Mary Lacy

Mary Lacy (born circa 1740, died 1801) was a British sailor, shipwright and memoirist. She was arguably the first of her gender to have been given an exam and a pension from the British admiralty as a shipwright.

Lacy ran away from home dressed as a boy at the age of nineteen in 1759, and worked as a servant for a ship's carpenter of the British navy under the name William Chandler until 1763. She then studied as an apprentice to be a shipwright. In 1770, she took her exam as a shipwright, arguably the first of her gender to have done so. In 1771, however, she was forced to stop working because of her rheumatism, and applied for a pension from the admiralty under her legal name, Mary Lacy, which was granted.

On the 25th of October, 1772, at St Mary Abbots, Kensington, Mary Lacy married Josias Slade, a Shipwright, of Deptford, Kent.

She published her memoirs The Female Shipwright (1773).

That same year, Mary gave birth to her first child, Margaret Lacey Slade, who was baptized at St Nicholas, Deptford, Kent, on the 29th of August. Their other children were Josias Slade (1775-1777), Mary Slade (1777-1777), Josias Slade (1778-1781), Elizabeth Slade (1780-1780), and John Slade (1784-?).

In 1775 Mary petitioned for her husband to be granted a servant because of his 16 years' service as a Shipwright. She had also applied unsuccessfully before Lord Sandwich for her husband to succeed Thomas Boyles, who lined the stuff for the Sawyers at the dockyard.

Mary died in 1801 and was buried at St Paul, Deptford, Kent, on the 3rd of May, 1801. Her husband, Josias Slade, died in 1814 and was also buried at St Paul, Deptford, Kent, on the 13th of February, 1814. In his will and codicil, he only mentions his son, John Slade, and daughter, Margaret, now wife of Joseph Ward (Margaret Lacey Ward died the following year and was buried at St Paul, Deptford, Kent, on the 23rd of April, 1815 ).