Florentia Sale

Florentia Sale (nee Wynch; 13 August 1790 - 6 July 1853) was an English woman who, whilst married to her husband, Sir Robert Henry Sale, a British army officer, travelled the world whilst stationed with him. She was dubbed “the Grenadier in Petticoats” for her travels with the army, which took her to regions such as Mauritius, Burma and India, and various other areas under the control of the British Empire.

Lady Florentia Sale on retreat from Kabul, the Kabul disaster, January 1842 by Richard Thomas Bott, 1844

Florentia Wynch was born on 13 August 1790, in Madras, during Company rule in India, the daughter of George Wynch, a member of the civil service. George’s father Alexander Wynch was the Governor of Madras for a time during the 1770s. It is possible she is named after her paternal grandmother, Florentia Craddock, wife of Alexander. She was raised by her uncles and received a good education as a child.

In 1809 Wynch married Sir Robert Henry Sale of the British Army. She accompanied him on his numerous postings, raising their children whilst he fought. The couple’s first child, a daughter, Mary Harriet was born a year after their marriage, on 17 February 1810 in Walajabad. By the time of the birth of her second child, she had moved to Mauritius, where Sale was stationed; George Henry was born in 1811 in Port Louis, Mauritius. Five of the couple’s other children were born in Port Louis too, the last being in 1818. On 1 October 1820 she bore her eighth child, Henrietta Sarah, in Montluel, France. Her last child, Alexandrina was born nearly three years later, on 2 January 1823 in Calcutta, India.

During the First Anglo-Afghan War, Lady Sale, along with other women and children, as well as soldiers, were kidnapped in 1842 for nine months. The group were taken hostage by Akbar Khan following the massacre in the Khurd Karbul Pass. Amongst the hostages with Lady Sale was her youngest daughter Alexandrina, along with her husband Lieutenant John Sturt and their newlyborn daughter. Sturt was fatally injured by three dagger wounds to the abdomen, with Lady Sale nursing her son-in-law in his final hours. Upon his death she secured him a Christian burial; he was the only fallen officer to receive such a burial. Lady Sale, then bribed the Afghan officers into releasing them, and were then rescued by Sir Richmond Shakespear on 17 September, 1842. Her courageous and defiant actions meant that she endangered herself frequently; she was shot in the wrist, with the bullet lodging there. Throughout her time as a captive, Lady Sale kept a diary, detailing the events of the ordeal. A year later Lady Sale published her journal which documented her experiences throughout the Afghan War, and the book received critical acclaim.

Lady Sale’s husband died in action in 1845, leaving her widowed. She remained for the most part of the rest of life in India. After her husband’s death she received a pension of £500 per annum in light of her conduct as a prisoner and her husband’s military services. Sale took a trip to the Cape of Good Hope in 1853 for her health, though she died not long after her arrival, on 6 July 1853, in Cape Town, South Africa.

Lady Sale

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