the more lowly barber-surgeons dealt with accidents). Two of the signers were Elizabeth Hargreave and Mary Houlte, both wives of ship-captains. The second testimonial was signed by twenty-five men, including Captain Thomas Acton of the Merlyn, Captain Joseph Hargreave, and Captain John Houlte. The third document was signed by Henry Bayley, surgeon of the Merlyn , Richard Hills, surgeon of the Chamber frigate , Edward Pattison, surgeon, David Rose, surgeon of London , and Philip Rose, MD. Unsurprisingly, Mary Rose (perhaps a relative of the last two men) succeeded in getting her license, more than 150 years before Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman medical doctor in the United States, succeeded in getting hers, the date of Mary 's document being 16April 1696. Whatever the branch of the shoreside business of dealing with ships and sailors, it seems that women could be fo und taking an active part. In April 1694, a contract was signed w ith the English Navy Board for the building of the 80-gun three-decker battleship Cumberland. The contractor was Anne Wyatt, widow of the commercial sh ipbuilder William Wyatt, who had died in June the year before of smallpox. Anne was already busy overseeing the completion of two ships-the 80-gun twodecker Lancaster and the 32-gun Winchelsea-for which her husband had signed the contracts, but nonetheless the Cumberland was successfu lly launched on 12 November 1695. This was the last of her contracts with the Navy Board, however, perhaps because that august body was reluctanttodeal with a woman. And this could be the reason, too, why there are so many instances throughout shipbuilding history of widows of shipbuilders marrying one of their late husbands' assistants. Many of these cou ld have been marriages of convenience, entered upon in order to keep control of the business despite the disadvantage of gender--creating the kind of smoke-screen that is still in operation today , but concealing the true extent of female involvement in the history of shipping and the sea. ,t Joan Druett, author ofa number ofbooks on seafaring wives (Petticoat Whalers, She Wass Sister Sailor) lives in Welling ton , New Zealand, with her husband Ron, a maritime artist. Her new book, Hen Frigates, is reviewed in this issue. SEA HISTORY 85, SUMMER 1998
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