YESTERDAY Part 2.....THE CLOTHES by Adèle Geras

This is the second of the extracts from my memoir YESTERDAY (first published in 1992) which details my time at Oxford between 1963 and 1966. It’s 50 years this September since I matriculated and in honour of that, I’m putting up some bits from the book which is now out of print. This one is about what I was wearing in the early Sixties.

CLOTHES.

Fashionwise, it was a time when I should probably have gone into hiding. The Mini was upon us, and I ought to have shunned it, but I didn’t. I wore short skirts and dark tights and sometimes white tights, although I never went as far as white plastic boots.

Everyone was very Body Conscious in those days, and the bodies they were conscious of looked like Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton. Therefore I always felt myself to be fat, even though I was probably no more than plump. This plumpness was (is) not helped by lack of height and a distressing shortness of leg. However none of this has ever prevented me from trying to follow the fashion, and from loving clothes and jewels and dressing up in any way I can. This was also the era of the High Heeled Shoe. I cannot emphasize too strongly the liberation that Flat Shoes (the blessed Trainer and the glorious Doc Marten) brought us. I think my feet must have been hurting for a major proportion of my youth. I also wore various shapes of trousers, although these were always black because black was supposed to be slimming. All my jumpers, blouses etc. hung loosely over my hips on the “hiding a multitude of sins” principle. Laura Ashley opened a shop in Oxford in my last year (1966) and transformed me into a buxom Victorian wench.

I remember several outfits in detail: 1) A fuchsia pink smock-type dress ending three inches above the knee 2) A wonderful long jungle print evening dress made by my friend Franny in about two hours. It had no sleeves and sort of gathered itself round my neck leaving my shoulders bare. (NB to plump young women: do not despair. Your waist may not be up to much but your shoulders, neck and cleavage will be terrific!) 3) A bottle green knitted dress from Marks and Spencer, like a very long jumper. I thought I might end up looking elegant like Liz, but discovered quickly that knitted dresses cling to one’s bottom with dismaying tenacity. 4) A bright scarlet duffel-type jacket, which I loved and wish I still had. 5) A black dress I used to sing in whenever I did cabaret. Everything they say about little black dresses is true. 6) My first Laura Ashley: a full-skirted, long, cap-sleeved pinafore in blue cotton printed with white swans. [This dress is almost exactly like the one I had and I found it on the internet on a website called Moonchild Vintage. I've tried to contact it for permission to use this image with no success, so Mooonchild, if you're out there, please may I use this image?]

Legacies – Katherine Roberts

Legacy – n. sum or money or article bequeathed; material or immaterial thing handed down by predecessor.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things we leave behind us, where we leave them and why. In my fantasy quartet for young readers, King Arthur leaves Excalibur in an enchanted lake after his mortally-wounded body is taken to Avalon, as well as three other magical objects scattered about the world of men. That's possibly why Templar chose to call my series The Pendragon Legacy. As heir to the Pendragon throne, his daughter Rhianna is also part of the legacy Arthur leaves behind - since she's all that stands between the glory of Camelot and her evil cousin Mordred, who seeks to destroy everything the king and his noble knights created.

"Which book is your favourite?"

Some books contain magic as strong as that of the four Lights, hit the bestseller lists and are made into films for everyone to enjoy - but all books, however humble, are legacies bequeathed to the world by their authors. I often refer to my books as my children, since they each take about nine months to grow from the seed of an idea to a fully-fledged manuscript ready for editing, and every child is special to its parents and deserves just as much love and care, no matter how well it performs in the world. Also, it’s a good answer to the question young readers like to ask: “Which of your books is your favourite?” because I can say “It’s like asking a mother to choose between her children,” and they understand right away what I’m talking about.

But having just added the final full stop to the proofread of the final book in the Pendragon Legacy quartet, I felt the need to leave something extra to mark its completion (and obviously a girl has to do something while she waits for the film deals to roll in).

My study when I started the Pendragon Legacy series, with my unicorn muse overseeing things from the chimney breast.

Released from deadlines for the time being (except for this blog post – Ms Hoffman is very strict with us!), I’m tackling the redecoration of the chimney breast in my study, where water ran down the wall when my roof started leaking last winter. In the constant rainstorms we had, there was not much I could do at the time except turn my back on the unsightly mess and clamber up into the loft every morning to squeeze out the rags I’d stuffed in the roof, until I could persuade someone to come out and fix it. But now it’s stopped raining at last, so my thoughts turn once again to legacies.

Desperate measures were needed.

The fact my chimney breast needs redecorating is partly due to the Pendragon Legacy books, which I was so busy writing at the time that I failed to notice how bad the chimney leak had become, until desperate measures were needed. So off came the poster of my unicorn-muse, who had valiantly hidden the worst of the leak for a while with his magical horn. Off came the red-painted woodchip wallpaper that used to scare potential house buyers away, in more or less one satisfying sheet - there are some advantages to having water running down your wall all winter! Off came half the paint underneath as well, leaving the patchy wall with its filled-in fireplace, legacy of a previous owner who clearly didn’t want the fuss of a real fire. And off came some of the ceiling too, ending up all over me.

Confronted by my bare wall (with patched ceiling)...

At this point, covered in plaster dust and confronted by my bare wall, I paused, reminded of when my parents got around to stripping the old wallpaper in their dining room just before they sold their old house. It was the first time they’d redecorated that room since we'd moved into the place when I was seven. Behind several layers of wallpaper, they discovered graffiti dating back to 1932. The house was built in the 1920’s, so that might even have been the first time it was papered. The original decorator – and also later ones, following the tradition – had signed the wall. The latest date we found on the wall was 1967, which suggests the décor was refreshed just before my parents bought the house, and survived until 2010 when they downsized. I didn't have my camera with me at the time so I haven't got a picture to show you, but I did persuade my dad to sign the wall as well before the new wallpaper went up.

... I couldn't resist drawing a dragon.

Although my current house was built in 1936, my chimney breast had collected no graffiti - until now! I couldn’t resist drawing a dragon and adding my own signature to show that The Pendragon Legacy series was responsible for the redecoration. What future owners will make of this when they strip off the new paper I'm about to paste over it, I don’t know! But it seemed an appropriate legacy to leave behind.

Have you ever left a legacy in a house, and if so where?

***

You can meet Rhianna in the first Pendragon Legacy book Sword of Light, and she's an old enough "book-child" now to have made her way on to the Tower Hamlets shortlist.

Find out more about the Pendragon Legacy series at http://www.katherineroberts.co.uk 

Forgotten Footprints by Rosemary Hayes

FORGOTTEN FOOTPRINTS

Red line marks the route of the Zuytdorp

When I lived in Australia I became hooked on the stories about the survivors of shipwrecks along the West Australian coast during the 17^th and 18^th century when trade from Europe with the East was at its height.  In The Blue Eyed Aborigine I wrote about the two mutineers deliberately marooned in 1629 – becoming the first European settlers - but there were many other later shipwrecks along that coast and I’ve recently been researching the disastrous voyage of the VOC ship Zurtdorp and trying to weave a story around what is known about it. Precious little, as it turns out, but what details I have been able to dig up (the newly minted coins on board, the mixture of nationalities, hints of skullduggery, several suicides,  a sky high death toll and evidence of survivors of the shipwreck) are enough to whet the appetite.

The shipwreck site itself is inaccessible except in a four wheel drive vehicle and then only with a special licence from various authorities* but last time I was in the area I was able to see something of the rough terrain and deep gorges leading away from the sea and get a feel for the incredibly hostile conditions that the survivors from the Zuytdorp would have faced.

*These photos were sent to me after a recent expedition to the site 

The platform of rock at the base of the wreck site

The wreck site of the Zuytdorp from the air

Background

Why were these ships sailing up the coast of Western Australia so many years before Cook sailed into Botany Bay on the other side of the continent? How did the Dutch trade with the East begin?

During the third quarter of the sixteenth century Philip II of Spain was engaged in a bitter struggle with his subjects in the Netherlands. Thousands of them broke away from the Catholic Church of which he was a devoted champion and, although he suppressed Protestantism in the South, the provinces of Holland and Zealand, in the north, defied him.

The Dutch people at the time of the revolt did the largest sea-carrying trade in Europe and a considerable part of this consisted in fetching from Lisbon goods brought by the Portuguese from the East, then distributing them throughout the continent – a hugely profitable business.

Since Philip had failed to subjugate the Dutch, he decided to humble them by stifling their trade. In 1580 the throne of Portugal had fallen vacant, and the Spanish army forced the Portuguese to accept Philip as king.  In 1584 he closed  Lisbon to Dutch ships thus barring them from the port bringing all the goods from the East.

Undaunted, the Dutch people decided to create their own direct trade with the East and on April 2^nd 1595, the first fleet, of four ships, left Holland for the East Indies. 

The strength and influence of the Dutch trade grew and in 1602, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was founded. By 1750 it employed around 25,000 people and was doing business in 10 Asian countries.

The Zuytdorp

The Zuytdorp  was one of the largest VOC ships. She had already made two successful trips to the East Indies and Asia when she left Holland in July 1711. She was accompanied by the Belvliet, a much smaller ship, also on her third voyage. On board the Zuytdorp were 286 people – 100 soldiers, four tradesmen and 182 others, mainly sailors and some cabin passengers including women and children.

Marinus Wyssvliet was the skipper of the Zuytdorp. He had not commanded a VOC ship before whereas Dirck Blaauw, skipper of the Belvliet, had previously commanded two vessels on voyages to Asia. It seems unusual that Blaauw was not appointed skipper of the Zuytdorp, the larger and more valuable ship. However, because of his seniority, he was appointed ‘skipper in command’ of the two ships on their voyage to the Cape of Good Hope.

As well as wine, beer, butter, meat, bacon, lead ingots, cloth, rope, sulphur, pitch, canvas, paper, muskets, leather, copper, salt, iron hoops and plates the Zuytdorp was also carrying a huge amount of newly minted coins to use in purchasing trade goods in Asia.

Initially, the weather was dreadful; rough seas and a lot of fog. The two ships were part of a fleet of 13 ships which included two supply vessels going out loaded with food and drink to meet and re victual an incoming fleet returning to Holland from the East. When news came that this incoming fleet had already arrived back in Holland, Wyssvliet and Blaauw requested that some of the additional food and drink from the supply ships be transferred to the Zuytdorp and the Belvliet. This was done, and charged to the VOC’s account.

There is something odd about this. They had only been at sea for three weeks, having left with supplies to last six months, and it has been suggested that the two skippers might have hoped to profit from the illicit sale of the surplus food after the ships reached Java. This was apparently not unusual.

There were also well founded rumours that ‘Wyssvliert ill treated his people and gave them all but nothing to eat.’ This may well have been a factor in the ill health on board (see below).

The ships made good progress until they reached the doldrums where they were effectively becalmed. By this time the death toll on board both ships was unusually high and many other crew members were very sick, so the decision was taken to sail East towards the African coast and put in at the island of SăoTomé in the Gulf of Guinea in search of fresh food and water.

Because of the windless conditions, it took weeks to reach Săo Tomé and, altogether, this diversion delayed the journey by about three months. After leaving Săo Tomé, the ships became separated and during the trip down to the Cape, the skipper of the Belvliet died and the chief surgeon of the Zuytdorp and both his mates committed suicide. The ships finally reached the Cape in March within a few days of one another having taken eight months to get there – double the normal time.

Of the 286 people originally on board, there were only 166 people still alive on the Zuytdorp when she reached the Cape. 8 were cabin passengers and 158 crew. Of these, 22 were listed as sick.

Having recruited replacement crew at the Cape and taken on fresh supplies (only when persuaded to - the skipper boasted that he needed very little to make the journey on to Java, the Zuytdorp left, this time in company with a different ship (the Kockenge) on 22^nd April to sail to Java. These two ships were supposed to keep together but the Zuytdorp soon pulled ahead and disappeared from sight, never to be seen again.

Had the skippers of the Zuytdorp and the Belvliet survived, it is certain that they would have been taken to task when they reached Java for the diversion they made into the Gulf of Guinea. About two thirds of all fatalities during the voyage to the Cape of Good Hope happened in the three months spent in the Gulf of Guinea.

The Shipwreck

For centuries, nothing was known of the fate of the Zuytdorp but in 1958 it was established beyond doubt that it came to grief in the (Australian) winter of 1712, between the mouth of the Murchison River and Shark Bay, at the foot of the coastal cliffs that now bear its name.

Blow holes close to the wreck site

The Survivors

That there were survivors is undisputed though, of course, no one knows how long they survived or whether they integrated with the local Aborigines. The VOC archives in the Haag in Holland estimate that around 70 people survived the wreck. Other sources put the figure both much lower and much higher. On a beach South of the wreck site, there was evidence of a fire and on top of the cliffs there was also evidence of campsites. Artifacts found at these cliff top campsites included glass, pipes, barrel rungs and coins - and there were also Zuytdorp relics found at Aboriginal wells in the region North and inland from the wreck site. A Dutch tobacco box lid and buttons were found at Wale Well where a large group of Aboriginal people lived long before white settlement.

In 1834, not long after white settlement, Aboriginal men from ‘Waylo’ (the Wale Well area) told stories of white men coming from the sea who gave food in exchange for spears and shields. They also described ‘houses’ – two large and three small – situated on the open coast and made of wood and canvas and of ‘tall white men with women and children’. But the most distinctive feature of the wreck site, repeated many times by the informants, was of a great deal of ‘white money’ (silver coins) scattered along the shore and on the platform of rock in front of the wreck.

Silver coins from the wreck of the Zuytdorp

These stories had been passed down from generation to generation and from tribe to tribe. The sudden appearance of this shipwreck and of the white people who scrambled ashore must have had a huge impact on the Aboriginal people of the area. A story of this major event would certainly have been handed on during the 122 years from 1712 to 1834.

The Aborigines in the area would also have known about the two mutineers from the Batavia (Looes and Pelgrom) who were marooned not far away, near the mouth of the Murchison River, some 80 years earlier, and their reaction to the Zuytdorp survivors (friendly or otherwise) may have been influenced by the behaviour of these two white men.

Finally, early explorers to the area, shortly after European settlement, reported sightings of fair haired Aborigines with ‘distinctly Dutch features’.

It is very likely that some Dutch sailors and soldiers – and even passengers - from the Zuytdorp survived and integrated with the local tribes and there is ongoing DNA research to establish a pre-settlement genetic link between the coastal tribes and Western Europeans.

This is the background to a YA story I am writing, centering around Annie Jansz and her family, travelling as ‘cabin guests’ on board the Zuytdorp. Annie’s feckless father is hoping to restore his family’s fortunes by taking up a job in the East but after only a few weeks at sea, any glamour attached to the voyage has long since vanished and only Annie and her father retain any sense of adventure. Their maid, May, gloomy by nature, thinks the whole venture doomed and Annie’s mother is in despair about what horrors lie ahead of them.  Other characters include an arrogant young Norwegian midshipman, a half starved ship’s boy and a desperately overworked ship’s surgeon.  The working title is FORGOTTEN FOOTPRINTS.

Pale feet that passed this way unnoticed.

Footprints of ghosts whose imprint was so light

That they merged with the land.

Rosemary Hayes

www.rosemaryhayes.co.uk

"Do not gurgle" - by Katherine Langrish

This little book was printed in 1918.

It begins: "It is a sign of the times that there is a very large demand for a handy little manual which will present in an easily comprehended and concise form a summary of those points which constitute a claim to the possession of good manners. With the spread of education the old-fashioned lines which so sharply divide the classes are fast vanishing. And now that there is so little distinction in clothes, all that tends to make or mar is to be seen in manners and heard in speech."

So how would we fare if we were spirited back to 1918? Would we 'pass' as 'gentlefolk' or be shunned as hopelessly out of our depth in good society? I fear the latter, and I suspect that many a BBC television adaptation gets these things wrong, too. For example:

 
With ladies, a gentleman never offers to shake hands. It is the privilege of the lady on all occasions to make the first move. This is an invariable rule. 

The lady must always extend her hand first, and if she does not, the gentleman must not attempt to shake hands with her. 

Always remember the claims to courtesy due to the fair sex and to your elders. If in any doubt, always err on the wrong side. Cross a room to open a door for a lady rather than allow her to open it for herself. Never sit in the presence of a lady who remains standing. Rise always when a lady leaves the room. 

And:

After an introduction, the gentleman on a future occasion must always await the lady's signal of acknowledgement. He must not presume upon the fact of a prior introduction to begin an acquaintanceship. 

One thing that strikes me about this little pamphlet is that it is relentlessly addressed to the male reader. Perhaps to those 'temporary gentlemen' (horrid phrase!), the working or middle class men who had been raised to officer status during the war. Was there another pamphlet for women? Or was it simply that women were less socially mobile and therefore less in need of this kind of advice?

Reading it, I am struck by what seems now the extreme and complicated formality of social rules at the time. Need to know when to raise your hat? The pamphlet explains. You must raise your hat to any lady of your acquaintance, chance-met in public - but only if she has bowed or nodded to you first. If, however, you need to perform some slight service for a lady whom you do not know, (for instance, to pick up an item she has dropped), you should lift your hat first. Ordinarily you don't lift your hat to a male friend, but if you have a lady with you he will lift his hat to her, and you must return the salute. However, you may raise your hat to a man who is senior to you 'in years or station', and he should raise his hat in response.

All this had to become a reflex - an instinctive, spontaneous response.  Or else you were out of your depth, struggling, and patently no gentleman...

I've never quite understood (neither does this pamphlet explain) why 'for afternoon calls morning dress is worn - frock coat or morning coat and silk hat.' But I'm relieved to discover that the author encourages 'sympathy and understanding in dealing with servants', urging us to remember that ' they are of the same material as yourself, with the same desires and needs, emotions and thoughts, which differ in degree only, and not in kind. It should be your place to set them an example... Ask kindly, if firmly, for what you want done.'

Hmmm...

I think most 21st century time travellers would be rapidly found out. How about this for a culinary problem?

DESSERT - This is sometimes a difficult proceeding. To peel an orange, apple or pear with a fruit knife and fork requires some practice. If you feel doubtful about it, take some other fruit. ... Bananas should be peeled with the dessert knife and fork and eaten with the fork, which should be used to divide the fruit into small pieces. 

And it might be difficult to accustom oneself to this:

SERVICE - Remember that the servants are there to wait. Do not ask a fellow guest to pass something if a servant is at hand. Do not lean over the table to reach for anything; ask a servant to pass it. 

Some of the advice is priceless (and timeless), though:

EATING - Eat quietly and deliberately. All haste is vulgar; in eating it is particularly so. Make no noise in masticating your food, and keep the mouth closed during the process. ...In taking soup do not gurgle or make throat noises. 

And as for drinking:

Do not elevate the glass as though trying to stand it on your nose. 

Lastly, oh History Girls, bear in mind these strictures on instilling virtues in children:

MANLINESS - Teach your boys to be honest in all things; never do a mean or dirty action; to be straightforward and truthful in all their dealings; to be open, fearless and courteous on all occasions, and especially to their sisters. 

MODESTY - Teach your girls to be as good as your boys (as fearless, as open and as courteous), only from them a little more fineness and more reserve is expected - a tribute to their delicate and finer nature.  

A short history of shopping therapy - by Eve Edwards

It is probably a familiar moment for many if not all of us: you've had a bad day, so you just pop down to the shops and cheer yourself up with a little shopping therapy, buying something small and spirit-lifting, frivolous.  It is such a part of modern life that we even counsel others to do it, advice on a parr with 'make yourself a nice cup of tea', or 'have a hot bath with scented candles'.

My question is: when did shopping therapy begin?

Shopping as a leisure pursuit was certainly around by the end of the eighteenth century.  The Earl of Glenthorn in Maria Edgeworth's Ennui (1809) passes an idle hour with a 'lounge' at the watchmakers.  A little earlier than that, in Fanny Burney's Evelina (1778), we see the heroine mentioning the word as if emphasising its modishness: 'We have been a shopping, as Mrs Mirvan calls it, all this morning, to buy silks, caps, gauzes, and so forth.' Perhaps she is highlighting here that it has become an activity in itself: before that people shopped for goods, now they go shopping.

This is not to say that previous generations couldn't go to the fair when it rolled into town, or buy something to lift their spirits from the pedlar, but I think something is coalescing by the end of the eighteenth century: a social practice of shopping for its own sake.

This leads to scenes such as the familiar ones in Pride and Prejudice where Lydia and Kitty have to make do with the limited shopping opportunities in Meryton.  They are living out on the small local scale the imagined wonders of shopping in a metropolis such as London or, disastrously, Brighton.  Shops become possible venues for flirting - Pride and Prejudice again - anguished heartache (Persuasion), or just learning the social ropes (Northanger Abbey).  

But do any of these fit our modern idea of shopping as therapy?

I suppose Kitty and Lydia would argue that it was a kind of therapy for them, cheering them up during the tedious days of being a gentleman's daughter in a small place.  From their generation onwards it gets more established and with it come the development of larger shops to cater for this taste.  I think we have hit here a chicken and egg situation: which came first - the large department stores or the public who wanted them?  In Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain, social historian Judith Flanders looks at the rise of these large shopping districts in London, Paris and elsewhere.  Many times the shopkeeper presented his tactics as new - the invention of sales, window displays, life styling, buy-one-get-one-free and so on - when in fact he was just making over an old practice that had served other retailers well.  Selfridges, Liberty, Heals (furniture), and Harrods all rose out of this period. Shops no longer just wished to sell us things, they wished to entertain, draw us back by their quality of service, make their goods part of our lives and image (is this also the start of mass market designer culture?).

I was wondering if there were any pivotal scenes in late Victorian literature set in these wonderful locations and couldn't think of one immediately (it's too hot!).  If your memory is better than mine, please leave a comment as I'd like to follow it up.  My vision of London shops is rather Dickensian, quirky little stores selling old clothes or butchers with geese hanging outside on hooks; I'd like to refocus it on a cutting edge, Empire London where shops were like palaces and the customer was king.

I have a family history interest in this too as my grandmother worked in the London stores in the 1920s.  She told me stories of the film stars and bright young things who used to come to her counter.  No longer did the lady stay outside in her carriage and have the goods brought to her (as had been the practice in the early nineteenth century); now almost everyone except possibly the king and queen came into the store for their shopping therapy.

Shopping had arrived and has remained at high tide for a century.  Only now is the tide receding as Amazon and online sales take us away.  My grandmother - and Kitty and Lydia - would hate it.  What do you think?

You can visit my website at www.eve-edwards.co.uk but don't forget to buy a real book in a real bookshop where you can *sigh* browse!

Mary Lacy: The History of The Female Shipwright by Lucy Inglis

In 1773 Mary Lacy, a married woman in Deptford published her autobiography, The History of the Female Shipwright. It was an instant success, but soon forgotten. Of its author there is no more trace and no image survives. Of all the women who served in the Navy such as Hannah Snell and Mary Anne Talbot, it is Lacy’s account which is the most plausible and in many ways the most appealing, showing how many small lies ended up as one great big one, and depicting life at sea during the eighteenth century.
Mary had been born and grown up in Kent. She was a bright child who liked to be constantly outdoors ‘at liberty’. At the age of nineteen Mary was in love with an old friend who didn’t feel the same way. She went into the room of her employer‘s brother and took an old coat, a pair of breeches and some old shoes and stockings. She stole a hat from her father. Then, ‘On the first day of May, 1759, about six o’clock in the morning, I set off, and when I had got out of town into the fields, I pulled off my clothes and put on the men’s, leaving my own in a hedge, some in one place and some in another’. The choice of donning male dress is crucial to the story. Mary was small, at about five feet high, and flat-chested. Dressing as a man gave her some protection on the road as she was unlikely to be able to fend off any would-be rapist. She arrived in Chatham later that night and had nowhere to sleep, and ended up lodging with some pigs. The following morning Mary headed down to the dockyard, where some men on a coal-boat took pity on her and shared their breakfast with her.
As she was eating it, a hawk-eyed recruiter came up to Mary, and ‘asked me if I would go to sea, “for,” said he, “it is fine weather now at sea, and if you will go, I will get you a good master on board the Sandwich’’. Mary replied, ‘Yes, sir’. At that moment changed her life forever. The Sandwich was a ninety-gun shop of the line, waiting at Chatham for a crew. The navy was short of men as it was fighting the Seven Years‘ War, as well as being active in North America, the Caribbean, Africa, India and the Channel. The crew welcomed Mary on board, but despite them being short-handed, there was not a whiff of her being pressed to join them. In fact, they asked her repeatedly if she wanted first to come aboard, and then to stay. When asked for her name, Mary used her father’s Christian name and her mother’s maiden name, becoming William Chandler. She became the servant to the ship’s carpenter, Baker, who was a kindly man but a violent drunkard.
Although she does not reveal any regret over her decision to come on board, she does reveal how difficult it is to deal with such a man in close confines, both psychologically, when he drunkenly rants over her shortcomings for she couldn’t bear ‘to have my faults told me’, and physically, thinking ‘it very hard to be struck by a man’. For the first part of her autobiography Mary identifies herself as a woman taking on the role of a man, but soon her no-nonsense language makes it clear that her identity was smudging. It begins with a fight.
William Severy was a young nobleman serving the Admiral who picked quarrels with Mary as she went about her duties for Baker. On one occasion she was cooking her master a steak in the galley when Severy gave her a ‘slap in the face that made me reel’. The ship’s cook, who had seen the altercation told Mary that she should call Severy out and that he would mind the steak. ‘Upon which I went aft to the main hatchway and pulled off my jacket, but they wanted me to pull off my shirts, which I would not suffer for fear of it being discovered that I was a woman…Hereupon we instantly engaged and fought a great while…almost enough to dash my brains out, but I never gave out, for I knew that if I did I should have one or other of them continually upon me.’
Mary went back to the steak and took it down to Baker, who said, ‘you have been a long while about the steak, I hope it is well done now’, followed by looking her up and down and concluding, ‘I suppose you have been fighting?’ Mary told him yes, it was that or ‘be drubbed’. Baker’s response was ‘I hope you have not been beat’. It is then that Mary begins her curious fade into what became her male persona. She wrote to her parents in July, ending with ‘Shall be glad to hear from you as soon as you can. So no more at present from, Your undutiful daughter, Mary Lacy. P.S. Please direct thus: For William Chandler on board the Sandwich at Brest’. Mary underwent many hardships onboard ship including a serious attack of rheumatic fever. Worst of all, Baker had fallen into drink and stopped paying her, if he had ever paid her at all. In the autumn of 1760 her rheumatic complaint was so bad that she ended up in hospital at Portsmouth, and was then assigned to the Royal Sovereign. There she met again with William Severy, and formed a friendship with a young woman, living aboard as the companion of one of the sailors. She also met the sailor Robert Dawkins, who became her mentor in her later years in the Navy, and went to a sort of school onboard, where she learned book-keeping. In 1763, she was released from the Navy with the end of the Seven Years’ War. Mary remember that, ‘On this occasion, my joy was so great that I ran up and down scarcely knowing how to contain myself’. But she did not go home. Instead Dawkins helped her get an apprenticeship as a shipwright at Chatham dockyard, and a place living on board the ship the Royal William.
Mary it seems, was now committed to her life as a man. Sadly for Mary her new master was another drunk, and again she had to made shift to earn money for herself by running errands. Once she went for beer in the botswain’s canoe and her master said that if she could beat three men in a four-oared boat he would give her a sixpence. She won, of course. ‘I fell a-laughing at them and called out, “Where’s my money, where’s my money!”’ Her master, of course, did not give her the money, but it shows how competent and confident Lacy had become in her role as both man and sailor.
She was by this stage sharing a bed with John Lyons, a fellow dockyard worker, but he found the work hard and so was always asleep by the time Mary came to bed, and still asleep when she got up. Her best friend at the time was Edward Turner, and with him she went to parties where she met women ‘of the town’, although when she realised this, she stopped going to the parties. There was, after all, no point throwing away her disguise just for an ineffectual engagement with a prostitute. It was at about this time that Mary met a ‘girlfriend’, Betsy. Mary liked her very much but Dawkins discouraged her from continuing the relationship. Instead Mary took up with a servant named Sarah Chase.
Their relationship is a model of eighteenth century tentative, rational courtship: ‘I had not yet served quite three years of my time; nevertheless it was agreed that neither of us should walk out with any other person without the mutual consent of each other. Notwithstanding this agreement, if she saw me talking to any young woman, she was immediately fired with jealousy and could scarce command her temper. This is did sometimes to try her. However, we were very intimate together.’ What intimate means in this case isn’t quite clear, and not necessarily indicative of physical intimacy. But it might well be, as they were living together under the same roof. Furthermore, it seems that Mary was something of a Jack-the-Lad, and couldn’t help flirting with other women. On returning from work one day and asking Sarah for something to eat, Mary could see that Sarah was annoyed. ‘Whereupon I asked what was the matter with her. She told me to go to the squint-eyed girl and inquire the matter there. “Very well,” said I, “so I can”’.
In 1767 Mary visited her parents in Kent after an absence of almost eight years. She went to them in male dress and maintained her male persona throughout the visit. Her family played along. The visit, whilst good for the family, was bad for Mary: a neighbour who knew of the situation then moved to Portsmouth and ‘outed’ Mary. Some of her fellow workers got wind of the situation and came to speak to Mary about it. She held her nerve, and although they searched her things, she was clever enough to have not made a habit of keeping things visible which might betray her.
In 1770, Mary Lacy was made free as a shipwright. Then, she was again struck down by rheumatism. By this time both her parents had died and she had no one to turn to for help until a family friend, a Mr Richardson in Kensington who was apparently aware of her situation invited her to stay with him and his wife, where he helped her apply for a Navy pension. He applied under her real name, and the Admiralty minutes are worth reproducing at length. ‘A Petition was read from Mary Lacy setting forth that in the Year 1759 she disguised herself in Men’s Cloaths and enter’d on board His Maj. Fleet, where having served til the end of the War, she bound herself apprentice to the Carpenter of the Royal William and having served Seven Years, then enter’d as a Shipwright in Portsmouth Yard where she had continued ever since; but that finding her health and constitution impaired by so laborious an employment, she is obliged to give it up for the future, and therefore, praying some Allowance for her Support during the remainder of her life: Resolved, in consideration of the particular Circumstances attending this Woman’s case, the truth of which has been attested by the Commissioner of the Yard at Portsmouth, that she be allowed a Pension equal to that granted to Superannuated Shipwrights.’
Mary was granted a pension without delay. She collected her money in Deptford and there met a sailor named Slade whom she had known in Portsmouth. She married him soon afterwards, moving to King Street in Deptford. What happened to her after that is a mystery.
This post previously appeared on GeorgianLondon.com and received a lot of input from readers. Anyone with other stories of ladies in masculine trades, it would be great to hear from you in the comments.

Name that prince(ss)! by Mary Hoffman

Willy, Willy, Harry, Steve, Harry, Dickie, John ....

Bear with me. I know many of you will be sick of the subjects: Royal baby; naming the Royal baby etc etc. There's a new baby in my life, my first grandchild, born less than three weeks ago in Mexico  three weeks early. There has been much family comment about her name and much discussion about what constitutes an acceptable baby name.

So that, plus certain events in the family I still think of as Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and the awakened memories of writing my own "names book"* have prompted this post.

Edward, Prince of Wales, Princess Alexandra and their son Albert 1864

 

 

 

One of the things I discovered when writing my book is that men have a much smaller name pool than women and girls tend to be more elaborately named than boys. Imagine how much smaller the pool of of Royal baby names must be!

William Hill were giving "George" odds on by the time the new Prince's name was announced. Immediately, a Facebook friend, another writer, jumped in to say that all the King Georges in England so far had been a dodgy lot.

If this new baby does inherit the throne (estimated as not before 2065, so I don't have to give it too much thought), he will be George Vll. Or not. Because George Vl, the Queen's father, was baptised Albert Frederick Arthur before the George and known in the family as "Bertie." Edward Vll, pictured above, had the first name Albert, like his firstborn son.

George V really was called George and Edward Vlll really was Edward (but he had seven forenames to choose from).

Queen Victoria's first name was Alexandrina; so all those knick-knacky sitting rooms might have been described as Alexandrine.

Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and children by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

Victoria and Albert had to do the "name the Royal baby" thing nine times: Victoria, Albert (Edward), Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold, Beatrice. Obviously they did not worry about having five children with names beginning with "A." Presumably they had people to sort out any confusion with the Royal Mail (or Royal Male).

Arthur has remained popular with the Windsors. Prince Charles is Charles Philip Arthur George; Prince William is William Arthur Philip Louis.  But Arthur was never a very likely first name for the new Prince; it is ill-omened. Henry Vll and Elizabeth of York's first son Arthur died as a teenager not long after marrying Katherine of Aragon and that gave us Henry Vlll and all the problems of his marriages and heirs. (Henry lX was not really on the cards). And it was not just Shakespeare who thought King John was responsible for the death of his nephew Prince Arthur, who was the son of his older brother and had a better claim to the English throne.

Richards have died out in the English Royal line since the third one, with the bad reputation, and another Edward is unlikely as long as the abdication crisis lives on in books and TV programmes.

James was perhaps a bit more likely: there have been only two of them although the second one was forced to abdicate:

Portrait of James II (1633-1701) in Garter Robes, by Peter Lely

The first one was actually called Charles James. You see how the Royals ring the (not many) changes. If Prince Charles inherits the English throne, will he be Charles lll? There are many Jacobites still who think that would be irregular and insulting to the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie. But remember the current Charles could choose Philip (unlikely: we've not had a King Philip since Mary Tudor's consort and it sounds very continental), Arthur (see above) or George, thereby perhaps scuppering his grandson's choice. Perhaps he will fix on a name he wasn't given at birth, such as Louis? But I fear King Louis is just too French for the Windsors.

One thing we can be sure of is that if the new Royal baby had been a girl, there would have been a more unusual group of names. Or can we? The Princess Royal named her daughter Zara and her son, Peter, has daughters called Savannah and Isla. Maybe the further away from the throne you are, the more elaborate your name can be, so perhaps even a Princess of Cambridge would have been stuck with variant orders of Elizabeth, Mary, Anne and Victoria.

The sentimental hope of many Brits that she would have had Diana among them will have to lie dormant till next time.

Katharine Grant (K.M.Grant) wrote about changing her name and choosing characters' names on 28th July, her final post for us. We are sorry to lose her and thank her for her sterling work as a History Girl and Admin.

Tell us what you think of Royal baby names, if you have a view.


* Our Names, Our Selves by Mary Lassiter (Heinemann, 1983). Note: I changed my own name to publish this book, using a family surname, as my publishers panicked at the last moment that I was too associated with children's books - even then.