Women doctors at sea are hard to find: I’ve tracked down what I think are the first four:
1. 1913: Dr Elizabeth Ross on Glen Line's Glenlogan
2. 1941: Dr Adaline Nancy Miller MBE on Anchor Line's Britannia
3. 1956: Dr Jessie Lindsay on an unamed Clan Line vessel
4. 1958-ish: Dr Wynne O’Mara on Blue Funnel Line's Perseus
If there were any before the 20th century they’d have been disguised as men, as was James Barry (although s/he was not working at sea, just in the army.
In the absence of hard evidence Linda Collison has imagined a woman in such a position. Patricia MacPherson, the heroine of Surgeon’s Mate, wields the lancet first on the naval frigate Richmond and then on the cargo ship Andromeda in the 1760s.
Very plausibly this novelist, ex-nurse and sailor uses her modern experiences to help us see just how ‘Patrick’ got away with being a woman. We also see the range of responses from shipmates at the revelation that ‘he’ was she: a freckled, big-boned, sparsely-endowed imposter – and very adept at her job.
Perhaps the most interesting twist was when ‘Patrick’s’ rival for promotion tries to shop Patrick, who he suspects to be a gay man. He organises a raid, only to find that in fact, Patrick was being temporarily a silk-frocked Patricia with her heterosexual true love, the gunner in his candle-lit cabin.
See Linda Collison, Surgeon’s Mate, Fireship Press, Tucson, 2010.
