'The Powder Monkey and the Phycologist' by Karen Maitland

Anne Perriam 

There will be many famous women celebrated today, on International Women’s Day, who achieved amazing things in the arts, sciences, sports, medicine and politics, and we owe a great debt to them. But in thinking about these women, what fascinates me is the great diversity of their lives, even between those living in the same time and place. Take two Georgian women, Anne and Amelia, who were born within a year of each other, lived just a few miles apart along the Devon coast, whose lives both became bound up with sea, but who achieved fame in such strikingly different ways.

HMS Orion 1787.

Anne (Nancy) Perriam was born in 1769 and joined her first husband, Edward Hopping, in the Navy, working as a seamstress on board HMS Crescent. But when the couple enlisted on HMS Orion, Anne volunteered to also serve as a ‘powder monkey’ during the sea-battles. Her job was to carry gunpowder from the powder magazine in the ship’s hold to the artillery guns, either loose in pots or as cartridges, to minimize the risk of fires and explosions. At the height of battle, the powder monkeys had to scuttle through dark, cramped spaces between decks on a ship that was rolling in heavy seas and juddering under the noise and impact of explosions from their own guns, while enemy shot smashed into its hull.

Firing of 18 pound gun, with a 'powder monkey' on left.

Artist: Louis-Phillippe Crepin (1772-1851) 

Anne fought in several sea-battles including Battle of L’Orient in 1795, Cape St. Vincent in 1797 and the Battle of the Nile in 1798 with Nelson’s fleet. Whenever there was a lull in the fighting, instead of resting, Anne assisted the surgeons with operations and amputations.

She gave birth to two daughters. After five years on HMS Orion, the government granted her a small annual pension of £10 in recognition of her services. She was one of only four women serving on the naval ships during the Napoleonic Wars to be given a pension. She returned home to Exmouth. Her first husband drowned in 1802, and she subsequently married a ship's pilot, John Perriam, who died in 1812. For the rest of her life until she was in her 80’s, she sold fish on the streets of Exmouth, only giving up when she became too ill to continue. She sadly died in poverty her late nineties, but by then was so famous that the press of the day dubbed her the ‘warrior woman.’ There is a memorial to her at the Powder Monkey pub, named in her honour, in Exmouth, Devon.

Battle of the Nile.

Artist George Arnald (1763-1841)

National Maritime Museum, UK

Amelia Griffiths (nee Rogers) was to have a very different life from Anne. though she’d been born just a year earlier in 1768 in Pilton, near Barnstable also in Devon. She married Revd. William Griffiths, who died only six years later leaving her to raise five children alone. Amelia eventually settled in Torquay, Devon where she was ideally placed to develop a passion which was to make her famous. She collected and classified seaweeds, in the process helping to popularise the ‘seaside holiday’. She corresponded with the most important phycology experts of her time and she became so well-respected in her field that Carl Agardh, a leading Swedish botanist named a genus of red seaweeds, Griffithsia, after her.

Torquay in 1811

Torre Abbey Museum

Her daughter, Amelia Elizabeth, become an expert in mosses, but Amelia Griffith’s great companion was a former family servant, Mary Wyatt who ran a pressed plant shop in Torquay. Pressed plants were much in demand by ladies who used them to decorate boxes, screens and create ornate friezes on drawing room walls. Together Amelia and Mary produced four volumes of pressed and named seaweeds entitled ‘Algae Danmoniensis’. The first two volumes alone, published in 1833, contained 100 different species. Like ‘powder monkey’ Anne, Amelia lived a long life, passing away just before her 90th birthday.

Griffithsia rhizophora

Photographer: Phillippe Bourjon

In 1854, the author Charles Kingsley visited Torquay and later wrote of Amelia,

‘Mrs Griffiths to whose extraordinary powers of research English marine biology almost owes its existence and who survived to an age, long beyond the natural term of man to see, in her cheerful and honoured old age, that knowledge become popular and general which she pursued for many a year unassisted and alone.’

Anne and Amelia, I salute you both!

'Accused of witchcraft and murder in 1518 and 2018' by Karen Maitland

New Mexico, 1920.

'Melita, the day after she was rescued

from hanging as a witch.'

Photo: James George Wharton

I was horrified, but sadly not surprised, to read of the terrible ordeal of a mother and daughter in Jharkhand State, India who, in February 2018, were dragged from their house by relatives, had their heads shaved and were paraded naked around the village, accused of having caused the death of a family member by witchcraft. Of the many cruelties perpetrated upon these two women, one that stuck out for me was the shaving of their heads. Why do some people fear women’s hair so much that they either demand to cover it up or cut it off?

From ancient times, in many cultures, cunning women and ‘witches’ were thought to be able to double the potency of any spell, curse or cure by unbinding their hair. Witches were believed to be able to whip up a storm that could sink ships simply by shaking their hair lose. To bind or cut a woman’s hair was thought to bind or sever her power, like weakening the mighty Samson by shearing his locks.

At the height of the witchcraft trails in England and Europe, Inquisitors were advised to shave the head and bodies of any women or man accused of witchcraft before integrating them. Jordanes de Bergamo in 1470 refers to this practise, and aside from helping to break their prisoners’ spirits, it was advocated for three reasons –

1) The ‘witch’ might conceal amulets or charms in his or her hair to render them immune to the pain of torture.

2) The devil himself might hide in their hair and instruct the accused how to answer in order to deceive the interrogators. This belief also extended to those deemed to be possessed. Their heads were not shaved, but they were made to wear wigs. When fits or ravings took hold of them, their wig would be snatched off and pushed into a flask in the hope that the demon had been pulled off with the wig and was now sealed in the bottle, rather like catching a wasp or spider in a pinch of paper.

'Examination of a Witch' by Thompkins H. Matteson, 1853
Collection of Peasbody Essex Museum

3) But in England the reason mostly commonly given to justify shaving the head and body was so that the cunningly concealed devil’s marks, such as moles or birthmarks, would be exposed.

Today is not only International Women’s Day, but also the 500-year anniversary of the birth of another woman who also found herself accused of witchcraft, Sidonie of Saxony, Princess of Calenberg-Göttingen, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who was born 8th March 1518.

In 1545, a marriage was arranged for her to Duke Erich II of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1528–1584), a man ten years younger. Although the couple seemed to get on well at first, perhaps Sidonie should have guessed he was unlikely to remain faithful for long, since he had broken off his engagement to Agnes of Hesse to marry her.

Sidonie, from a painting by Lucas Cranach, 1550

Erich’s mother, the Duchy’s regent, had converted the family to Lutheranism, but when Erich began to rule the Duchy, two years after his marriage, he reconverted to Catholicism. Much to his annoyance, Sidonie maintained her Lutheran faith. The marriage soon began to buckle under the weight of financial pressures and childlessness, and Sidonie started to believe her husband was trying murder her. In 1555, a merchant told her brother Augustus that Erich had ordered poison from him to do away with her.

Erich did not bother to conceal the fact that he had installed a very young mistress at Calenberg Castle where he was now living. Sidonie had previously refused to allow ‘the whore’ into their home and in turn Erich banned the duchess from the castle. But in 1563, the duke barely escaped with his life when a fire broke out under his bed, and he accused his wife of trying to kill him.

From 1564, Sidonie was more or less kept prisoner in her own home. Then in that same year, Erich became extremely ill. His hair and nails fell out and his body swelled. A physician, Dr Cornelius Mertens, swore before witnesses that the duke had been poisoned.

Erich, circa 1573. Artist unknown

As soon as he recovered sufficiently, Erich had four acquaintances of his wife arrested for witchcraft and attempted murder. Under torture, three confessed to planting some kind of explosive device under his bed, and then afterwards, with a fourth woman, Godela Kuckes, they swore they had brewed a harmful substance intended to kill the duke. Godela Kuckes confessed without being tortured, but a few days later, having been kept in solitary confinement, she was found dead by the prison guards with a broken neck. It was rumoured she’d been killed by the devil himself, though whether that devil was Erich or one of his henchmen we will probably never know.

The other three conspirators were burned at the stake as witches. But the deaths did not end there, for Erich had a further 37 people who he claimed to be involved executed, some by burning. On 30th March 1572, Duke Erich assembled nobles and authorities from Hannover and Hameln and publicly accused his wife of witchcraft and of attempting to murder him. Given what had already happened to the 41-other accused, Sidonie was justifiably terrified.

The duchess managed to get away and travelled to Vienna to beg Emperor Maximilian II for help. Maximilian ordered that an investigation should be carried out and the evidence heard at the imperial court. All witnesses recanted their testimony against Sidonie and she was eventually declared innocent of all charges. Elector Augustus gave her the monastery of the Poor Clare’s at Weissenfels and she lived there until she died on 4th January 1575, aged 56. At her request, she was buried in Freiberg Cathedral.

On this International Women’s Day, it is wonderful to celebrate the achievement of women, but perhaps reflect that for some, like those two women in India, attitudes have not changed much in 500 years. World wide we still have a long way to go.