The first documented application of "women and children first" was in May 1840 when, after a lightning strike, fire broke out aboard the American packet Poland en route from New York to Le Havre. Īccording to one expert, in modern-day evacuations people will usually help the most vulnerable – typically those injured, elderly or very young children – to escape first. 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. Despite its prominence in the popular imagination, the doctrine was unevenly applied. Notable invocations of the concept include during the 1852 evacuation of the Royal Navy troopship HMS Birkenhead and most famously during the 1912 sinking of RMS Titanic. 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'." Its practise was featured in accounts of some 18th-century shipwrecks with greater public awareness during the 19th century. In the 19th and 20th centuries, "women and children first" was seen as a chivalric ideal. However, it has no basis in maritime law. " Women and children first", known to a lesser extent as the Birkenhead drill, is a 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. Soldiers stand fast on the deck of HMS Birkenhead while women and children head off in a lifeboat, as depicted in Thomas Hemy's painting The Wreck of the Birkenhead ( c.
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