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A section for all you budding etymologists where each week the origin of a word or phrase is investigated.
This week it is..... Women and children first
The seafaring command that women and children be
the first to board the lifeboats when a ship abandoned.
HMS Birkenhead sank off the coast of South Africa on
26th February 1852. This incident is widely believed to
be the origin of the phrase women and children first.
The ship was carrying 480 British troops and about
26 women and children. When the ship foundered the
soldiers’ commander Colonel Seton told them to ‘Stand
fast!’ and allow the women and children to make use
of the few lifeboats. Most of the soldiers and sailors
on board were drowned or eaten by sharks, but all the
women and children survived. The women and children
first ethos was later called the ‘Birkenhead Drill’ and
was celebrated in verse by Rudyard Kipling in his moral
boosting work Soldier an’ Sailor Too:
To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing
all about,
Is nothing so bad when you’ve cover to ‘and, an’ leave
an’ likin’ to shout;
But to stand an’ be still to the Birken’ead drill is a
damn tough bullet to chew,
An’ they done it, the Jollies - ‘Er Majesty’s Jollies soldier an’ sailor too!
Their work was done when it ‘adn’t begun; they was
younger nor me an’ you;
Their choice it was plain between drownin’ in ‘eaps
an’ bein’ mopped by the screw,
So they stood an’ was still to the Birken’ead drill,
soldier an’ sailor too!
There’s no reason to doubt that the events on HMS
Birkenhead were the origin of the women and children
first practise. It seems that the phrase wasn’t used until
later though. It doesn’t appear in any of the contemporary
reports of the wreck. Something very close is cited in
reference to a later wreck - that of the Central America,
which went down on a voyage to New York in 1857. This
reference is from the magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book,
December 1857:
“Captain Herndon’s first order, ‘Save the women and
children!’ was the test of this Christian heroism... Every
man on board that doomed ship knew the captain was
acting rightly.”
The first use of the precise phrase is from a work of
fiction - W. D. O’Connor’s Harrington, 1860:
“Back from the boats... The first man that touches a
boat I’ll brain. Women and children first, men.”
Is there an English phrase or saying that you would
like to know more about?
Email it to us on submissions@awolonline.net
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