Naval Seamen’s Women in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Explores the lived experiences of the women of lower deck seamen in the nineteenth century British navy.

This book explores the lived experiences of the women - the mothers, sisters, foster-mothers of motherless children, but above all the wives - of lower deck seamen in the nineteenth century British navy. It makes extensive use of the ＂allotment＂ scheme, a system which enabled men to convey portions of their pay to dependants at home. The scheme had been devised by a Royal Navy worried by the adverse effect on naval manpower caused by experienced and mature sailors quitting the service in order to support loved ones suffering poverty on shore.

Drawing also on civil, parish and local data, the book reveals hitherto unknown differences between naval and civilian patterns of nuptiality, family life, occupation and household structure. It illustrates the impact of naval breadwinners’ long-term absence in analyses of local migration, mutual support networks, and clusterings of ＂same ship＂ families, and to bring the picture to life it includes microhistories and stories of individual women.

The book concludes that while the sailor’s woman’s ＂allotted place＂ in the popular imagination shifted with changing perceptions of sailors’ reputation and standing, a constant ＂otherness＂ attached to women who chose marriage to long-absent men, and a life of necessary self-reliance.

Melanie Holihead, winner of the Institute of Historical Research’s Sir Julian Corbett Prize in Modern Naval History 2012, and the 2018-19 Doctoral Prize awarded by the British Commission for Maritime History, completed her doctorate at the University of Oxford