The Women Who Went Round the World (eBook)

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1791 MARY ANN PARKER
THE FIRST WOMAN TO TRAVEL EAST ROUND THE WORLD

It was a happy moment when, on New Year’s Day in 1791, Mary Ann Parker learned that her husband had been appointed as commander of HMS Gorgon. Busy in their London house, with her mother helping to look after her two young children, 24-year-old Mary Ann must have been pleased her husband’s career was going so well.

There was a downside, though. In the 1700s the world was being opened up by the tall-masted sailing ships that were plying across the world, bringing home news of fascinating lands and exciting new products as well as being involved in gunship wars and support for land conquests. Being commander of a large 900-ton ship meant Mary Ann’s husband would be away for months at a time. But that was a career she had married into and travel was in her blood. Her grandfather, a London apothecary trading in medicinal remedies for the sick, had travelled to Jamaica and her ambitious father had also travelled as part of his job as a personal medical adviser to wealthy patients. He didn’t actually have any formal medical qualifications, but he was happy to gloss over this aspect in the same way he tended to ignore his continual debt problems. In fact, it was to stay one step ahead of his creditors that, when Mary Ann was around 9 years old, he moved his little family to Cartegena in southern Spain, where he worked for a while as a medical adviser to the British consul. Mary Ann picked up the Spanish language quickly during the years she spent as a child in Spain.

Mary Ann may have first met her husband during her time in Europe; he was certainly in the navy when they were married in London in January 1783. Her mother would have been delighted at this good marriage for her only child; the years of constant financial battles had been wearing, but now the prospects for her daughter were looking really good.

There was a slight embarrassment when, not long after their wedding, Mary Ann’s father was officially declared bankrupt. There was no hiding the situation and, with no money and nowhere to live, Mary Ann’s parents moved in with the young, newly married couple.

The day after Mary Ann’s husband was appointed as commander of the Gorgon, on 2 January 1791, she learned more details. The ship had been commissioned to head off for an extended voyage to Port Jackson, now known as Sydney, on the other side of the world. The First Fleet had arrived there just three years before, in January 1788, and the settlement was struggling to survive. The Gorgon had been urgently commissioned to take desperately needed goods and livestock out to Port Jackson along with some convicts. It would be a long trip and Mary Ann wouldn’t see her husband for fifteen months or more.

However, a month later, as the ship made its final preparations to leave Portsmouth, Mary Ann had some unexpected news. She was invited to join her husband on the trip. She was given two weeks to make up her mind, as there were many things to consider. Conditions on the multi-masted wooden sailing ships of the day were neither comfortable nor safe. Regular stories of ships foundering in storms or hitting rocks, disease taking hold on board, even food and other supplies running out, were not unusual. No one went on long journeys unless there was a real purpose. For Mary Ann, though, there were two good reasons. One, she had already travelled a little and a journey to the other side of the world would certainly be interesting. Secondly, she loved her husband and may also have thought it a very good idea to keep him close; he offered the financial security her own family had never known. It would mean a heart-wrenching separation from her children, who would be left with her mother, and there could well be danger, but she didn’t hesitate. She would go.

Thankfully, she wouldn’t be the only woman passenger on board. Navy captain Gidley King was travelling out on the Gorgon to take up his new position as governor of Norfolk Island, and he was also taking his wife with him, so there would be company for Mary Ann on the voyage.

Once the goodbyes had been said, it was a reasonably cheery party that sailed away from Portsmouth on 15 March 1791. The ship was only 140ft long and 38ft wide, but Mary Ann’s cabin was comfortable, albeit small, low-roofed and a little dark. After a couple of weeks of seasickness, Mary Ann soon became adapted to the ever-rolling life at sea. Her husband was always busy, but she was there to offer support when she could, and there was a small group of other congenial passengers to talk to, to enjoy meals with and to play cards with in the evening.

Four weeks later, as the weather became warmer, the Gorgon anchored up in Tenerife. As the wife of the commander of the ship, Mary Ann was greeted with the greatest respect, taken to the best sights and given the top place at dinner parties. She enjoyed the attention very much and also the acclaim she received after demonstrating her near-fluent Spanish. It was a very happy ten-day visit. On 25 April 1791, under a fresh and favourable breeze, the Gorgon set sail to continue its journey south.

On board, it seems Mary Ann gave no thought at all to the convicts carried below deck. There were only around thirty on board, all men, compared with up to 700 or more that had been transported on earlier ships in the First Fleet. Nevertheless, she must have been aware of the situation; how the convicts locked away below were just part of a huge number being transported to the other side of the world. By keeping away from the subject, perhaps she could ignore the fact that they had mostly been sentenced for very minor crimes and sent off in awful conditions for seven years, or even life, to a far-off land they knew little about. Almost like the goods packed tightly below decks, the convicts were held below and simply not talked about.

After four weeks of steady progress south, towards the end of May, the weather took a turn for the worse and, for the first time, Mary Ann experienced a really rough sea. It meant boards were fixed over the window in her cabin, which made it dark and dismal, and meals had to be eaten there as well. But the cook on board somehow coped with the conditions and managed to continue to provide excellent food for the officer-class passengers, including surprisingly roast pig and plum puddings; a dramatic contrast to the minimal fare supplied to the convicts below decks. Finally the winds subsided, but as a precaution the ship sailed on past Cape Town and down round the Cape of Good Hope to anchor up safely in the well-protected Simon’s Bay to the east.

Their arrival was greeted with a fifteen-gun salute, and while her husband was busy with formalities, Mary Ann was whisked ashore to be met by the local dignitaries. Ushered into a carriage drawn by eight horses, she was shown great respect as she was invited into local homes to meet and dine with the most influential people in the Dutch colony. Mary Ann thought it all wonderful; she loved the attention she was being given and began to enjoy being considered an important person. She was sometimes a guest of honour at a luncheon and the first to be served, often by enslaved Africans. These were the first she had met, but she was careful neither to comment on them nor to note their role. She merely continued her polite conversation with the charming and attentive Dutch women around her.

In this elegant society, Mary Ann was more than aware that her position was solely due to her husband’s role as a navy captain, and so she took care to remain the epitome of sensibility and politeness. She could not risk saying anything that would bring him into disrepute. One day, however, her guard failed when she was invited to stay at the home of a Dutch woman and, talking about her visit later, she compared the size of her hostess to that of a Dutch man-of-war. It was a slightly humorous but unusually negative comment from someone so careful in ensuring she behaved correctly.

Mary Ann was also quite happy to meet the captain of the notorious Neptune. This ship had been part of the Second Fleet sent out to Australia, subsequently nicknamed the Death Fleet because of the number of deaths on board. Over 1,000 convicts were being transported, but during the voyage over a quarter died. Of the survivors who managed to make the colony, around 40 per cent arrived in such poor condition that they died within six months. The Neptune had been the ship with the highest number of deaths.

Yet Mary Ann, who would have been aware of these numbers, greeted the Neptune’s captain with friendliness. With her...