For LGBT+ History month I will be looking at a number of individuals who have made the headlines for ‘wearing male attire’. And why not start with some tipsy individuals who have taken Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 hit single to heart! Cue the music!
Unknown Woman, Dublin, 1828
Drunk! No, your honour, I am not drunk, I am only in spirits;
Newspaper: Western Times
Unknown Woman, Scotland, 1853
Mentioned in the Dundee section of the Montrose Review, a ‘female of loose habits’ (sex worker), is charged with drunkenness. The newspaper remarks on her attire, commenting that she wears it very well.
She has on a black surtout, satin waistcoat, satin tie, white linen shirt, black trousers, and a stylish pair of boots, and became her habiliments remarkably well.
The reporter goes on to say that she was able to give a ‘satisfactory account’ for why she is dressed in this way, and is thus discharged. We are not given her reason for wearing a ‘full suit’, and unfortunately I have been unable to find any reference of her in any other article.
Newspaper: Montrose Review
Unknown Woman, Clerkenwell, 1862
Newspaper: Dundee Advertiser
Mary Clermont, Soho, 1871
Mary Clermont, of Greek Street, Soho, is changed with loitering in Gerrard Street. She is wearing male attire and states that she is going to a ‘bal masque’ with some friends.
Police constable Hunt does not believe her and she is taken into police custody where she is ‘ordered to find two sureties in the sum of £10 each for her good behaviour’.
Newspaper: Thanet Advertiser
If you would like to know more about the bal masques held at Cremorne Gardens: https://victorianweb.org/history/london/cremorne.html
Lucy Shaw, Wandsworth, 1876
Police constable Higgs found the woman on Friday night at Wandsworth Road Railway Station dressed in man’s clothes, drunk and noisy.
Liverpool Daily Post; 26 December 1876
Mrs. Lucy Shaw is stopped by police for being drunk, wearing her husband’s clothes and playing an English concertina at Wandsworth Road Railway Station.
… an act of great indecency [and] a public offence.
Mr Bridge, magistrate
Newspaper: Liverpool Daily Post
Esther Brown, Marylebone, 1877
Mrs Esther Brown, 23 (born 1854), living in Tichbourne Street, Edgware Road is charged with being drunk and disorderly.
She is found dressed in a pair of trousers, a sealskin jacket and a deerstalker hat, and creating a scene on the Edgeware Road.
Newspaper: South London Press
Mary Brannan, Birmingham, 1881
Mrs Mary Brannan, aged 30 (Born 1851), is charged in Birmingham with ‘causing an obstruction in the street’. She was stated to be:
‘dancing in male attire in the middle of an immense crowd’.
Manchester Evening News; 13 April 1881
She later explains that her husband was an Irish street comedian, and she thought she would have a go at showing his performance.
Newspaper: Manchester Evening News
Unknown Woman, Wolverhampton, 1881
An actress is caught donning her husbands clothes and drinking with her friends in a public house in Cannock Road, Wolverhampton.
Newspaper: Birmingham Mail
A pub which matches this description is the Elephant and Castle, shown below.
Elephant and Castle Inn, Wolverhampton; circa 1876
Jane Leith/Morris, Edinburgh, 1893
Jane Leigh/Morris is charged with wearing male attire in Causwayside, Edinburgh. Her defense is that she was trying to make her neighbours laugh. Her attire consisted of:
a pair of men’s tweed trousers, a white duck jacket , and a felt hat, and that she was the worse of liquor.
She is put back into her house by a policeman, but soon comes out again with a skirt over the trousers and proceeds to walk to Preston Street and Clerk Street, then returning to Causewayside with a significant crowd following her. She is at this point arrested.
Newspaper: Edinburgh Evening Dispatch
Alice Walker, Hammersmith, 1893
Mrs. Alice Walker, of Dalling Road, Hammersmith, is charged with being drunk and disorderly in West London, walking arm-in-arm with another woman and singing loudly to a gathering crowd. She is arrested while in her attire…
…trousers and a long brown coat… with a light brown wideawake on her head.
The usher, supposing that the prisoner was a man, requested her to take off her hat.- The assistant gaoler: She is a female.- Prisoner was allowed to wear the hat.
Newspaper: The People
Harriet Robinson, Westminster, 1894
Mrs. Harriet Robinson, of Lewisham Street, Westminster, is charged with being drunk and disorderly and masquerading in male attire, after singing an ‘Irish song’ to a crowd..
…a pair of corduroy trousers, an old grey jacket, and with out a hat
When questioned by police, she says that she was ‘only having a lark’ and that the clothes belong to her husband. A local woman called Ms. Scanlan, on speaking at the court says that it was only a ‘little bit of joviality’. Mr. De Rutzen, fines the prisoner 5s. ‘taking into account that it was holiday time’.
Newspaper: Echo (London)
Were these women LGBTQ+?
It is hard to say from today’s standpoint if these women were queer or just having a laugh. The ‘idea’ of women loving women had been around since the times of Sappho. However, unlike male homosexuality it was not spoken about as much, partly due to the UK government not wanting to give women any ideas.
Historically, women were more likely than men to break ‘gender norms’, such as wearing trousers, cutting their hair and going where they shouldn’t (lectures, pubs, walking on their own, etc.). These rebellions might be partly due to the restrictions that were placed on them by families and society.
It is likely that some of these women were queer, and this is their first foray into queerness. Some of the women might have seen it as a bit of a laugh getting into their husband’s clothes and parading around, however some might have found the experience freeing. Over the coming weeks, I will present some more cases of individuals being caught in trousers, some of which will likely identify as gender-non-conforming.
Bibliography
Cremorne Gardens: https://victorianweb.org/history/london/cremorne.html
Elephant and Castle Inn:
https://lostwolverhampton.co.uk/all-gone-but-not-forgotten/
https://www.blackcountryhistory.org/collections/getrecord/GB149_P_5469
LGBT Midlands 
Leave a comment