Emma Hamilton, war, and the depiction of femininity in the late eighteenth century

Abstract

This article considers how representations of gender in late-eighteenth-century England were influenced by age group, social class, naval rank and the context of war. In particular, it looks at the way in which Admiral Nelson's adulterous relationship with Emma Hamilton was depicted, focusing on James Gillray's caricature of Emma in Dido, in despair! (1801). In the print, Gillray hints at Emma's pregnancy and at the recent birth of Nelson's illegitimate child in London. This essay sets public representations of Emma in context, examining contemporary anxieties about gender boundaries and public attitudes towards women in wartime. It compares this naval print of Emma with those featuring army officers during both the earlier American Revolutionary War and the war against Napoleon. The Dido figure is one that Gillray had employed several times before to illuminate the plight of women who had been cruelly abandoned or mistreated by their lovers. His earlier prints had depicted the female victim in a sympathetic light. In Dido, in despair!, on the other hand, Emma is treated more harshly, owing to the negative response of London society to Nelson's philandering, the openness with which he conducted the affair, and to the particular constraints in wartime on the behaviour of women who aspired to gentility.

Keywords:

• Emma Hamilton
• Nelson
• Gillray
• gender
• phallocentrism
• Dido
• misogyny
• patriotism

Notes

1. A relational approach to gender seeks to understand how gender relations shape, and are shaped by, institutions and social expectations. It examines intersections between gender and social relations, including sexuality, age and ethnicity.

2. See The Lewis Walpole Library, 800.11.16.01, The wags of Windsor or love in a camp, by an anonymous artist and published by Robert Hixon, 1800.

3. Cf. Jones, ‘Notes on The camp’.

4. See Hurl-Eamon, Marriage and the British army.

5. McCreery, ‘True blue', 136.

6. George Colman's The female chevalier and John Philip Kemble's The female officer were both staged in 1778. See Wahrman, ‘Percy's prologue', 159.

7. See British Museum, 1935,0522.2.76, An officer of the Light Infantry, driven by his lady to Cox's Heath, published by Carington Bowles, 1778.

8. See British Museum, 2010,7081.3029, A Morning frolic, or the transmutation of the sexes, published by Carington Bowles, 1780.

9. Wahrman, ‘Percy's prologue', 136.

10. Ibid., 132. For use of the term ‘Amazonian’, see Barker-Benfield, Culture of sensibility, 351–9.

11. Guest, Small change, 246.

12. See West, ‘Darly macaroni prints’.

13. See Prints, drawings and watercolors from The Anne S. K, Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.

14. See British Museum, 2010,7081.909, Corporal Cartouch teaching Miss Camp-Love her manual exercise from the original picture painted by Mr. Collett, published by Robert Sayer, 1787.

15. Hurl-Eamon, Marriage and the British army, 18.

16. Guest, Small change, 32, 39.

17. See Franklin, ‘Romantic patriotism’.

18. Robinson, Letter to the women of England, 94.

19. Gordon, ‘Filles publiques or public women’, 616, 618.

20. See BL, Add. MS 80461 C, Lady Hamilton's attitudes (S.W. Fores, 1794); Gattrell, City of laughter, 308, 399–400.

21. See NMM, PAF3879, A Cognocenti contemplating ye Beauties of ye Antique, hand-coloured etching by James Gillray, published by Hannah Humphrey, 11 Feb. 1801.

22. Gattrell, City of laughter, 300ff.

23. See Gisborne, Duties of the female sex, 2.

24. See Vickery, Behind closed doors, 10, 16.

25. Lincoln, Naval wives and mistresses, 73ff. Wives of some other professional men also shouldered the lion's share of domestic burdens at times. See Vickery, Behind closed doors, 10–11.

26. The Morning Post, 22 Apr. 1794, 2.

27. BL, Add. MS 75644, vol. cccxliv, Apr.–Nov. 1794. Caroline, wife of John Howe, to Lady Georgiana Spencer, 178.

28. Fremantle, ed., Wynne diaries, vol. 2, 262–3.

29. Ibid., vol. 3, 310.

30. Ibid., 346.

31. Gattrell, City of laughter, 40.

32. BL Add. MS 41492, note 42.

33. BL Add. MS 75643, vol. cccxliii, June 1793–March 1794, 129 (4 June 1793).

34. Molloy, ed., Memoirs of Mary Robinson, 14, 17.

35. Russell, Representative actors, 473.

36. Williams, England's mistress, 41.

37. Guest, Small change, 283–4, 289.

38. Elite women were pilloried for holding illegal faro parties but do not seem to have retaliated. (Since gaming was represented as analogous to battle, women were also ‘usurping’ male privilege by gambling to excess.) See Walcot, ‘Mrs. Hobart's routs', 466, 476.

39. Gattrell, City of laughter, 387.

40. Molloy, ed., Memoirs of Mary Robinson, 177–8.

41. Lincoln, Naval wives, 144ff.

42. See British Museum 2010,7081.3252, The soldier's adieu (1793); Lewis Walpole Library, 787.10.26.02, The farewell (1787); NMM, PAF4033, The sailor's farewell; NMM, AAA5177, ceramic jug.