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Thanks to everyone who joined us on Sunday, 23rd of July when The Golden Hinde was taken over by female pirates. Using resources from Kids in Museums Youth Takeover day, we invited Coin Street’s Good for Girls, a local community group for young women aged 11-16 to work on a project inspired by the ship.

Due to the history of the Golden Hinde being predominantly male it felt very important and interesting to see what would happen when women took over. The group was drawn towards the stories of female pirates, specifically Sayyida Al Hurra, Ching Shi, Grace O’Malley, Mary Read and Anne Bonny. 

Over the last few months we have developed this project through a visit to The Golden Hinde at the beginning and then over 10 workshops held at Coin Street, at first weekly and then twice a week. We were so impressed by the commitment shown by all participants and overall we had 17 young women working on the project.

One of the group members said ‘I enjoyed The Golden Hinde Project because I got to spend time with my friends as well as learning about different female pirates! When I was younger, whenever pirates were mentioned, I'd always get an image of a male pirate in my head. But since I've learned about these amazing people, that image has changed.’ 

The group dressed up as pirates and held a photoshoot, the images were used to make collages.  They came up with pirate personas and wrote stories about these characters. We explored the history of Queen Elizabeth I, created our own versions of the Armada portrait and looked at Tudor symbolism in art. 

On the day of the takeover the young women got to work as curators.  They turned the Hold (storage space on the ship) into an art gallery full of beautiful canvases responding to what they had learned. The Great Cabin was filled with collages, images and stories of the pirates they had created, making it look as if those characters were the crew on a voyage together. Their film where they performed as some of their favourite female pirates from history was also on show.

The young people had many other jobs during the takeover helping visitors engage with the ship and their project. Many of them ran tours throughout the day, recounting its history and getting visitors to interact with their cannon demonstration. Two young people ran a “gambling” game in the Hold which Elizabethan sailors would have played to pass the time. Members of the group photographed and documented the event.   

It was a really amazing day that celebrated the hard work of these brilliant young women and was the perfect way to start off our summer holiday offerings. During the summer there will be a chest full of some of the young people’s work on display on the ship. So do look out for that on your next visit. 

We want to say a massive thank you to Kids in Museums who created the Kids Takeover Day concept and especially to Coin Street who were a fabulous partner group. 

Find out what’s on this summer.