THE BOARDING SHIRT

Following the death of her husband, Mary Read disguised herself as a man — as she had done for most of her unmarried life — and joined a ship bound for the West Indies. When this ship was captured by pirates, she joined them. 

Amongst those pirates was Anne Bonny, the daughter of a rich lawyer who had, in order to forestall him finding a husband for her, secretly married a young sailor and, as a result, was turned out without a penny. The young sailor, learning of this, ran off and soon after, so did she, this time to sea, disguised as a sailor, with the young pirate Captain John Rackham A.K.A. Calico Jack. 

The two women found worthy companions in each other, having both revealed their genders in proclaiming their mutual attraction, and were shown to be as good fighters as the men when, in 1720, they were attacked by an armed vessel sent out from Jamaica to capture them. 

The print on this shirt is a Ladybird depiction of that occasion.