journal of William Darling, Grace Darling's Father
(London, 1886);
Grace Darling: Her True Story; from Unpublished Papers in the Possession of Her Family
(London, 1880).

2. Darling, 19–20.

3. From a report in the
Berwick & Kelso Warder,
quoted by Armstrong, 136.

4. Armstrong, 99.

5. Ibid., 112.

6. Smedley, 76.

7.
Grace Darling: Her True Story,
26.

8. Smedley, 76.

9. Elinor De Wire,
Guardians of the Lights: The Men and Women of the U.S. Lighthouse Service
(Sarasota, Fla., 1953), 189.

10. Mary Louise Clifford and J. Candace Clifford,
Women Who Kept the Lights: An Illustrated History of Female Lighthouse Keepers
(Williamsburg, Va., 1993), 26.

11. Ibid., 29.

12. Ibid., 128.

13. The details of the life of Ida Lewis are taken from Gilson Willets, “Fifty Years a Heroine of the Seas,” from an unknown publication of July 1907 in the archives of the Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Va. (Lifesaving at Sea, 1850–1912); and from Elinor de Wire,
Guardians of the Lights;
Clifford and Clifford,
Women Who Kept the Lights.

14. The journalist was George Brewerton, and his description is quoted in Clifford and Clifford, 91.

15. Ibid., 92.

16. Willets, 42.

14. The Sailors' Return

1. Baynham, 93.

2. Ibid., 130.

3. Christopher Lloyd,
The British Seaman, 1200–1860
(London, 1968), 246.

4. Captain Anselm John Griffiths,
Observations on Some Points of Seamanship
(Cheltenham, U.K., 1824), 43–45.

5. ADM 101/90/1.

6. ADM 101/93/2.

7. Richardson, 17–18.

8. Nicholas Blake and Richard Lawrence,
The Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy
(London, 2000), 94.

9. There is an excellent chapter on naval diseases with extensive quotations from Turnbull in Dudley Pope,
Life in Nelson's Navy
(first published London 1981; edition cited, 1999), 131–48; see also Christopher Lloyd and Jack Coulter,
Medicine and the Navy, 1200–1900
(Edinburgh and London, 1961).

10. Spavens, 111.

11. ADM 6/332.

12. Oliver Warner,
The Glorious First of June
(London, 1961), 163.

13. Christopher Lloyd,
St. Vincent and Camperdown
(London, 1963), 160.

14. Pope, 80.

15. Letter dated June 9, 1755, Aspinall-Oglander, 179–80.

16. Peter Linebaugh,
The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century
(London, 1991; edition cited, 1993), 140.

17. Firth, 140.

18. ADM 1/5125.

19. Spinney, 124.

20. Nantucket Historical Society.

21. Edgar March,
Sailing Drifters
(Newton Abbot, U.K., 1969), 255.

22. Caroline Fox and Francis Greenacre,
Painting in Newlyn, 1830–1930
(catalogue of exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery, London), 121.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This is a selected list of books for further reading. References to the books and documents that I have consulted are given in the notes to each chapter.

 

Armstrong, Richard.
Grace Darling: Maid and Myth
(London, 1965).

Asbury, Herbert.
The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld
(London, 1934).

Aspinall-Oglander, Cecil, ed.
Admiral's Wife: Being the Life and Letters of The Hon. Mrs. Edward Boscawen from 1719–1761
(London, 1940).

Bamfield, Veronica.
On the Strength: The Story of the British Army Wife
(London, 1974).

Bassett, F. S.
Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and Sailors in All Lands and at All Times
(Chicago and New York, 1885).

Baynham, Henry.
From the Lower Deck: The Old Navy, 1780–1840
(London, 1969).

Beaglehole, J. C.
The Life of Captain James Cook
(London, 1974).

Bell, George.
Soldier's Glory: Being Rough Notes of an Old Soldier
(London, 1956).

Benwell, Gwen, and Arthur Waugh.
Sea Enchantress: The Tale of the Mermaid and Her Kin
(London, 1961).

Berckman, Evelyn.
The Hidden Navy
(London, 1973).

Blake, Nicholas, and Richard Lawrence.
The Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy
(London, 2000).

Burford, E. J., and Joy Wotton.
Private Vices—Public Virtues: Bawdry in London from Elizabethan Times to the Regency
(London, 1955).

Cherry, John, ed.
Mythical Beasts
(London, 1995).

Clark, Peter.
The English Alehouse: A Social History, 1200–1830
(London, 1983).

Clifford, M. L., and J. C. Clifford.
Women Who Kept the Lights
(Williamsburg, Va., 1993).

Cochrane, Thomas.
The Autobiography of a Seaman,
Douglas Cochrane, ed. (London, 1890).

Cohen, Daniel A.
The Female Marine and Related Works: Narratives of Cross-Dressing and Urban Vice in America's Early Republic
(Boston, 1997).

Collingwood, G. L. Newnham.
A Selection from the Public and Private Correspondence of Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood
(London, 1829).

Cordingly, David.
Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates
(New York, 1995).

Costa, Giancarlo.
Figureheads: Carving on Ships from Ancient Times to the Twentieth Century
(Lymington, U.K., 1981).

Creighton, Margaret S., and Lisa Norling, eds.
Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700–1920
(Baltimore and London, 1996).

Cremer, John.
Ramblin' Jack: The Journal of Captain John Cremer, 1700–1774,
R. Reynell Bellamy, ed. (London, 1936).

Cunningham, Charles.
A Narrative of the Mutiny at the Nore
(Chatham, U.K., 1829).

de Pauw, Linda Grant.
Seafaring Women
(Boston, 1982).

De Wire, Elinor.
Guardians of the Lights: The Men and Women of the U.S. Lighthouse Service
(Sarasota, Fla., 1953).

Diamant, Lincoln, ed.
Revolutionary Women in the War for American Independence
(Westport, Conn., and London).

Dowie, Menie Muriel, ed.
Women Adventurers
(London, 1893).

Druett, Joan.
Hen Frigates: Wives of Merchant Captains Under Sail
(New York, 1998).

———.
She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea
(New York, 2000).

Druett, Joan, ed.
She Was a Sister Sailor: The Whaling Journal of Mary Brewster, 1845–1851
(Mystic, Conn., 1992).

Dugaw, Dianne.
Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650–1850
(Chicago and London, 1989).

Erskine, David.
Augustus Hervey's Journal: Being the Intimate Account of the Life of a Captain in the Royal Navy Ashore and Afloat, 1746–1759
(London, 1953).

Estes, J. Worth.
Naval Surgeon: Life and Death at Sea in the Age of Sail
(Canton, Mass., 1998).

Firth, C. H.
Naval Songs and Ballads
(Navy Records Society, London, 1908).

Fraser, Antonia.
The Weaker Vessel: A Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-Century England
(London, 1984).

Fraser, Flora.
Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma Lady Hamilton
(London, 1986).

Garner, Stan, ed.
The Captain's Best Mate: The Journal of Mary Chipman Lawrence on the Whaler Addison, 1856–1860
(Hanover and London, 1966).

Gilfoyle, Timothy.
City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790–1920
(New York, 1992).

Gilkerson, William.
The Ships of John Paul Jones
(Annapolis, Md., 1987).

Glascock, Captain W. N.
Tales of a Tar
(London, 1836).

Greenlaw, Linda.
The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey
(London, 1999).

Hibbert, Christopher.
Nelson: A Personal History
(London, 1994).

Hill, Marilynn Wood.
Their Sisters' Keepers: Prostitution in New York City, 1830–1870
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1992).

Holmes, M.J.R.
Augustus Hervey, a Naval Casanova
(Edinburgh and Cambridge, 1996).

Hough, Richard.
Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian: The Men and the Mutiny
(London, 1972).

Hubback, J. H., and Edith C. Hubback.
Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers: Being the Adventures of Sir Frances Austen, GCB, Admiral of the Fleet and Rear-Admiral Charles Austen
(London, 1906).

Hughes, Edward, ed.
The Private Correspondence of Admiral Lord Collingwood
(Navy Records Society, London, 1957).

Hugill, Stan.
Sailortown
(London, 1967).

Hutchinson, J. R.
The Press-gang Afloat and Ashore
(London, 1913).

Inwood, Stephen.
A History of London
(London, 1998).

Johnson, Captain Charles.
A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates
(London, 1724).

Kemp, Peter.
The British Sailor: A Social History of the Lower Deck
(London, 1970).

Lancey, Lady de.
A Week at Waterloo in June 1815
(London, 1906).

Langley, Harold D.
A History of Medicine in the Early U.S. Navy
(Baltimore and London, 1995).

Lavery, Brian.
Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation, 1793–1815
(London, 1989).

Lloyd, Christopher.
The British Seaman, 1200–1860
(London, 1968).

Lloyd, Christopher, and Jack Coulter.
Medicine and the Navy, 1200–1900
(Edinburgh and London, 1961).

Mayhew, Henry.
London Labour and the London Poor
(London, 1851).

Merrick, Reverend G. P.
Work Among the Fallen, as Seen in the Prison Cell
(London, New York, and Melbourne, 1891).

Morison, Samuel Eliot.
John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography
(Boston, 1959).

Naish, George, ed.
Nelson's Letters to His Wife
(London, 1958).

Nevens, William.
Forty Years at Sea
(Portland, Maine, 1850).

Phillpotts, Beatrice.
Mermaids
(London, 1980).

Pocock, Tom.
Nelson's Women
(London, 1999).

———.
Horatio Nelson
(London, 1987).

Pope, Dudley.
Life in Nelson's Navy
(London, 1981).

———.
The Black Ship
(London, 1963, and New York, 1998).

Pudney, John.
London's Docks
(London, 1975).

Rappoport, Angelo S.
Superstitions of Sailors
(London, 1928).

Rediker, Marcus.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World
(Cambridge, U.K., 1987).

Richardson, William.
A Mariner of England: An Account of the Career of William Richardson from Cabin Boy in the Merchant Service to Warrant Officer in the Royal Navy As Told By Himself
(London, 1908).

Robertson, George.
The Discovery of Tahiti,
Hugh Carrington, ed. (London, 1948).

Robinson, Captain Charles N.
The British Tar in Fact and Fiction: The Poetry, Pathos and Humour of the Sailor's Life
(London and New York, 1909).

Robinson, William.
Jack Nastyface: Memoirs of a Seaman
(Annapolis, Md., 1973).

Rodger, N.A.M.
The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy
(London, 1986).

Sanger, William.
The History of Prostitution: Its Extent, Causes and Effects Throughout the World
(New York, 1858).

Smedley, Constance.
Grace Darling and Her Times
(London, 1932).

Soop, Hans.
The Power and the Glory: The Sculptures of the Warship Wasa
(Stockholm, 1986).

Spavens, William.
The Narrative of William Spavens, a Chatham Pensioner, written by himself
(Louth, U.K., 1796).

Spinney, David.
Rodney
(London, 1969).

Stanley, Jo.
Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages
(London, 1995).

Stark, Suzanne J.
Female Tars: Women Aboard Ship in the Age of Sail
(London, 1996).

Stephens, Matthew.
Hannah Snell: The Secret Life of a Female Marine
(London, 1997).

Stone, Lawrence.
The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800
(London, 1977).

Thomas, P. N.
British Figurehead and Ship Carvers
(Wolverhampton, U.K., 1995).

Tucker, J. S., ed.
Memoirs of the Admiral the Right Honourable the Earl of St. Vincent
(London, 1844).

Walker, Robert.
The Female Soldier; Or, The Surprising Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell
(London, 1750).

Walkowitz, Judith R.
Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class and the State
(London and New York, 1980).

Ward, Ned.
The London Spy
(first published 1703; edition published by Folio Society, London, 1955).

Warner, Marina.
Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form
(London, 1985).

Warner, Oliver.
A Portrait of Lord Nelson
(London, 1958).

Wheelwright, Julie.
Amazons and Military Maids: Women Who Dressed as Men in Pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
(London, 1989).

Williams, Noel T. St. John.
Judy O'Grady and the Colonel's Lady: The Army Wife and Camp Follower Since 1660
(London, 1988).

Withey, Lynne.
Voyages of Discovery: Captain Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific
(London, 1987).