Latest / Ridiculous History / Fanny and Stella: The Cross-Dressing Scandal of Victorian England

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Fanny and Stella: The Cross-Dressing Scandal of Victorian England · Ridiculous History

0:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. We're opening today's episode with an excerpt from a
0:27
Speaker 1: letter written on November around probably eight sixty nine. My
0:33
Speaker 1: dearest Arthur, how very kind of you to think of
0:36
Speaker 1: me on my birthday. I had no idea that you
0:39
Speaker 1: would do, so it was very good of you to write,
0:41
Speaker 1: and I am really very grateful for it. I require
0:44
Speaker 1: no remembrances of my sister's husband, as the many kindnesses
0:48
Speaker 1: he has bestowed upon me will make me remember him
0:51
Speaker 1: for many a year, and the birthday present he is
0:53
Speaker 1: so kind as to promise me, will only be one
0:56
Speaker 1: addition to the heap of little favors I already treasure
1:00
Speaker 1: up and we'll cut it there and go to the
1:02
Speaker 1: signature and says, believe me, your affectionate sister in law,
1:06
Speaker 1: Fanny Winnifred Park and uh, Fanny Winnifred Park in this
1:11
Speaker 1: letter is writing to a fellow named Lord Arthur Clinton.
1:14
Speaker 1: That's right, we'll get to you. Okay, we'll circle back
1:16
Speaker 1: to this part of the story. Welcome to the Ridiculous history. Yeah,
1:19
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, yeah, who are you? Okay? And I'm Ben.
1:22
Speaker 1: You are still Ben, yes, And that's what they call me,
1:25
Speaker 1: uh in this part of the world. And we are
1:27
Speaker 1: of course joined as always with our super producer, Casey Pegram.
1:33
Speaker 1: What do they call you elsewhere in the world, Ben,
1:35
Speaker 1: And do you have a knighthood that we don't know about?
1:36
Speaker 1: Are you a sir or a lord? I don't know
1:40
Speaker 1: if it is something you could pronounce, not just you specifically,
1:44
Speaker 1: I mean the human tongue. Yeah, got it. It's kind
1:47
Speaker 1: of weird, but you know how it is. You get
1:48
Speaker 1: in situations, you travel, Yeah, whichy stuff happens? Yeah, you
1:52
Speaker 1: make deals whatever. Boy, we got off the we got
1:56
Speaker 1: off the rails really quickly on this wal shaking my
2:01
Speaker 1: shaking his head. Okay, So the Fanny in question who
2:05
Speaker 1: is writing to Lord Clinton is someone known as Mrs
2:11
Speaker 1: Fanny Graham like Graham Cracker, right, And the sister she
2:16
Speaker 1: is referring to is someone named Ms. Stella Bolton or
2:21
Speaker 1: occasionally she will sign things as Stella Clinton. That's right.
2:25
Speaker 1: And they referred to each other constantly as sisters. Um.
2:28
Speaker 1: But in fact, these two quite theatrical individuals were in
2:33
Speaker 1: fact their Christian names were Ernest Bolton and William Park,
2:37
Speaker 1: and they were in fact men who were widely known
2:41
Speaker 1: in the London theater community UM as being very successful
2:46
Speaker 1: cross dressers. And I just want to point out right
2:47
Speaker 1: up front, yeah, I thought that term was antiquated. I
2:50
Speaker 1: wasn't sure if that was like the okay thing to say,
2:52
Speaker 1: but I did look it up on the Gay and
2:54
Speaker 1: Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation website which has a media section,
2:58
Speaker 1: and cross dresser is there for term does not imply
3:02
Speaker 1: um that either individual is gay, but it's just specifically
3:06
Speaker 1: referring to someone of a gender that likes to dress
3:09
Speaker 1: like a member of another gender. And that was the
3:12
Speaker 1: case with Fannie and Stella Rights. So. Stella, also known
3:18
Speaker 1: as Ernest, was born in eighteen forty seven, the child
3:24
Speaker 1: of a stock broker, and Park was born in eighteen
3:30
Speaker 1: forty six, the child of a barrister, so a legal official.
3:34
Speaker 1: That's right. And Stella's mother encouraged him from an early
3:37
Speaker 1: age to kind of follow that impulse to wear clothing
3:43
Speaker 1: of of the the opposite sex, which was kind of
3:45
Speaker 1: common in Victorian era, or not less uncommon than it
3:49
Speaker 1: is now. That's right, because women, for a long time
3:51
Speaker 1: we're not allowed to act in the theater, so parts,
3:56
Speaker 1: female parts were played by men and drag, right, and
4:01
Speaker 1: this this was an old tradition, and these two people
4:06
Speaker 1: were talented actors. Bolton in particular was known for having
4:10
Speaker 1: a wonderful soprano voice, and they both regularly played female
4:15
Speaker 1: parts in legitimate theaters and then also at this time,
4:19
Speaker 1: some theatrical productions would go to uh country house private
4:24
Speaker 1: homes for private event of like let's say, um, philanthropists
4:28
Speaker 1: of the arts. They would have a salon at that
4:30
Speaker 1: house and like host some sort of event where there
4:32
Speaker 1: would be a play put on and a collection of
4:35
Speaker 1: various wealthy individuals from the community would go there and
4:39
Speaker 1: check it out, like Lord raving Ham Poutin on the Ritz,
4:44
Speaker 1: Lord Pilkington of Ebbsworth. Yeah, Lord Webby Toes hand Time
4:50
Speaker 1: the of the of the old Northern English hand time dynasty. No,
4:56
Speaker 1: but we are The point is true and and it's
4:58
Speaker 1: important thing to to mentioned. They were playing these female
5:02
Speaker 1: parts in theatrical productions, but they were also uh wearing
5:09
Speaker 1: clothing that Victorian society said should only be worn by
5:13
Speaker 1: women off stage. Yeah, like in public, like walking around
5:16
Speaker 1: town and um, just just to paint your picture here.
5:19
Speaker 1: They were not necessarily professional actors. It was something they
5:21
Speaker 1: like to do in their free time. But in their
5:24
Speaker 1: day jobs, their day lives. Earnest Um who was twenty two,
5:28
Speaker 1: and Frederick who was twenty three, just a year old.
5:31
Speaker 1: That's right. Frederick was a law student, and I believe
5:34
Speaker 1: Ernest was a clerk um at a law firm. Um
5:39
Speaker 1: and I think he ended up working at a bank
5:40
Speaker 1: as well at some point. And let's let's examine their
5:43
Speaker 1: lives a little in a little more details. So these
5:46
Speaker 1: are famous friends. They referred to each other as sisters.
5:49
Speaker 1: They have this really strong bond and you know, they're
5:53
Speaker 1: in their early twenties. What a time to be alive, right,
5:57
Speaker 1: glory days. They also do not shy away from public
6:00
Speaker 1: attention or controversy the dresses of the time. For anybody's
6:07
Speaker 1: interested in the history of fashion, we'd also like to
6:09
Speaker 1: recommend our Pure podcast Dressed available now wherever you find
6:14
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. But their clothing that they would wear,
6:18
Speaker 1: it was incredibly complicated, at least to me, unlike a
6:22
Speaker 1: slacks and address shirt guy. But it's important to note
6:25
Speaker 1: that they also dressed as what would stereotypically be considered
6:29
Speaker 1: men two, and they would stroll back and forth what's
6:35
Speaker 1: called the derby. This is from a great article on
6:39
Speaker 1: Indiana dot e d you off the pedestal. Uh. They
6:43
Speaker 1: would attract attention because they would wearing male dress, but
6:45
Speaker 1: they would also wear makeup, which was normally associated with
6:50
Speaker 1: women at the time. That's right. There were several accounts
6:52
Speaker 1: of folks who knew them around town who said that
6:56
Speaker 1: they thought that they were too gay women wearing men's clothing.
7:03
Speaker 1: And there were accounts of folks who when when seeing
7:06
Speaker 1: them wearing women's clothing, thought they were two gay men
7:09
Speaker 1: wearing women's clothing. So they like, the gender identity is
7:13
Speaker 1: extra kind of muddled up here in in a really
7:15
Speaker 1: interesting way. The thing about it is to theaters, in
7:18
Speaker 1: particular in London were kind of a hotbed for this
7:22
Speaker 1: sort of underground gay world was certainly not accepted um
7:27
Speaker 1: in the mainstream. These theaters would be away for folks
7:32
Speaker 1: in this scene to connect with one another obviously before
7:35
Speaker 1: you know Facebook and tender and scruff and things like that.
7:39
Speaker 1: They had to have away and also to kind of
7:41
Speaker 1: keep it secret. Yeah, there was another thing that occurred
7:45
Speaker 1: called molly house. Do you hear about this? So? A
7:49
Speaker 1: molly house was a term that was used in the
7:52
Speaker 1: eighteenth and nineteenth century to describe a meeting place. Uh,
7:57
Speaker 1: this kind of meeting place, particularly in England, and they
8:00
Speaker 1: were generally taverns, bars essentially coffee houses or sometimes private rooms.
8:07
Speaker 1: And the thing about it is, at this time any
8:10
Speaker 1: kind of same sex activity was considered illegal and remained
8:18
Speaker 1: a capital offense until the eighteen sixties, capital offense meaning
8:22
Speaker 1: the death penalty, and sodomy, the act of sodomy carried
8:26
Speaker 1: that sentence, sodomy being a pretty loaded term, absolutely, and
8:31
Speaker 1: in this context that word refers to a particular type
8:35
Speaker 1: of penetrative sex act. Yes, that is, that is correct.
8:39
Speaker 1: And it's a very important point that we're making here
8:42
Speaker 1: because this need for secrecy was not some kind of like,
8:46
Speaker 1: oh fun marketing thing like those fake speakeasy bars that
8:50
Speaker 1: are so common in the US these days. This was
8:53
Speaker 1: necessary to protect these people's lives. And it just goes
8:57
Speaker 1: to show how bold Fannie and spell a word in
9:01
Speaker 1: kind of flouting this and just you know, doing their
9:03
Speaker 1: thing and going to these very public places, wearing these
9:08
Speaker 1: outfits and flirting with very powerful men. Um. In fact,
9:13
Speaker 1: the letter man that you read at the very top
9:15
Speaker 1: of the show was written to one of these powerful
9:20
Speaker 1: men who plays a very important part in this story. Yes, yes,
9:23
Speaker 1: we should set him up before we dive in. Good call.
9:26
Speaker 1: Lord Arthur Pelham Clinton Uh as an English aristocrat born
9:31
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty and he was, you know, creme de
9:35
Speaker 1: la creme of society at the time he went to Eton.
9:38
Speaker 1: He was in the Royal Navy, He was in the
9:40
Speaker 1: Crimean War. He was in Parliament for three years. He
9:43
Speaker 1: was in parliament, he had a personal connection with the
9:46
Speaker 1: Prime Minister, who was the godson of William Gladstone. This
9:50
Speaker 1: guy had what we call the juice. He had connects. Yeah, absolutely,
9:57
Speaker 1: And he had a relationship in eighteen seventy with Stella
10:04
Speaker 1: or Ernest Bolton. And at the time he was technically
10:09
Speaker 1: considered a naval officer, but he was retired and he
10:13
Speaker 1: was formerly at one time he had been a man
10:16
Speaker 1: of great wealth and means. But a few years before
10:19
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy he had to declare bankruptcy to the tune
10:25
Speaker 1: of like but seventy thousand pounds back then, so a
10:30
Speaker 1: little bit of inflation calculation, casey, I don't know if
10:33
Speaker 1: we have a sound cue for that. That amounts almost
10:40
Speaker 1: six million pounds today. So he was deep. He had
10:43
Speaker 1: a lot of problems, but he had found love with
10:48
Speaker 1: Stella or Ernest Bolton. And we should take this time
10:51
Speaker 1: to mention the fact that Stella, between Stella and Fanny,
10:54
Speaker 1: was considered the more feminine looking one. And if you
10:57
Speaker 1: see pictures of them, of which there is one with
11:00
Speaker 1: Lord Arthur and both of them, um, Stella is as
11:03
Speaker 1: much more effeminine features. And Fanny doesn't even really look
11:08
Speaker 1: like a female in this picture, looks wearing kind of
11:10
Speaker 1: a sweater and has more of a cropped haircut. Uh.
11:15
Speaker 1: And it's very interesting and mentioned in several of these
11:17
Speaker 1: articles we've been looking at. One in particular on the
11:19
Speaker 1: Guardian mentions the fact that when you look at pictures
11:22
Speaker 1: of the two of them and you see Fanny, you
11:24
Speaker 1: might wonder, by today's standards, how people may have been
11:27
Speaker 1: confused about the gender of this person. Uh see, yeah,
11:31
Speaker 1: that's uh. That's a great article by Katherine Hughes Fanny
11:34
Speaker 1: and Stella, The young Men who Shocked Victorian England. It's
11:37
Speaker 1: a review of a book by Neil McKenna, who does
11:41
Speaker 1: some great research here. I think we've we've set this
11:44
Speaker 1: scene right there, pushing these social boundaries in a way
11:48
Speaker 1: that probably has several of their friends and and uh
11:51
Speaker 1: loved one saying be careful watch out well we should
11:54
Speaker 1: also just one last thing is that Stella presented herself
11:59
Speaker 1: as the wife of Lord Love, Lord Clinton, Lord Clinton.
12:03
Speaker 1: And that's yeah, and that's why in the excerpt of
12:06
Speaker 1: the letter we read from Fanny, that's why you hear
12:10
Speaker 1: them say anything sister in law, sister in laws, right,
12:13
Speaker 1: and uh, they took this relationship very seriously. It wasn't
12:17
Speaker 1: just like some in joke. And when you read these letters,
12:20
Speaker 1: it's crazy, especially some of the short the shorter ones,
12:23
Speaker 1: kind of dicey ones where like they're kind of like
12:25
Speaker 1: feuding a little bit. Yeah, it's like, hey, don't take
12:29
Speaker 1: what Stella said personally. She was drinking and yeah. Or
12:33
Speaker 1: there's one where where Stella's saying to Lord Clinton, how
12:37
Speaker 1: dare you be so rude to me? And you know
12:39
Speaker 1: it's very like, you know, terst kind of lovers spat
12:42
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Um, So we have set the scene, Ben,
12:45
Speaker 1: and now the year is eighteen sixty nine, Yes, the
12:48
Speaker 1: years eighteen sixty nine. You see, it wasn't just civilians
12:52
Speaker 1: taking notice of the adventures of Fanny and Stella around town. No,
12:57
Speaker 1: the local law enforcement notice as well, and they started
13:02
Speaker 1: following the pair, monitoring their movements for like a year. Yeah,
13:07
Speaker 1: an intensive year. Was their real crime that they could
13:11
Speaker 1: have been addressing, Yeah, absolutely did. London was a very
13:18
Speaker 1: dangerous place in those days, and so they followed them
13:27
Speaker 1: for a year. And let's fast forward to a Thursday
13:31
Speaker 1: on April That's right. The pair is attending a performance
13:36
Speaker 1: at the Strand Theater in London with a mutual friend
13:41
Speaker 1: of theirs, right, Hugh Alexander Mundel. And as per usual
13:46
Speaker 1: when they're going out of a night to the theater,
13:48
Speaker 1: they are dressed to the nines, wearing evening frocks with
13:52
Speaker 1: all of the Coutremont gloves, bodice is everything that would
13:56
Speaker 1: go along with it, lace that, Yeah, the whole line.
14:00
Speaker 1: And um, they actually have a private box. They're the
14:06
Speaker 1: detective who was following them as saw them meet to
14:11
Speaker 1: other people. But as they were leaving, as you said,
14:14
Speaker 1: no police superintendent and a police sergeant had joined with
14:20
Speaker 1: the detective while the group was watching the show, and
14:23
Speaker 1: they arrested Bolton Park and this other person who Alexander Mundel,
14:28
Speaker 1: as they attempted to leave, the others escaped. The three
14:31
Speaker 1: arrested individuals were then subjected to a humiliating battery of examinations. Yeah,
14:39
Speaker 1: that's a perfect way to say, Yeah, to establish whether
14:43
Speaker 1: they had in fact had that, like, had experienced that
14:48
Speaker 1: sexual act right that they were they were specifically looking for.
14:53
Speaker 1: And then they were brought to the magistrate at the
14:57
Speaker 1: Bow Street Magistrates Court the next day and they were
15:01
Speaker 1: not allowed to change, They were not given the option
15:04
Speaker 1: to change into different clothing. They were just kept overnight
15:07
Speaker 1: and then hauled out, which to me seems like another
15:11
Speaker 1: purposeful act of humiliation. Oh absolutely. I mean they were
15:14
Speaker 1: forced to stay in the jail cells wearing their wigs
15:17
Speaker 1: and everything. And there's a great quote in this review
15:20
Speaker 1: of the Neil McKenna book from Katherine Hughes that describes
15:24
Speaker 1: the scene as such, after a night in the cells,
15:27
Speaker 1: with wigs slipping and stubble poking through, it was pretty
15:29
Speaker 1: clear to the pact and panting courtroom that the two
15:33
Speaker 1: tarts were actually young men. Very strange way of putting in.
15:36
Speaker 1: I feel like this was old who would write like that?
15:38
Speaker 1: Why would they call them tarts? That seems really offensive.
15:41
Speaker 1: It's still British term that there is, but tart is
15:44
Speaker 1: an archaic term. That's fair, Okay, I'll go on their names.
15:48
Speaker 1: According to the charge sheet, where Ernest Bolton and Frederick
15:50
Speaker 1: Park to their friends, they were Stella and Fanny, and
15:53
Speaker 1: in the newspapers they now became front page fixtures known
15:57
Speaker 1: as the funny he she ladies tremendously offensive. This is
16:03
Speaker 1: when it officially becomes what's called the Bolton and Park scandal.
16:07
Speaker 1: So at this time there is a minor law that
16:12
Speaker 1: they could be considered breaking, which is called personation of
16:15
Speaker 1: a woman. Yeah, so I think it was a misdemeanor. Yeah,
16:18
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's a lower charge. It's definitely not
16:21
Speaker 1: a capital offense. And what the court system is trying
16:25
Speaker 1: to do in the preceding legal arguments here is they're
16:29
Speaker 1: trying to prove not that these people were quote unquote
16:33
Speaker 1: personating a woman, but that they were engaged in unlawful
16:38
Speaker 1: sexual relations. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it seems to
16:41
Speaker 1: me like they were trying very desperately to make an
16:44
Speaker 1: example of the two um in a in a really
16:48
Speaker 1: horrific way that I believe stretched up to someone in
16:50
Speaker 1: the neighborhood of fourteen hearings UM and it became a
16:54
Speaker 1: total media circus because you know, the public wanted to
16:58
Speaker 1: get a look at them because they this like, you know,
17:01
Speaker 1: horribly offensive title. Now with the that was, you know,
17:05
Speaker 1: took the public's imagination by storm, the funny ladies, So
17:09
Speaker 1: it became this total ship show of a trial, right,
17:13
Speaker 1: and the the details of the law under which they
17:17
Speaker 1: would have been prosecuted, perhaps persecuted is a better word
17:20
Speaker 1: here required the court to have a witness, someone who
17:27
Speaker 1: could say, I know and I saw this thing happening
17:32
Speaker 1: with these two people that I can conclusively identify. The
17:37
Speaker 1: problem was that despite the terrible media atmosphere of the
17:42
Speaker 1: time and the national attention focused on it, the prosecution
17:47
Speaker 1: was unable to find the witness. They were unable to
17:50
Speaker 1: prove that anything happened. That's right, But you know, one
17:53
Speaker 1: of the most galling pieces of evidence to the prosecution
17:56
Speaker 1: has been it was the fact that Stella, while attending
18:00
Speaker 1: this performance at the Strand Theater, had apparently had the
18:04
Speaker 1: audacity to use the women's laboratory. That was one of
18:08
Speaker 1: the huge things they were I think they were already
18:10
Speaker 1: planning to arrest them, yes that night, absolutely, but yeah,
18:14
Speaker 1: that was that was one of the things that the
18:18
Speaker 1: broadsheets the newspapers of the time really latched onto. That's right,
18:22
Speaker 1: the penny papers. And here is a pretty um interesting
18:26
Speaker 1: and telling quote from the way this was all kind
18:28
Speaker 1: of portrayed to the public. There is one peculiar trait
18:33
Speaker 1: in the evidence that stands out in bold and audacious relief,
18:36
Speaker 1: and two plainly shows the base and prurient nature which
18:41
Speaker 1: these misguided youths, for they are but little more, must possess.
18:45
Speaker 1: We refer to the entrance of Park into the retiring room,
18:49
Speaker 1: which is set apart for ladies at the Strand Theater,
18:51
Speaker 1: who had the unblushing impudence to apply to the female
18:55
Speaker 1: attendant to fasten up the gathers of his skirt, which
18:58
Speaker 1: he alleged had come unfastened. And the character we had mentioned,
19:06
Speaker 1: the husband of Stella, also returns to this story in
19:12
Speaker 1: a tragic way. He is implicated. Yeah, but he is
19:15
Speaker 1: unable to testify because he had passed away, officially on
19:21
Speaker 1: paper from scarlet fever. But many um whispers implying that
19:27
Speaker 1: he he had taken his own life. Yeah, that was
19:29
Speaker 1: on June, literally the day after he received his subpoena
19:35
Speaker 1: for the trial. So circumstances strongly point to him taking
19:41
Speaker 1: his own life. And then at the time there was speculation, however,
19:44
Speaker 1: that before he had done this, either died of scarlet
19:47
Speaker 1: fever or committed suicide for the the blow his reputation
19:53
Speaker 1: would take. Right from being implicated in this, there's pretty
19:55
Speaker 1: solid speculation that he had used those existing connection to
20:01
Speaker 1: fake his death. Pretty interesting stuff, Ben, and not to
20:05
Speaker 1: muddy the waters here, we'll get back to the conclusion
20:08
Speaker 1: of um Fannie and Stella's story, But there's another bit
20:12
Speaker 1: of implication that after he supposedly either died or disappeared,
20:19
Speaker 1: another woman woman identifying as male in dress, impersonated him
20:28
Speaker 1: and he used his name to defraud other wealthy individuals
20:33
Speaker 1: of of money. Yeah, Mary Jane Fair, No, that's that's
20:37
Speaker 1: her given name, and she was claiming to be Lord
20:42
Speaker 1: Arthur Clinton and to double muddy this or to muddy
20:45
Speaker 1: it further while while pretending to be Lord Arthur Clinton,
20:52
Speaker 1: Mary would also sometimes dress as a woman, so dressing
20:57
Speaker 1: as Clinton, dressing as a woman, arguing that it was
21:00
Speaker 1: to throw people off the trail. Complicated, Yeah, but so,
21:09
Speaker 1: but you know, we kind of already spilled the beans
21:10
Speaker 1: that there's a happy ending to this story and that
21:12
Speaker 1: they were acquitted or or that the jury did not convict. Yes,
21:17
Speaker 1: they were finally acquitted. And the problem here is that,
21:25
Speaker 1: I mean, we could talk about how how they were acquitted.
21:27
Speaker 1: So the prosecution was not able to prove that there
21:33
Speaker 1: was any offense committed under the laws of the time.
21:36
Speaker 1: And they also, despite the personation of a woman misdemeanor charge,
21:42
Speaker 1: they weren't able to get that to stick either. After
21:45
Speaker 1: the Lord Chief Justice presiding, a guy named Sir Alexander Cockburn,
21:52
Speaker 1: summed up the prosecution's case. He said that the prosecution's
21:56
Speaker 1: case was garbage juice and that the police were acting unprofessionally.
22:01
Speaker 1: And then the jury took about fifty three minutes to
22:04
Speaker 1: deliberate they found both individuals not guilty. So imagine the
22:10
Speaker 1: emotional roller coaster, right, And it's pretty cool because one
22:14
Speaker 1: account that I read UM says that when that non
22:19
Speaker 1: guilty verdict was rendered, everyone in the gallery UM exclaimed
22:23
Speaker 1: with shouts of bravo. So you know, they were well
22:28
Speaker 1: liked in the community and they were known, and it
22:31
Speaker 1: seems as though at least the people in the courtroom
22:33
Speaker 1: they were there to support them. Um, We're kind of
22:36
Speaker 1: in their corner. Yeah, yeah, and this this leads us
22:40
Speaker 1: to a larger social context here too. One thing I
22:44
Speaker 1: really appreciated about Katherine Hughes's article was noting the great
22:50
Speaker 1: changes in society that we're occurring at the time. Right
22:54
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy, the Republican movement was reaching a tipping point,
22:59
Speaker 1: the work of Charles Arles Darwin was propagating out through
23:02
Speaker 1: the world. Paris had quote become a commune, and there
23:08
Speaker 1: was this cultural ecosystem in which this trial occurred. This
23:13
Speaker 1: finding you had later consequences on the world of English law,
23:19
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to gender identity. That's right, It's
23:24
Speaker 1: something we haven't mentioned. But um, at this point they
23:27
Speaker 1: did not make distinctions of of gay people. It was
23:31
Speaker 1: more distinctions of acts. So no one would have referred
23:35
Speaker 1: to Fanny and Stella as gay. No, that didn't come
23:39
Speaker 1: until much later, several decades later, in fact, with a
23:42
Speaker 1: case involving someone I believe you you know well been
23:46
Speaker 1: um Oscar Wilde. Yeah, I am Oscar Wilde about him,
23:51
Speaker 1: but we have never met. I am a big fan. Yes,
23:55
Speaker 1: legendary writer, poet, author of the Picture of Dorry and Ray.
24:01
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde was born in eighteen fifty four. He was
24:05
Speaker 1: alive while these things were happening, not that much not
24:08
Speaker 1: that much younger than Fanny and Stella. So he was
24:12
Speaker 1: also eventually uh sent to trial because his sexual identity
24:19
Speaker 1: became a problem for the government of the day. Yeah,
24:22
Speaker 1: and that's the thing. Then we're talking about some of
24:24
Speaker 1: these um changes that maybe we're happening in the public consciousness.
24:27
Speaker 1: But as we know, the gears of justice and the
24:31
Speaker 1: legal system grind pretty slowly so that they certainly were
24:35
Speaker 1: not caught up to any of these kind of like awakenings. Yeah,
24:39
Speaker 1: it's we see a similar thing with cultural change and
24:44
Speaker 1: technological change. The world of legislation takes a while to
24:48
Speaker 1: catch up even at the best of times. Oscar, much
24:58
Speaker 1: like Stella, is dressed and what would be considered feminine
25:02
Speaker 1: attire for much of his early life because his mother
25:06
Speaker 1: had expected and wished for a girl. Ben, how would
25:08
Speaker 1: you describe the way he dressed later in life when
25:11
Speaker 1: he was a much more known figure. He certainly didn't dress.
25:14
Speaker 1: He dressed in men's clothing, but not the typical kind
25:17
Speaker 1: of men's clothes that the gentry would wear. He had
25:19
Speaker 1: expensive taste you know what I mean. He was going
25:22
Speaker 1: for sophisticated fabrics, have very particular concerns about dress. He
25:28
Speaker 1: liked what we would call the good life, you know,
25:31
Speaker 1: And unfortunately he had to end up in court attempting
25:35
Speaker 1: to defend his own sexual identity. The the first case,
25:40
Speaker 1: actually the first trial, occurs when he sues someone for libel. Right,
25:46
Speaker 1: that's right. He sued a gentleman whose name escaves me
25:49
Speaker 1: at the moment, who actually left his personal calling card
25:52
Speaker 1: for Wild. So I guess I'm imagining a front desk
25:56
Speaker 1: situation at a gentleman's club called the Albmeire, and on
26:00
Speaker 1: it um he accused him of being a quote sodomite. Right,
26:06
Speaker 1: and Wild received some mixed advice or conflicting advice from
26:14
Speaker 1: his friends and then from some other people, and they
26:17
Speaker 1: some people said, a lot of them said just let
26:19
Speaker 1: it go, don't worry about that guy. And then Uh,
26:22
Speaker 1: he decided that he would initiate a private prosecution for
26:27
Speaker 1: libel since the note amounted to a public accusation that
26:33
Speaker 1: Wild he committed what was considered a crime. So this guy, uh,
26:38
Speaker 1: the Marquis Queensberry is arrested and the charge of criminal
26:43
Speaker 1: libel at the time carries a potential two years in prison.
26:47
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Under the Libel Act of eighteen
26:51
Speaker 1: forty three, Queensberry could have avoided this prison sentence if
26:55
Speaker 1: he demonstrated that what he said was true. That's right.
26:58
Speaker 1: Wild kind of put himself in the cross, is there,
27:00
Speaker 1: didn't He He did, and against again against the advice
27:05
Speaker 1: of his friends. And it also exposed his private life
27:10
Speaker 1: to the public and people started to learn details about
27:15
Speaker 1: the people that he associated with, right, the people that
27:20
Speaker 1: he had romantic relationships with, a team of private detectives
27:25
Speaker 1: started diving into what would you call like the Victorian underground, Yeah, exactly,
27:31
Speaker 1: which was which was absolutely And by the way, at
27:33
Speaker 1: this point we're in early Edwardian times. Yeah that's true.
27:37
Speaker 1: That's true. And the press and the public is in
27:39
Speaker 1: the state of almost rapid hysteria by the time the
27:43
Speaker 1: trial opens in April, and the problem was Wild started
27:50
Speaker 1: to know this wasn't going to go his way, so
27:52
Speaker 1: he dropped the prosecution. Queensberry was found not guilty and
27:58
Speaker 1: the court said that the accusation was true in substance
28:03
Speaker 1: and in fact. And this this ruling also left Wild
28:09
Speaker 1: on the financial hook for the legal cost of the
28:14
Speaker 1: person who had insulted him, and then and made him
28:17
Speaker 1: go bankrupt, and and and we we should say that
28:19
Speaker 1: the reason the Marquess of Queensbury had such a problem
28:23
Speaker 1: with Wild is because he purportedly Wild had had a
28:25
Speaker 1: relationship with his son, Lord Alfred. But it wasn't this
28:29
Speaker 1: trial that that did Wild in the way that we
28:33
Speaker 1: know he ultimately got done, right, Yeah, exactly. There was
28:38
Speaker 1: a another trial that occurred so after after Fanny and
28:43
Speaker 1: Stella's famous trial, fast forward a few years and we
28:47
Speaker 1: arrive at something called the Criminal Law Amendment Act of
28:52
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty five that said any sort of same sex
28:58
Speaker 1: act of any type was against the law. And Wild
29:04
Speaker 1: after he had left this, you know, he had left
29:07
Speaker 1: this other trial, right, this libel trial dropped the prosecution.
29:10
Speaker 1: There was a warrant for his arrest put out on
29:13
Speaker 1: the charges of sodomy and gross indecency, and people gave
29:18
Speaker 1: him conflicting advice. Again. Some people said, go to Dover
29:22
Speaker 1: and hop on a boat for France as soon as
29:24
Speaker 1: you canuriously. And then his mom said, no, stay and
29:29
Speaker 1: fight this. And Wild was arrested on April six, and
29:34
Speaker 1: then he the events moved quickly. He was convicted along
29:39
Speaker 1: with Alfred Taylor on and sentenced to two years hard labor.
29:45
Speaker 1: But what is what is that? Yeah, it's weird. You
29:47
Speaker 1: would think it would be something functional like what we
29:49
Speaker 1: think of today where they have inmates like stuff. But
29:54
Speaker 1: in those days, it was like these bizarre menial tasks
29:57
Speaker 1: of like unraveling rope for hours and hours at a time.
30:02
Speaker 1: Things like that, just like psychological torture. Really strange, and
30:06
Speaker 1: he was incarcerated from May to eighteen nine seven or
30:11
Speaker 1: eighteenth of May eighteen ninety seven. As soon as he
30:13
Speaker 1: was a free man, he sailed immediately for France. He
30:16
Speaker 1: never returned to the UK, and they lost one of
30:21
Speaker 1: the greatest literary minds of that generation. And I just
30:24
Speaker 1: want to mention that unraveling or apparently is kind of
30:26
Speaker 1: functional because it's old rope and you on ravel it
30:29
Speaker 1: so that you can recycle it, I guess to make rope.
30:32
Speaker 1: And they would also make like coking compound, you know,
30:36
Speaker 1: for like construction. Okay, so it's when I first read it,
30:38
Speaker 1: I thought it was just some sort of bizarre, tedious
30:40
Speaker 1: task to make them go insane. So it's not like
30:43
Speaker 1: the thing that you hear about in the military, where
30:45
Speaker 1: someone makes you dig a hole and then fill it
30:47
Speaker 1: back in and dig it again. Yeah, Or listen to
30:49
Speaker 1: like Black Sabbath with headphones on at like insane volume.
30:54
Speaker 1: I thought you were about to say it. Or listen
30:55
Speaker 1: to podcasts. Yeah, that can be tough to um, but
30:59
Speaker 1: hopefully this one wasn't tough. And I know we went
31:01
Speaker 1: a little farther into the Oscar wild thing. It wasn't
31:03
Speaker 1: really the main topic of this episode, but it's a
31:05
Speaker 1: really important full circle. And he did, in fact end
31:08
Speaker 1: up getting incarcerated. And when he was incarcerated, he has
31:11
Speaker 1: this amazing quote that I think is so prescient. It's
31:13
Speaker 1: really really important. Um, the idea of the love dare
31:18
Speaker 1: not speak its name. And I think we should maybe
31:20
Speaker 1: end and end on this, and he refers to this
31:22
Speaker 1: as being in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that
31:27
Speaker 1: it may be described as the love that dare not
31:29
Speaker 1: speak its name. And on account of that, I'm placed
31:32
Speaker 1: where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine.
31:35
Speaker 1: It is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing
31:38
Speaker 1: unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists
31:41
Speaker 1: between an elder and a younger man, when the elder
31:44
Speaker 1: man has intellect and the younger man has all the joy, hope,
31:46
Speaker 1: and glamor of life before him. That it should be
31:49
Speaker 1: so the world does not understand, the world mocks at
31:52
Speaker 1: it and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.
31:56
Speaker 1: And what he's doing is basically just describing any kind
31:59
Speaker 1: of sames. I mean, he's talking about this intellectual bond
32:02
Speaker 1: between an older and a younger man, but I think
32:04
Speaker 1: what he's really describing as any kind of same sex
32:07
Speaker 1: attraction or affection. Yes, well said, Well said Noel and
32:11
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde. Uh, this guy's work is just rife with
32:15
Speaker 1: these amazing quotes. You know. One of my favorites was
32:19
Speaker 1: always be yourself everyone else has already taken. It's pretty good.
32:23
Speaker 1: That's pretty good. Hey, and that really applies to h
32:25
Speaker 1: Fannie and Stella. Yeah yeah, absolutely, Hey we got there.
32:29
Speaker 1: We didn't. Uh. So we want to thank you all
32:32
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Of course, thanks to our
32:35
Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram, thanks to Eve's Jeff Cote, who
32:38
Speaker 1: helped us with the research for this episode. I thought
32:41
Speaker 1: this one was was pretty wonderful. Um, you know, and
32:44
Speaker 1: what happened with Oscar Wild that he he didn't die
32:46
Speaker 1: in prison, did he? No, he did not die in prison.
32:49
Speaker 1: Good because that would have been a bummer. I I'm
32:52
Speaker 1: I'm laughing just because he went out like he's just
32:55
Speaker 1: such a cool dude. Okay. So he died bedridden in
32:59
Speaker 1: November of nineteen hundred, specifically novem and apparently the whole
33:06
Speaker 1: time he was there he was complaining about the way
33:10
Speaker 1: that like the room was decorated, and that's why reputedly
33:15
Speaker 1: his very last words, the one that most people attribute
33:18
Speaker 1: to him is this wallpaper is terrible. One of us
33:21
Speaker 1: will have to go. And then he passed away. I
33:25
Speaker 1: hope that's real. I hope it is too. He's got
33:27
Speaker 1: such style, you know. And ask for Fannie and Stella.
33:30
Speaker 1: I couldn't find really anything about what happened to them
33:32
Speaker 1: at the end of their lives because you've been no, no,
33:35
Speaker 1: I got it got a little bit murky. But you
33:37
Speaker 1: can understand how they would want to retire from public life.
33:41
Speaker 1: But what a what a like? That's like the trial
33:43
Speaker 1: of the century. So we can only hope that they
33:45
Speaker 1: were able to find some privacy and some dignity that
33:50
Speaker 1: the press apparently could not afford them at the times,
33:53
Speaker 1: right and we we we had it in some more stuff,
33:56
Speaker 1: mid thank you. Let's let's get to it right right, yes, yes.
34:00
Speaker 1: Whereas Find us on Instagram, find us on Twitter, find
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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians, where you can meet your fellow audience members.
34:09
Speaker 1: And thanks to Alex Williams for composing our theme, and
34:12
Speaker 1: most importantly to you for tuning in to another episode
34:15
Speaker 1: of Ridiculous History.