Hannah Snell

My Story

    If a man can be a soldier, why can’t a woman be one? After all, the saying does go: Behind every great man, is a great woman. Everything is always about the men, isn’t it? I mean even history is just a shortened name for ‘his-story’. And you must admit if a woman was queen or leader of every country, all the countries would ever do is pop round to see the other for a bit of gossip. The only wars that would ever happen, would probably only be fashion wars that wouldn’t involve physical fighting, -only the desperate attempts to outwit the rival with the more ridiculous outfit.
   
    But then again, if women were the rulers from the beginning, there wouldn’t have been any need to put down rebellions in Coventry in 1745 (unless there was a serious rejection of the reduction of hoop-skirt sizes at the time), or the need to attack the French posts on the Indian coasts in 1748. And if there hadn’t been any need for that, then my story wouldn’t have had the chance to be told.

    Let me introduce myself: I am Hannah Snell, but most people know me as James Gray. I was, and currently still am, the only woman ever to be in the Royal Marines. Let me tell you my story.

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I was born on the 23rd of April 1723, in Worcester. I became an orphan at 17, and so I travelled to London to live with my older sister Susannah. Susannah was a completely normal woman -always obsessed with the idea of romance and men. I soon got bored with her, but luckily I fell in love with a handsome young Dutch seaman named James Summs. It wasn’t only his strong build, and cute little habit of rubbing his nose when in deep thought, that made me fall for him, but it was also his exciting tales and stories of his service in the Marines. Soon enough, when I was 19, we married and I quickly became pregnant.

After seven months of a dream, my darling James returned to sea never to be heard of again. I was heartbroken, and soon lost my daughter who died prematurely at six months. I was convinced he’d been press ganged into joining the Navy or Army, because it was a common thing at the time.

I was determined to find him, and so I nicked my brother-in-law’s clothes and name to pop off and find him. (I still don’t know if he’s alright with what I took of his, but he can’t do anything about it now!)

I arrived soon after in Coventry where the troops were mustering after the rebellion in 1745. There, I enlisted in Guise’s Regiment of Foot, who were forerunners of the Royal Warwickshire’s Regiment. I had the background of a military family, and I had always been caught playing soldiers when I was a little girl, so I knew this was the only real way to travel.

Who needs a cart and horse when you were given feet to march on? God didn’t give us bottoms to travel with, he gave us feet for a reason.

I soon became known as the sturdy, determined ‘young man’ James Gray, who had a fresh complexion and a good sense of humour. I was always popular among the troops, but there was this really irritating Sergeant who I soon became bitter with.

After I annoyed him (on purpose, I’d like to point out, because he really did deserve to share the same feelings I had for him), he charged me with ‘Neglect of Duty’. This was absolutely unfair, because I worked harder than most of the men there. I was sentenced the punishment of 600 lashes, but to humiliate me further by thinking I wasn’t strong enough to cope with 600, Sergeant generously reduced it to 500. I was tied chest first to the barracks gate and whipped. Great gopping guns, that hurt.

But to make matters worse, a new recruit from Worcester had joined, and I soon learnt that he was my former neighbour. Out of anger from the injustice I had, and fear that my gender would be betrayed by the neighbour, I fled the Guise’s Regiment of Foot and made my way to Portsmouth.

I was still enticed by my disappeared husband’s stories, and I was soon was eager to join Frazer’s Regiment of Marines. At the time, a great expedition was being prepared for the East Indies, and so I saw the opportunity to join.