Mary Lacy (shipwright)

Mary Lacy (born circa 1740, dead after 1773), was a British sailor, shipwright and memoirist. She was arguably the first of her gender to have 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 ships carpenter of the British navy under the name William Chandler until 1763. She the 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. Her life after 1773 is unknown.

She published her memoirs The Female Shipwright (1773).