In this post, I discuss the eighteenth century female soldier, Hannah Snell, and the episode of her adventures which reportedly took place at Carlisle.
Hannah Snell was a real historical figure, although the adventures of her life sound remarkable. She was born in 1723, in Worcester. Her parents died when she was still quite young, and in 1740, as a young woman, she moved to Wapping in London, to stay with her sister and brother-in-law, Susanah or Susannah, and James Gray. She married a Dutch sailor, called James Summs in 1740, and became pregnant. However, before the baby was born, Hannah’s husband deserted her. Sadly, her infant daughter died after only a few months of life.
There is a little doubt about the precise dates, but not very long after, Hannah Snell borrowed a suit of clothes from her brother-in-law, and took his name of James Gray. As Hannah Snell puts it in her retrospective account,
“That she might execute her Designs with the better Grace, and the more Success, she boldly commenced a Man, at least in her Dress, and no doubt she had a Right to do so, since she had the real Soul of a Man in her Breast. Dismay’d at no Accidents, and giving a full Scope to the genuine Bent of her Heart, she put on a Suit of her Brother-in-Law, Mr. James Gray’s, Cloaths, assumed his Name, and set out” (The Female Soldier)
Her avowed aim was to find her husband, but it is possible that Snell had other motives too; she may have taken this bold step to change her situation. In her male clothing, Snell made her way to Portsmouth, enlisted with a regiment of marines, and disembarked in a ship for the East Indies. It seems that Snell worked on board the ship, like the other marines, and managed to preserve her new male identity. In fact, with her fellow marines, Snell saw military action on various occasions, including in battles in India, at Devakottai and Pondicherry. In her own account, Snell says that she fought bravely, and was wounded by multiple gun shots. Finally, Snell, sailed back to England in a ship called the Eltham, arriving in 1750.
Once back in England, Hannah Snell stayed again with her sister in Wapping. But she made a public discovery of her exploits in the marines while dressed as a man, and became something of a celebrity in the latter part of her life. She petitioned the Duke of Cumberland for a pension, because she had served in the army, revealed her sex to her former comrades, and had an account of her adventures published. For a while, she performed in London theatres, dressed in her male soldier’s clothes, with a gun, singing and demonstrating military drill. She seems to have persisted too in wearing male clothing, and a cockade in her hat. Sadly, Hannah Snell became ill towards the end of her life, perhaps with dementia, and she and died in Bethlem Hospital, London, in 1792.
I have roamed rather far from Cumbria in this post! But the local connection comes in the part of Hannah Snell’s story, before she sailed with the marines from Portsmouth. According to Snell’s own account, she first, on adopting men’s clothing and the name of James Gray, enlisted with General Guise’s regiment at Coventry and marched with it to Carlisle. This was around the time of the Jacobite risings of 1745. When in Carlisle, she recounts a most curious story of what happened to her. Her report is that her sergeant had a vicious design on a young woman in the town and enlisted Snell’s help, in her male soldier’s persona, in the matter. Instead of assisting her sergeant to seduce the woman, Snell warned the woman in question of the scheme. However, Sergeant Davis grew suspicious, and fancied that Snell, who had become friendly with the woman, was his male rival. Provoked by jealousy, Davis had Snell sentenced to receive six hundred lashes for neglect of duty. This kind of harsh flogging was typical of the brutal military discipline of the time.
Snell reports that she was tied to Carlisle castle gates, and received five hundred out of the six hundred lashes. She claims that she escaped detection as woman:
“Behold her suspected of supplanting the Serjeant of his Mistress, and the direful Effects his Jealousy occasioned, having her Arms extended, and fixed to the City Gates, and there receive the Number of five hundred severe Lashes”
and later,
“she marched to Carlisle, where she was Whipt for Neglect of Duty, being unjustly accused by Serjeant Davis, as is fully mentioned in the preceding Pages. The Method she used to prevent the Discovery of her Sex was this, according to her own Declaration: Her Breasts were then not so big by much as they are at present, her Arms being extended and fixed to the City Gates, her Breasts were drawn up, and consequently did not appear so large; and besides this, her Breast was to the Wall, and could not be discovered by any of her Comrades” (The Female Soldier)
There is some doubt today about whether this episode did indeed occur. Whilst, Hannah Snell really did, it seems, serve as a soldier, in men’s clothing, not necessarily every colourful story in her account may be true. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography does not mention this episode in its life of Snell.
Whether these intriguing events about the Carlisle barracks are not or now, they offer us food for thought, as indeed, do many other parts of Snell’s life. We have cross dressing: Snell seemed to feel at home in men’s clothing, having “the real Soul of a Man in her Breast”. We also have the rather queer reference to Snell in her male disguise being the sergeant’s rival for a local woman: “this young Woman, who took great delight in her Company; and seldom a Day passed but they were together, having cultivated an Intimacy and Friendship with each other ” (The Female Soldier).
Then again, this is not explicit, and indeed, the whole episode may be fiction. We must remember too, that Snell married three times in her life. So, what is going on here?
Courtesy of The castles, towers and fortified buildings of Cumbria
Snell’s own account of her life certainly fits in with eighteenth century literary tastes, with entertaining first person accounts, sometimes picaresque, containing adventures and even gender disguise. Daniel Defoe’s novels, Moll Flanders, 1722, and Roxana, 1724, are examples. Many fictional tales were written claiming to be true, and true stories were sometimes related like fiction. Readers were sophisticated and knew this. If you would like to read it, and see the Carlisle episode for yourself, it may be found here.
Acknowledgements:
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry on Hannah Snell
https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/25975
This can be viewed via the number on a Cumbria public library card.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Snell
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG131225
Prints of Hannah Snell
The Female Soldier, Or, The Surprising Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36461/36461-h/36461-h.htm
Matthew Stephens. The Secret Life of a Female Marine, 1723-1792. London: Ship Street Press, 1997
I have been unable to consult this book, but it gives a recent detailed discussion of Hannah Snell’s life.
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