Eighteenth Century Waifs

Her husband was killed at the battle of Malplaquet, in 1709, and then this rough woman could not help showing that she possessed some of the softer feelings of her sex. Her grief was overpowering. She bit a great piece out of her arm, tore her hair, and then threw herself upon the corpse in an ecstasy of passion, and, had any weapon been handy, she would, undoubtedly, have killed herself. With her own hands she dug his grave, and with her own hands would she have scraped the earth away, in order to get one more glimpse of her husband’s face, had she not been prevented. She refused food; she became absolutely ill from grief, and yet, within eleven weeks from her husband’s death, she married a grenadier named Hugh Jones! Her second married life was brief – for her husband was mortally wounded at the siege of St. Venant.

After her husband’s death, she got a living by cooking for the officers, and went through the whole campaign, till 1712, when she applied to the Duke of Ormond for a pass to England – which he not only gave her, but also money enough to defray her expenses on the way. On her arrival in England, she called on the Duke of Marlborough, to see whether he could not get some provision made for her; but he was not in power, and, however good his will towards her might have been, he had not the means. She then tried the Duke of Argyle, who advised her to have a petition to the Queen drawn up, and take it to the Duke of Hamilton, and he himself would back it up.

She did so, and took it to the duke, who, when he was assured she was no impostor, advised her to get a new petition drawn up, and present herself to the Queen. So, the next day, she dressed herself in her best, and went to Court, waiting patiently at the foot of the great staircase, and when Queen Anne, supported by the Duke of Argyle, came down, she dropped on one knee, and presented her petition to the Queen, who received it with a smile, and bade her rise and be of good cheer, for that she would provide for her; and, perceiving her to be with child, she added, ‘If you are delivered of a boy, I will give him a commission as soon as he is born.’ Her Majesty also ordered her fifty pounds, to defray the expenses of her lying-in. She lived some little time in London, being helped very materially by the officers to whom she was known; and it was during this time, on Saturday morning, the 15th of November, 1712, she was going through Hyde Park, and was an eye-witness of the historical duel between Lord Mohun and the Duke of Hamilton.

A natural longing came upon her to see her mother and her children, and she wrote to her to say she would be in Dublin by a certain date. The old woman, although over a hundred years of age, trudged the whole ten miles to Dublin, to see this daughter whom she had so long given up as dead; and the meeting was very affecting. When she came to inquire after her children, she found one had died at the age of eighteen, and the other was in the workhouse, where it had very speedily been placed by the nurse in whose charge it had been left. She went to look after the furniture and goods which she had housed with her neighbours; but there was only one who would give any account of them. A man had taken possession of her freehold house, and refused to give it up; and, having lost the title-deeds, she could not force him, besides which she had no money to carry on a lawsuit.

These misfortunes did not dishearten her; she always had been used to victualling. So she took a public-house, and stocked it, and made pies, and altogether was doing very well, when she must needs go and marry a soldier named Davies, whose discharge she bought, but he afterwards enlisted in the Guards.

Queen Anne, besides her gift of fifty pounds, ordered Mrs. Davies a shilling a day for life, which Harley, Earl of Oxford, for some reason or other, cut down to fivepence, with which she was fain to be content until a change of ministry took place. Then she applied to Mr. Craggs, and she got her original pension restored.

She did not do very well in her business, but she found plenty of friends in the officers of the Army who knew her. She once more bought her husband’s discharge, and got him into Chelsea Hospital, with the rank of sergeant. She also was received into that institution; and there she died on the 7th of July, 1739, and was interred in the burying-ground attached to Chelsea Hospital, with military honours.

Hannah Snell’s grandfather entered the Army in the reign of William III. as a volunteer, and, by his personal bravery, he earned a commission as lieutenant, with the rank of captain. He was wounded at Blenheim, and mortally wounded at Malplaquet. Her brother was also a soldier, and was killed at Fontenoy; so that she may be said to have come of a martial race. Her father was a hosier and dyer, and she was born at Worcester on St. George’s Day, 23rd of April, 1723.

According to a contemporary biography of her,35 ‘Hannah, when she was scarce Ten Years of Age, had the seeds of Heroinism, as it were, implanted in her nature, and she used often to declare to her Companions that she would be a Soldier, if she lived; and, as a preceding Testimony of the Truth, she formed a Company of young Soldiers among her Playfellows, and of which she was chief Commander, at the Head of whom she often appeared, and was used to parade the whole City of Worcester. This Body of young Volunteers were admired all over the Town, and they were styled young “Amazon Snell’s Company”; and this Martial Spirit grew up with her, until it carried her through the many Scenes and Vicissitudes she encountered for nigh five Years.’

Her father and mother being dead, she, in 1740, moved to London, where she arrived on Christmas Day, and took up her abode with one of her sisters, who had married a carpenter named Gray, and was living at Wapping. Two years afterwards she was married, at the Fleet, to a German or Dutch sailor named James Summs, on the 6th of January, 1743; but he was a worthless fellow, and as soon as he found she was with child by him, having spent all her money, he deserted her. She heard of his death subsequently; he was at Genoa, and, in a quarrel, he killed a Genoese. For this he was condemned to death, sewn up in a sack with a quantity of stones, and sunk in the sea. Her child survived its birth but seven months, and she was left a free woman.

Up to this time her story presents nothing of particular interest; but, like ‘Long Meg of Westminster,’ she was a virago, more man than woman, and, with the hope of some day meeting with her husband, she donned male attire, and set forth on her quest. She soon fell in with a recruiting party at Coventry, whither she had walked, and where she found her funds exhausted. A little drink, the acceptance of a shilling, a visit to a magistrate, were the slight preliminaries to her military career, and the 27th of November, 1743, found her a private in the army of King George II. The guinea, and five shillings, her little ‘bounty money,’ had to follow the fate of all similar sums, in treating her comrades. There was scant time for drills, and she was, after about three weeks’ preparation, drafted off to Carlisle to join her regiment. There were no railway passes in those days, so the weary march northward took twenty-two days.

She had not been long in Carlisle before her sergeant, named Davis, requested her aid in an intrigue he was endeavouring to establish with a young woman of that town; but, instead of helping him, she warned the young person of his intentions, and absolutely won the girl’s heart. Davis’s jealousy was excited, and to punish Jemmy Gray (which was the name under which Hannah Snell had enlisted), he reported her for some neglect of duty, and, as commanding officers then were rather severe than lenient in their punishments, she was sentenced to receive six hundred lashes, five hundred of which she absolutely received, and would have taken the whole had not some officers interfered. It seems marvellous that her sex, when she was tied up and partially stripped, was not discovered, and in a romance it would be a weak spot; but, as a matter-of-fact, no one suspected she was a woman, and when her back was healed she returned to her duty. Flogging was common enough in those days.

But a worse danger of exposure threatened her, for a fellow-townsman from Worcester enlisted in the same regiment, and so she determined to desert. The female friend on whose account she had suffered such severe punishment, found some money, and Hannah Snell fled towards Portsmouth, surreptitiously changing coats in a field by the way. She stopped but little time in Portsmouth, and then she enlisted in the Marines, in which corps she was certain to be sent abroad on service, and might have greater opportunities of meeting with her husband.

Scarce three weeks after her enlistment had elapsed when a draft was made to join Admiral Boscawen’s fleet for the East Indies, and she was sent on board the sloop of war, the Swallow. Here she soon became very popular with her mess-mates, her skill in cooking, washing, and mending their shirts made her a general favourite, and she did her duty with the best of her comrades, being especially noted for her smartness, so much so, indeed, that she was made an officer’s servant.

Those old ships were not very good sailors in a gale. The French beat us hollow at ship-building, and we much improved by studying the make of the prizes we were constantly taking, so it is not to be wondered at if that rolling old tub, the Swallow, came to grief. The marvel would have been had it not occurred. Twice, before the Cape was made, they had to repair and refit. They were then ordered to the Mauritius, and eventually they went to the Coromandel coast, where they landed and laid siege to and took Areacopong. They then besieged Pondicherry (in September, 1748); but that town was not fated to fall into the hands of the British until 1760. In all the hardships of the siege Hannah Snell bore her full part, fording rivers breast high, sleeping in and working at the trenches, &c., until at last she was desperately wounded, receiving six shots in her right leg, five in her left, and a bullet in her groin. Anyone would think that thus wounded, and in hospital, her sex would have been discovered; but it was not. She managed to extract the ball from her groin, and with the connivance of an old black nurse, she always dressed the wound herself, so that the surgeons did not know of its existence.

Three months she lay in hospital, going back to her duty as a Marine on her discharge. But her comrades bantered her on her somewhat feminine appearance, her smooth cheeks not being in accordance with her age. Besides, she was somewhat quiet, and different from the rollicking Jack Tars by whom she was surrounded, and so she earned the name of Miss Molly Gray. A continuance of this quiet rôle might have led to discovery, so when they came to Lisbon, and the ‘liberty men’ went on shore, she was as racketty as any of them, and ‘Miss Molly’ was soon lost, and in her place was ‘Hearty Jemmy.’ From Lisbon they sailed for home, and on her arrival at Spithead, she was either discharged, or sent on furlough; at all events, there ended her military and naval career, for she went straight to her sister at Wapping, and was at once recognized.

Campaigning had made her restless, and, although many of the officers who had known her assisted her pecuniarily, it was light come, light go, and the money was soon spent. So her friends advised her to petition the Duke of Cumberland, pointing out her services, and also dilating upon her wounds. On the 16th of June, 1750, she found a very favourable opportunity of presenting her memorandum to the duke, and, after full inquiry, she was awarded a pension of a shilling a day. This, however, would not keep her, and finding that, as an Amazon, she had a market value, she engaged with the proprietor of the New Wells in Goodman’s Fields (the Royalty Theatre, Wellclose Square) to appear on the stage as a soldier. In this character she sang several songs, and ‘She appears regularly dress’d in her Regimentals from Top to Toe, with all the Accoutrements requisite for the due Performance of her Military Exercises. Here she and her Attendants fill up the Stage in a very agreeable Manner. The tabor and Drum give Life to her March, and she traverses the stage two or three times over, Step by Step, in the same Manner as our Soldiers march on the Parade in St. James’s Park.

‘After the Spectators have been sufficiently amused with this formal Procession, she begins her Military exercises, and goes through the whole Catechism (if I may be allowed the Expression) with so much Dexterity and Address, and with so little Hesitation or Default, that great Numbers even of Veteran Soldiers, who have resorted to the Wells out of mere curiosity only, have frankly acknowledged that she executes what she undertakes to Admiration, and that the universal Applause which she meets with is by no means the Result of Partiality to her in Consideration of her Sex, but is due to her, without Favour or Affection, as the Effect of her extraordinary Merit.

‘As our Readers may be desirous of being informed in what Dress she now appears, we think it proper to inform them that she wears Men’s Cloaths, being, as she says, determined so to do, and having bought new Cloathing for that Purpose.’

This theatrical performance, of course, could not last long; so, with her savings, she took a public-house at Wapping, which she christened ‘The Widow in Masquerade,’ and on one side of the sign she was delineated in her full regimentals, on the other in plain clothes.

She afterwards married, for in the Universal Chronicle (November 3/10, 1759, p. 359, col. 3) may be read: ‘Marriages. At Newbury, in the county of Berks, the famous Hannah Snell, who served as a marine in the last war, and was wounded at the siege of Pondicherry, to a carpenter of that place.’ His name was Eyles. In 1789 she became insane, and was taken to Bethlehem, where she died on the 8th of February, 1792, aged sixty-nine.

The examples quoted of women joining the army are by no means singular, for in 1761 a lynx-eyed sergeant detected a woman who wished to enlist under the name of Paul Daniel, in the hope that she might be sent to Germany, where her husband was then serving in the army. And in the same year a woman named Hannah Witney was masquerading at Plymouth in man’s attire, and was laid hold of by a press-gang and lodged in Plymouth gaol. She was so disgusted at the treatment she received that she disclosed her sex, at the same time telling the astonished authorities that she had served as a marine for five years.

There is a curious little chap-book, now very rare, of the ‘Life and Adventures of Maria Knowles … by William Fairbank, Sergeant-major of the 66th Regiment of Foot,’ and, as it is very short, it may be as well to give its ipsissima verba.

‘The heroine of the following story is the only daughter of Mr. John Knowles, a reputed farmer,36 of the parish of Bridworth, in the county of Cheshire, where Maria was born, and was her father’s only daughter. At an early age she lost her mother, and was brought up under the care of a mother-in-law, who treated her with more kindness than is usually done to motherless children. Her father having no other child, his house might have proved a comfortable home for one of a more sober disposition. At the age of nineteen she was so very tall that she was styled the ‘Tall Girl.’ She had a very handsome face, which gained her plenty of sweethearts. Many young men felt the weight of her fists for giving her offences. She refused many offers of marriage, and that from persons of fortune.

‘Being one day at the market in Warrington, she saw one Cliff, a sergeant of the Guards on the recruiting service, with whom she fell deeply in love; he in a short time was called to join the regiment, and she, not being able to bear her love-sick passion, eloped from her father’s house, immediately went up to London, disguised in man’s apparel, and enlisted in the same regiment with her sweetheart, in which she made a most martial appearance in her regimentals; her height covered the deception. As a red coat captivates the fair sex, our female soldier made great advances, being a lover of mirth and a smart girl…

‘A part of the Guards were ordered to Holland, with whom sailed Maria and her sweetheart. The British troops were stationed at Dort, and a party was sent in gunboats to annoy the French, who were then besieging Williamstadt. From Holland they were ordered to French Flanders, where Maria was at several desperate battles and sieges. At Dunkirk she was wounded in three different parts, in her right shoulder, in her right arm, and thigh, which discovered her sex, and, of course, her secret.

‘After being recovered from her wounds, and questioned by her commanding officer, she related to him the particulars of her life, and the reason of her being disguised, and entering for a soldier, which was to seek her fortune, and share the fate of the man on whom she had irrevocably fixed her affection.

‘The news soon reached her lover, who flew to the arms of so faithful a girl, whom he embraced with the most ardent zeal, vowing an eternal constancy to her; and, in order to reward such faithful love, the officers raised a handsome subscription for them, after which they were married by the chaplain of the regiment, to their great joy…

‘But this was not all, for the adjutant of the 66th Regiment of Foot dying of his wounds, Sergeant Cliff was promoted to that berth, and Sergeant Fairbank to sergeant-major, as Cliff and him were always comrades together. In a little time the regiment was sent to Gibraltar, where they stayed most part of the year, during which Mrs. Cliff was delivered of a fine son, after which the regiment was sent to the West Indies, and, after a passage of twenty-eight days, landed safely on the island of St. Vincent, where they remained some time; but, the yellow fever raging among the troops, Mr. Cliff died, to the great grief of his disconsolate wife and her young son. She was still afraid of the raging distemper, but, happily for her and her son, neither of them took it.

‘Great indulgence was given her, and also provisions allowed them both; but this did not suffice, for Mrs. Cliff, losing the man she had ventured her life so many times for, was now very unhappy, and made application to the commanding officer for her passage to England; and a great many men, unfit for duty, coming home, she was admitted a passenger. I, being unfit to act as sergeant-major, on account of a wound that I received in my left leg, the same day Mrs. Cliff was wounded, and although it was cured, as soon as I came into a hot country it broke out again, and I, being unfit for duty, was sent home, and recommended.37 So I came home in the same ship, with this difference, that she was in the cabin, and I among the men. We sailed in the Eleanor on the 25th of January, 1798, and, after forty days’ sail, we reached Spithead, and, after performing a short quarantine, we landed at Portsmouth on the 16th of March, where I left Mrs. Cliff to pursue her journey to her father’s, and I came to London.’

I have been unable to trace the fate of this heroine any further.

There is yet another woman of the eighteenth century, who acted the part both of soldier and sailor; and we read of her in the Times, 4th of November, 1799.

‘There is at present in the Middlesex Hospital a young and delicate female, who calls herself Miss T – lb – t, and who is said to be related to some families of distinction; her story is very singular: – At an early period of her life, having been deprived, by the villainy of a trustee, of a sum of money bequeathed to her by a deceased relation of high rank, she followed the fortunes of a young naval officer to whom she was attached, and personated a common sailor before the mast, during a cruise in the north seas. In consequence of a lover’s quarrel she quitted the ship, and assumed, for a time, the military character; but her passion for the sea prevailing, she returned to her favourite element, did good service, and received a severe wound on board Earl St. Vincent’s ship, on the glorious 14th of February,38 and again bled in the cause of her country in the engagement off Camperdown. On this last occasion her knee was shattered, and an amputation is likely to ensue. This spirited female, we understand, receives a pension of £20 from an illustrious lady, which is about to be doubled.’

Voilà comment on écrit l’histoire! This newspaper report is about as truthful as nine-tenths of the paragraphs now-a-days; there is a substratum of truth, but not ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’ But this can be read in a little tractate entitled, ‘The Life and Surprising Adventures of Mary Ann Talbot, in the name of John Taylor. Related by herself.’ London, 1809. This pamphlet is extracted from ‘Kirby’s Wonderful Museum of Remarkable Characters, &c.,’ and professes to be an autobiography. It is highly probable that it is so, as she was a domestic servant in Mr. Kirby’s house for three years before her death.

According to this relation she was the youngest of sixteen natural children whom her mother had by Lord William Talbot, Baron of Hensol, steward of his Majesty’s household, and colonel of the Glamorganshire Militia. She was born the 2nd of February, 1778, and her mother died on giving her birth. She was put out to nurse in the country, until she was five years of age, when she was placed in a boarding-school at Chester, where she remained nine years, being looked after by a married sister who lived at Trevalyn, county Denbigh. At her death a man named Sucker, living at Newport, county Salop, became her guardian, and he behaved to her with such severity that she cordially hated him. He introduced her to a Captain Bowen, of the 82nd Regiment of Foot, who took her to London in January, 1792, where, friendless and alone, she soon became his victim.

His regiment was ordered to embark for Santo Domingo, and he had so thoroughly subjugated her to his will, and she was so utterly helpless, that she accompanied him on board as his ‘little foot page.’ Captain Bowen made John Taylor (for such was the name Miss Talbot then took) thoroughly act up to her assumed character, and she had to live and mess with the lowest of the ship’s company, and, what was more, had to do her turn of duty with the ship’s crew.

After a stormy voyage, with short provisions, they arrived at Port-au-Prince, but stayed there a very short time, as orders came for them to return to Europe, and join the troops on the Continent, under the command of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. Then it was that Captain Bowen made her enrol herself as a drummer in his regiment, threatening her unless she did so he would sell her up-country for a slave. There was nothing for her but to comply, so she put on the clothes and learned the business of a drummer-boy, having, besides, still to be the drudge of her paramour.

At the siege of Valenciennes she received two wounds, neither of them severe enough to incapacitate her from serving, and she cured them, without going into hospital, with a little basilicon, lint, and Dutch drops. In this siege Captain Bowen was killed, and she, finding the key of his desk in his pocket, searched the desk and found several letters relating to her, from her quondam guardian, Sucker.

Being now released from her servitude, she began to think of quitting the service, and, having changed her military dress for one she had worn on ship-board, she deserted, and, after some wandering, reached Luxembourg, but, it being in the occupation of the French, she was not permitted to go further. Being thus foiled in her design of reaching England, and destitute of every necessary of life, she was compelled to engage on board a French lugger, a cruiser. In the course of their voyage, they fell in with the British fleet under the command of Lord Howe. The French vessel made a show of fighting, and John Taylor refused to fight against her countrymen, for which she received a severe thrashing from the French captain.

After a very faint resistance the lugger was captured, and she, as being English, was taken on board the Queen Charlotte to be interrogated by Lord Howe. Her story, being backed up by the French captain, gained her release, and she was allowed to join the navy, a berth being found for her on board the Brunswick as powder-monkey, her duty being to hand powder, &c., for the guns when in action. Captain Harvey, of the Brunswick, noticed the pseudo lad, and straightly examined her as to whether she had not run away from school, or if she had any friends; but she disarmed his suspicions by telling him her father and mother were dead, and she had not a friend in the world; yet the kindly captain took such a friendly interest in her that he made her principal cabin-boy.