Born: Circa 1779, United Kingdom
Died: After 1814
Country most active: International
Also known as: “William Roberts”
The following is excerpted from “Female Warriors: Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era,” by Ellen C. Clayton (Mrs. Needham), published in 1879 and shared online by Project Gutenberg.
During the long wars between England and the French Republic, women continued to enlist in the British Army. One of the best known female soldiers of this period was a woman named Roberts, afterwards styled the “Manchester Heroine” from the place of her death. On the 15th November, 1814, a middle-aged woman applied for relief at the Church-Warden’s offices in Manchester; and on being questioned, it appeared that she had in days gone by served her King as a soldier. Her romantic story afterwards appeared, in great detail, in the Manchester Herald.
The father of this heroine, William Roberts, was a bricklayer, and used to employ his little girl, dressed in boy’s clothes, as a labourer. When she was about fourteen years old, being tall of her age, Miss Roberts enlisted in the 15th Light Dragoons. In the course of two months she learned the drill sufficiently for all purposes of parade; and the rough-riding master told her she was the best rider in the squad he was teaching. Private William Roberts was promoted in the course of a few years, first to be a corporal, and then a sergeant; and at the expiration of her twenty-one years’ service, the colonel tendered her discharge. She demurred accepting it; but being under size, was, with her own consent, transferred to the 37th foot; which she joined at the island of St. Vincent, in the West Indies.
At St. Vincent the heroine was attacked by the yellow fever; and this being the first time in her life that she was ever laid prostrate by an illness, her sex was soon made known. On her recovery she was obliged to resume (or rather put on) female habilaments. But being still enamoured of a soldier’s life, she married, in May, 1801, a private in the 37th, named Taylor. She followed her husband through various climates; and in time became the mother of three children. She was imprisoned for two years with her husband in France, and they were only set free at the general peace of July, 1815. Her husband died the same day they landed in England; leaving his widow in great distress.
During the course of her military career, Mrs. Taylor visited the East and West Indies, and fought in Flanders, Spain, Italy, and Egypt. She received many wounds, none of which, however, were serious, though they left their scars all over her body. Her head was graced by a sabre-wound, while her leg showed where a musket-ball had been extracted. Yet despite the dangers and hardships of war, this woman sighed after the life of a soldier to the very last. She said that the only really miserable part of her life was the two years’ imprisonment in France; which, she said, did her constitution more harm than even the terrible march, under a blazing African sun, from the Red Sea to Egypt. Like a brave old veteran, she kept up her spirits even in adversity, “fought her battles o’er again,” and loved to “shoulder her crutch and show how fields were won.” Like most old soldiers, she was very fond of relating anecdotes about her past career—the battles she had fought in, the wounds she had received, and the various noble or distinguished officers she had seen.