Mary Read

Description

Mary Read

Mary Read (1685 – 28 April 1721), was an English pirate. She and Anne Bonny are two famous female pirates from 18th century, and among the few women known to have been convicted of piracy at the height of the “Golden Age of Piracy”.

Read was born in England in 1685. She began dressing as a boy at a young age, at first at her mother’s urging in order to receive inheritance money and then as a teenager in order to join the British military. She then married and upon her husband’s death moved to the West Indies around 1715. In 1720 she met Jack Rackham and joined his crew, dressing as a man alongside Anne Bonny. Her time as a pirate was successful but short lived, as she, Bonny and Rackham were arrested in November 1720.

Mary Read was born in the Kingdom of England in 1685. Her mother had married a sailor and had a son. After her husband disappeared at sea, Mary’s mother became pregnant after an extramarital love affair. Read’s mother attempted to hide the pregnancy by going to live with friends in the country. Shortly thereafter, her son died, and she gave birth to Mary. In financial distress, her mother decided to disguise Mary as her dead son, in order to receive monetary support from her late husband’s mother. The grandmother was apparently fooled, and mother and daughter lived on the inheritance into Mary’s teen years. Dressed as a boy, Read found work as a foot-boy, and, then, employment on a ship.

She later joined the British military, which was allied with Dutch forces against the French (this could have been during the Nine Years War or during the War of the Spanish Succession). Read, in male disguise, proved herself through battle, but fell in love with a Flemish soldier. When they married, she used their military commission and gifts from intrigued brethren in arms to acquire an inn named “De drie hoefijzers” (“The Three Horseshoes”) near Breda Castle in The Netherlands.

Upon her husband’s early death, Read resumed male dress and military service in the Netherlands. With peace, there was no room for advancement, so she quit and boarded a ship bound for the West Indies. Read’s ship was taken by pirates, whom she willingly joined. She accepted the King’s pardon c. 1718–1719, then took a commission to privateer, but joined the crew in mutiny. In 1720 she joined pirate John “Calico Jack” Rackham and his companion, Anne Bonny, who both believed her to be a man. On 22 August 1720, the three stole an armed sloop named William from port in Nassau.

A victim of the pirates, Dorothy Thomas, left a description of Read and Bonny: They “wore men’s jackets, and long trousers, and handkerchiefs tied about their heads: and … each of them had a machete and pistol in their hands”

One fine scale, 28mm miniature, exquisitely sculpted by Iain Lovecraft and available now as a traditionally cast metal collectors / gaming miniature.

Complete with 28mm round MDF base.