"Jane Tar: Women and the Royal Navy in the Age of Sail" Topic

"There can be few historical milieus as thrilling and iconic as the lives of men at sea in the glorious Age of Sail. Images stay long in the mind, of salty sea dogs swabbing decks and deckhands in the rigging, riding out the lashings of great oceanic tempests. Here is Admiral Nelson gazing across the maelstrom of combat at Trafalgar, awaiting his apotheosis. Over there are Sir Francis Drake circumnavigating the globe in the Golden Hind and Captain James Cook braving the vast unknown of the Pacific Ocean. In literature too we find no end of delights, from Jack Aubrey on the far side of the world to Horatio Hornblower riding the waves in search of the French. And of course, there is the ever-present, sturdy Jack Tar – the nickname given to all lower deck seamen.

Yet there is always something in these images that is notable for its absence – the presence of women. One could be forgiven for thinking that the wooden worlds of ships in the Age of Sail were wholly male environments, with the only interaction between the sexes taking place during bawdy bouts of revelry when ships hit port. Many have heard of the sailor's superstition that a woman onboard would bring nothing but bad luck, a genuine belief which could lead to some very extreme actions. As a particularly horrific example, when Sir John Arundel sailed for Brittany in 1379, he had around 60 women on board his ships, some prostitutes and some victims of kidnappings carried out by crew members. When Arundel's fleet found itself in a huge storm, the men decided the tempest was the result of bad luck caused by the women, so they promptly threw all 60 overboard into the sea. Unsurprisingly, this rather unscientific approach to seafaring did not work and 25 of the ships were smashed to pieces off the coast of Ireland, drowning most of the men, including Arundel himself…"

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