Mary Lacy (1740–1795)

Mary Lacy, born to a poor working class family at Wickham in Kent, England. She went into domestic service around age 12, and worked for seven years. In 1759, she ran away dressed as a boy, and made her way to the dockyards at Chatham. From there, she joined the Royal Navy and went to sea under the assumed name William Chandler aboard HMS Sandwich as servant to a ship's carpenter. She later served on HMS Royal Sovereign, enduring extraordinary hardships during the Seven Years' War. In 1763, she left the Royal Navy and apprenticed herself to a shipwright in Portsmouth. In 1770, she achieved her certification as a shipwright, arguably the first woman to have done so. However, she was soon forced to stop working due to an injury, and applied for a pension from the British Admiralty under her birth name, which was granted. In 1772, she may have married a Josiah Slade, sailor or shipwright of Deptford, Kent. She published her autobiography, The History of a Female Shipwright, Written by Herself, in 1773. It was republished in the 21st century by the National Maritime Museum.