Education
She then studied as an apprentice to be a shipwright.
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Mary Lacy
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She was arguably the first of her gender to have been given an exam and a pension from the British admiralty as a shipwright. Lacy ran away from home dressed as a boy at the age of nineteen in 1759, and worked as a servant for a ship"s carpenter of the British navy under the name William Chandler until 1763. In 1770, she took her exam as a shipwright, arguably the first of her gender to have done southern
In 1771, however, she was forced to stop working because of her rheumatism, and applied for a pension from the admiralty under her legal name, Mary Lacy, which was granted.
On 25 October 1772, at Street Mary Abbots, Kensington, Mary Lacy married Josias Slade, a shipwright, of Deptford, Kent. She published her memoirs The Female Shipwright (1773).
Their other children were Josias Slade (1775–1777), Mary Slade (1777–1777), Josias Slade (1778–1781), Elizabeth Slade (1780–1780), and John Slade (born 1784). Mary died in 1801 and was buried at Street Paul, Deptford, Kent, on 3 May 1801.
Her husband, Josias Slade, died in 1814 and was also buried at Street Paul, Deptford, Kent, on 13 February 1814.
