by Roy Adkins
White prostitutes were at a premium here, and when anchored at Nevis, Thomas noted in his journal that ‘several of our officers stopped ashore last night. Canes and Lash met in a baudy house, and had a quarrel about a white girl. Lash got her, by throwing six dollars at her: Canes could only muster 2 dollars.’34 Among the slaves, many children must have been fathered by visiting seamen, and on Antigua in 1799 Thomas had a long conversation with an old lady, part of which he wrote down:
Was at Mrs Ramseys [who] said Admiral Nelson was an old friend of hers, when he was here 17 years ago in the Boreas frigate … [she also talked about] James Pitt [who is thought to be] son of James Pitt, brother to the Hon’ble William Pitt: this mulatto boy is said by his mother, a black woman, to be begotten by Captain Pitt in 1783 when here in the Hornet. [Also there is] a son of Admiral Parker, begotten by him on a Creole woman, and is called Parker. [There are] plenty of mustee and free Creole peoples about English Harbour, which by length of time, have been begotten by sailors, whose ships have been refitting here.35
While working-class people in Britain recognised the necessity for girls and women to earn a living, others frowned upon it, and especially on those engaged in work more commonly done by men. A gentleman traveller visiting Plymouth in 1806 wrote to his sister about crossing to Mount Edgecombe: ‘We were ferried over by women, who seem as dextrous in the use of the oar, as if they had been intended by nature for this vocation. I mention this, my dear Louisa, because it disgusted me: I hate to see females following masculine employments; when they do “all the winning softness of the sex is lost.”’36 Class prejudice was rife through all layers of society, and Marine Lieutenant Henry Hole, carrying dispatches to the East on board HMS Dedaigneuse in 1802, included in one letter to his father a story about a midshipman who asked a young woman at Gosport to dance with him: ‘She replied that his question could not be resolved, till she knew whether he was rated, as her Mama had forbidden her to dance with any that were not. Such a strange charge induced him to enquire of her who her friends were, to which she answered with the utmost unconcern that her Papa was cook of the Royal William and her Mama went a bumbing.’37 Hole added an explanation for his father:
You will know that the former is one of the lowest situations as an officer in the ship, but the latter may perhaps require a little elucidation, familiar as you are both with Plymouth and Portsmouth. Every man of war has a small boat to attend it every morning with bread, milk, vegetables etc for the use of the sailors, and is called a bumboat, from whence the occupation of those employed in them is taken. The officer of course on hearing this walked off in disgust.38
A handful of women were employed as nurses in the hospitals, and at Plymouth George Watson commented that while his fellow sailors had a wife in every port, the nurses had a husband in every ship:
The nurses of the hospital were chiefly of the frail sisterhood, some of them had several husbands, or men they called by that name, all living at once, on board of different ships, and as there was seldom more than one of them in port at a time, they equally enjoyed the caresses of their pliable spouses, in happy ignorance of their dishonour. Being accustomed to the manners, and association of sailors, those ladies are exceedingly bold and audacious, and without concern make use of the most indecent observations, and actions in their common conversation.39
Most of the men who were married left their wives at home, but by 1795 all of them could choose to have part of their wages deducted at source and paid to their wife, children or mother, collected by these dependants from a pre-arranged location. The seamen were paid irregularly, at least six months in arrears (nominally to deter desertion), and generally only when the ship returned to a port in Britain. In September 1804 John Booth, yeoman of the sheets* on board the frigate Amazon, filled out a form so that his beloved wife Sarah would receive half his wages (the maximum allowed for a petty officer), to be sent to the Collector of Customs at Hull where she lived. A year later, the Amazon was at Spithead, after taking part in a fruitless chase, led by Nelson, of the French fleet in the West Indies, and on 21 September 1805, Booth wrote Sarah a puzzled letter: ‘Dear Wife, I received 4 letters this day, 1 dated May, 1 July, 1 Augt, and Sept …You told me my half wages is stopt since July but there is no reason on board the ship for it. It must be some mistake of yours or the Custom House … If there is any dispute of paying you now, let them see this letter for there is no stoppage ordered from the ship.’40 At the end of the letter he added: ‘Don’t forget the particulars about the half pay. So no more at present from your affectionate husband till death.’41 Less than three years later he was dead – from the beginning of 1808 he had been second master’s mate, and the crew list recorded that he died on 29 June ‘by the visitation of God, off Corunna’.42 He was thirty-one years old. For a long period afterwards Sarah Booth was still trying to obtain his prize-money.
Thomas England allotted half his wages to his mother, and each time she went to the custom house at Deptford to collect her money, she had to produce a certificate which stated that ‘Thomas England, now serving as an Ordinary Seaman on board His Majesty’s ship Indus having declared that he has a mother living at Deptford in the County of Kent … WE do hereby direct you to pay or cause to be paid to Ann England living in the place and county aforesaid, at the end of every twenty-eight days from the 1st day of May one thousand eight hundred and 13 the sum of eleven shillings and eight pence, being at the rate of fivepence per day.’43
At the end of 1797, when pay rates were revised after the mutinies of that year, a landsman (the lowest-paid man in the crew) earned £1 1s 6d for a month of 28 days, while an able seaman received £1 9s 6d and a sailmaker’s mate £1 13s 6d. A midshipman earned between £1 15s 6d and £210s 6d, the exact amount depending on the type of ship in which he served – the larger the ship, the higher the pay rate. Lieutenants were paid £7 a month, with expenses for the employment of a servant. By 1807 a lieutenant’s pay had risen to £88s 0d for a 28-day month, with those in a flagship earning £9 2s 0d. Midshipmen now earned between £2 0s 6d and £2 15s 6d, a sailmaker’s mate was paid £118s 6d, an able seaman £113s 6d and a landsman only £12s 6d.
Those women whose husbands and sons had not made arrangements about their pay only received money when they met them. A wife who wanted to see her husband had first to find out when and where his ship was returning to Britain, and she could have a long and expensive journey from one side of the country to the other. When he was at Spithead in 1805, John Booth was very reluctant for his wife to visit him on board, even though he had not seen her for so long:
We are let out of quarantine yesterday, but when we go into the harbour I cannot tell … My Dear as you wish to come to me, if only you knew the disagreeableness of our situation, you [would] wish yourself at home again. I should be as happy of a sight of you as you would of me but our ship is going into dock to be repaired and whether we shall be kept or sent on board another I cannot tell. If we are, we shall be at sea again shortly … I shall endeavour to get liberty home if I can and if not perhaps I shall send for you to Portsmouth but not to come on board the ship.44
At times the effort to visit their husbands and obtain their pay went unrewarded, something the seamen of the Adamant recorded in a petition to the Admiralty in 1798: ‘[We were] deprived of every indulgence, which every other ships get after coming from sea. Our wives and children turned out three days before the ship was paid, which was very piercing, as they had no money to subsist on.’45 Finding out where a ship would arrive was as much a problem for wives of officers as for the men – summed up by Captain Rotheram in one of his ‘Growls of a Naval Life’:
Your ship arrives in Torbay. Your affectionate wife hurries round from Plymouth twenty-one Devonshire miles and shocking roads, when finding no person is allowed to land, she takes a sailing vessel and in spite of opposing elements comes off to the ship, but just in time to see her under weigh, for in the squall which wets her to the skin the wind shifted and the fle
et instantly weighed. Your attention to the ship prevents your even thanking her for her kindness and you only see her wipe the tear of anguish and disappointment from her eyes as the two vessels separate.46
Captain Griffiths, in his textbook on seamanship, advised against keeping the men’s wives waiting in boats alongside the ship before letting them on board because, unlike the prostitutes, they had to pay the boatmen and such delays increased the cost and caused ill feeling:
Few things are more teasing to the men than to have their wives, etc. plying off on their oars, as they are sometimes kept, even for a long while, and that too at times when it rained or blew so as to wet them. Independent to the distress thus occasioned to them, I think those ladies should not, even on the score of policy, be unnecessarily annoyed; their influence over the men is well known, and at least it would be judicious not to stimulate them to exert it. Although there are times when duty renders it improper they should be admitted at the moment, yet in general that is not the case, and if it be necessary it is better to tell them to come at a given hour than to keep them hanging on. Waterage is an heavy expense to them, and it must be augmented by these delays of getting on board.47
After the Battle of Trafalgar, Lieutenant John Yule in the badly damaged Victory was desperate to see his wife and children. He wrote her a letter expressing his wishes, very mindful of the long and difficult journey from Seaton in south Devon to Portsmouth:
I embrace the possibility of sending this by the Belleisle before she parts from us as she is bound to Plymouth and we are going to Portsmouth. I think it is probable you may receive this before we arrive … how can I be in England and not be with my Eliza? And yet I know it is cruel to ask her to travel at this inclement season … you are sensible how much I should wish to see my dearest children; you also know the inconvenience of bringing them so long a journey considering the inclemency of the season and the distance, but if you think John able to bear the fatigue he might be shoved in among you. I am afraid poor Tom is too young … Such are the precarious situations we are placed in in a sea life that altho’ I expected to have been with you a week since, the weather has been so bad we have not been able to get into any port … they are endeavouring to tow us into some harbour. The elements are against us, for tho’ I am at this instant directly opposite the hallowed spot on which my dearest family reside, and not more than 30 miles from her, the wind blows so directly from the south that it is impossible to get near England or its shores in any place, and we may yet be a week at sea.48
The Victory did not anchor near Portsmouth until almost three weeks later, when Yule discovered that Eliza was not at their home but staying with her sister at Hatherleigh in mid-Devon. ‘I am glad you did not come,’ he wrote, ‘as we sail from this place tomorrow to go to the Downs and from thence to the Nore where the body of the departed Hero [Nelson] will be put into one of the King’s yachts and be lodged in Greenwich hospital … I think it would be better you remain there [in Devon] until you hear again from me as I know not to what port we may be bound or when we shall be there.’49 Before posting this letter, he received a note from her and rapidly added a postscript to try to stop her leaving for Portsmouth: ‘this note may reach you I hope before you take your place [in the coach]. If not you had better proceed to London or else remain. We shall have sailed before you can possibly have reached Portsmouth.’50
Whether a seaman’s wife was sent an allowance, or relied on meeting him on pay day, she usually led a harsh and impoverished existence. The only method of social support was the workhouse, organised locally and grudgingly paid for through local taxes. Consequently, it was cheaper to take a destitute sailor’s wife back to her parish of origin than support her in a port until her husband returned. This was especially true of places like Portsmouth and Plymouth that were continually overcrowded with seamen’s wives from all parts of the country, since the burden of supporting them would have crippled the local economy. A workhouse was, in any case, an absolute last resort: deliberately made uninviting, they were also frequently badly run and had a high mortality rate, because the sick and the destitute were housed together with hardly any medical help.
Particularly in the ports, where countless women congregated, there was little work available for them and begging was seldom an option as so many beggars filled the streets already. Sailors’ wives were frequently faced with the choice of accompanying their husbands on board ship, if this could be arranged, or else turning to prostitution or starving. Wives and girlfriends certainly did accompany their men, though this was usually regarded as a special favour or mark of privilege for the seaman concerned. Some wives were smuggled on board as stowaways, without the knowledge or permission of the officers. Many others were the wives of warrant officers, such as the gunner, carpenter and purser, who had a higher status than the ratings. When William Richardson was about to sail to Martinique in early 1800 he found his wife was determined to join him. Since the West Indies were notorious for fevers that could decimate ships’ crews, he thought she was mad:
I went to bid my wife and family adieu [at Portsea] but found she had fixed her mind to go with me as there was some hopes that the ship would return to England after delivering her stores, so after some entreaties I consented, especially because the Captain’s the Master’s and Purser’s wives were going, the Armourer, the Boatswain, the Serjeant of Marines and six other men’s wives likewise got leave to go; one would have thought they were all insane in wanting twelve of them to go to such a sickly country. As there was no time to be lost we took a hasty leave of our friends, my wife was so affected that she nearly fainted and I was so moved I hardly knew what to do; however it was soon over and we got on board with our linen all wet from the washerwoman from her not having time to dry it … we got under way next morning … little thinking how few of us would return again.51
Although Richardson and his wife survived, many others died of fevers in the West Indies. Wherever a ship was headed, sailors could be torn by the desire to take their loved ones with them and fears for their safety. George Watson became attached to a woman at Minorca and considered taking her to sea with him on board the Fame, but then thought better of it:
What could I have done with her, or she with me? It might have been [that] she would have had to wipe my languid face, or tie up my bleeding head with her napkin, or, peradventure, I might have had to do the same office for her, and afterwards to have consigned her to the briny wave, for who is safe in battle – the cannon ball pays no more respect to the petticoat, or powerful charms of a lovely damsel, than to the rugged cheek and coarse tarpawling jacket, of a sturdy tar, so it is better as it is. I often cast my tearful eye to the place where she dwelt, and with lingering looks, watched to get another and another more distant view, till at last, I was reluctantly forced to forego the pleasing, but melancholy scene, and sadly sigh, farewell!52
Watson would have obtained permission because his captain, Richard Bennett, allowed some of the crew to have their wives and partners on board at sea, and he also had his own female companion:
He loved the society of women, as most men do, and nearly all the time he was with us, had one in the ship with him, and at the period which I am speaking of, there was a Miss Jen—gs on board as his mistress, and had left England with him. She was a lovely looking woman, and modest in a great degree, compared with the majority of her sex who plough the seas on the same footing, and while she was much respected by the captain, she was also held in estimation both by the officers and men.53
Some months later the Fame sailed to Minorca again, and Watson recorded that Miss Jennings was replaced: ‘Our Captain previous to our coming to Minorca this time sent his English Lady home … and at this port got another, a beautiful dark Spanish girl. She was about eighteen or nineteen years of age, of a genteel and handsome figure, and had large black and brilliant eyes. She dressed gaily and lightly, and appeared always at ease and full of pleasure.’54
Despite their unoffici
al status, women on board warships were expected to conform to navy regulations, and sometimes specific commands were given concerning their conduct, such as one that appeared in Captain John Fyffe’s orders for HMS Indefatigable in 1812: ‘The women belonging to the ship are to be permitted to go on shore twice a week on market days. Should they go on any other day, or in any respect act contrary to the regulations of the ship, they are not to be suffered to come on board again.’55 It is doubtful if attempts at controlling the women were ever very successful, though Rear-Admiral Sir John Jervis tried more than once to curb their fresh water consumption, and in June 1797 he issued another threat:
Observing, as I do with the deepest concern, the great deficiency of water in several ships of the squadron, which cannot have happened without waste by collusion, and the service of our King and Country requiring that the blockade of Cadiz, on which depends a speedy and honourable peace, should be continued, an event impracticable without the strictest economy in the expenditure of water, it will become my indispensable duty to land all the women in the squadron at Gibraltar, unless this alarming evil is immediately corrected.56
Nelson, who was then serving in the fleet under Jervis, responded: ‘My dear Sir, The history of women was brought forward I remember in the Channel Fleet last war. I know not if your ship was an exception, but I will venture to say, not an Honourable [captain] but had plenty of them, and they always will do as they please. Orders are not for them – at least, I never yet knew one who obeyed.’57
Because of their unofficial status, specific women who accompanied their husbands to sea in navy ships are rarely mentioned, and we only know the names of a handful. At the Battle of the Nile in 1798 Ann Hopping (known as Nancy Perriam after she remarried) was on board the Orion, while Ann Taylor, Elizabeth Moore, Sarah Bates and Mary French were in the Goliath. Four were wives of seamen, and Mary French was the wife a marine. Edward Hopping survived, but the husbands of the other four women were killed, and the captain of the Goliath, Thomas Foley, entered the women in the muster book as ‘being the widows of men slain in fight on the 1st Augt 1798 victualled at 2/3ds allowance by Captains order, in consideration of their assistance in dressing and attending on the wounded’.58 These women were provided with victuals from the ship’s stores until 30 November, when, it was noted, ‘their further assistance not being required’.59 Also at the Nile was another woman, Christiann White, who later wrote to Nelson for help: ‘Your petitioner Christiann White has taken the liberty to lay her case before your Lordship, that I lost my husband in your glorious action of the 1st of August 1798 at the Nile, and … where we lost the Honourable Captain Westcott, and as for myself was left a widow and with 2 children to the mercy of God. Your petitioner humbly hopes that your Lordship will consider her worthy of your notice.’60
