No Storm Could Stop Betsy The Captain In Crinoline

 By Ayrshire Writer Joan Biggar   JoanBiggar@ayrshireroots.com

We’re apt to think of Victorian women as being birds in gilded cages at best and overworked, exploited drudges at worst. 

But some of those crinolined ladies were very liberated indeed, even by today’s standards - and none more so than Betsy Miller.  

She competed successfully in what was, and still is, the man’s world of coastal shipping, conveying cargoes of coal and limestone between Scotland and Ireland. 

Born in 1793, Betsy achieved the distinction of being the only woman before or since entered as captain of a merchant vessel in the Lloyd’s British Registry of Tonnage. 

Her home town of Saltcoats on the Ayrshire coast was a thriving port in the year of her birth, its harbour crammed with sailing ships of all kinds. 

Captain Miller’s ship was the ‘Clytus’, a coaling brig made from the wreck of a French man-o’-war, bearing the same name; and it was young Betsy’s delight, as an angelic-looking child clad in white muslin, to sail with her father whenever she could, When she grew up, he employed her as his shipping agent and clerk, but her dreams of commanding the ‘Clytus’ seemed like idle fancies until her father became a helpless invalid and more tragedy struck the Miller family when Betsy’s only brother was drowned at sea. 

Although she was urged to engage a captain, Betsy insisted that nobody could possibly do the job better than she could herself; and, and how right she turned out to be. 

She quickly earned herself the reputation of being the most skilled skipper ever to sail the Irish sea; and, far from being the but of jokes because they worked for a woman, her crew were treated with the utmost respect. And for good reason! 

In those days it was the custom to place lighted candles on the window sills of houses overlooking the sea but this was not for the romantic notion of guiding wandering boys home. Its purpose was the more practical one of finding the direction of ‘the carrying wind’ and its strength. If the wind from the sea was strong enough to blow out the candle flame, the ‘carry’ was obviously in the wrong direction for any sailing ship heading for the Irish coast and most captains engaged in the coastal trade would retire to their favourite taverns until the weather suited them better. But not Betsy!  

“I don’t wait for the ‘carry’ !” was her boast. Time and tide might wait for no man but she could handle them both and be across to Belfast, Dublin or Cork and back again whilst the more cautious ship masters lingered in Saltcoats, waiting for the wind to change and losing trade to the sturdy, second-hand ‘Clytus’ made from scrap and with a woman at the helm. 

But, despite her love of challenge  and adventure and her ability handle her ship  and its crew in weathers, Betsy was no grog-swilling, tobacco-chewing battle-axe. She is described in contemporary records as being of medium height, ‘sonsy’ and well-favoured in appearance whilst in character and personality she was ‘a hardy one and a regular brick with a grand sense of humour’, according to her admiring deckhands. 

“How’s she doing now, lads?’ Betsy was wont to ask, popping her head, crowned with a frilly, white cambric cap, out of the cabin window like any housewife leaning over her window sill. And when weather and work were dirty, she was never slow to order an extra noggin of grog all round. 

Keeping up appearances on a coaling brig couldn’t have been easy, but Betsy’s caps were always as crisp and snowy white as new sprung daisies. And when she went ashore at Irvine, the rival port to Ardrossan and Saltcoats, she did it in style in her best gown, cashmere shawl and bonnet dripping with flowers and fruit. 

It was part of Betsy’s magic that she always looked as though she had stepped straight out of a bandbox and she prided herself on being correctly dressed for every occasion, changing into her best petticoats, when storms blew up in case the ship was wrecked. She also never sailed without her shroud. 

The ‘Clytus’ differed from other vessels in the coal trade by having a poop deck with a cabin on it and this was used by Betsy as a retiring and dressing room. The only other person allowed into this sanctum was her first mate who was single, handsome and came from the same seafaring background. Captain and mate slept there together, which didn’t raise an eyebrow either at sea or on laud, because Betsy’s mate (and chaperon) was her sister Hannah. 

Betsy began her career as captain when she was 46 and followed the sea for 22 years. When she first got her capable hands on the wheel of the ‘Clytus’ the Miller family had been deeply in debt; but when she retired in 1861 she was the wealthiest woman on the Ayrshire coast

Betsy's Kirn

The following contributed by Lindsay Young - rsqyoung@blueyonder.co.uk

It is by the well known Ian Mackintosh (deceased) in “Old Troon and District” 

“Before the Bathing Pool was built, most of  the youth of Troon went sea bathing at Betsy's Kirn, which is a little inlet in the rocks opposite  the top end of Welbeck Crescent. A changing  shelter and a spring board were fastened to the  rocks. When bathing in a storm, many a boy was  washed out of the sea on to the rocks, with dire  results to their skins. The Kirn has got silted  up since I last used it. I don't know where the  name is derived from, but the "Troon & Prestwick Times", on 15th May, 1964, printed an  article on the centenary of the death on 12th May, 1864, of Miss Betsy Miller, at the age of 71 years.  She was better known in her day as  Captain Betsy Miller, of the brig "Clytus", in  which she carried cargo up and down the Ayrshire coast, and across to Ireland. She belonged  to Saltcoats, which was her home port. Anyhow,  she must have known Troon well, and it is quite within the bounds of possibility that in an east  wind, the "Clytus" would use Betsy's Kirn for  loading or unloading her cargo — at least, I would like to think that Troon had a share in  Captain Betsy, who was very famous in her day.”

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