Women and children first

For other uses, see Women and children first (disambiguation).

Soldiers stand fast on the deck of HMS Birkenhead in 1852 while women and children head off in a lifeboat, as depicted in Thomas Hemy's painting The Wreck of the Birkenhead (c. 1892).

"Women and children first", known to a lesser extent as the Birkenhead drill,[1][2] is an unofficial code of conduct whereby the lives of women and children were to be saved first in a life-threatening situation, typically abandoning ship, when survival resources such as lifeboats were limited. However, it has no basis in maritime law.

In the 19th and early 20th century, "women and children first" was seen as a chivalric ideal.[3] The concept "was celebrated among Victorian and Edwardian commentators as a long-standing practice – a 'tradition', 'law of human nature', 'the ancient chivalry of the sea', 'handed down in the race'."[3] Its practice was featured in accounts of some 18th-century shipwrecks with greater public awareness during the 19th century.[3]

Notable invocations of the concept include during the 1852 evacuation of the Royal Navy troopship HMS Birkenhead,[4] the 1857 sinking of the ship SS Central America,[5] and most famously during the 1912 sinking of the Titanic. Despite its prominence in the popular imagination, the doctrine was unevenly applied.[3][6] The use of "women and children first" during the Birkenhead evacuation was a "celebrated exception", used to establish a tradition of English chivalry during the second half of the 19th century.[3]

According to one expert, in modern-day evacuations people will usually help the most vulnerable – typically those injured, elderly or very young  – to escape first.[4]

  1. ^ Rudyard Kipling (2005). Collected Verse of Rudyard Kipling. Kessinger. p. 305. ISBN 1-4179-0750-9.
  2. ^ Heinlein 1978, p. 169.
  3. ^ a b c d e Delap, Lucy (1 January 2006). "'Thus Does Man Prove His Fitness to Be the Master of Things': Shipwrecks, Chivalry and Masculinities in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Britain". Cultural and Social History. 3 (1): 45–74. doi:10.1191/1478003805cs044oa. ISSN 1478-0038. S2CID 153392118.
  4. ^ a b de Castella, Tom (16 January 2012). "Costa Concordia: The Rules of Evacuating a Ship". BBC News.
  5. ^ Naval History and Heritage Command. "William Lewis Herndon". NHHC. Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 2 July 2023. Her boats were lowered and filled first with the women and children, who all arrived alongside the brig and were safely taken on board.
  6. ^ Elinder & Erixson 2012.