From the shore

From before the 1600’s until the steam age shortened the time spent at sea, the arrival of a returning ship was a long awaited event. When a ship came into port it was usual for women to go on board and stay there until the ship put to sea again. Many officials noted that ships became overrun with prostitutes. Small boats filled with women crowded around a ship new into port, encouraging the sailors to call them up on board. Attempts were made to stop it but with poor pay and conditions and most of the men not allowed on shore because they had been press ganged, it was one way to keep the men in order and happy. Any prostitute going to sea with a ship relied on the protection and generosity of the men to give them food and to share their sleeping space

To be the wife of a sailor in the age of sail was a hard life on land or sea. They usually stayed at home waiting for meagre wages that were often extremely late. The majority of these women did not possess much in the way of money or skills with which to earn a wage and they had to find other means to support themselves and their children. Some wives took unskilled work if they could find it; others resorted to begging or prostitution. Without the protection and support of their husbands who were absent, away on the high seas for months even years at a time, wives had a hard time getting credit. There was a very complicated system whereby seamen could send home some of their pay but the complexity discouraged the majority from trying. When the sailors finally did get paid, after they had paid their debts to the purser for their clothes and tobacco and any other money they owed, there was rarely any left for their wives. The women would walk to whichever port the ship had put in at, some covering great distances on foot unable to afford stagecoach fares. Whilst the ship was in port the wives could share their husbands berth. The journey was made as it was often the only chance they had of getting some money to keep themselves and their children. If they decided to accompany their men to sea there were other hardships to endure.

Living on board

Unlike the men who had been press-ganged, those seamen who made the Navy their career could take their wives with them. The wives of the warrant officers and able seamen would have been carried with the knowledge of the Captain as well as those unmarried women who were common to the ship [glossary]. It was the moral code of the Captain that determined if women were allowed on board, some felt that any woman should not be carried on their ship, others turned a blind eye.

Wives of men from the lower deck, who went to sea with their husbands, could expect a harsh and dangerous life. Officially they did not exist, and there was no record of them on the muster (register)[glossary]. Therefore they did not receive any rations or sleeping space, they had to share their men's food and hammocks. Whilst the ship was at sea the spare hammocks of the watch could be used but when in port the lower deck became very crowded. The warrant officer’s wives faired a little better gaining some privacy by sharing their husbands cabin, which was just a small space blocked off from the rest of the lower deck with canvas. For the most part these women were able to read and write, a useful way to pass the time, and they had the use of a servant to help them.

If the ship was engaged in battle the women often found themselves assigned to a gun and given the job of collecting the powder from the magazine down in the bowels of the ship. In the heat, smoke and noise of battle this was a dangerous job, constantly climbing up and down ladders and walking on bloodied decks which although sanded, still became slippery as the battle went on. The other traditional role for women in battle was assisting the surgeon and they invariably appeared on the muster role [glossary] after battles as a nurse for several months.

The presence of women on board naval ships declined when the press-ganging of men was stopped and sail power was replaced. Steam power made ships faster, journeys were made in less time and so wives began to remain on shore rather than travel with their husbands, knowing they would see them more frequently.

If the officers only tolerated the presence of women below deck this wasn’t the case for ‘ladies’ travelling as invited guests. These well-bred women were welcomed on board by the officers and captain and were entertained by them. It wasn’t unusual for a marriage match to be made between them and for the wife to continue living on board.

Life on board a ship in the 18th and 19th centuries was rough, hard work for men. Can you imagine what it was like for the wife of a whaling or merchant ship Captain? Or for the wife of a Warrant Officer or Ordinary Seaman? It would have been a hard life, confining and socially isolated with little or no other female company. Months, even years were spent at sea, with brief stops in foreign ports to stock up on provisions. What relief and interest in the ship could they have taken? Depending on their husband they might have been taught how to navigate, take sightings and plot the ship’s course. Aside from rearing any children on board they might have also helped with sail making and keeping the logbook and accounts.

Merchant ship wives often became proficient in navigation, taking the measurements from the sun and accurately plotting the location and course for the ship. Hannah Rebecca Crowell Burgess was one American wife whose skill at navigation has been recorded through her diary. The journals that some of the wives wrote have given a detailed picture of what life on board ship was like. The daily tasks they undertook, the ports and foreign lands they visited and the hardships they weathered.