This lecture was given by Manon Eames as part of the Century of Hope Project, Volvo Ocean Race Event: Women and the Sea, and was given in the Millenium Centre, Cardiff Bay, 30th May 2018.

Women and the Sea - North West Wales

Many thanks for the invitation to present this lecture as part of

this exciting festival for Cardiff. I was asked initially to present

it in Welsh last year at the National Eisteddfod in Anglesey, to

remember and pay tribute to my father’s work in field, and also

that of his late friend, Robin Evans. Both were pioneers in

uncovering and sharing and explaining so much information and

knowledge about Wales’ vibrant maritime history : and my

focus today will be on their work, and in particular their

research in North West Wales - specifically Caernarvonshire

and Anglesey.

When my father published his first book, “Ships and Seamen of

Anglesey” in 1973, I think he had actually set sail on a bit of a

voyage himself, a voyage which led him to eventually be

recognised by Basil Greenhill, director of the National Maritime

Museum in Greenwich as “one of Wales's leading contemporary

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historians…. More than anyone else, responsible for bringing

the study of the Welsh maritime heritage into the mainstream of

academic and popular historical research and writing.”

Certainly, my father’s work in those days was pioneering, and I

know that his own boundless and very genuine enthusiasm, his

“passion” for the sea and for our very particular Welsh

relationship with the ocean over the centuries, inspired many

others to study and research and write about this aspect of our

heritage, with Robin Evans being notable among the many. I’ll

always remember a school friend coming home with me one day

and surveying the piles of documents and pictures and paintings

of barques and schooners everywhere remarking “God your

Dad’s potty about ships isn’t he?” And I suppose he was - and

potty about the sea too : and this not without knowledge and

experience himself, having, in the Royal Navy, commanded a

landing craft at the age of 21 during the D Day landing, and

being twice mentioned in dispatches. And so, this invitation from the Women’s Archive of Wales last

year found me poring through my father’s work and Robin’s :

trying to be selective, chosing interesting facts, elements,

summarising stories connected with women’s relationship with

the sea in these corners of North West Wales. Evidently, the

maritime history of Wales is an area worthy of further study,

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particularly the role of women in it; and I’m very grateful to the

Archive for inviting me to research this lecture in the first place,

because I became engrossed in it all very quickly, and really

enjoyed my own voyage through Robin and my father’s

research, articles and publications.

Clearly, the part women have played in our maritime history has

been, in Robin’s words, critical as well as varied. They

definitely contributed to, and were involved in, maritime

business and businesses for centuries - and this is as true of

Wales as it is of many other countries. Robin’s own book

“Merched y Mor” - is proof of this, crammed as it is with tales

of women as lifesavers, adventurers, Captain’s wives, and

daughters of Seamen, sailing the shores and travelling the world.

Women also invested in ships and shipping regularly, and what

about the female missionaries and other emigrants (both

voluntary and forced) who piled aboard, in their hundreds ?

Then there are the fisherwomen too, and even the prostitutes of

our ports - all connected in one way or another with The Sea,

and her hold and influence on the way of life on the coasts of

our country.

Of course, we are by now, thanks to my father and Robin, quite

familiar with the idea of women travelling aboard ships and

boats throughout the centuries, especially the nineteenth

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century, which witnessed the most migrating and trading. And

incidentally, they did so flying in the face of multiple and

entrenched supersititions - common all over the globe - that

even the presence of women on board (as well as pigs, hens,

cats, foxes, howling dogs, clergymen and shooting stars by the

way) was guaranteed to bring about bad luck, accident,

horrendous weather, and disaster to the accompanying sailors.

(It’s worth noting on the other hand, as Robin Evans does, that

from the eighteenth century onwards, women also became much

more popular as figureheads on ships - and this was apparently

because of a belief that women’s eyes had superior navigating

abilities : of which more later !).

And so yes, women were often “at sea” and it’s no surprise

really that there’s significant documentation cofirming that fact.

As my father notes in his book “Gwraig y Capten” “The

Captain’s Wife” (which is the diary kept by one woman in

particular, Elen Owen, from Tudweiliog, on the voyage home

from San Francisco around the Horn aboard the Cambrian

Monarch in 1882) the census of 1861, for example, proves that

many women actually travelled regularly aboard the smaller

coastal vessels, recording for example, an ‘Elen Jones, 22 years

old, “domestic at present out of situation” aboard the little sloop

Sampson moored near Beaumaris on the night of the census.

And aboard the schooner Sarah, anchored nearby, was a

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Margaret Thomas, 34 years old from Moelfre, wife of the

Captain, John Thomas.

However, it is worth noting that although it was evidently

common enough for several women (and their children, if it

comes to that) to set sail as wife, sons or daughters of the

Captain as he steered his vessel whether along our shores or to

far flung corners of the world, this was not the case with

employees of the well-known Davies family in Menai Bridge.

Davieses Captains were forbidden from taking their wives and

families with them, and the fact that the company lost some of

their most able Captains as a result of this rule indicates how

importantly they were valued by their husbands - for example,

Captain Willliam Williams, Rhiw, and Captain Thomas

Williams, Caernarfon. In fact, when William Williams left the

employment of Richard Davies “Y Borth” because he had been

refused permission for his wife to travel with him on his next

passage, he received a curt enough reponse to his resignation

from Richard Davies : “As you are aware that on that point our

decision has been taken long since, we can only express our

regret ….and we are glad that you sent to us at once your

decision, as we should have been highly annoyed if it had been

left to the last moment”. As my father - typically - notes about

the Davies family: ‘This is the middle class rapidly becoming

noblemen … quick enough to give large sums of money to

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religious causes - chapels, the Mission Overseas etc, but treating

their seamen, even their most accomplished master-mariners,

like lowly servants, without any humanity”. He goes on to

delight genuinely in Captain William Williams’ success

following his departure form the Davieses company - Williams

became one of the first men in Britain to gain an ‘Extra Master’s

Certificate,” and both he, and Captain Thomas Williams,

Caernarfon, who had also resigned from the Davies company for

the same reason, became owners of very successful large ships

themselves. Both Captains were evidently a great loss to the

Davieses because of their “no wives or family” rule, but they

themselves now had both the means and the freedom to take

their families with them wherever they wanted.

But before turning to look at the history of some of the women

who did travel with their menfolk, it’s worth noting that it was

only Captain’s wives who did this usually. The wives of

ordinary seamen - even the mate - had to stay at home, to keep

house and look after the children, during their partners’ often

very long absences at sea.

So it’s worth spending a moment considering what life was like

for these women, left at home, during the age of the great

voyages ?

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The Sailors’ Wives

In terms of their homes, things were pretty similar to homes in

other industrialised areas : there were some newer houses,

especially in the newer larger ports, but they were usually of a

very poor standard, just like the houses springing up like a rash

in the industrial areas of South Wales. And families living in

more rural areas fared little better : often conditions were worse,

with large families living in cottages or two-roomed houses,

with earth floors and very few facilities. Moelfre in Anglesey

for example depended on only three water fountains until the

end of the 19th century, when a water pump was added to the

fountain on the shore, but in bad weather this would regularly

get contaminated with sea-water and would therefore be useless

for several days. Many families kept chickens, or a pig, but

general poverty was common. My father refers to another diary

in his book “Shipmaster” - the biography of Capten Robert

Thomas, Llandwrog - who recalls the hardships of his childhood

in the mid ninteenth century thus -

“I had gone with my mother many a time to Carnarvon with a

pig with a string fast to its legs and if a suitable price was not

got, we would bring it home again : I look back with wonder

and pain at those days… a woman and children from

Llandwrog, driving a little pig to Caernarfon, and then standing

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all day with it in the wet and cold and perhaps after all no-one

asking what it was for’.

Of course, in spite of this sort of poverty (which was widespread

in North Wales at the time) women who were trying to bring up

their family in farming areas like Moelfre did have something of

an advantage - it was easy to get hold of milk, and according to

Robin Evans, a farmer would often give seamen’s children

permission to fetch a turnip or so from the fields every so often.

And over and above this, the sea herself of course had her own

generosity to bestow on her coastal communities - there’d be

crabbing in the evenings on the turning tide, gathering mussels,

and in Moelfre in particular many households would get through

the winter with the help of a large barrel of salted herring on

stand by.

But in such harsh conditions, how on earth did sailors’ wives

cope, with their husbands absent for months - years even ?

Just imagine - your father, husband, son or brother away for

long periods of time, years on the “foreign” ships as they were

called, but even the coastal vessels could be away for twelve

months or more. Some women would have a son, or sons,

husband and father all away at the same time - and scattered all

over the globe.

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This set me thinking about these women’s lives in comparison

to the experiences and daily lives of miners’ wives from the

industrial coalfields in the South, and slate quarrymen’s wives in

the North : obviously, another group of women whose husbands

worked in a very dangerous profession. But I was thinking about

the difference there must have been between the constant

anxiety of a colliers’ wife, worrying about her menfolk shift

after shift, but nonetheless being able to see them (one hopes)

every night. It’s true that in some slate districts men would stay

overnight in barracks for a whole week, returning only at the

weekend or on a Sunday, and there are some coastal seamen

whose usual journeys took them between Ireland, North Wales

and North West England and who therefore sailed close to their

homes, in which case they might drop anchor overnight in the

bay closest to the Captain’s home, or Porth Penrhyn in Bangor

for example, on a Friday night, before walking home for the

weekend to Port Dinorwic, or the villages of Anglesy, returning

o ship on a Monday morning. But the vast majority of sailors’

wives, unlike colliers’ or quarrymen’s wives, were more like

war wives : enduring months and years of worry and fear -

usually without any news - no telephones, no post, no means of

regular correspondence with their partners, siblings or sons.

These women would usually have no idea of their menfolk’s

whereabouts from one day to the next, nor any clue as to how

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well or badly their voyage was going. And although they didn’t

have the burden of keeping their homes and husbands clean,

carrying gallons of water by day and night for bathing and

eradicating coal and slate dust from their clothing nd homes,

they also didn’t have anybody at home who could help with

household chores - collecting firewood, coal - and sharing in the

upkeep of the house and the care of the children.

Both Robin and my father draw several very interesting

conclusions from their researches about this sort of existence.

For one thing, the absence of their husbands, and the fact that

these coastal communties tended to be close-knit, meant that to

a large extent they were all on the same level - be they married

to a Captain or an ordinary seaman. And by the way, in Robin’s

book “Merched y Môr” there is significant evidence that life

wasn’t always rosy for these partnerships even when the sailors

did come home. Many men found it difficult to readjust and

settle at home, many felt useless, surplus to the requirements of

a wife who had been an efficient mother and father to the family

in their absence. It was often, also, the woman of the house who

was responsible for discipline - even when the father was home.

The International Centre for Maritime Research states that “the

wife of a mariner is more of a mistress in her own kitchen than

any other wife can be”.

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And although Robin argues - convincingly - that the idea that

these communities were exceptionally “amtriarchal” is a myth,

it’s evident that these women had not only a close relationship

with each other, but a productive one too. Both mothers and

wives would regularly arrange work for their husbands and sons

directly with the Captains’ wives - you could almost think of

them as a sort of labour exchange - imagine them, gathering

after chapel on the steps, discussing between them places for

sons, husbands, brothers aboard this or that vessel. And this was

an arrangement which worked well for both sides : from the

Captains’ (and their wives) point of view (especially those who

owned their own vessels) the existence locally of a willing and

proficient workforce was great boon.

And this arrangement had another effect : as it was relatively

easy to get work aboard ship, between family connections and

the fact that captains and ordinary mariners, as well as their

women, mixed with each other socially quite naturally, sailors

were quite confident of finding regular work. And as a

consequence of this, in turn, it was therefore considered

reasonably practical for them to leave a ship for a few months

and go home if needed, going back to sea at a later date. In

some areas men would often leave their ships to come home for

the fishing season for example - to help to fill those large barrels

with herring for the cold winter months, no doubt.

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I referred earlier to the “worry” these women must have had to

put up with on a daily basis : so it is worth asking - did sea

wives have more reason for concern than women whose men

worked in other dangerous industries ? Hearing of - and

sometimes witnessing - shipwrecks and significant loss of life,

as the women on the coast of Anglesey and Caernarvonshire

would have done regularly, must have made their blood run

cold, especially with their own men far away at sea themselves.

There’s the Royal Charter of course, lost in 1859 - along with

ten other schooners, on the same night : and Robin cites some

very interesting statistics in his book, which show without a

shadow of doubt just how dangerous a career at sea really was.

On average, between 1891 and 1904, many more men (6 to 8

times more in fact) were lost at sea than in other industries : for

example in 1900, 1,537 men were lost at sea while 1,101 died in

the coalmining industry : which equates to 1 in every 146 men at

sea to 1 in every 771 in the mines - a significant number more

(and these figures don’t even include passengers or fishermen).

Of course, the next reasonable question is : why go to sea at all ?

Why leave your mother, sister, wife, your home and family - for

a dangerous life “on the ocean wave”?

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Obviously, family and community tradition played a large part,

and the “romance” of the sea must had appealed too, but there

are other practical reasons. First, and obvious, was the shortage

of other employment in the rural areas. Wages at sea were also

marginally better than those on the land, in farmeing. But most

important, a career at sea was unique among the other industries,

in that it was possible, with hard work, to gain promotion, and

quickly, which would then lead to the possibility of earning very

good money. An ambitious, determined and hardworking

seaman could gain promotion at a rate and speed impossible on

the land, moving from a seaman to Mate, and even Captain,

relatively quickly. This kind of rapid and significant

improvement in a man’s standard of living was simply not an

option for the average miner, quarryman, or farm hand.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

So, there we have it - a snapshot of the lives of sailor’s wives

who stayed home, and of the communities in which they lived.

But what about the other women who had a more direct

connection with sea, through their work ?

Many women worked in the fishing industry, all along the coast

of Wales. Most of us know about the cockle industry in

Penclawdd, North Gower, and the mussel industry in the

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Conway area. But other women worked gathering seaweed - not

only in South West Wales for the making of laeverbread, but

there was also for example a busy industry in Caernarvonshire

where seweed and reeds would be gathered and burnt, with the

resulting ash sent to England to make potash; and in Anglsey

there was also an important marram grass industry, with women

earning a living weaving ropes and mats, and eventually baskets

and table mats and the like, in the Newborough area.

The above are examples of work done solely by women - but

there were also women who worked supporting their husbands

in their business : lighthouse keepers wives for example. And

then there were women like Capten Thomas Hughes of

Moelfre’s wife. Once the Captain had loaded his cargo, he

would send a telegram to his wife in Moelfe, and it was she who

then contacted local merchants and arranged where and when

the cargo would arrive. She was therefore crucial to the trade

and working of their business.

And, speaking of “business”, although they weren’t generally

apparently very “significant” investors, many women

contributed regularly to the business of shipping by buying

shares in vessels throughout the period.

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But there is one other area where one wouldn’t automatically

expect women to have excelled - and that is maritime education .

In Wales, Sarah Jane Rees, otherwise known as Cranogwen,

from Llangrannog, is pretty well known. Born in 1839, daughter

of Captain John Rees, Sarah Jane had sailed frequently with her

father, and went on to learn, and the teach, the art of navigation.

But apparently, the lesser known Ann Edwards, daughter of

Captain William Francis Amlwch, was as good a teacher as

Cranogwen - if not better. Her father had taught navigation in

Amlwch, and after she moved to Caernarfon, Ann aso taught

navigation and seamanship, from 1830 until her death in 1889 at

the age of 70. It was Ann who taught the vast majority of

Caernarfon sailors - and she had pupils form Anglesey too. She

must have been an amazing teacher - in 1878, 32 second officers

passed theor Captain’s exams : all 32 were from Caernarfon or

South Anglesey, and every single one had been taught by “Mrs

Edwards, New Street”. It was also Ann, by the way, who taught

Captain Robert Thomas, who sailed the Meirioneth on the

fastest ever voyage from Cardiff to San Francisco in 1887/8.

Ann’s enormous contribution was eventually recognised when

she was awarded a state pension by Queen Victoria. (So, maybe

women did have better eyes for navigation ?) It was a woman too who led the campaign to save more lives at

sea. When, in 1823 Frances Williams, out walking with her

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husband James, witnessed the sinking, in spite of fair weather,

of the packet boat the Alert between the Skerries and Anglesey

with the loss of 140 lives, she set about establishing lifeboats on

the island. And not before time - according to Dad, in 1825

atleast 14 ships were lost on Anglesey’s coast, in 1826, another

25 arall, and in 1827, a further 21 - numbers which reflect the

rapidly increasing busyness of Liverpool Bay. Frances and her

husband established the Anglesey Association for the

Preservation of life from Shipwreck in 1828, which led to

lifebpats being purchased for the island. And in fairness,

Frances must have been a bit of a girl. On one occasion a

message was received, in foul weather, that the keeper on the

Sherries lighthoue was ill and needed urgent attention. The

westerly wind was too strong for the Holyhead lifeboat to reach

the lighthouse, but there was just a remote chance that the

Cemlyn lifeboat might manage to tack her way there. Without

ado, Frances grabbed her medical bag and joined her husband

aboard the boat, in spite of the raging weather, and attended to

the stricken keeper. Definitely, a bit of a girl !

As I said, these few examples illustrate that women were not

just connected to Wales’ reltaionshp with the sea, but were

actively involved in that relationship, and contributed to it, on

many levels.

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But what about turning our attention now to the women who

regularly travelled aboard these ships : what was life like for

them - at sea ?

It was apparently more usual for the wives (and children) of

Captains to travel on the coastal as opposed to the “foreign”

ships, and often, this would be their “honeymoon”. Having

married a Captain (and when you consider that at one time there

were 44 master mariners living in Moelfre alone, there was

plenty of choice about !), the ship under his command would

often be the new wife’s first home. There’s Elizabeth, daughter

of the master seaman Owen Lewis, Moelfre. She married

Captain Henry Roberts in 1914 and spent her honeymoon on the

Earl of Lathom carrying slate from Caernarfon to Hamburg, and

on from there to Boulogne, Ipswich, Newcastle and Pentewan,

before returning to Moelfre. Capten David Williams, Capten of

the Isallt’s bride, had an even more adventurous honeymoon.

After their wedding, she insisted on joing her new husband on

his voyage from Falmouth to pick up slates in Porthmadog. But

on her very first night aboard, the Isallt collided with the SS

Atlantic. According to my father, the young girl lept out of bed,

and wearing nothing but a blanket from it, ran to the deck,

where she realised the Isallt was sinking, quickly. She and all

the crew were rescued - but as my father remarks - what a way

for a young girl to “break the ice” on her wedding night !

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From the first days of their married life, the wives of Captains -

and the children they bore (many born aboard ship) - would

travel wit their husbands to wherever they went, but once the

children reached school age, it was more practical to only sail

together on the coastal routes, with the family joining their

father during the summer holidays. This often meant relatively

short journeys, usually schooners often to and from Germany

(Hamburg) and Scandinavia (Copenhagen) and so the children -

both daughters and sons - would learn about life at sea from a

young age. But the most romantic image for us I suppose is that of the brave

women who sailed the world on the full rig ships and barques,

knowing that they had undertaken to spend many years

travelling the oceans - sometimes on the most difficult and most

dangerous seas on the planet. My fathers book ‘Gwraig y

Capten’ “The Captain’s Wife” (the diary of the Ellen Owen I

mentioned earlier), gives a detailed picture of life aboard the

Cambrian Monarch - and of a farmer’s daughter successfully

acclimatising herself to a life on the high seas. And there were

many like her.

And this was far from easy - as my father writes :

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‘From being on dry land surrounded by family and friends, the

wife now has to confine herself like a prisoner in the cabin and

the poop of the ship, without female companionship - no-one

with whom to share secrets, fears, doubts, or even to discuss the

weather ! The world of the seaman and the weather of the

seaman, not those of the farmer, are her world now, and the

oracle in this world is her husband, the captain”’…. He goes on

to list their sufferings - health problems, depression,

seasickness, and accute isolation. It must have been a deeply

lonely experience at times.

Having said that, the cabin where the Captain’s wife would have

spent most of her time would be quite comfortable by

comparison with the cramped quarters on the rest of the vessel :

although there was sound business sense behind this (rather than

any consideration of the Captain’s quality of life aboard). Many

Captains would conduct a lot of business with customers and

agents in foreign ports, and would be more likely to strike a

good bargain by being able to give an impression of importance,

status, and living in style. The “Inventory” of the Langdale for

example, a Liverpool vessel under Captain Griffith Jones of

Pwllheli, includes a piano and gramophone, 4 ‘deck chairs’, 2

bikes, a silver AND china dinner service, books, and a tub for

foot bathing… amongst other things.

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But in spite of this relative “luxury” the Captain’s wife still had

to put up with life in a cabin which could be damp, cold or

unbearably hot - and which was never still. Poor Grace Owen,

from Nefyn, Capten William Davies’ new wife, spent an entire

fornight with horrednous seasickness on her bunk aboard the

Gwydr Castle, too weak to even raise her head. Incidentally -

Dad points out that it was important for the “wife” not to

interfere with the day to day running of the ship - and especially

not with the Steward’s duties, the galley, or the cook. I don’t

think poor Grace would have wanted to do very much of that in

her pitiful condition…

And just think for a minute about the weather the inhabitants of

these ships would have to endure, even in coastal waters.

Catherine Hughes of Moelfre, was sailing with her husband

Henry Hughes on the William Shepherd from Ireland to Bangor,

when they encountered such violent weather that they spent

three whole days battling the elements, with Catherine in the

cabin tied to a chair and her baby Jinnie stowed in a drawer,

until the severely damaged vessel eventually limped in to

harbour on the Isle of Man. But worse was common further

afield - particularly when rounding the Horn. Ellen Jones

Griffiths, of Pwllheli, sailed on the Langdale I mentioned earlier

at least six times around the Horn. On her first voyage, she

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actually saw the Horn at least 5 times in the 6 weeks it took the

battling Langdale to get around it.

There are a lot of startling stories about Ellen, and the Langdale.

This is the woman who set sail on one of these long voyages

with a 6 week old baby in her arms, and then gave birth to a

daughter on board - which she records in her own diary thus :

‘Baby born North Atlantic 37 degrees 42 minutes N 33 degrees

W 5 a.m.’ Apparently her husband Capten Griffith went on to

the poop and announced “Gentlemen, we have another

passenger.” This baby was named “Moraned” which means born

at sea. My father records that later, the crew made Moraned a

doll, called “Sydney” and the sailmaker also made her a little

dress out of sailcloth, which was so stiff poor little Moraned

couldn’t sit down in it !

Other children’s names give us some clues in this respect too :

Robert David Valpariso Roberts, Francisco Griffith, and ‘Mercy

Malvina Thomas’ who was born to Catherine Thomas of

Llangybi after a terrible voyage during which the Criccieth

Castle was lost while rounding the Horn. Catherine managed to

reach the Falklands Islands in an open boat with her husband

Capten Robert Thomas and her son Robert, giving birth to the

baby there a few weeks later. Mercy Malvina indeed !

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But although both Robin and my father refer to women

generally having to respect the crew and their duties, there are

also tales of women taking a much more active and practical

role on board. Eizabeth Jones from Amlwch first went to sea as

a small girl in 1897 aboard the Gauntlet, a 120 ton schooner

with her mother and father, Captain Bob Jones, or ‘Hurricane

Bob’as he was known. Eluzabeth’s mother used to cook on

board, and used to make red cabbage and butter as an alternative

to the usual “hard tack”. Elizabeth then left the Gauntlet to go to

school in Amlwch, but returned as a full crew member in about

1919. Her main duties were cooking, but in bad weaher she

would also keep watch with the mate. Once, with her father the

Capten unwell with the flu, “Lizzie” took charge and steered the

Gauntlet up the Solent to the harour, much to the astonishent of

the Pilot. There are quite a few stories about Lissie in both my

father and Robin’s books - she was obvioulsy “hands on” in

every sense of the word.

There’s one other story that’s worth referring to before I finish :

again to do with the Langdale. A few months after the birth of

Moraned on board, the Langdale was sailing from Hamburg and

had arrived in the Doldrums, a little to the north of the equator,

when they saw the Kircudbrightshire, under the Captaincy of

Capten David Roberts, Dolgellau approaching. Out went the

flags to invite Captain Roberts and his family aboard the

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Langdale, and the following day, the Langdale family went for

tea on the Kircudbrightshire. Ellen Jones’ diary reveals how

delighted she was to meet another woman on the high seas.

“Think about them for a moment,” my father writes “ two

totally Welsh families, having tea, the children maybe a little bit

shy, but then exploring the new ship, and making new friends,

the women busily chatting about their experineces, and the two

captains keeping an eagle eye on the weather as they strolled

along the poop, the two beautiful ships next to each other rolling

gently but uneasily in the stillness of the doldrums, like a pair of

animlas out of their natural habitat, longing to leap ahead of the

winds instead of lolling in the one place, gently wheezing in

protest at their impotence.”

It’s worth remembering of course, that the Captain’s families

did get the opportunity to break the monotony of long voyages

from time to time when they - eventually - docked at various

ports, often at the same time as other families. Just one example

speaks volumes - in June 1905 in the port of Valpariso, there

were fifty ships at anchor, out of which 12 had Captains from

Wales, and 4 of those were from the village of Nefyn …! Be

that as it may, one can imagine how unique that very Welsh

little party was, two little Welsh families, all marooned

temporarily in the Doldrums, almost on the equator, taking tea !

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Another little comment about Elen Jones made me laugh. On

one of her ‘discharge certificates’ she is referred to as

“Stewardess” with the letters “V.G” - meaning, “Very Good”

dded to her name. Apparently her husband Captain Griffith

Jones had remarked that that should have been changed to -

“VT” instead - namely “Very Talkative” !

But in spite of the humour, one can imagine, hearing these

stories, how much these Captains must have longed for days like

this when their children had become too old to travel with them.

Their vessels - and the Captain’s cabin - must have seemed very

lonely. And this was probably also true for most of the crew too,

who seemed to have enjoyed having the presence of a woman

and children aboard, as evidenced by the gifts and toys they

would make for them while they travelled together.

So there we go : I hope you have enjoyed this voyage - albeit a

little superficial - through some of Aled and Robin’s work.

There is so much more in their research and writing about the

relationship between women and the sea in Wales. And the best

thing about it is that they both wrote not just with the knowledge

of the historian, but with genuine and deep compassion and love

for the humanity of these sailors and women - so the history

bursts into life on every page.

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I’d like to end with Robin’s words :

“The Welsh word for a ship - “llong” - is feminine; and even in

English, the tradition of referring to a ship as female goes back

to the middle ages. This is true throughout the Western world.”

Robin quotes the historian Frances Steel : “going to sea was

hazardous, and threw men into an intimate relationship with

their ship”. “Every day” Robin continues, “the ship would

protect them, sustain them, and shelter them : she was their

partner, possessing a very particular strength and grace”

Just as did their wives, be they at home waiting for them, or

travelling alongside them : there they were constantly -

protecting them, sustaining them, and, it must be said,

possessing a very, very particular strength and grace”.

Thank you, Diolch.

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