Ladies, Wives and Women

During the Napoleonic wars it was customary for British troops ordered on active service to take some of their wives with them. The usual proportion was six women per hundred men. The wives who were to accompany their husbands were chosen by ballot: excitement for the lucky ones and anguish for those left behind. The latter often marched with the regiment to the port of departure, desperate to remain with their men till the last moment, and there were harrowing scenes as families were separated, perhaps forever.

The women who were to accompany their husbands had to endure all the hazards of the high seas, often in slow and leaky transports. In bad weather, conditions resembled a slave ship, with men and women battened down below, rolling about and seasick in the darkness. There were storms, fires, childbirth and sometimes shipwreck to contend with.

Once landed in the theatre of war, the women faced a life of almost constant marching in summer heat and winter cold.