The Chelsea Pensioners are amongst the greatest of Britain great and ancient institutions.
A Chelsea pensioner is an in-pensioner at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, a retirement home and nursing home for former members of the British Army located in Chelsea, west London.
The Royal Hospital was founded in 1682 by King Charles II for the "succour and relief of veterans broken by age and war."
Upon arrival at the Royal Hospital, each in-pensioner is given a "berth" in a ward, a small room (9 feet by 9 feet) on a long corridor, and is allocated to a company. In-pensioners surrender their army pension, in return receiving board, lodging, clothing and full medical care.
Chelsea Pensioners can leave the home to travel around the city or the country whenever they please and can wear, if they wish, civilian clothing whilst travelling. Otherwise, they wear their traditional redcoats whilst travelling. However, within the hospital, they all wear a blue uniform, except on ceremonial occasions when they wear their scarlet uniforms and tricorne hats.
All of the Chelsea Pensioners are men, with women not allowed to become members. Well, that was until last week when Dorothy Hughes and Winifred Phillips became the first female Chelsea Pensioners in the Royal Hospital's history.
Naturally, the Royal Hospital has been celebrating this momentous occasion.
However, in this fascinating article, Annabel Venning explains that Dorothy and Winifred are NOT the first female Chelsea Pensioners. They were beaten to it by 300 years by a woman named Christian Davies, a Dublin woman who, in the 1690s, dressed as a man to join the English Army (it wasn't until Scotland joined the Union in 1707 that the English Army and the Scottish Army merged to become the British Army....
This brave duo have been hailed as the first female Chelsea pensioners. In fact, they were beaten to it 300 years ago by a vengeful wife who dressed as a man...
By Annabel Venning
16th March 2009
Daily Mail
The English Army, led by the Duke of Marlborough (on the right), during the Battle of Schellenberg, 1704 (click picture to enlarge)
The English troops gathered at the bottom of the hill, poised to begin their assault on the French soldiers who stood, muskets ready, at its summit. Then the order to attack came. Rank upon rank of infantry rushed up the slope, stumbling over the crumpled corpses of the fallen as they pressed upwards, yelling and shouting.
One dragoon, who lay bleeding under a tree, cheered on the attackers until the French forces were at last dislodged from their position.
The battle of Schellenberg in 1704 was a great victory for the Duke of Marlborough and the English, followed a few weeks later by the more famous battle of Blenheim.
The dragoon was taken to the field hospital, where surgeons found a musket ball lodged so deeply in one hip that it could not be removed.
Dorothy Hughes (left) and Winifred Phillips have been hailed as the first female Chelsea pensioners - but that is far from the case...
Decades later, the old soldier would talk of those battles and wounds, reminiscing with fellow veterans at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the home for former soldiers which - news reports have claimed - has just accepted women for the first time in its history.
In fact, they are not the first female Chelsea pensioners. For the dragoon who was wounded at Schellenberg - and served in the Army for 11 years - was a woman.
And her story is a testament to courage in combat.
The Royal Hospital's admissions roll for November 1717 states that a 'fatt, jolly woman [who] received several wounds in the Service in ye habitt of a man' was admitted in recognition of her valiant behaviour.
Her name was Christian Davies, though she was also known as Christian Welsh or Mother Ross.
An educated woman, she was 26 with two young children and living in Dublin when one day her husband, Richard, vanished. She had sent him on an errand and when he failed to return she assumed he had been murdered.
Christian was paralysed with grief, for she adored her husband. But after 12 months of 'widowhood', to her amazement she received a letter from Richard informing her that he was very much alive.
Kit Cavanagh, also known as Christian Davies, a 'fatt, jolly woman [who] received several wounds in the Service in ye habitt of a man', beat the ladies to it - some 300 years ago, serving with distinction in the Army
He was serving in the Army in Flanders, where England was fighting in an alliance against the expansionist French in a conflict later known as the Nine Years War (England's allies in the conflict were the Holy Roman Empire, Holland, Spain, the Duchy of Savoy and Sweden and her enemies were, other than the French, the Irish Jacobites).
The day he had disappeared, Richard had met an old school friend, gone drinking and ended up on board a ship, which set sail for Flanders. With no means of getting back home, he had no choice but to enlist.
When Christian had recovered from her shock, she determined to go in search of her errant husband - even if it meant taking drastic action.
Leaving one child with her mother and the other with a nurse, she cut off her hair and dressed herself in one of her husband's old suits, having had, as she recalled in her memoirs, 'the precaution to quilt the waistcoat, to preserve my breasts from hurt, which were not large enough to betray my sex'.
Her disguise in place, she bought a sword and presented herself at a pub where a recruiting officer was plying his trade.
The officer was impressed with the 'clever, brisk young fellow' and, after what must have been a cursory medical examination, 'Christopher Welsh' was enlisted in an infantry regiment.
The more conventional looking Chelsea pensioners smile for the cameras
It was not long before her regiment went into battle and Christian received the first of many wounds.
It seems extraordinary that, sharing tents and even beds with fellow soldiers, she managed to keep her secret safe.
Christian quickly adopted the mannerisms of her comrades, drinking, swaggering and even flirting with local girls, so no one suspected that the smart young dragoon was anything other than who 'he' claimed to be.
In battle, she fought bravely and would join in looting and plundering. As the Army fought its way across Europe, at every camp they came to, Christian would inquire after Richard, whom she claimed was her 'brother', but to no avail.
In one town she formed a close attachment to a local girl although, as she was at pains to point out in her memoirs, it was purely platonic.
Even so, she was fond enough of her to fight a duel with a soldier who had attempted to rape her 'sweetheart'.
In another town, a woman accused her of fathering her child, a claim that Christian hotly denied, but which her comrades readily believed.
When peace was declared in 1697, the troops were disbanded and Christian returned home to Dublin, utterly disheartened. Four years after she had enlisted, she was no closer to finding her husband.
Unable to pay the nurse who had cared for one of her children, she decided to remain in her guise as a soldier.
Moreover, she found civilian life rather tame, so as soon as war broke out once more, she enlisted again and returned to the Continent to resume her search. And this time, fortune smiled on her.
Spotting some soldiers embracing their sweethearts on their return from the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, she noticed something familiar about one of the men. On closer inspection she saw it was Richard.
Though she was furious to find the man for whom she had risked her life in the arms of another woman, she was at first reluctant to reveal her identity. But then she flew into a rage and attacked the woman, cutting off her nose.
Yet even when Richard at last recognised her and the couple were reconciled, she so relished army life that she begged him to keep her identity secret - refusing even to join him in bed.
For the next two years she continued to serve as a soldier until, at the battle of Ramillies in 1706, she was hit by a mortar and taken to hospital with a fractured skull.
This time the surgeons were a little more thorough, for when removing her clothes to fix her dressing, they immediately noticed her breasts and saw that they had, as she delicately put it, 'given suck' to a baby.
Christian's secret was out and her life as a soldier was over.
Despite this, she remained with the Army, working as a sutler - providing the troops with food and drink - and continuing to plunge herself into danger. On one occasion, she ran onto the battlefield to carry to safety a man with both arms shot off. When Richard was killed in the battle of Malplaquet in 1709, Christian-was distraught - but not for long.
Within a few weeks she had married Grenadier Hugh Jones. When he, too, was killed in combat, she continued her life with the Army until the war ended.
She made her way to England where, in consideration of her services and valour, she was 'graciously received' by Queen Anne and the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, and given a pension for life.
She married for a third time, to another soldier, named Davies, and had a third child. The two old soldiers ended their days at the Royal Hospital Chelsea - he as a resident, she as a day pensioner - subsisting on her army pension and gifts from some of the officers under whom she had served.
When Christian died in 1739, she was buried beside her fellow pensioners and three volleys were fired over her grave.
As today's women pensioners settle in at Chelsea, the story of Christian Davies is a reminder that, long before the Army officially accepted female soldiers into its ranks, women served their country courageously.
• ANNABEL VENNING is author of Following The Drum: The Lives Of Army Wives And Daughters (Headline).
dailymail.co.uk
A Chelsea pensioner is an in-pensioner at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, a retirement home and nursing home for former members of the British Army located in Chelsea, west London.
The Royal Hospital was founded in 1682 by King Charles II for the "succour and relief of veterans broken by age and war."
Upon arrival at the Royal Hospital, each in-pensioner is given a "berth" in a ward, a small room (9 feet by 9 feet) on a long corridor, and is allocated to a company. In-pensioners surrender their army pension, in return receiving board, lodging, clothing and full medical care.
Chelsea Pensioners can leave the home to travel around the city or the country whenever they please and can wear, if they wish, civilian clothing whilst travelling. Otherwise, they wear their traditional redcoats whilst travelling. However, within the hospital, they all wear a blue uniform, except on ceremonial occasions when they wear their scarlet uniforms and tricorne hats.
All of the Chelsea Pensioners are men, with women not allowed to become members. Well, that was until last week when Dorothy Hughes and Winifred Phillips became the first female Chelsea Pensioners in the Royal Hospital's history.
Naturally, the Royal Hospital has been celebrating this momentous occasion.
However, in this fascinating article, Annabel Venning explains that Dorothy and Winifred are NOT the first female Chelsea Pensioners. They were beaten to it by 300 years by a woman named Christian Davies, a Dublin woman who, in the 1690s, dressed as a man to join the English Army (it wasn't until Scotland joined the Union in 1707 that the English Army and the Scottish Army merged to become the British Army....
This brave duo have been hailed as the first female Chelsea pensioners. In fact, they were beaten to it 300 years ago by a vengeful wife who dressed as a man...
By Annabel Venning
16th March 2009
Daily Mail
The English Army, led by the Duke of Marlborough (on the right), during the Battle of Schellenberg, 1704 (click picture to enlarge)
The English troops gathered at the bottom of the hill, poised to begin their assault on the French soldiers who stood, muskets ready, at its summit. Then the order to attack came. Rank upon rank of infantry rushed up the slope, stumbling over the crumpled corpses of the fallen as they pressed upwards, yelling and shouting.
One dragoon, who lay bleeding under a tree, cheered on the attackers until the French forces were at last dislodged from their position.
The battle of Schellenberg in 1704 was a great victory for the Duke of Marlborough and the English, followed a few weeks later by the more famous battle of Blenheim.
The dragoon was taken to the field hospital, where surgeons found a musket ball lodged so deeply in one hip that it could not be removed.
Dorothy Hughes (left) and Winifred Phillips have been hailed as the first female Chelsea pensioners - but that is far from the case...
Decades later, the old soldier would talk of those battles and wounds, reminiscing with fellow veterans at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the home for former soldiers which - news reports have claimed - has just accepted women for the first time in its history.
In fact, they are not the first female Chelsea pensioners. For the dragoon who was wounded at Schellenberg - and served in the Army for 11 years - was a woman.
And her story is a testament to courage in combat.
The Royal Hospital's admissions roll for November 1717 states that a 'fatt, jolly woman [who] received several wounds in the Service in ye habitt of a man' was admitted in recognition of her valiant behaviour.
Her name was Christian Davies, though she was also known as Christian Welsh or Mother Ross.
An educated woman, she was 26 with two young children and living in Dublin when one day her husband, Richard, vanished. She had sent him on an errand and when he failed to return she assumed he had been murdered.
Christian was paralysed with grief, for she adored her husband. But after 12 months of 'widowhood', to her amazement she received a letter from Richard informing her that he was very much alive.
Kit Cavanagh, also known as Christian Davies, a 'fatt, jolly woman [who] received several wounds in the Service in ye habitt of a man', beat the ladies to it - some 300 years ago, serving with distinction in the Army
He was serving in the Army in Flanders, where England was fighting in an alliance against the expansionist French in a conflict later known as the Nine Years War (England's allies in the conflict were the Holy Roman Empire, Holland, Spain, the Duchy of Savoy and Sweden and her enemies were, other than the French, the Irish Jacobites).
The day he had disappeared, Richard had met an old school friend, gone drinking and ended up on board a ship, which set sail for Flanders. With no means of getting back home, he had no choice but to enlist.
When Christian had recovered from her shock, she determined to go in search of her errant husband - even if it meant taking drastic action.
Leaving one child with her mother and the other with a nurse, she cut off her hair and dressed herself in one of her husband's old suits, having had, as she recalled in her memoirs, 'the precaution to quilt the waistcoat, to preserve my breasts from hurt, which were not large enough to betray my sex'.
Her disguise in place, she bought a sword and presented herself at a pub where a recruiting officer was plying his trade.
The officer was impressed with the 'clever, brisk young fellow' and, after what must have been a cursory medical examination, 'Christopher Welsh' was enlisted in an infantry regiment.
The more conventional looking Chelsea pensioners smile for the cameras
It was not long before her regiment went into battle and Christian received the first of many wounds.
It seems extraordinary that, sharing tents and even beds with fellow soldiers, she managed to keep her secret safe.
Christian quickly adopted the mannerisms of her comrades, drinking, swaggering and even flirting with local girls, so no one suspected that the smart young dragoon was anything other than who 'he' claimed to be.
In battle, she fought bravely and would join in looting and plundering. As the Army fought its way across Europe, at every camp they came to, Christian would inquire after Richard, whom she claimed was her 'brother', but to no avail.
In one town she formed a close attachment to a local girl although, as she was at pains to point out in her memoirs, it was purely platonic.
Even so, she was fond enough of her to fight a duel with a soldier who had attempted to rape her 'sweetheart'.
In another town, a woman accused her of fathering her child, a claim that Christian hotly denied, but which her comrades readily believed.
When peace was declared in 1697, the troops were disbanded and Christian returned home to Dublin, utterly disheartened. Four years after she had enlisted, she was no closer to finding her husband.
Unable to pay the nurse who had cared for one of her children, she decided to remain in her guise as a soldier.
Moreover, she found civilian life rather tame, so as soon as war broke out once more, she enlisted again and returned to the Continent to resume her search. And this time, fortune smiled on her.
Spotting some soldiers embracing their sweethearts on their return from the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, she noticed something familiar about one of the men. On closer inspection she saw it was Richard.
Though she was furious to find the man for whom she had risked her life in the arms of another woman, she was at first reluctant to reveal her identity. But then she flew into a rage and attacked the woman, cutting off her nose.
Yet even when Richard at last recognised her and the couple were reconciled, she so relished army life that she begged him to keep her identity secret - refusing even to join him in bed.
For the next two years she continued to serve as a soldier until, at the battle of Ramillies in 1706, she was hit by a mortar and taken to hospital with a fractured skull.
This time the surgeons were a little more thorough, for when removing her clothes to fix her dressing, they immediately noticed her breasts and saw that they had, as she delicately put it, 'given suck' to a baby.
Christian's secret was out and her life as a soldier was over.
Despite this, she remained with the Army, working as a sutler - providing the troops with food and drink - and continuing to plunge herself into danger. On one occasion, she ran onto the battlefield to carry to safety a man with both arms shot off. When Richard was killed in the battle of Malplaquet in 1709, Christian-was distraught - but not for long.
Within a few weeks she had married Grenadier Hugh Jones. When he, too, was killed in combat, she continued her life with the Army until the war ended.
She made her way to England where, in consideration of her services and valour, she was 'graciously received' by Queen Anne and the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, and given a pension for life.
She married for a third time, to another soldier, named Davies, and had a third child. The two old soldiers ended their days at the Royal Hospital Chelsea - he as a resident, she as a day pensioner - subsisting on her army pension and gifts from some of the officers under whom she had served.
When Christian died in 1739, she was buried beside her fellow pensioners and three volleys were fired over her grave.
As today's women pensioners settle in at Chelsea, the story of Christian Davies is a reminder that, long before the Army officially accepted female soldiers into its ranks, women served their country courageously.
• ANNABEL VENNING is author of Following The Drum: The Lives Of Army Wives And Daughters (Headline).
dailymail.co.uk
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