Mary Anne Talbot also known as John Taylor (2 February 1778 – 4 February 1808) was an

Englishwoman The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity is of Anglo-Saxon origin, when they were known in ...

who wore male dress and became a soldier and sailor during the

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Life

Mary Anne Talbot was born in

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at 62 Lincoln's Inn Fields. Later she claimed that she was one of the sixteen illegitimate children of Lord William Talbot, Baron of Hensol. Her mother died in childbirth when she was four. She spent her childhood in the care of different guardians, living with a wet nurse at

Worthen Worthen is a village in Shropshire, England approximately 13 miles west of Shrewsbury. The village forms part of the Worthen with Shelve civil parish, which includes the hamlet of Little Worthen immediately to the north-east and the villages ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

from after her birth until the age of five, and then attended a girls'

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Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

until age fourteen. She fell in the hands of a man she called Mr. Sucker (also known as Shuker), who was also in charge of her inheritance from her sister.Article by Julie Wheelwright. In 1792 Talbot ended up as a

mistress Mistress is the feminine form of the English word "master" (''master'' + ''-ess'') and may refer to: Romance and relationships * Mistress (lover), a term for a woman who is in a sexual and romantic relationship with a man who is married to a ...

of Captain Essex Bowen, who enlisted her as his footboy under the name "John Taylor" for a voyage to

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. The regiment, the 82nd of Foot, were diverted for service in Flanders against the French and she served as a drummer-boy in the battle for Valenciennes, where Captain Bowen was killed. She was also wounded by a sabre slash and treated the wound herself. From Bowen's letters Talbot found out that Sucker had squandered what was left of her inheritance. She decided to go on working as a male sailor. She deserted, fleeing through Luxembourg into the German Rhineland and became a

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for a French ship. When the British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

captured the ship she was transferred to the ''Brunswick'' where she served as a

powder monkey A powder boy or powder monkey manned naval artillery guns as a member of a warship's crew, primarily during the Age of Sail. His chief role was to ferry gunpowder from the powder magazine in the ship's hold to the artillery pieces, either in ...

. Talbot was wounded for the second time on 1 June 1794 during the battle against the French fleet off Ushant when

grapeshot Grapeshot is a type of artillery round invented by a British Officer during the Napoleonic Wars. It was used mainly as an anti infantry round, but had other uses in naval combat. In artillery, a grapeshot is a type of ammunition that consists of ...

almost severed her leg. She never recovered the full use of it but later rejoined the crew. Later the French captured her and she spent the following 18 months in a

Dunkirk Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France. In 1797 she was seized by a

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and was forced to reveal her gender. She went to the Navy to get the money due to her because of her service and wounds and finally found a sympathetic magistrate. At the same time her leg wound worsened and she continued to wear male clothing. She also visited Mr. Sucker who told her that all her inheritance was lost. Sucker apparently died of a heart attack three days later. Talbot continued to use sailor's clothes, worked in menial jobs and even tried her luck on stage at

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but eventually was arrested and taken to

debtor's prison A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, Lucinda"A Histori ...

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. When she was released she became a household servant for publisher Robert S. Kirby at his home in St Paul's Churchyard, London and worked for him for three years until her health deteriorated. She went to live with friends in Shropshire and died a few weeks later aged 34, on 4 February 1808. Talbot has been identified with the "Anna Maria Talbot, d ughterof Tho asWeaver - fWorthin - aged 30"(sic) who was recorded in the parish register of Worthen as buried there on 7 February 1808.''The Shropshire Magazine'', February 1984, page 19, article by Beryl Copsey, who also mentions "Anne Maria, d ughterof Thomas & Anne Weaver" was recorded baptized in the same parish registers on 8 April 1776 (page 323 of the parish register's 1909 transcript). Copsey suggested the baptism could have been of a child adopted from London. Kirby included her tale in his book ''Wonderful Museum'', and (following her death) in ''The Life and Surprising Adventures of Mary Anne Talbot'' (1809). Talbot's tale aroused some sympathy and even a case of imposture when a woman in a Light Horseman's uniform tried to use a name John Taylor to solicit money in London. However, the truthfulness of Talbot's story has been thrown into doubt, due to the discrepancies of the tale of her supposed time at sea, recorded in her biography and published in 1804. Among these, there is no record of any seamen on board the ships she claimed to have served in with the name Taylor. The unlikeliness of several of her accounts is also shown with her claim to have been on the ''Vesuvius'' as a midshipman when it was captured by the French on the English Channel. The ship in question was, at the time of the alleged capture, serving in the West Indies.S. Stark, 1996. Female Tars. London.

References

Sources

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External links

''The Life and Surprising Adventures of Mary Ann Talbot, in the Name of John Taylor'' (1809)
at

University of Nebraska–Lincoln The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (Nebraska, NU, or UNL) is a public land-grant research university in Lincoln, Nebraska. Chartered in 1869 by the Nebraska Legislature as part of the Morrill Act of 1862, the school was known as the Universit ...

* ''The Life and Surprising Adventures of Mary Ann Talbot, in the Name of John Taylor'' (1809)
PDF

Chawton House Chawton House is a Grade II* listed Elizabethan manor house in Hampshire. It is run as a historic property and also houses the research library of The Centre for the Study of Early Women's Writing, 1600–1830, using the building's connectio ...

) {{DEFAULTSORT:Talbot, Mary Anne 1778 births 1808 deaths Female wartime cross-dressers

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

Women in 18th-century warfare Women in European warfare People imprisoned for debt Women in the Royal Navy