The call of the Wren

This book is a thoroughly researched account of the parts played by women in the service of the Royal Navy from the Middle Ages to the present. What it lacks in anecdotes and personal accounts it makes up for in its comprehensive documentation of official attitudes and measures.

Women have served in — or, more accurately, with — the Royal Navy for longer than we might think. There are medieval references to women accompanying their husbands on voyages, including the Crusades, and to women serving as launderers, cooks, nurses and prostitutes (possibly all four). Ladies of the Cinque Ports — Hastings, Dover, Sandwich, Romney and Hythe — were the most likely to sail. One source claimed that older women ‘washed the clothes and heads [of the sailors]…. Women were as good as monkeys at getting rid of the fleas’.

Three are known to have camouflaged themselves as men or boys in the 1690s, helped by loose and rarely changed clothing and darkness below decks.