In the age of sail names such as Mary Lacy, Hannah Snell, or woman known as William Brown and many more were connected to cases of women disguising themselves as men and signing up as seamen to serve in the Royal or Merchant Navy.

These women strove to escape their restrictive female bonds in an age where women were considered weak, not able to look after themselves without needing the protection and guidance of men. Why did they run away to sea? One good reason was to gain financial independence and freedom. The harsh life they signed up for had the compensation that any money they earned was theirs to spend as they liked. For those who chose this unconventional path the rewards of freedom from the narrow obedient life of a woman at home must have outweighed the difficulties and possibility of discovery. Others wished to become men, they preferred wearing male clothes and the company of men. Some must have sought excitement and adventure and some followed a man whom they were in love with.

The women, if discovered, were never punished but simply dismissed from the navy. Under the Admiralty rule, no women were allowed on board a naval vessel without the permission of the Admiralty, this would have most definitely included any female in the disguise of a man no matter how good a seaman they were. Some must have been discovered fairly quickly but many were only found out when they were about to be flogged and they voluntarily revealed their true identity or admitted it when they were in trouble. We don't know how many had a successful career without discovery except for a few cases after fighting in battles and being paid off they received a pension and ended their silence to tell their story. Mary Lacy was one of those women who fortunately decided to tell her fantastic story giving us a detailed picture of life as a sailor aboard a warship. In 1759 she went to sea in men's clothes as William Cavendish apprentice carpenter, the ship she joined was involved in the Seven Years War between Britain and France. In 1763 she decided to become a shipwright's apprentice based Portsmouth Dockyard and gained her certificate in 1770 despite being discovered and confessing she was a woman to two male colleagues who surprisingly swore to keep her secret.

However, rheumatoid arthritis meant she was no longer able to work in such a physically demanding environment and in order to gain a pension she revealed her identity as Mary Lacy and not William Chandler, as she later called herself. Her petition was successful and she retired publishing her story under the title The History of the Female Shipwright.

To successfully pass as a man in an extremely harsh and physical world these women learnt to fit in with the men, chewing tobacco, drinking and sometimes chasing women. Mary Lacy had proved by gaining her shipwright certificate to be a talented craftsman as well as a good imitator. In the case of a woman known as William Brown, whose real name is unknown, her seaman's skills enabled her to became the captain of the foretop. Her skill with sails and directing the crew in her section earned her the responsibility of an area that in storms and gales was very perilous; many were blown over board whilst at the top of the mast.

These stories and others show us that women found many guises in order to go to sea but often the most popular was as a ship's boy. The uniform of loose baggy clothes and hair worn long enabled women to pass themselves off as young boys, if discovery ended their journey or adventure; mention of it made short reading in the newspapers. For the stories which passed into song and legend you have to turn to the more dangerous women who went to sea as men and as pirates.

Mary Anne Arnold

The Charter, 29 December 1839

"William Brown"

HMS Queen Charlotte bearing the flag of Vice Admiral Keith,
Anchored in Cadiz Bay

William Brown (birth name unknown) was a Black woman who joined the Royal Navy as a man. One story is that she was born in Edinburgh, joined in 1804 and served at least until at least 1816, even after Brown's birth sex was discovered in 1815. More probably she was from Grenada and only served for a month before discovery. The Annual Register of September 1815 reported:

“Amongst the crew of the Queen Charlotte, 110 guns, recently paid off, is now discovered, was a female African, who served as a seaman in the Royal Navy for upwards of eleven 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 mess-mates 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."

This is not borne out by the Queen Charlotte's muster lists. When the crew were paid off in August 1815, the only William Brown on the list was a 32 year old Scot who had transferred from the Cumberland a month earlier. The list does show though that a 21-year old William Brown had joined the crew from Grenada on May 23, 1815 as a 'landsman' (the least experienced rating), and was discharged a month later for 'being a female'. There is no record of any William Brown being appointed Captain of the fore-top for the Queen Charlotte.
However, this still makes Brown the first known black, biologically female individual to serve in the Royal Navy.

"Tom Bowling"

Served as a bosun's mate on various ships for over 20 years.

Elizabeth Bowden

 

Women At Sea: Witness for the Prosecution

Found at www.paulinespiratesandprivateers.blogspot.com

Elizabeth Bowden (or Bowen) seems to have had it rough from the very beginning. Born into obscurity and poverty some time in 1793 in Truro, Cornwall, she seemed destined to a bleak life. Things went from bad to worse when she was orphaned at age twelve or thirteen.

Elizabeth had an older sister who, to the best of the girl's knowledge, lived in that haven of the Royal Navy: Plymouth. Being nothing if not hardy, Elizabeth walked from Truro to Plymouth with the idea that she would take up residence with her sibling. Unfortunate as usual, Elizabeth could not find her sister. Elizabeth, who in our day and age would be termed a little girl, was penniless, starving and alone. Like so many nameless others of her generation, she turned to the sea.

Dawning a boy's trousers (and perhaps looking similar to this drawing by Thomas Rowlandson), Elizabeth signed aboard HMS Hazard at Plymouth in the last half of 1806 using the name John Bowden. Deemed fit to serve, she was rated a boy 3rd class and given the usual advance on her pay. Hazard left for sea not long after the new boy was taken aboard. No one seems to have questioned her sex, at least not right away.

Within six weeks something occurred, history is silent as to what, that gave Elizabeth's gender away. One wonders if her menarche wasn't the culprit but that is purely speculation. At any rate, rather than being turned ashore at the next port, Captain Charles Dilkes gave Elizabeth a separate sleeping space and made her an assistant to the officers' stewards. This would have kept her out of the general ship's population and put her more closely in contact with not only the stewards but the galley crew as well.

With all this, Elizabeth would probably have fallen through the cracks of history as did so many other women at sea. But a well publicized case of sodomy aboard HMS Hazard, and Elizabeth's insistence that she had witnessed at least one of the incidents in question, brought her briefly into the lime light.

In August of 1807, while the ship was underway, Lieutenant William Berry was accused of regular abuse of a boy named Thomas Gibbs. Berry was twenty-two at the time but Gibbs, a ship's boy second class, had to have been younger than fourteen as he was not charged at the court-martial. According to the trial records, Gibbs finally got fed up with Berry's actions and told the gunroom steward, John Hoskins, what was going on. From the young man's testimony it sounds as if there was physical as well as sexual abuse going on, although Hazard's surgeon would say that he could "find no marks on the boy" and that Gibbs had only "complained of being sore".

Hoskins took Gibbs to Captain Dilkes and had him repeat his story. Berry was questioned by the Captain who was evidently inclined to believe the boy. The Lieutenant was arrested and a court-martial was arranged in October, aboard HMS Salvador del Mundo, when Hazard reached Plymouth once again.

I won't go into the details of the trial, which was presided over by Admiral John Duckworth, as that is not the focus of this post. What is interesting is that Elizabeth Bowden, known to be a girl, felt comfortable enough to step up and offer her story in the case. Even more fascinating is that the Royal Navy court took her testimony, it seems without batting an eye.

Elizabeth claimed to have seen an exchange between Berry and Gibbs by peering through the keyhole of Berry's cabin. She was asked if she observed Gibbs entering Berry's cabin frequently and answered yes. When asked "...and what induced you to look through the keyhole?" Elizabeth replied, quite simply, that Gibbs in Berry's cabin seemed curious, and "...I thought I would see what he was about." The court recorded this testimony and noted that she was "Elizabeth alias John Bowden (a girl) borne on the Hazard's books as a Boy of the 3rd class."

Lieutenant Berry, who called in family and friends to vouch for his good character and even had a girl come along side ship and offer to marry him, was found guilty under the 29th Article of War and hanged from the starboard fore yardarm of Hazard on October 19th.

And that is all we know about fourteen-year-old Elizabeth "John" Bowden. Whether she continued on in navy service, like the intrepid William Brown, found a husband and settled down, or came to what would then have been called a bad end is impossible to say. Her brief story, however, gives us another example of the much debated acceptance of women at sea.

Women Who Have Become Sailors
Colonist, Volume XXVII, Issue 4355, 22 January 1886, Page 4


In the reign of George III. an Irishwoman named Hannah Whitney served for five years in the Royal British Navy, and kept her secret so well that she was not known to be a woman until she retired from the service.
     A few years later, a young Yorkshire girl walked from Hull to London in search of her lover. She found him enlisted on His Majesty's man-of-war Oxford, and thereupon she donned a sailor's suit, assumed the name of Charley Waddell, and enlisted on the same ship. Her lover, not being as faithful to her as she to him, deserted the ship, and in attempting to follow his example she was arrested and her sex discovered. The officers raised a contribution for her, and she was dismissed from the service and sent home.
     In 1802, a Mrs. Cola became somewhat famous by serving on board a man of war as a common sailor. She afterwards resumed her proper attire and opened a coffee house for sailors.
     In 1800, a girl of 15 tried to ship at London on board a South Sea whaler, and being refused, she put on boy's clothes, hired herself to a waterman, and became very skilful in rowing. She did not learn to swim, however, and one day the boat capsizing, she was nearly drowned. In this crisis her sex was discovered, and she ceased to be "jolly young waterman," and became a dometic servant in her proper apparel.
     Another girl, aged 14, named Elizabeth Bowden, being left an orphan, went up to London in 1807 from a village in Cornwall, in search of employment. She, did not succeed in finding such work as she desired, and putting on male attire, she walked to Falmouth, and enlisted as "boy" on board his Majesty's ship of war Hazand, and did good service aloft and beowv Her sex was finally discovered, however, and by the kindness of the officers the poor girl was placed in a proper position.
     Still another, named Rebecca Ann Johnston, had a cruel father, who dressed her as a boy when she was 18 years of age and apprenticed her to a collier ship where she served for lour years.
     In 1814, when the British war vessel Queen Charlotte was being paid off, a negro woman was found among the crew, who had served eleven years under the name of William Brown, and had become so expert a sailor that she was promoted to the captain of the foretop. She had all the peculiarities of a good sailor, and had kept her secret so well that none suspected her real sex.

"Thomas Brown"

Illustrated Police News, 5 January 1868

"Billy"

Illustrated Police News, 3 May 1873

Mrs. Coles

“Died, in 1782, at Poplar, Mrs. Coles, who, during the last war, served on board several men of war as a sailor. After her discharge, upon a small fortune devolving to her, she resumed the female character, and was, from that time, considered as a very polite and elegant woman." (Dodsley, 1782)

Jeanette Colin

Jeanette Colin was serving aboard the French ship Archille at the Battle of Trafalgar. She jumped overboard just before the Archille blew up and was fished out, stark naked, by the crew of the HMS Pickle. Apparently, when the French fleet left Cadiz she decided to stay with her husband. She had dressed as a male and served with him in the battle until he was killed and she jumped over.


HMS Pickle

The British crew supplied her with the means to make some clothes (dresses) and gave her passage to Gibraltar where she disappeared and was never heard from again.

"Arthur Douglas"

A woman described as being about 5' tall, aged 19, served on board the Resolution from January-May 1757.

Jane Gallagher

The Era, 23 May 1847

Ann Hoping, Mary Ann Riley & Jane Townshend

In 1847 the British government decided that Queen Victoria would award a Naval General Service Medal to all living survivors of the major battles fought betwen 1793-1840. Mary Ann Riley and Ann Hopping, who had been aboard the Goliath during the Battle of the Nile, and Jane Townshend, who was aboard the Defiance at Trafalgar in 1805, applied.

Rebecca Anne Johnston

Rebecca Anne Johnston came from Whitby. She was bound by her stepfather as a seven-year apprentice on a collier ship, but deserted after four years and was found living on the streets dressed as a sailor. The stepfather had also bound her mother to a ship where she died during the bombardment of Copenhagen.

Colonist, Volume XXVII, Issue 4355, 22 January 1886, Page 4
WOMEN WHO HAVE BECOME SAILORS.

In the reign of George III. an Irishwoman named Hannah Whitney served for five years in the Royal British Navy, and kept her secret so well that she was not known to be a woman until she retired from the service.
     A few years later, a young Yorkshire girl walked from Hull to London in search of her lover. She found him enlisted on His Majesty's man-of-war Oxford, and thereupon she donned a sailor's suit, assumed the name of Charley Waddell, and enlisted on the same ship. Her lover, not being as faithful to her as she to him, deserted the ship, and in attempting to follow his example she was arrested and her sex discovered. The officers raised a contribution for her, and she was dismissed from the service and sent home.
     In 1802, a Mrs. Cola became somewhat famous by serving on board a man of war as a common sailor. She afterwards resumed her proper attire and opened a coffee house for sailors.
     In 1800, a girl of 15 tried to ship at London on board a South Sea whaler, and being refused, she put on boy's clothes, hired herself to a waterman, and became very skilful in rowing. She did not learn to swim, however, and one day the boat capsizing, she was nearly drowned. In this crisis her sex was discovered, and she ceased to be "jolly young waterman," and became a dometic servant in her proper apparel.
     Another girl, aged 14, named Elizabeth Bowden, being left an orphan, went up to London in 1807 from a village in Cornwall, in search of employment. She, did not succeed in finding such work as she desired, and putting on male attire, she walked to Falmouth, and enlisted as "boy" on board his Majesty's ship of war Hazand, and did good service aloft and beowv Her sex was finally discovered, however, and by the kindness of the officers the poor girl was placed in a proper position.
     Still another, named Rebecca Ann Johnston, had a cruel father, who dressed her as a boy when she was 18 years of age and apprenticed her to a collier ship where she served for lour years.
     In 1814, when the British war vessel Queen Charlotte was being paid off, a negro woman was found among the crew, who had served eleven years under the name of William Brown, and had become so expert a sailor that she was promoted to the captain of the foretop. She had all the peculiarities of a good sailor, and had kept her secret so well that none suspected her real sex.

"William Johns"





Caledonian Mercury, 28 September 1846



Margaret Johnson



Freeman's Journal, 13 December 1843



Mary Lacy

Mary Lacy was born in Wickham, Kent in 1740. At age 19, she ran away from home, disguised herself as a man, assumed the name William Chandler, and joined the HMS Sandwich as a carpenter's servant. After nearly four years of servic afloat, a bad case of rheumatism forced her to seek employment ashore; and, in 1763, she became an apprentice carpenter where she served for seven years.

At one point a friend of the family from her hometown in Ash came to live in Portsmouth where Mary was working. Instead of keeping Lacy's sexual identity a secret, this lady made it known far and wide that she was a female. This caused some of the other apprentices to want to examine her to determine the truth. Fortunately, two of the shipwrights took her aside where, in private, she admitted her disguise. Even more fortunately, these men decided to cover for her, assuring everyone that s/he was in fact not only a man but "... a man and a half to a great many." This coupled with "William Chandler's" reputation as a "ladies man" got her off the hook, and in 1770 she was granted her certificate as a fully qualified shipwright.

HMS Sandwich

In 1771, however, her rheumatism returned with a vengeance, and she could no longer do the work. She applied to the Admiralty for a pension, but she did so under her true name, Mary Lacy. After some incredulity, the Admiralty granted her claim and she was awarded her an annual pension of £22. Shortly thereafter she began work on her autobiography, The Female Shipwright. Unfortunately, after its publication she disappeared from sight. The exact location and date of her death is unknown, although it had to be after July 1, 1773 when she wrote the preface to her book.

London Evening Post

Monday, Aug. 2, 1773

A few days ago the wife of Mr. Slade, shipwright at Deptford, was delivered of a daughteer. It is remarkable that this gentlewoman is the same person who is not improperly stiled the Female Shipwright; for at the close of the last war, about the year 1759, on account of a love affair, when 15 or 16 years old, she left her parents, whose names were Lacy, dressed herself in man’s apparel, and went down to Chatham, where the carpenter of the Sandwich man of war took her for his servant, with whom she assumed the name of William Chandler. After living some time in this capacity, she bound herself apprentice to a shipwright, served the whole term, and worked at the business two years afterwards; and during this long period no suspicion was had, or discovery of her sex made, notwithstanding the many surprising incidents, illnesses, and hair-breadth escapes that attended her. The above-mentioned person, who is now her husband, worked with her a considerable time in the yard, and observed that she always regularly went through, though sometimes with great difficulty and fatigue, her stated day’s labour with the rest of the men. Her obliging carriage in each of the before-named stations, engaged the esteem of every one, particularly of her fellow workman, who married her soon after it could be no longer concealed that she was a woman, from a wound she received in her thigh. – The Board of Admiralty, on hearing her extraordinary story, were pleased to allow her a pension of 20l. a year.

Anne Mills

"In Caulfield's Portraits of Remarkable Persons is a portrait of Anne Mills, styled the female sailor, who is represented as standing on what appears to be the end of a pier and holding in one hand a human head, while the other bears a sword, the instrument doubtless with which the decapitation was affected. In the year 1740, she was serving on boar the Maidstone, a frigate, and in an action between that vessel and the enemy, she exhibited such desperate and daring valour as to be particularly noticed by the whole crew. But her mobives for assuming the male habit do not seem to have transpired." ~ Strange Pages from Family Papers

Jane Meace

Britain's Sea-Soldiers by Cyril Field
Liverpool 1924

Jane Meace, another lady who attempted to enlist for a Marine in 1762, was not so fortunate as Hannah Snell in evading discovery of her sex as will be seen by the following account published in Lloyd's Evening Post and British Chronicle, of 1st of December that year:

"Uttoxeter, Nov. 25.--On Thursday, the 12th instant, in the evening, a young girl in men's cloaths, came to a recruiting party of Marines at the Plume of Feathers, and inlisted; she wanted the whole bounty-money in hand, but being in want of cloathing and other necessaries, they would give her only one shilling till morning, but had the bowl of punch in, and the point of war beat; the party lay that night in one bed with her; and in the morning, one of the men laying hold of her coat over the breast, to see how it fitted, her sex was discovered. She inlisted by the name of John Meace, but her proper name is Jane Meace, and is well known in this country."

"William McDonald"

Caledonian Mercury, 5 February 1814

Charlotte Petrie

Liverpool Mercury, 13 December 1865

Anna Maria Real

MEMORIALS OF THE LIFE OF AMELIA OPIE (p. 18)

When I was scarcely yet in my teens, a highly respected friend of ind, a member of the Society of Friends, informed me that she had a curious story to relate to me and her niece, my favourite friend and companion; she told us that her husband had received a letter from a friend at Lynn, recommending to his kindness a young man, named William Henry Renny, who was a sailor, just come on shore from a distant part, and wanted some assistance on his way (I think) to London. My friend, who was ever ready to lend his aid when needed, and was sure his correspondent would not have required it for one unworthy, received the young man kindly, and ordered him refreshments in the servants’ hall; and, as I believe, prepared for him a bed in his own house. But before the evening came, my friend had observed something in the young man’s manner which he did not like; he was too familiar towards the servants, and certainly did not seem a proper inmate for the family of a Friend. At length, in consequence of hints given him by someone in the family, he called the stranger into his study, and expressed his vexation at learning that his conduct had not been quite correct. The young man listened respectfully to the deserved rebuke, but with great agitation and considerable excitement, occasioned perhaps, as my candid friend thought, by better means than he had been used to, and which was therefore a sort of excuse for his behavior; but little was my friend prepared for the disclosure that awaited him.

Falling on his knees, the young man, with clasped hands, conjured his hearer to forgive him the imposition he had practiced. “Oh, sir,” cried he, “I am an imposter, my name is not William Henry R. but Anna Maria Real, I am not a man, but a woman!” Such a confession would have astounded any one; judge then how it must have affected the correct man whom she addressed! Who certainly did not let the woman remain in her abject position, but desired immediately to hear the true account of who and what she was.

She said that her lover, when very young, had left her to go to sea, and that she resolved to follow him to Russia, whither he was bound; that she did follow him, disguised as a sailor, and had worked out her passage undetected. She found her lover dead, but she liked a sailors life so well, that she had continued in the service up to that time, when (for some reason which I have forgotten) she left the ship, and came ashore at Lynn, not meaning to return to it, but to resume the garb of her sex.
On this latter condition, my friend and his wife were willing to assist her, and endeavour to effect a reformation in her. The first step was to procure her a lodging that evening, and to prevent her being seen, as much as they could, before she had put on woman’s clothes. Accordingly, she was sent to lodgings, and inquiries into the truth of her story were instituted at Lynn and elsewhere.

"Tom Stewart"

Leeds Mercury, 19 January 1860

"Thomas Stewart"

Glasgow Herald, 10 July 1860

Mary Anne Talbot

Mary Anne Talbot (February 2, 1778 – February 4, 1808) was an Englishwoman who wore male dress and became a sailor during the Napoleonic wars. She was born in London and later claimed that she was one of the 16 illegitimate children of Lord William Talbot, Baron of Hensol. Her mother died in childbirth after which she spent her childhood in the care of different guardians and boarding schools until she fell in the hands of a man she called Mr. Sucker, who was also in charge of her inheritance from her sister.

In 1792 Mary Anne unwillingly became the mistress of Captain Essex Bowen who enlisted her as his footboy, under the name "John Taylor" for a voyage to Santo Domingo. She served as a drummer-boy in the battle for Valenciennes, where Captain Bowen was killed. Mary Anne was also wounded and treated the injury herself.

She deserted and became a cabin boy for a French ship. When the British captured the ship she was transferred to the HMS Brunswick in Portsmouth, England where she served as a powder monkey. In June 1794, she was wounded for the second time when grapeshot almost severed her leg during the battle of the Glorious First against the French fleet. She never recovered the full use of it but later rejoined the crew. She went ashore at St. Katharine’s Dock and, upon being approached by a press gang, revealed herself to be a woman.

Mary Anne went to the Navy to get the money due to her because of her service and wounds and finally found a sympathetic magistrate. At the same time her leg wound got worse and she continued to wear male clothing. She visited Sucker who told her that all her inheritance was lost. He apparently died of heart attack the same day and she decided to go on disguised as a male sailor, working in menial jobs and even trying her luck on stage at Drury Lane.

At the age 18 she was homeless and unemployed and in 1804 she published book about her life in the navy. It’s almost certain that the publisher, Robert Kirby, embellished her story in order to sell copies. The book brought her fleeting fame, but she ended up in debtors’ prison and died at the age of 30. Following her death, Kirby published The Life and Surprising Adventures of Mary Anne Talbot (1809). Mary Anne’s tale aroused some sympathy and even a case of imposture when a woman in a Light Horseman's uniform tried to use a name “John Taylor” to solicit money in London.

Anne Jane Thornton

Anne Jane Thornton (1817–1877) was a 19th century adventurer from Donegal who, in 1832, posed as a boy in order to go to sea in pursuit of a lost lover who had gone to the United States. She continued her career as a seaman until her arrival in London in 1835, when she was interviewed by the Lord Mayor of London. She later wrote a book about her adventures.

Born in Gloucestershire, England in 1817, Anne was the daughter of a prosperous shop-keeper. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, her mother died in 1823 and her father moved to Donegal, Ireland where he opened a successful shop. The Lady magazine for 1835 adds a further detail: "...when six years old she accompanied her father to Ireland, where he afterwards possessed profitable stores and subsequently failed".

At the age of thirteen, Anne met Captain Alexander Burke, an Englishman whose father lived in New York. Before she was fifteen, the two had become strongly attached to each other. In 1832, Burke left Donegal for New York and Anne made up her mind to go after him. Attended by a maid and a boy she left Donegal, obtained a suit of cabin boy's clothing and, posing as a boy, made a safe passage to New York. Upon her arrival, she went to the home of Burke's father and told him she had worked under Captain Alexander’s orders and wished to be engaged by him again. Sadly, she learned that the man she loved had died a few days before.

Without money, Anne needed to find employment. By now, she had a swarthy complexion, which helped to make her look less like a young woman. Still posing as a boy, she got a position at $9.00 a month as ship's cook and steward aboard The Adelaide. After this, she had a berth in The Rover. She later served on the Belfast, "dressed in a red worsted jacket and duck trousers". Between ships, she once walked 70 miles from Eastport, ME to St Andrew's dressed as a sailor.

Eventually, she took a position as ship's cook aboard The Sarah, which was bound for London. This time she gave her name as Jim Thornton from Donegal. As Jim, she proved a great asset to the ship, cooking and also helping out on deck when needed, as the ship was sailing with an under-strength crew. It was on this vessel that she was discovered as a woman:

One day as she was washing in her berth, with her jacket loose in the front, one of the crew caught an accidental view of her bosom.

The sailor who discovered her threatened that unless she agreed to sexual intercourse with him, he would report her to the ship's master, Captain McIntyre. Anne refused and, when she was revealed to the master, he "turned her out to work amongst the men, by whom she upon all occasions was most grossly insulted". McIntyre recorded his astonishment on learning that Thornton was a woman:

“I could scarcely credit the mate when he told me of it. I can bear testimony to the extraordinary propriety of her conduct and I ask again whether I have not acted properly towards her.”

The Sarah docked in London in February 1835. Before arrival, other crew members had suspicions about Anne’s identity. McIntyre later told The Times that she had been abused by the other sailors and that she had worked hard aboard the ship. He reported that Thornton,



The Female Sailor: a Faithful History of the
Romantic and Perilous Adventures of that
Interesting Young Female Anne Jane Thornton,
Broadsheet published by J.Pitts, c. 1845

 “...did the duty of a seaman without a murmur and had infinitely a better use of her hands than her tongue... She performed to admiration. She would run up the top gallant-sail in any sort of weather and we had a severe passage. Poor girl, she had a hard time of it, she suffered greatly from the wet but she bore it all excellently and was a capital seaman.”

The story was reported in London newspapers after a customs officer on the River Thames had intervened to stop a member of The Sarah's crew from mistreating a young sailor, finding to his amazement that the sailor was a young woman. The customs man then lodged Anne at the Cooper's Arms Tavern on Lower Thames Street and reported the case to his superiors.

After the Lord Mayor of London had read the reports, he sent a police inspector to investigate and subsequently held an inquiry at the Mansion House, himself interviewing all parties concerned, including Anne and McIntyre. The captain said he had had no suspicion when employing her that she was female and insisted that he had every intention of paying her the money she had earned on the voyage. Called on by McIntyre to say whether he had ever been unkind to her, Anne replied "No, you were always most considerate. But some of the men struck me cruelly when I could not work as hard as they were in the rough weather".

The Lord Mayor berated Anne for running away from her father, while praising her seafaring conduct, and offered her money to help her to return home to her father in Ireland.

The people of London sympathized with her, and she was offered £500 to appear on the stage, but she refused the offer, stating that she wanted only to go home to her father. However, when the Lord Mayor made inquiries in Donegal he found that Thornton's father had himself emigrated to America, although her sister still lived there and was glad to hear news of Anne Jane. The Lord Mayor booked Anne a seat on the London to Liverpool coach, and she left for Ireland on April 2, 1835. On April 13, a newspaper in Ballyshannon reported her arrival in Donegal.

A vast crowd collected to see her, but the sailor hurried to the house of her sister, in the back lane: “We were fortunate enough to have seen the young woman. She is now quite tired of the sea. She says she would not join a ship again for £500 a year as it is the most wretched life imaginable. She says she will never marry.”

Anne’s story became even better known after she wrote an autobiographical book, The Interesting Life and Wonderful Adventures of that Extraordinary Woman Anne Jane Thornton, the Female Sailor.

King William IV granted Anne a pension of £10 a year, while a Mr. Andrew Murray gave her the use of a farm near Lough Eske, rent-free.

In February 1836, Anne did may, but under unusual circumstances. One day a friend from Ballyshannon went to Donegal to visit her and found her being dragged to a clergyman by a group of men, who intended her to marry one of them. Her friend rescued her and they were married the next day. She gave birth to a son in November 1836 and lived until 1877.

Anne’s story inspired the ballad The Female Sailor Bold, also called The Female Sailor. The following is the text of the ballad, as sold in the United States from c. 1835. An edited version appears in The Oxford Book of English Traditional Verse (1983).

The Female Sailor Bold

Good people give attention and listen to my song;

I will unfold a circumstance that does to love belong;
Concerning of a pretty maid who ventur'd we are told
Across the briny ocean as a female sailor bold.

Her name was Ann Jane Thornton, as you presently shall hear,
And also that she was born in fam'd Gloucestershire;
Her father now lives in Ireland, respected we are told,
And grieving for his daughter—this female sailor bold.

She was courted by a captain when not fifteen years of age,
And to be joined in holy wedlock this couple did engage,
But the captain was bound to America, as I will now unfold,
And she followed him o'er the ocean did this female sailor bold.

She dress'd herself with sailors clothes and was overcome with joy
When with a captain she did engage to serve as cabin boy,
And when New York in America this fair maid did behold
She determined to seek her true love did this female sailor bold.

Then to her true loves fathers she hastened with speed,
When the news that she did hear most dreadful indeed,
That her love had been dead some time they to her did unfold
Which very near broke the heart of this female sailor bold.

Some thousand miles she was from home from friends far away
Alone she traveled seventy miles thro' woods in North America
Bereft of all her kindred nor no parent to behold,
In anguish she cried my true love did this female sailor bold.

Then she went on board the Adelaide, to cross the troubled wave
And in storms of hail and gales of wind she did all dangers brave
She served as cook and steward in the Adelaide we are told
Then sailed on board the Rover did the female sailor bold.

From St Andrew's in America this fair maid did set sail,
In a vessel called the Sarah and brav'd many a stormy gale
She did her duty like a man did reef and steer we're told
By the captain she was respected well—the female sailor bold.

With pitch and tar her hands were hard, tho' once like velvet soft
She weighed the anchor, heav'd the lead and boldly went aloft
Just one and thirty months she braved the tempest we are told
And always did her duty did the female sailor bold.

'Twas in the month of February eighteen hundred thirty five,
She in the port of London in the Sarah did arrive;
Her sex was then discovered which the secret did unfold,
And the captain gaz'd in wonder on the female sailor bold.

At the Mansion-House she appear'd before the Lord Mayor,
And in the public papers then the reasons did appear,
Why she did leave her father and her native land she told,
To brave the stormy ocean, did this female sailor bold.

It was to seek her lover that sailed across the main,
Thro' love she did encownter storms tempest wind and rain.
It was love caused all her troubles and hardships we are told;
May she rest at home contented now the female sailor bold.

Margaret Thompson

In 1781, naval seaman George Thompson revealed that she was female after being sentenced to be flogged.

Hannah Whitney

Hannah Whitney enlisted in the navy in 1756. In 1761, while in male attire, she was seized by a press-gang and sent with other victims to Plymouth prison. She served for five years as a marine and revealed that she was a woman after she had been locked in a cell and became claustrophobic.

Colonist, Volume XXVII, Issue 4355, 22 January 1886, Page 4
WOMEN WHO HAVE BECOME SAILORS.

In the reign of George III. an Irishwoman named Hannah Whitney served for five years in the Royal British Navy, and kept her secret so well that she was not known to be a woman until she retired from the service.
     A few years later, a young Yorkshire girl walked from Hull to London in search of her lover. She found him enlisted on His Majesty's man-of-war Oxford, and thereupon she donned a sailor's suit, assumed the name of Charley Waddell, and enlisted on the same ship. Her lover, not being as faithful to her as she to him, deserted the ship, and in attempting to follow his example she was arrested and her sex discovered. The officers raised a contribution for her, and she was dismissed from the service and sent home.
     In 1802, a Mrs. Cola became somewhat famous by serving on board a man of war as a common sailor. She afterwards resumed her proper attire and opened a coffee house for sailors.
     In 1800, a girl of 15 tried to ship at London on board a South Sea whaler, and being refused, she put on boy's clothes, hired herself to a waterman, and became very skilful in rowing. She did not learn to swim, however, and one day the boat capsizing, she was nearly drowned. In this crisis her sex was discovered, and she ceased to be "jolly young waterman," and became a dometic servant in her proper apparel.
     Another girl, aged 14, named Elizabeth Bowden, being left an orphan, went up to London in 1807 from a village in Cornwall, in search of employment. She, did not succeed in finding such work as she desired, and putting on male attire, she walked to Falmouth, and enlisted as "boy" on board his Majesty's ship of war Hazand, and did good service aloft and beowv Her sex was finally discovered, however, and by the kindness of the officers the poor girl was placed in a proper position.
     Still another, named Rebecca Ann Johnston, had a cruel father, who dressed her as a boy when she was 18 years of age and apprenticed her to a collier ship where she served for lour years.
     In 1814, when the British war vessel Queen Charlotte was being paid off, a negro woman was found among the crew, who had served eleven years under the name of William Brown, and had become so expert a sailor that she was promoted to the captain of the foretop. She had all the peculiarities of a good sailor, and had kept her secret so well that none suspected her real sex.

Charley Waddall

In 1771, this naval seaman was found to be a woman as she was being stripped for a flogging.

 Colonist, Volume XXVII, Issue 4355, 22 January 1886, Page 4
WOMEN WHO HAVE BECOME SAILORS.

In the reign of George III. an Irishwoman named Hannah Whitney served for five years in the Royal British Navy, and kept her secret so well that she was not known to be a woman until she retired from the service.
     A few years later, a young Yorkshire girl walked from Hull to London in search of her lover. She found him enlisted on His Majesty's man-of-war Oxford, and thereupon she donned a sailor's suit, assumed the name of Charley Waddell, and enlisted on the same ship. Her lover, not being as faithful to her as she to him, deserted the ship, and in attempting to follow his example she was arrested and her sex discovered. The officers raised a contribution for her, and she was dismissed from the service and sent home.
     In 1802, a Mrs. Cola became somewhat famous by serving on board a man of war as a common sailor. She afterwards resumed her proper attire and opened a coffee house for sailors.
     In 1800, a girl of 15 tried to ship at London on board a South Sea whaler, and being refused, she put on boy's clothes, hired herself to a waterman, and became very skilful in rowing. She did not learn to swim, however, and one day the boat capsizing, she was nearly drowned. In this crisis her sex was discovered, and she ceased to be "jolly young waterman," and became a dometic servant in her proper apparel.
     Another girl, aged 14, named Elizabeth Bowden, being left an orphan, went up to London in 1807 from a village in Cornwall, in search of employment. She, did not succeed in finding such work as she desired, and putting on male attire, she walked to Falmouth, and enlisted as "boy" on board his Majesty's ship of war Hazand, and did good service aloft and beowv Her sex was finally discovered, however, and by the kindness of the officers the poor girl was placed in a proper position.
     Still another, named Rebecca Ann Johnston, had a cruel father, who dressed her as a boy when she was 18 years of age and apprenticed her to a collier ship where she served for lour years.
     In 1814, when the British war vessel Queen Charlotte was being paid off, a negro woman was found among the crew, who had served eleven years under the name of William Brown, and had become so expert a sailor that she was promoted to the captain of the foretop. She had all the peculiarities of a good sailor, and had kept her secret so well that none suspected her real sex.

Ellen Watts

Freeman's Journal, 24 July 1841

Unknown Female Sailor

Derby Mercury, 31 August 1859