Place Name
Recalls the adventures of Phoebe Hessel (March 1713 – December 12, 1821), the so-called Stepney Amazon who, pretending to be a man, enlisted into the British Army so that she could serve with her lover, Samuel Golding, when he was posted to the West Indies and later Gibraltar. According to one version, her secret was only discovered when she was undressed to be whipped, to the shock of her fellow soldiers but she demanded: “Strike and be damned!”. The punishment was rescinded and she and her lover were discharged and later married. When her husband died she remarried and moved to Brighton, where she lived until the grand age of 108.
