John Nicol (1755-1825) was a Scottish sailor who in 1789 sailed on '' Lady Juliana'', a ship that transported convict women to Port Jackson in New South Wales,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

.Bayham 2004 His autobiography, published in 1822, offers a rare first-hand account of the life of an ordinary

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sailor.

Life

Nicol was born at Currie, near Edinburgh, in Scotland. His father was a

cooper Cooper, Cooper's, Coopers and similar may refer to: * Cooper (profession), a maker of wooden casks and other staved vessels Arts and entertainment * Cooper (producers), alias of Dutch producers Klubbheads * Cooper (video game character), in ...

, and his mother died in childbirth while Nicol was young. He was apprenticed to a cooper, and in 1776 joined the Royal Navy, serving first on HMS ''Proteus'' in the North Atlantic. He then served on HMS ''Surprise'', before being discharged at the conclusion of the

American War of Independence The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

in 1783. In the next few years Nicol sailed in a

whaling ship A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales. Terminology The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Japa ...

in the waters off Greenland, and sailed to the West Indies and

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. He also

circumnavigated Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical body (e.g. a planet or moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first recorded circumnavigation of the Earth was the Magel ...

the globe during this period, doing so twice during his lifetime. In 1789 he left England on ''Lady Juliana'', which was

transporting Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, and ...

over 200 female convicts to Australia. It was common practice for crew-members to take a 'wife' from the convicts – Nicol's wife, a convicted shoplifter from Lincoln named Sarah Whitlam, bore him a son during the voyage. They were separated on their arrival at Port Jackson in 1790, and Nicol never saw either again. The day after Nicol's departure, Whitelam married another man. In 1794 Nicol was impressed into the Royal Navy, and subsequently fought at the battles of Cape St Vincent and

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on . After being discharged following the

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, he returned to Scotland, married his cousin, and resumed work as a carpenter. With the resumption of the Napoleonic Wars, Nicol lived in constant fear of being impressed, and thus left Edinburgh for rural Scotland. Eventually he grew too old to be at risk of impressment, and so travelled to London in search of his naval pension, which he was unable to obtain. He returned to Scotland, where he was so poor that he had to pick scraps of coal from the street in order to keep himself warm. In 1822, Nicol was approached by John Howell, a 'polyartist' whose numerous inventions included a device for trimming the leaves of books, in addition to a flying machine, and a prototype submarine. Howell published five books that detailed the lives of former soldiers or sailors. His method seems to have involved befriending impoverished men and then noting down their stories; Howell assigned all royalties from publication to the subjects themselves.Flannery 1997, pp. 3-4.

Notes

References

* Baynham, Henry (2004). "Nicol, John (1755–1825)", '' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford University Press)
accessed 23 March 2012
* Flannery, Tim (1997). ''The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner'' (Canongate, 2000, British edition).

External links

*
The life and adventures of John Nicol, mariner
' at Archive.org
Nicol's obituary
in the '' Gentleman's Magazine'' (1825, vol. 95, part 2, pp. 472–3). {{DEFAULTSORT:Nicol, John 1755 births 1825 deaths Scottish sailors