About the Book
'One of the most exotic and mysterious legends of military history has finally been verified . . . Matthew Stephens has shed fresh light on the lurid accounts of Snell's life in the Royal Marines and the British Army.' The Sunday Times (London)
For the first time, Matthew Stephens has looked behind the myths and reveals an intriguing tale of bravery and deceit and has discovered previously unknown archival material in his quest to test a narrative carefully constructed by Hannah’s publisher, the notorious Robert Walker. Stephens not only follows Hannah on her journey to India and back, but for the first time he traces her theatrical appearances in London and the provinces.
When this new version of Hannah’s story was first released in 1997, it challenged almost 250 years of Chinese whispers. This newly expanded digital edition contains not only Stephens’ original discussion of the Snell story, but also lists for the first time primary and secondary research sources, includes an extended reader of early newspaper and magazine reports about Snell and republishes a little-known chapbook, The Female Soldier; or, Interesting Adventures of Mrs Hannah Snell, released in the early 1820s.
When this new version of Hannah’s story was first released in 1997, it challenged almost 250 years of Chinese whispers. This newly expanded digital edition contains not only Stephens’ original discussion of the Snell story, but also lists for the first time primary and secondary research sources, includes an extended reader of early newspaper and magazine reports about Snell and republishes a little-known chapbook, The Female Soldier; or, Interesting Adventures of Mrs Hannah Snell, released in the early 1820s.
Reviews for the First Edition
'In this well-produced and readable booklet genealogist Matthew Stephens...has given fresh impetus to the story. There is no doubt it is a good tale that has lost nothing in the telling.' -- The Northern Mariner - July 1998
'This book is thoroughly recommended as a good read, as a social history and as a fine example of meticulously documented research.' -- The Family Tree Magazine - December 1997
'Until now, military historians have been sceptical about accounts of her life, dismissing them as, at best, vastly exaggerated and, at worst, largely fictional. However, a new book by Australian author Matthew Stephens details the tragic but ultimately exhilarating tale of Snell's life in the British Army and the Royal Marines.' -- The Daily Mail - 15 December 1997
'This book is thoroughly recommended as a good read, as a social history and as a fine example of meticulously documented research.' -- The Family Tree Magazine - December 1997
'Until now, military historians have been sceptical about accounts of her life, dismissing them as, at best, vastly exaggerated and, at worst, largely fictional. However, a new book by Australian author Matthew Stephens details the tragic but ultimately exhilarating tale of Snell's life in the British Army and the Royal Marines.' -- The Daily Mail - 15 December 1997
Forward to the Expanded Digital Edition
When I was first bitten by the Hannah Snell bug, a little over 20 years ago, a resurgence of interest in this unusual woman had just begun. I was one of many who, since Hannah had revealed her secret life dressed as a man in the English Royal Marines in 1750, had been both fascinated and challenged by the incredulity of her story. In 1989, three publications had sparked this new interest: Julie Wheelwright’s Amazons and Military Maids, Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte C. van de Pol’s The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe and a facsimile printing of The Female Soldier; or, the Surprising Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell (1750) with an introduction by Dianne Dugaw. While none of these publications offered new research on the details of the Snell story, they provided not only new contexts and ways of thinking about this woman but also an impetus to take her story further.
It was Hannah’s appearances on the London stage, where she sang songs and performed military exercises, which had caught my attention when I first read about her in 1990. I was intrigued to know what was going through the minds of the general public as they watched Hannah, dressed in masquerade, recreate her adventures both at sea and in war. I read all the accounts I could find here in Sydney, spanning more than two centuries, and it quickly became apparent that little archival research had ever been done to test Hannah’s narrative, as mediated by her publisher, the notorious Robert Walker. There has been an information revolution since I first began searching for printed and archival material and it is easy to forget that there were no online library and archive catalogues, no digitised books or newspapers available, no Ancestry.com and that I even had to pay researchers to pick up free information brochures from the Public Record Office (now the National Archives) in London and post them to me. It was clear that I needed to visit libraries and archives in Britain if I wanted to do justice to the story.
It was during my first trip, in 1991, that I did a lot of the ground work – spending weeks in the British Library and the Public Record Office – and immersing myself in Hannah’s eighteenth-century world. It wasn’t until my second trip, however, in 1995, that I started to feel a real empathy towards Hannah. I had made contact with Hannah’s direct descendants and, though completely oblivious to her heritage, one of them, Jean Ryles, took to the story with a passion. Jean, her husband Bill, and I spent many hours not only visiting archives but also retracing Hannah’s steps around a much-changed London and we maintained our ‘Hannah Snell fan club’ across the Indian Ocean until Jean’s death, three years ago. Jean may not have been as adventurous as Hannah – she disliked travelling by boat or plane – but she displayed a strong commitment to communicating a more accurate account of her ancestor’s story that Hannah would have no doubt respected (even if annoyed by our revelations).
In her forward to the first edition of this book, in 1997, Jean observed of Hannah that ‘people will continue talking about her for many years to come’ and this has certainly been true. This small book changed Hannah’s narrative and a selection of the books that have cited my original work is included at the end of this new edition. I revealed for the first time that Hannah had not been wounded in the battle she claimed (despite the army confirming her story) and I traced the full extent of her stage career both in London and the provinces. Most importantly, perhaps, I was able to demonstrate that the apparently outlandish biography published in 1750 was accurate in many of its claims. There still remain many gaps in our knowledge of Hannah Snell and, despite further original research by Suzanne J. Stark in the late 1990s and the more recent ‘digital explosion’, the story remains as I described it in 1997.
This expanded digital edition is almost twice as large as my original publication and includes not only a bibliography of sources but also an appendix of key accounts of Hannah Snell published up until the end of the nineteenth century, as well as some unpublished primary source material. Also reproduced for the first time is a little-known chapbook, The Female Soldier; or, Interesting Adventures of Mrs Hannah Snell… (c.1822). It is these early accounts that entrenched the Snell narrative and which remained virtually unchanged until the publication of the first edition of this book.
I dedicate this new edition to the passion of Jean Ryles, Hannah Snell’s fifth-generation granddaughter.
Matthew Stephens, PhD
Sydney, 2014
It was Hannah’s appearances on the London stage, where she sang songs and performed military exercises, which had caught my attention when I first read about her in 1990. I was intrigued to know what was going through the minds of the general public as they watched Hannah, dressed in masquerade, recreate her adventures both at sea and in war. I read all the accounts I could find here in Sydney, spanning more than two centuries, and it quickly became apparent that little archival research had ever been done to test Hannah’s narrative, as mediated by her publisher, the notorious Robert Walker. There has been an information revolution since I first began searching for printed and archival material and it is easy to forget that there were no online library and archive catalogues, no digitised books or newspapers available, no Ancestry.com and that I even had to pay researchers to pick up free information brochures from the Public Record Office (now the National Archives) in London and post them to me. It was clear that I needed to visit libraries and archives in Britain if I wanted to do justice to the story.
It was during my first trip, in 1991, that I did a lot of the ground work – spending weeks in the British Library and the Public Record Office – and immersing myself in Hannah’s eighteenth-century world. It wasn’t until my second trip, however, in 1995, that I started to feel a real empathy towards Hannah. I had made contact with Hannah’s direct descendants and, though completely oblivious to her heritage, one of them, Jean Ryles, took to the story with a passion. Jean, her husband Bill, and I spent many hours not only visiting archives but also retracing Hannah’s steps around a much-changed London and we maintained our ‘Hannah Snell fan club’ across the Indian Ocean until Jean’s death, three years ago. Jean may not have been as adventurous as Hannah – she disliked travelling by boat or plane – but she displayed a strong commitment to communicating a more accurate account of her ancestor’s story that Hannah would have no doubt respected (even if annoyed by our revelations).
In her forward to the first edition of this book, in 1997, Jean observed of Hannah that ‘people will continue talking about her for many years to come’ and this has certainly been true. This small book changed Hannah’s narrative and a selection of the books that have cited my original work is included at the end of this new edition. I revealed for the first time that Hannah had not been wounded in the battle she claimed (despite the army confirming her story) and I traced the full extent of her stage career both in London and the provinces. Most importantly, perhaps, I was able to demonstrate that the apparently outlandish biography published in 1750 was accurate in many of its claims. There still remain many gaps in our knowledge of Hannah Snell and, despite further original research by Suzanne J. Stark in the late 1990s and the more recent ‘digital explosion’, the story remains as I described it in 1997.
This expanded digital edition is almost twice as large as my original publication and includes not only a bibliography of sources but also an appendix of key accounts of Hannah Snell published up until the end of the nineteenth century, as well as some unpublished primary source material. Also reproduced for the first time is a little-known chapbook, The Female Soldier; or, Interesting Adventures of Mrs Hannah Snell… (c.1822). It is these early accounts that entrenched the Snell narrative and which remained virtually unchanged until the publication of the first edition of this book.
I dedicate this new edition to the passion of Jean Ryles, Hannah Snell’s fifth-generation granddaughter.
Matthew Stephens, PhD
Sydney, 2014