A hidden part of maritime history
Maritime history is often told as a story of men, and in terms of formal crews that was largely the case. Navies and most merchant fleets did not enrol women as ordinary seamen for most of the age of sail. Yet women were far from absent at sea. They sailed as wives and daughters, as passengers and emigrants, as workers in various roles, and in some cases as members of crews. Records are patchy because women were often left out of muster rolls and logs, so historians rely on letters, diaries, court records and memoirs, which vary in reliability.
Captains’ wives and families
In the merchant service, it was not unusual for a captain’s wife to travel with him, especially in the nineteenth century. Some stayed for entire voyages and brought up children aboard. The captain’s cabin served as the family home, and women kept diaries and letters that have become valuable sources on shipboard life. They record routines, weather, illness, births and deaths at sea, and the loneliness of long absence from home.
The practice was especially noted in the American whaling fleet, where voyages lasted for years. Wives of whaling captains went to sea in a number of cases, and several kept journals. Their presence was not always welcomed by owners or crews, but some captains preferred to have their families with them rather than face long separations.
Some wives took on a practical role. The best-known case is that of Mary Patten, who in 1856, at about nineteen years of age, helped bring the clipper Neptune’s Car around Cape Horn to San Francisco when her husband, the captain, fell ill. She is reported to have navigated and handled the ship while he was incapacitated. Cape Horn voyages in this period were among the hardest of the age, and her performance has been widely cited as an example of competence under pressure.
Women on warships
The Royal Navy officially restricted the presence of women on warships, but the reality was more complicated. Wives of warrant officers, and some wives of seamen, sometimes lived aboard, especially in port. Women might also serve in unofficial roles, such as helping the surgeon, carrying powder or caring for the wounded during action. Accounts exist of women present in battle, including at Trafalgar, though the number and the details are difficult to verify.
Women were also frequent visitors when ships were in port. Large numbers came aboard in harbour, sometimes with the crew’s families and sometimes in less formal circumstances, and officers had varying views about it. The practice became more restricted over time.
Disguised sailors and soldiers
Some women served as men, hiding their sex to join a crew. Their stories are among the most vivid in maritime history, but the sources need careful handling because some accounts were sensational and were written for sale.
Hannah Snell, an Englishwoman, served under the name James Gray in the 1740s, first in the army and then reportedly in the Royal Marines, and went to sea with a ship’s company that took part in operations in India. After revealing her identity, she was granted a pension and became briefly famous. Mary Lacy, who published a memoir in 1773, described how she disguised herself and worked as a shipwright’s apprentice in the dockyard at Portsmouth, and later received a pension. Mary Anne Talbot, another figure whose accounts survive in published form, reportedly served in the army and navy in the 1790s. Details in these narratives differ in reliability, and some elements may have been embellished.
The reasons women chose to disguise themselves varied. Some wished to follow a partner, some were escaping poverty, and others sought adventure or independent work. Disguise carried personal risk and was possible only because ship life was crowded and medical examinations were unusual.
Pirates and fleet leaders
Women also appeared on the margins of piracy. Anne Bonny and Mary Read were tried in the Caribbean in 1720 after serving among the crew of the pirate John Rackham, and their case became widely known. Records of their trial survive, though later popular accounts added colour. The wider history of pirate vessels is a separate subject, but these two women show that some did take part.
In China, Zheng Yi Sao (Ching Shih) became the leader of a large pirate confederation in the early nineteenth century after the death of her husband. Her fleet is often described as one of the largest of its kind, though the numbers given in sources vary. She eventually negotiated an amnesty with the authorities, a rare outcome for a pirate leader.
Passengers, emigrants and convicts
Large numbers of women travelled as passengers. Emigrant steerage carried many women, often with children, to North America and Australia, where they endured crowded and unhealthy conditions. Women convicts were carried on convict transports to Australia in significant numbers, and their voyages were governed by regulation, with a surgeon in charge of health. Women also went to sea as servants, stewardesses on steamers, and in the later nineteenth century as nurses and doctors.
On passenger steamers, stewardesses became a recognised job for women in the nineteenth century, looking after female passengers. The job was one of the few formal paid maritime roles open to them at the time.
Change over time
In the twentieth century, women’s roles at sea expanded slowly. Women served as nurses and in auxiliary naval services during the world wars, and later gained access to commissioned and sea-going posts in navies and the merchant fleets. These changes came at different times in different countries.
The earlier history shows that women were part of shipboard life long before official recognition. Whether as captains’ wives sharing the routines of shipboard daily life, as disguised sailors, or as passengers on a long passage, they left a record that historians are still uncovering. Treating them as part of the picture gives a fuller account of the sea than a crew list alone can.