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Women and the British Navy
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William and Nancy
FromThe Log Book, or, Nautical Miscellany
published by J. & W. Robins, circa 1826
The Mariners' Museum Research Library and Archives
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WOMEN PARTICIPATING
IN BATTLE
Nineteenth-century Britons were enchanted with the ballad of William and Nancy. William was an impressed man, and the captain allowed William's wife, Nancy, and their small child to join him on board. The couple led a happy life on board ship until a French ship approached and William reported to his gun.During the battle, Nancy, helping with the wounded, heard William's groans and rushed to his side as he died. Nancy fainted over his body with their child in her arms, and was shot through the chest. The ballad concludes, "They were pleasant and lovely in their lives, and in their death they were not divided."A footnote to the story states that the orphaned child survived.
William and Nancy
"Bleak was the morn when William left his Nancy
The Fleecy snow frown'd on the Whiten'd shore;
Cold as the fears that Chill'd her dreary fancy,
While she her sailor from her bosom tore."
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Any information we got was from the boys and the women who carried the powder. The women behaved as well as the men. . . . I was much indebted to the gunner's wife, who gave her husband and me a drink of wine every now and then, which lessened our fatigue much. There were some of the women wounded, and one woman belonging to Leith died of her wounds, and was buried on a small island in the bay. One woman bore a son in the heat of the action; she belonged to Edinburgh.—John Nicol, The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner. . . , 1936
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