1st Edition

Women, Families and the British Army 1700–1880

By Jennine Hurl-Eamon, Lynn MacKay Copyright 2020

    This series concentrates on women and the soldiers in the ranks whose lives they shared, assembling a wide body of evidence of their romantic entanglements and domestic concerns. The new military history of recent decades has demanded a broadening of the source base beyond elite accounts or those that concentrate solely on battlefield experiences. Armies did not operate in isolation, and men’s family ties influenced the course of events in a variety of ways. Campfollowing women and children occupied a liminal space in campaign life. Those who travelled "on the strength" of the army received rations in return for providing services such as laundry and nursing, but they could also be grouped with prostitutes and condemned as a ‘burden’ by officers. Parents, wives, and offspring left behind at home remained in soldiers’ thoughts, despite an army culture aimed at replacing kin with regimental ties. Soldiers’ families’ suffering, both on the march and back in Britain, attracted public attention at key points in this period as well.

    This series provides, for the first time in one place, a wide body of texts relating to common soldiers’ personal lives: the women with whom they became involved, their children, and the families who cared for them. It brings hitherto unpublished material into print for the first time, and resurrects accounts that have not been in wide circulation since the nineteenth century. The collection combines the observations of officers, government officials and others with memoirs and letters from men in the ranks, and from the women themselves. It draws extensively on press accounts, especially in the nineteenth century. It also demonstrates the value of using literary depictions alongside the letters, diaries, memoirs and war office papers that form the traditional source base of military historians.

    This first volume covers the period up to the outbreak of war with revolutionary France.

    Volume I: From Marlborough’s reforms to the outbreak of war with Revolutionary France

    Edited by Jennine Hurl-Eamon

    Introduction

    Part 1. Experiences of Courtship and Marriage

    1. Selections from Regimental Courts Martial, 4 May 1748; 6 July 1748; 16 September 1748; 21 October 1748; 2 March 1748/9; 11 April 1749; 26 April 1749; 2 Jan 1749/50; 3 Aug 1750; 7 Nov 1750; 13 Nov 1750; 22 Nov 1750; 10 Dec 1750; 18 Dec 1750; 28 Jan 1751; 19 April 1751; 30 May 1751; 17 Jan 1751/2; 30 Jan 1752; 21 May 1752; 19 Oct 1752; 21 Apr 1753; 23 Apr 1753; 10 Sept 1759; 27 July 1781, Grenadier Guards Archives, D04/020

    2. Fog’s Weekly Journal, 8 September 1733.

    3. Murder Cases in the Old Bailey Proceedings and The Ordinary’s Account:

    ‘Trial of Mary Price’, July 1718, p.6; ‘Ordinary’s Account of Mary Price’, August 1718, p.4; ‘Ordinary’s Account of Joseph Blunt’, October 1733, p. 10-11; ‘Trial of Philip Williams’, December 1735, excerpt, pp. 34-35; ‘Trial of William Bird’, July 1740, excerpt, pp. 180-81.

    Part 2. Economic Survival

    4. Royal Hospital, An Advertisement to all Charitable and Well-dispos’d Christians; more particularly to the Officers and Gentlemen of the Army: Recommending to their Charity the Children of poor disabled Soldiers, Pensioners, and Out-Pensioners of the Royal-Hospital at Chelsea (London, 1710), pp. 1-2.

    5. Grenadier Guards Archives, D04/020, Regimental Court Martial dated 3 August 1753.

    6. ‘Ireland’ London Evening Post, 18 January 1755.

    7. William Agar, Military devotion: or, the soldier's duty to God, his prince and his country. Containing fourteen sermons preached at the camps near Blandford ... London, [1758], pp. xxviii- xxxii.

    8. London Metropolitan Archives, Foundling Hospital records, 1750s and 1760s.

    9. Jonas Hanway, An Account of the society for the Encouragement of British Troops in Germany and North America, (London, 1760), excerpt, pp. 61-63.

    10. Letter from John Forster, dated Brunton 16th November 1764, NA WO 1/987 f 629

    11. ‘To the Public’, St James Chronicle, 21 May 1776, p. 2.

    12. R. Hamilton, M.D., Thoughts Submitted…Respecting the Establishment of a Regimental Fund for the Relief of the Sick and Necessitous Wives of the Private Soldiers (Lincoln: S. Simmons, 1783).

    Part 3. Impact of War

    13. Anon., Serious and Comical Essays, viz. On the Town. The Art of Pleasing in Women… (1710), pp. 206-213.

    14. Selections from Regimental Courts Martial, 26 March 1753; 10 April 1753, Grenadier Guards Archives, D04/020

    15. Petition to Henry Bouquet from Martha May, Carlisle, 4 June 1758, in The Military Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet.

    16. Samuel Ancell, A Circumstantial Journal of the Long and Tedious Blockade and Siege of Gibraltar, from the twelfth of September, 1779 to the Third Day of February, 1783 in a Series of Letters from the Author to his brother (Liverpool, 1785), pp. 46, 49, 115-18, 127-8137, 229; and 4th edn., (Cork: A. Edwards, 1793), pp. 15, 230.

    Part 4. Sex Outside of Marriage

    17. Selections from Regimental Courts Martial, 8 June 1752; 9 April 1773; 16 July 1781, Grenadier Guards Archives, D04/020.

    18. ‘General Court Martial of Edward Hall, 13 Oct 1774’, NA WO 71/79 fol 393.

    19. ‘General Court Martial of Patrick McDonald 26-27 April 1775’, NA WO 71/80 fol 412.

    Part 5. First Person Accounts

    5.1. Memoirs

    20. Christian Davies, The Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies, Commonly Called Mother Ross; (1741), pp. Part I: 9-32, 58-69, 75-77, 80-85, Part II: 13-16, 21-31, 35-7, 40-51, 58-61, 66-7, 75-93, 98-104.

    21. ‘A Narrative of the Life of Serjeant Willm Pell First Foot Guards, (Written by himself) From his first Inlisting, Jan. 18th 1779’, ff. 1-3, 6, 9- 11, 12, 24, 28, 36-38, 47-48, 49-52; Part II: ff. 2-3, 7-8, 10-13, 17, 21-22, 24-25, 31, 38, 40-41, 45, 46-47. Grenadier Guards Archives, London R-1151

    22. Ann Candler, Poetical Attempts, By Ann Candler, A Suffolk Cottager; with a short Narrative of Her Life (Ipswich: Printed and sold by John Raw, 1803), pp. 4-15.

    23. Elizabeth Ashbridge, Some Account of the Early Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge..., (Philadelphia, 1807), pp. 48-54.

    24. Roger Lamb, An Original and Authentic Journal of Occurrences During the Late American War, from its commencement to the year 1783 (Dublin: Wilkinson & Courtney, 1809), pp. 33-35, 67, 143, 256-7, 436-7, 438.

    25. Roger Lamb, Memoir of His Own Life, by R. Lamb; Serjeant in the Royal Welch Fuzileers, (Dublin: Printed by J. Jones, 1811), pp. 6-7, 14-15, 61, 66-71, 74-75, 108-110, 182-183, 189, 242-245, 289.

    26. Anon., The Veteran Soldier: An Interesting Narrative of the Life and Religious Experience of the Late Serjeant Greenleigh (London, 1822), PP. 23-30, 31-32, 34-36, 37, 38-39, 43-45, 51-53, 55-61, 62, 63, 67.

    27. Samuel Hutton, ‘The Life of an Old Soldier’, in Llewellynn Jewitt (ed.), The Reliquary, Quarterly Archaeological Journal and Review. A depository for precious relics—legendary, biographical, and historical…, F.S.A., Vol. XI (London: Bemrose & Sons, 1870-71), pp. 215-19, 221-24.

    28. William Hutton, The Life of William Hutton: And the History of the Hutton Family, Llewellynn Jewitt (ed.), (London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1872), pp. 34-36, 39-43; 47-50.

    5.2. Letters

    29. ‘Letters from Jacobite Soldiers, 22 October-8 November 1745’, National Archives, UK, SP 54/26/122.

    30. Derby Mercury, Friday November 30 to Friday Dec. 7, 1759, Vol xxxviii, no 38.

    Part 6. Fictional Representations

    6.1. Novels, Plays, and Stories

    31. George Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer. A comedy… (London: Printed for Bernard Lintott [etc.], 1706), pp. 1-4, 8-9, 19-24, 26-9, 31-32, 40-43, 47-49, 57-60, 65-67.

    32. Charles Shadwell, ‘The Humours of the Army. A Comedy as it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane’, in The Works of Mr. Charles Shadwell (Dublin, 1720), Vol I: pp. 109-12, 154-57, 171-74, 181-83.

    33. The Life and Memoirs of Mr. Ephraim Tristram Bates, commonly called Corporal Bates, a broken-hearted soldier… (London, 1756), pp. 7-8, 6-29, 48-49, 132-38, 213-14, 230-35.

    34. George Smith Green, The Life of Mr. John Van, a clergyman’s son, of Woody, in Hampshire… (1750), pp. 18-20.

    35. Edward Ward, Mars Stript of his Armour: or, the army displayed in all its true colours (London, 1765), pp. 10, 69-70.

    36. Isaac Bickerstaff, The Recruiting Serjeant (London, 1770), 1-28.

    37. Charles Dibdin, The Chelsea Pensioner: a comic opera in two acts (London: G. Kearsly, 1779), pp. 1-40.

    38. Charles Stuart, The Cobler [sic] of Castlebury, a musical entertainment, in two acts (London, G. Kearsley, 1779), pp. 1-40.

    39. Anon., The Carpenter’s Daughter, of Derham-Down (Dublin, 1792), pp. 3-10, 15-21, 25-6, 28-33, 57-59, 61-77, 83, 93-98, 133, 157, 241-48, 253, 282-3, 285-6.

    6.2. Ballads and Songs

    40. ‘The Nightingale’s Song’, (London: W. Onley, ca. 1689-1709).

    41. ‘The Soldiers Fortune: Or The Taking of Mardike’, (London: P. Brooksby, 1672-1696).

    42. ‘The Loyal Soldier of Flanders: Or, the Faithless Lass of London’, (London: P. Brooks, J. Deacon, J. Blare, J. Back, 1683-1696).

    43. ‘The Low-Country Soldier turn’d Burgomaster’, (unknown publisher, n.d.).

    44. ‘The Longing Lasses Letter To her Love’, (London: J. Deacon, 1671-1704).

    Biography

    Jennine Hurl-Eamon is Associate Professor of History at Trent University, Canada

    Lynn MacKay is Professor of History at Brandon University, Canada