← After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
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It's April 1870, and gaslight flickers along London's West. The Strand Theatre doors swing open and the audience spills into the night. Silk hems lifted from the damp pavement, kid gloves buttoned tight, laughter drifting into the fog. Among all these people walk two figures, curls pinned beneath bonnets, skirts swaying. They've walked these streets before, but tonight, plainclothes officers are watching them. Within hours, both men will be in custody and Victorian London will be gripped by one of the century's most sensational scandals. In Victorian London, newspapers feasted on scandal like nothing else. And on a spring evening in 1870, two young men attended the Strand Theatre in Full Dragon. By morning, London would be gripped by one of the century's most sensational scandals. In an empire built on rigid masculinity, how dangerous was a man in a silk dress from the heart of the West End? This is After Dark. Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Anthony. And today's episode takes place in London in 1870. I mean, I'm saying I'm Anthony. Nobody is here to see me today, but I'm just going to try and ignore the splendor that's sitting beside For a moment, because we are going to talk about two young people called Fanny and Stella. Now, when we were talking about doing this episode, there was only one person that I could think of to come in and take us through this history. And that, of course, is. I shall no longer delay the introduction. It is the one and only HRH Aphrodite. Q applause. Q applause. Q APPLAUSE. Thank you very much that we're in just a studio with just two of us, but there is applause happening everywhere in the world. And I first encountered Aphrodite at the Queen's house, fittingly enough, in Greenwich, and Aphrodite was doing a tour of the paintings. Right. Like, not just the paintings, but, yeah,
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it was how to look sexy historically, and the official line of the tour.
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And it did. It excelled in its purpose. And I just thought this was. I was writing Queer Georgians at the time, or had I finished, but it was somewhere around there, or maybe Queer Georgians was just about to come out. And I was thinking of different ways in which not only queer people, but queer people can present the past. And this was a mixed audience. There was so many people there and they were really glued to this history. And I was like, we need a little bit of this on After Dark. So I'm so pleased that you've been able to come along and to help us with this particular history. But we were chatting a little bit before we started recording and some people will be like, well, this is not what a historian looks like. And to those people we say, quieten down for a moment.
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C
Yeah, it's. It's interesting. There's a lot of politics about the presentation of history.
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A
Yes.
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C
Isn't there?
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Yeah, but talk to. Talk to me a little bit about that, then. How. How did you, Aphrodite, come to this to be doing? There's loads of. You could be lip syncing, which I know you do as well, but, like, you could be lip syncing seven days a week if you wanted to be, and you do lip sync, but. But this is your lane.
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C
Yeah. It's. You know what, it's funny because it's. Is not the avenue that I expected to be working in. I think me and you come from very similar backgrounds, which was little. Little queer boys who were very theatrical. And there is. There was a big problem that I had growing up when I was doing community theater, which was we would do a lot of these. Like I was in Treasure island, for example, and the costumes were. Were really crap because they're expensive. You know, it's like, it's an incredibly arduous thing to invest in making the past look somewhat like it did.
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Yeah.
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And it's something that I noticed in history sites quite a lot. So when I was teenager, I lived on the island of Jersey, which is in the Channel Islands, and there's a lot of really interesting historical locations there that would have costumed interpreters. And the best thing about it is actually. So one of the castles in Jersey was where Charles II stayed when he was on the run from the parliamentarians. And the person who used to do Charles II in Jersey was a performer who. I don't. I don't know them, but they are assigned female at birth. So it's like drag kinging. Yeah. As Charles ii.
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A
That's so interesting, isn't that? So actually, even at a time before even these conversations had started in the public domain at least. But that's. That's a good distinction also to bear in mind. There were people out there drag kinging up history straight away. And I mean, look back at some of the things that you see. You see men in drag playing Elizabeth I back in the 60s and 70s. So this is a. You are a part of a legacy. It's not like you're the first.
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C
No, definitely not. There's a great guy called Douglas Bing who was a music hall star in the sort of 20s and 30s. And so I actually did my dissertation on this was about impersonation, drag and what kind of. Because arguably Shakespeare is doing it, right. So, like when he's writing Henry viii, Anne Boleyn is a character in Henry viii. But the material culture around celebrity impersonation is not what we have now. We benefit from access to public figures all the time. Right. And so what's interesting about this is like, there's always been an interest in drag, particularly in history contexts, as its own kind of costuming, gender type thing. Like Elizabeth I. To us, Elizabeth I looks very feminine. But if you compare the Armada portrait, for example, which is in the Queen's house, to what she was brought up wearing, it's actually very butch. She's playing with gender quite a lot. And we will see, I think, in this episode a lot. There's that gender and clothing are synonymous more than gender and sex.
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Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is one of the points, I so agree with that. This is one of the points that came up for me again and again in queer Georgians where people don't necessarily understand and actually maybe we can help them through that distinction between gender and sex. Because you hear this in so many. In so many circles, so often of historic or even present day gender, there are. You will often hear there are two genders. That's what now. And I'm like, if you're saying that and if you truly believe that, okay, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they truly believe that, then what it actually means is you don't understand what gender is in the broadest context, let alone in the historic context.
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And it is something to be performed. Right. And that is something that a lot of people do. You know, Elizabeth I performs gender.
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Oh. She says, I have the heart and stomach of a king.
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Yeah. The body of a weak and feeble woman, but the heart and stomach of a king and of a king of England.
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And she is. And king of England at that is. So you look at all the quotes. But this is why performance of gender is not new. It is blending those boundaries, bringing everything in. We have this idea then, of the third sex, as they refer to in the 18th century. But of course, they are actually referring to gender. They don't mean someone we would now understand as intersex. They mean somebody who's playing with those boundaries of gender. And I think that brings us on to Fanny and Stella, because that playfulness and that blurring is happening here. So. And this is why I wanted you to have this conversation, because I think you're so uniquely placed because you perform, you are an actor, you're a historian, you're a drag artist, you're an activist. You have all of the things that they had, in many ways your life, in some ways, thankfully, without the legal ramifications nowadays. Although there are other ramifications.
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Yeah, yeah. I will say watch this space.
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Right. Yeah. See, you just. You don't know, do you? What's coming around the corner? So what we want to talk about with Fanny and Stella to begin with, just to allow people into the world a little bit, is we'll get into the. Who they are in a minute, but as far as you see it, through the research you've done on them and through the conversations that we're gonna have today, what is their gender performance in the context of 1870. And let's talk about the. You know, a lot of people shy away from this conversation, but I don't think we should, being who we are on this platform. Pronouns. How do we refer to them? What's the best way to talk about them? The most respectful way to talk about them and to really highlight this history in a. In a positive way.
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C
Sure. Well, I think context is very important. And what is central to this story is drag as a theatrical device. Yes, right. That is a contentious thing that comes up in court. And it's important, I think, to just get a lay of the land of like, okay, if you are someone in the mid-1850s and you were going to have a gander around London to find crosses, where are you gonna go? So the circus is a good one. So circuses are pretty unregulated entertainment at this time. And there's a great sort of interesting business plan, which is claim women are doing things and it's just teenage boys being acrob, for example, on the back of horses.
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And so what it's kind of saying women don't do this, but look, we have them, but actually they're not even. So there's layers of gender play there.
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Yeah. And circus and sideshow and freak show. I think freak has. Freak is a term that will come up when talking about this history, because the Victorians don't understand freakishness in the way that we would call it freakishness. To be made a freak is more to be the center of attention. And there's not that negative connotation with it. Right. So sexes will employ, you know, bearded women, for example. Those people are not always people assigned male at birth, presenting as women. You know, there are plenty of medical conditions that cause facial hair to sprout. And so there is this kind of interesting blurring the lines of gender to begin with, which is something that is interesting.
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Yeah.
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I think that's also something that you need to understand is that, like, Britain is at the height of its empire at this point. Right. It's taken a dip after losing America, and we had to take some time and lick our wounds and fight Napoleon,
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all that, all the other things.
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And then Vicky comes along and there is this prompting of, like, no for Queen and country. And so London at this time, I believe I'm correct in saying, is the biggest city in Europe. Yes. And it's welcoming thousands, if not millions of people from across the world. It's the biggest city and sort of migration of people that the world has seen arguably since ancient Rome. And so you're going to get entertainment that people want to have a look at. And so if you're a bit middle class and the circus is all right, but you don't really want to be seen in those settings, then what are the other options? You can go to the theatre.
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Yes.
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Theater on the West End has had female actresses since the reign of Charles II they kind of kill off the drag queen that the Elizabethans would have understood it as. But they invent the drag king, which is very convenient because particularly for the more highbrow arts like opera, if you have a young man in a story that needs to be desexualized in order to showcase his youth, then you just cast a young woman and put her in breeches. And so they got called breeches roles.
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A
And we still see that today. I mean, think of Peter Pans all across the country.
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C
Yeah, that's a really good one. I know. Over lockdown. I watched a recorded version of Cinderella. I think it's like Puccini or something, I'm not sure. And the prince was a woman. Yeah, like 40 year old woman who was very good sort of, sort of tenor voice, but was. Was in drag. Yeah, yeah. And so that's like highbrow. If you want to go a bit more low brow. There's pantomime. Pantomime, star as like vignettes that accompany variety theater, basically. And they're fairy tales because everyone knows them. So you can play with the sort of expectations of what a fairy story is. And that invites a lot of cross dressing, typically of older female characters. And some people make lots of good money doing this. Dan Leno is a really good example. If you Google a picture of Dan Leno, he will almost certainly be in female attire playing some sort of grand dame. Might be the stepmother from Cinderella, the famous one. And this is also important to point out is him as Widow Twankie. And that is a Chinese story, Right. The Helenes.
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So this is interesting, right, because now we're talking about this idea. You talked about London being one of those, one of the foremost cities in the world where everyone is crossing through here there's something for everyone to see everyone experience different communities, different parts of the world coalescing in this one city. And now we're bringing in this idea on top of gender, this idea of race into it as well. And I think, you know, you spoke about Empire before. Empire is trying in so many different ways to control, especially at this particular moment of time in the 1870s, to control ideas around race and gender. And we're gonna see that in terms of gender here. But. But what you're, what you're pointing to there is this kind of cross section between the gender ideas, playfulness, and then the kind of more insidious ideas that are happening around race and the crossover.
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C
Yeah. And that's where you get minstrelsy. Right. So no discussion of Victorian cross Dr. Is kind of complete without acknowledging minstrelsy, which, like, I think we struggle to imagine today just how pervasive minstrelsy was in culture because it still is pervasive. You know, like Jingle Bells, the famous song that is actually not about Christmas, apparently it's about Thanksgiving, is a minstrel song. It was normalized. It was completely normalized.
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They weren't even questioning the. The appearance of people in blackface or of people in drag to a certain extent, depending on the context of where they're seeing it. Which kind of brings me to Fanny and Stella a little bit. And you talked there about and this is what reminded me to make this link. You talked about how there were livelihoods to be made in this world of entertainment. And for Fanny and Stella and other people like them, there is money to be made in donning giche and to putting yourself on stage.
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Let's start with Stella. Ernest Bolton first. What do we know about Stella?
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Oh, we always start with Stella. So Stella. So we do need to have a conversation as well about how we're going
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to refer to them. Go you tell me what your findings.
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I'm in drag. I feel very comfortable referring to them as their drag names because, number one, they're not consistent. They do change names quite a lot. Stella is the one that she's using when she's arrested. It's the name that her friends and acquaintances will. In modern parlance, we would say Kiki with her. With. And I like Stella more than I like Ernest, to be honest.
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Yeah, it's just a nicer name.
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I love the name Ernest. But Stella is beautiful and Stella was beautiful. Yeah, she's the hot one.
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Yeah.
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So Stella's a bit weird. Right. So in this context we have, you know, you've got minstrelsy, you've got people like Dan Leno doing pantomime. Stella Bolton is born in 1847. Her dad is a wine stockbroker.
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So there's a bit of money.
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Yeah. But not loads.
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No, we're middle classing it here.
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Yes. So one thing to keep in mind is that the stockbroking that we think of greed is good. Ayn rand, all that 1980s malarkey is somewhat there, but it's a lot more sort of difficult to make it big. You're a trader, you're an importer and that's where her dad is for wine. He has married a lovely lady called Mary Ann, who we will have to come back to at some point. But Marianne Bolton is. She's had. I think it's either two or three sons before Ernest, who've both, or all three have passed away as children. And I do think that is a. Something that gets overlooked when talking about history, about the loss of children and how that will impact relationships with children that manage to survive. And I think Stella's relationship with her mother is foundational on that. She didn't really seem to care how he behaved. She was just happy he was alive.
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Yeah.
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And he's a little cross dresser as a child. And it's also.
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Even as a child.
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Yes, according to her.
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Yes. Yes. Yeah.
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C
So also something to flag as well. There's a lot of different layers to this, is that this story is about a crime and it is a courtroom drama.
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Right.
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It's a sex scandal, quite literally. Not sex in the sort of erotic sense, but in a biological sense. And we are going to encounter layers upon layers of scrutiny to these texts. Because at the end of the day, I know you're not supposed to lie on the stand, but you will frame information in a way to make it seem more innocent than.
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Right. Yeah, of course there's an agenda. And equally, I think it's a really good reminder that most of what we know about Fanny and Stella is coming through the prism of aggressive documentation.
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C
A trial transcript that survives in its entirety. And you've done work on Oscar Wilde's. There's not a complete trial transcript of the Wild.
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A
No, no, they're not. There's a lot there, but they're not complete. Yeah, it's. This is this. I believe this is more complete and it's how we get introduced to them, as I say. And so we've touched on. So, yes, we've touched On Stella.
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C
Stella, yes.
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Let's go to Fanny, who, by the way. And I just think this is so funny. I think it's so catty as well. Amongst her friends, as far as I'm aware, Fanny was often referred to as the handsome one.
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C
Yeah. And I'm like, all right, do you know what? There's a lot of photographs of them.
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Yeah, There is, isn't there?
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There's quite a few, yeah. They loved getting their picture taken, which. Same.
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Fair enough.
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C
But she certainly. Listen. Some of us are born with facial structures that look quite androgynous. And it is important to mention that at the time of the trial, they are. Fanny is 23, Stella is 22. They're both born in 1847. Just separate ends and like, they are not fully grown adults. Yeah, yeah. They are still, you know, even at the time, they're considered young.
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Yeah, yeah. These are young people. Yeah.
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C
And I think Fanny was quite a
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handsome boy, but for some reason, I don't. I agree with you. But I was looking going, there's nothing wrong with poor Fanny. She's absolutely fine, bless her. But it's also. I think it's something got to do with ideas of desire around people in drag. And often desire coming from same sex attracted men as well, going, which one am I going to pick here? As if they're available for you. So we have this image of Fanny then. But tell us about her background. So we talked about Stella's upbringing a little bit. What about Fanny?
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C
Fanny is the rich one out of the two of them. Is she?
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Yeah.
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So her. So she's one of 12. Ah, yeah.
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Were they Irish? No, I can say that because I am Irish. It's fine.
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C
Yes. I mean, it would be a fair assumption to make. I'm not gonna lie. You know, I think my nan was one of 13.
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Yeah. I think mine.
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C
So, no, they are respectable, upper middle class. Her dad is a judge.
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Oh, yeah. Okay.
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C
And she is the third son. Okay. So this is kind of important. The eldest one dies right in. I think he's in the military and he dies.
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Yeah.
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C
The second one is. Is doing some stuff on the side with an Italian boyfriend.
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Oh.
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C
And a few years prior to the trial, gets brought to court as a victim of blackmail because the Italian boyfriend is threatening to out him as. Oh, I see, a sodomite.
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But this is the family business.
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C
Yeah. And then it gets thrown out of court. And then two years later, what happens?
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Good old Fanny.
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C
No.
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A
Oh, no.
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C
What? Harry, that's the brother's name, Harry, starts trying to get it on with a police officer.
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I get caught again.
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C
Yeah.
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A
So goes up against, is up in court again.
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C
Yeah. And you can abscond. So, yeah, absconding as well is a very important thing at this point in time. And maybe we should cover the legislation that is in place.
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A
We'll come to that.
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C
You can run away.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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C
In theory, it's not that bad of a crime.
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A
They won't follow you.
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C
No.
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A
If you make their jobs a little bit easier, the likelihood is, unless you're like, particularly profile, these wouldn't have been profile enough. They're not gonna pursue you too far.
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C
No. And I do wonder if that was on the family advice.
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A
Well, they will have known the law quite well if they're.
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C
Well, his dad is a judge.
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A
Exactly. They know what they're doing here.
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C
And they live in Marylebone, you know, like Marylebo in like the 1840s through to the 1860s. That's a very fashionable corner of London to be. It still is and it still is. And so Fanny is raised in a house. She doesn't go to school, but she's educated by her sisters. Cause their mum dies.
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A
Okay.
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C
Her mum dies when Fanny is three. And he's got. Or she. They have got. So even I make mistakes, but it's
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A
not even a mistake because here's the thing, they do code switch themselves all the time. They use different pronouns all the time. And I just think, like, we're just following what they were doing. Like, she uses she sometimes. He uses. He sometimes will do the same. Because that's the most respectful thing to do.
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C
Yeah. And so she. I like she. She is raised primarily around women, around a lot of women that she's related to. Fanny. There's not as much clear cut stuff about Stella is. It's in the name. She's the star of the story. But Fanny likes acting. And I think also something needs to be sort of discussed around just how boring life in the Victorian times could be depending on what you're doing.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Domestic entertainment is a huge part of it. Like, you know, you're having. You've got. There's no tv, there's no radio. Depending on the family. There's an aversion to modern technology, but there is home theatricals which involve a lot of dressing up and being silly for your family's entertainment. And I think Fanny comes to cross dressing in that regard. She's got loads of older sisters.
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A
Sisters are there.
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C
Sisters are there.
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A
Throwing on an outskirt.
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C
I'm quite lucky because I've Got two older sisters. They didn't do that.
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A
Oh, they didn't?
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C
No. I think I wanted them to. It's like me.
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A
You're making up for it now.
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C
No, exactly. I'm overcompensating. But, yeah, so it's really interesting. Right, so Stella's from a boy family. She has a brother.
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A
A boy family.
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C
A boy family.
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That's what we call them now.
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C
Yeah, the TikTok lingo, you know, it's coming for us all. But, yeah, Stella's from a family of boys and Fanny is from a family of girls.
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Yeah.
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C
And that will shape a lot, I think, about how they behave and how
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they go into society.
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C
Definitely. Right.
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A
I want to skip forward a little bit. We'll come back on all of this because we'll talk about the legislation that you mentioned and we'll talk about all of that. But. Okay, I want to come. Skip forward a little bit and come to the main event of the arrest and the buildup to the arrest, and then we can backpedal a little bit and find out some of the context. Thani and Stella are known in the area around the West End that is known for its entertainment culture. They are part of that scene. They are part of that group of people. The Strand is known for its light comedy. There's burlesque happening there. It's popular culture. And the police are there and thereabouts. I mean, I used to work on Strand for years in a bar there, so I know that's not much has changed, to be perfectly honest. But here's a report from the Liverpool Daily Echo, and it says. Yeah, well, yes, William Chamberlain Constable said, I have seen the two dressed as women, the two being Fanny and Stella, dressed as women, about the neighborhood of Brunswick Square and at the Hoburn Casino, always in female attire, talking to gentlemen. For the last year, suspecting them. I watched them. Interesting. So it is 28th April, 1870. The pair have gone to the Strand Theater dressed as women, as is their custom to do inside. Men in dresses are part of that entertainment. That's kind of what I'm getting at here. And there is something that happens that night that is different than every other night, and it changes the course of their lives.
- [29:43]
C
Yes, it's a Thursday night, which I think gives a lot of context, because they're wasted. From the sounds of it, they're very drunk and they drink a lot, and
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A
why would you not be, by the way?
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C
Yeah. And I think this is something that, like, I feel very protective of, which is that they are Not. They're not like your picture perfect. No victims.
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A
And should they be.
- [30:09]
C
And they are very much reminiscent, I think, of queer culture from a much older time than like people. My generation, I'm 25 people. My generation will be. I'm sorry, will be familiar with, which is, you know, there is a lot more of a culture around drinking, about being intoxicated in public. And that's not a bad thing because they're living through quite interesting times in history.
- [30:36]
A
No, it's. There's a lot going on for them and they've. Are they at work this night or are they there? I mean. No, I should highlight this. I suppose there is an implication and I'd be interested to know your opinion on this, but there is an implication in some of the research that Fanny and Stella were also sex workers and soliciting.
- [30:52]
C
Yes.
- [30:53]
A
Do we think there's enough there to say that?
- [30:55]
C
Kinda.
- [30:55]
A
Yeah. I think my instinct is it's probably the case.
- [30:59]
C
They're actors. Right. And so one thing that you will see is that like Stella and Fanny are maybe not characters that they really played on stage, but they're archetypes.
- [31:11]
A
Yeah.
- [31:11]
C
And Stella is a young loose woman who was like the. The terror.
- [31:19]
A
Yeah.
- [31:19]
C
Victorian Britain, you know, because she was loose lipped, she swore a lot, she. She smoked cigarettes, which was not a done thing at the time. And Fanny was more genteel, a bit more of a matronly mother kind of.
- [31:38]
A
That's probably what I would. I was just like, just give me a bonnet and put me to bed.
- [31:43]
C
Well, she pretends to be a widow sometimes.
- [31:46]
A
Does she? That's iconic.
- [31:47]
C
Which is iconic because at the start of the decade, what happens? Albert dies.
- [31:52]
A
Sure, sure, sure.
- [31:53]
C
And so we are living in a Britain that has the widow of Windsor at the head of it. And it's not trendy to be a widow, but I will say it will give you a lot of societal freedom.
- [32:05]
A
Yes, it will, absolutely. Yeah.
- [32:07]
C
Being a young lady like Stella is not at liberty to partake in. Right. And she can be left alone in the company of men, for example. Stella is a young lady and always needs an attendant nearby to make sure that everything is above board. And it sounds like they're on a date, to be honest. They're there with two gents and the
- [32:26]
A
Strand Theatre in a private box. Yes. And we do know what happens in private boxes in these types of venues. And actually I've worked in theater bar, as I said already, and it still happens in boxes to this day.
- [32:36]
C
Oh, yes.
- [32:37]
A
But you shocked to know Some of the stuff that happens in those boxes. Anyway, we're not here to judge, but we will. So we. What is it that. So nothing is unusual about this. They're there. They're possibly on a date. They're in company. They've done this before. Why then is this the night that this happens?
- [33:00]
C
Do we think they're being very loud? That's one thing. People are getting annoyed because they keep making rude jokes and shouting over the actors. Which fierce. I've been to the theater with drag queens before. That's what happens.
- [33:15]
A
That stacks up.
- [33:16]
C
Yes. And they keep making, like, kissing noises at the people. Which I've read elsewhere is kind of like this asmr. If you would like me to. Is like.
- [33:31]
A
Oh.
- [33:32]
C
Which was a calling.
- [33:33]
A
I hope we got that on YouTube.
- [33:34]
C
Just to say don't AI me please. Is a calling card for sex workers to procure johns. And so they're being very loud and very noisy. You will have also heard.
- [33:49]
A
I'm so sorry. I'm gonna stop you there. I'm gonna stop you there and say, what other history podcast or YouTube channel are you getting? A drag queen doing 19th century sex call noises. Just to put it out there. If there's any awards going, there's only one place that you're gonna find the this. I'm so sorry.
- [34:05]
C
You are watching history hit. So you will have heard at the very beginning of that sentence that I've watched them for over a year.
- [34:16]
A
Yes. Yes.
- [34:17]
C
They're under police surveillance.
- [34:18]
A
Isn't that odd? A little bit.
- [34:20]
C
Kind of.
- [34:20]
A
For a year. I mean, I know there's always been raids. There's always been surveillance, but that's a long time. A year.
- [34:25]
C
Stella has a bit of a reputation. She's run into the law quite a few times, as you've seen. And one of. So she's ran into the law twice at this point. And it's because they are. Well, certainly Stella is just so effeminate.
- [34:39]
A
Yeah.
- [34:39]
C
And one of the men that they're with that night, Hugh Mundell, is a bit of a hanger on for Stella. Stella is taken. I should also note. And one of the reasons why the police may have been following in their sort of footsteps is because she is going around calling herself Lady Arthur Clinton.
- [34:56]
A
Brilliant. Of course she is.
- [34:57]
C
And Lady Arthur Clinton is the wife of Arthur Clinton, who is the third son of the Duke of Newcastle.
- [35:07]
A
Right. Okay. So she's picked the aristocracy to marry into.
- [35:12]
C
And I think we look and we don't judge.
- [35:16]
A
We look and we don't Have a
- [35:18]
C
photograph of Arthur Clinton in front of you, do you? Yeah.
- [35:22]
A
Okay.
- [35:23]
C
He's ugly.
- [35:24]
A
Okay.
- [35:24]
C
I'm sorry.
- [35:25]
A
I'm allowed.
- [35:26]
C
He was a nice. I'm sure he was a very lovely man.
- [35:28]
A
I'll Google it later.
- [35:29]
C
But he was an MP.
- [35:31]
A
Yes.
- [35:31]
C
So his brother was the MP for Newark in Nottinghamshire. And in the 1860. I think it's the 1865 election, he. He becomes the MP for Newark, and his dad works in the government. It's very important to keep a tab on sex work at this time. You know, there is legislation in place that is. Allows the police to stop and search anyone they believe is a sex worker, a prostitute, in the parlance of the day, and investigate them and, you know, perform medical examinations on them without their consent. And I think that's really interesting because that's what happens to Stella and Fanny.
- [36:15]
A
Sure.
- [36:15]
C
So I think personally and the family are very silent in this case, particularly the Duke's family are like a silent partner in this. And I wouldn't be shocked if they were being followed in a kind of Christine Keeler esque to draw parallels between about. Like, what do these people know?
- [36:37]
A
Yes. Yes. Yeah.
- [36:38]
C
And what are they privy to?
- [36:39]
A
Yes.
- [36:40]
C
And so they are arrested. Hugh Mundell, who is with them, testifies again and again.
- [36:47]
A
What are they arrested for, though? Making noise? No, I mean, I do know the answer, but. Yeah.
- [36:51]
C
So this is where the story requires me to read legal jargon, and I am sorry for it, but. But. So when they are brought to the magistrates Court at Bow Street. Yes, they are. They are told that they are breaking several laws and they are charged with the following the next day, that they did each and one another feloniously commit the abominable crime of buggery.
- [37:23]
A
Okay.
- [37:24]
C
Further, that they did unlawfully conspire together and with diverse other persons feloniously to commit the said crimes. Further, that they did unlawfully conspire together and with diverse other persons to induce and incite other persons feloniously with them to commit the said crime. And further.
- [37:46]
A
No. Good. Okay.
- [37:47]
C
They, being men, did unlawfully conspire together and with diverse others to distinguish themselves as women and to frequent places of public resort so disguised, and to thereby openly and scandalously outrage public decency and corrupt public morals.
- [38:04]
A
Now, they've been charged the following day. So this is the 29th they've been charged for this. Okay. I have a few things to kind of unpack with this. First of all, the sodomy laws. At this time, as they stand, they've been slightly changed since the 18th century. But the burden of proof for sodomy, which is really kind of surprising that Fanny and Stella are even brought up on this, is penetration. You need to be able to prove penetration and that's a hard thing to prove.
- [38:30]
C
Hello.
- [38:31]
A
Unless one of. Unless one of the participants, and we see this in the 18th century, goes, yeah, he did. Because I was, as they would have said, the pathic or the bottom. And I can testify that that's what happened. We don't have that here. So what they're saying is, which is odd in terms of sodomy laws, is that they're quite girly. They must take it up the chart.
- [38:58]
C
And that's the interesting thing about this case. It's a legal precedent in a lot of things. But one of the big things is cross dressing, because as I've described earlier, there's a whole industry of people. Dan Leno was straight.
- [39:10]
A
Yes. Yes.
- [39:11]
C
It is the first time that there is a correlation in the public imagination of being a cross dresser and being a queer.
- [39:16]
A
Yes.
- [39:17]
C
And I use that word, queer because sodomy in this time is more akin to sexual assault. Right?
- [39:27]
A
It can, yes. The law equates to all of those things. So the sodomy law, it includes buggery, bestiality and abuse of rape? Basically. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [39:40]
C
And so it's new legislation. That's the interesting thing. In 1861, there's this bill that collects up all of the refuse offences against the person.
- [39:51]
A
Yeah.
- [39:51]
C
And that is basically any conceivable way that you can damage someone else.
- [39:55]
A
Yes.
- [39:56]
C
And so there's. It's. It's under the things of, like procuring someone to get an abortion, a pregnancy termination. It's. It's a bill, in my perspective. I was looking through the legislation last night because it's still on the government website. It's a bill targeting poor people.
- [40:13]
A
Ah, yeah, sure. It also feeds into the. What used to be the Vagrancy Act. It also comes in. And I. You mentioned it there, this idea of gross indecency as well, and the fact that they overlap, both of them. Right, so we have. Fanny and Stahl have now been arrested.
- [40:28]
C
Yeah.
- [40:28]
A
They have been charged, I would imagine. We know that it's going to be. They're going to be charged under conspiracy laws, under sodomy laws, under all kinds of different moral institutional changes.
- [40:43]
C
Yeah.
- [40:45]
A
What is the evidence here and how do they go about trying to prove this? Because there's still a burden to be met here that they have to prove it. So What. What do these two people have to undergo? Because I can imagine it might be quite bleak in order for Victoria. Because it's going to be Victoria versus.
- [41:04]
C
Yes.
- [41:04]
A
In order for Victoria to feel satisfied
- [41:07]
C
that they did this, they, immediately after getting charged, are brought back across the street to the prison that they were brought to on Thursday night, Friday morning. One thing to also note as well is that when they first appear in court, they're still in drag.
- [41:22]
A
Cause it's such a quick turnaround and
- [41:25]
C
apparently there is a crowd outside. It's a bit weird because it happened after the evening news would have been published and late enough that it wouldn't have hit the morning press. So people know about it and what is really horrible about what's next. And just like the biggest trigger warning for like medical sexual assault. If that's something that makes you uncomfortable, maybe skip forward about three minutes. They are ordered to undress for the second time in front of a room full of policemen. And quite conveniently, Scotland Yard has procured a doctor and he. He has to look for signs of sodomy. And so he
- [42:08]
A
does whatever he has to do.
- [42:09]
C
He does what he has to do and makes quite extensive inspection of their genitalia. And there's not actually really good up to date medical texts at this time in Britain about the impact of sodomy. We know that Stella had a. She had an anal fistula when she was a child.
- [42:30]
A
And this is discovered during.
- [42:31]
C
During the inspection. It's noted as being something that's a bit weird, but it is also. Fanny probably got syphilis and that makes itself known in sort of scarring tissue around her anus. But it's kind of funny. It's not funny. At the same time, he pays a great deal attention to their genitals and says that they have elongated penises. Willies. We're gonna be adults. We have big willies. And they have. Bolton has really big balls.
- [43:05]
A
So bizarre, isn't it?
- [43:07]
C
Kinda.
- [43:08]
A
Like. What?
- [43:10]
C
But it's because it's seen as a sign of like. Oh, you've been active in using it.
- [43:14]
A
Exactly. And it's like. It's almost like an engorged appendage that you're so destitute in this demoralized thing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [43:24]
C
And these as well. Right. So it's also important to note that the police can get away with this in a way that they couldn't do with someone like Oscar Wilde, who we will have to keep coming back to because he is arguably one of the closest sort of Contemporaries of this, even though it happens 25 years later, is that these people are middle class and they don't have good legal representation, at least not initially, not yet. Their lawyer changes over the course of the. Of the trial, but at this point in time, they've got a friend who is wealthy, she's a cross dresser, she's got a friend who is Jewish, who is a lawyer.
- [44:12]
B
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [44:33]
A
When you've done the work, you want your hydration to do the same.
- [44:36]
C
Introducing new Gatorade.
- [44:37]
A
Lower sugar now with no artificial flavors, sweeteners or cups, and 75% less sugar and all the electrolytes of regular Gatorade now available nationwide. So we now have had the idea that they've been arrested, they've been charged, they've been processed, they've been inspected. There will now need to be some kind of administrative process that starts prior to the trial. There will be some hearings that take place. Tell us a little bit about. And these can get very detailed. And it's basically admin. A lot of paperwork, so we won't linger too long on this. But the hearings that come before the trial tell us a little bit about what transpires there. What do we learn?
- [45:28]
C
Superintendent James Thompson.
- [45:29]
A
Another.
- [45:30]
C
James is another one. Yeah. Is the head of the case and he goes above and beyond. So. So Fanny and Stella have a flat that has been watched by plainclothes policemen for about a fortnight before they're arrested. And they raid the flat, basically, and steal loads of letters and photographs. And the photographs are important, which we'll get to later. Steal loads of photographs and all of their drag. And over the course of the hearings, they are basically finding people who have links with the case and also building a prosecution to arrest more people.
- [46:08]
A
Right.
- [46:08]
C
Including Arthur Clinton.
- [46:10]
A
Right.
- [46:11]
C
And what is really damning is that Arthur Clinton dies during the trial, maybe. Oh.
- [46:19]
A
Ah. You talked about absconding earlier.
- [46:21]
C
Yes.
- [46:21]
A
And he's a person and he's a nobleman. Yeah, yeah.
- [46:24]
C
He's not gonna inherit anything. He's the third son. He's basically a lord for the formality of it.
- [46:29]
A
So he can abscond.
- [46:31]
C
And maybe he does. I like to think he does personally, but his family says died of scarlet fever and on his Deathbed says, I've got the quote here. Actually. He basically is like, the only thing I'm guilty of is going a bit too far with my theatrical life.
- [46:49]
A
Right?
- [46:50]
C
Because going from.
- [46:51]
A
We're all guilty of that.
- [46:51]
C
Hello. But we've. He's an MP that is now an actor. That's how him and Stella have met. And there is some evidence to suggest, because Stella has the calling cards that say Lady Arthur Clinton, that they are continuing the kind of drama, narrative drama that they have performed on stage offstage. So they raid this flat and they bring out all of these letters, and anyone who's got a letter addressed to them is interwoven into the scandal, including people from Scotland.
- [47:20]
A
Wow. So this stretches the whole breadth of the country.
- [47:22]
C
It's a big one. It's a very big doozy and it's stoking interest. But the prosecution realize that they're in over their heads and they get swapped out. And so not the prosecutor, sorry, the defense. The defense realize that they're in over their heads and they get swapped out and they get an actually very good lawyer.
- [47:44]
A
This was a good thing in many ways, wasn't it, that this change over happened?
- [47:47]
C
Yeah, he's a really good lawyer. He's got a portrait of him. So, you know, he must be. And he was a sir. I think he was a lord. And that gives them enough time. They have about a year until the actual trial. Until the actual trial. And the trial is already falling apart before it even goes to trial. So they want to do it in. I believe it's the Old Bailey.
- [48:09]
A
Yes, yeah, it is.
- [48:11]
C
And actually they can't. And so it gets tried in the Houses of Parliament. Yes, it does.
- [48:18]
A
Yes, this is true. They want. Wanted it to be at the Old Bailey. Yes, yes, yes, you've just reminded me. So, okay, Fast forward then. May 1871. Here's the trial. This is the pinnacle of what we have come here to see. We're gonna get an outcome. The defense, as you said, have changed, but they're pretty confident in their stance now. The prosecution are working for the state. They have all these documents. They've got letters from people implicating people up and down the country, all the way up into Scotland, also members of the nobility, some of whom have died, slash absconded, whatever that might be. We're in the trial. What happens?
- [48:52]
C
So May 9th, it begins, it's Tuesday, ends on the 15th, which is, I believe, a Monday. So it's about a week. And over the course of the trial, it is becoming very Obvious that the prosecution not only have secured no witnesses to sodomy, which is what they're being charged for, the worst that they can accuse them of is being cross dressers.
- [49:12]
A
Yes.
- [49:13]
C
And having dear affectionate language, lovey language in their letters. And that is not a crime.
- [49:23]
A
No.
- [49:23]
C
And it is also what they play on, which is that they're not gay, they're eccentric, theatrical.
- [49:32]
A
And I think we may all have used that defense.
- [49:34]
C
Oh, God, yeah. Suck at me. Age 12.
- [49:37]
A
Yes, yes, yes.
- [49:39]
C
But it's, it is suitable grounds. Right. Because cross dressing in the culture, in imagination, is not imagined as being a gay thing.
- [49:49]
A
And neither is effeminacy a crime. Right. Which is essentially what's brought us here. Like you are too effeminate and the
- [49:58]
C
masculine ideal has not sort of altered too much at this time that, like when they show up to court, they're wearing very tight fitting suits and they've grown mustaches.
- [50:08]
A
Right, right, right.
- [50:09]
C
So they're very dandyish. And because they didn't have facial hair previously because, you know, they didn't want to go out. Yeah. They were seen as more untrustworthy, not having facial hair.
- [50:20]
A
I see, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That makes sense in the context of this time.
- [50:23]
C
Yeah. Because it is, it's seen as kind of, you know, a bit gender ambiguous.
- [50:27]
A
And that stamp of approval to be able to, in terms of Victorian masculinity, to be able to perform that code of masculinity. So what we have essentially, although it lasts almost a week, is a case that falls. If you were the prosecution. It's embarrassing, actually.
- [50:44]
C
It's actually incredibly humiliating because they've broken the law.
- [50:48]
A
Yes, yes, yes.
- [50:49]
C
That police, Mr. James, Superintendent James, is going into a jurisdiction that does not fall under English common law. It's in Scots law that is tried by the Scots Parliament and he has blackmailed people into giving him information and that is seen as a bit like over egg and the puddin.
- [51:07]
A
A bit.
- [51:08]
C
They're a bit like. Yeah, yeah.
- [51:10]
A
Even for the Victorians.
- [51:11]
C
Yeah. That's a bit too much. They have friends in high places who come quite literally in the public gallery to cheer them on and people boo when, like, stuff is alleged that is like categorically not true. And cheer when it goes well for them. So it is, It's a performance for them.
- [51:36]
A
Yeah.
- [51:36]
C
And it really does always tie back to this theatrical sort of performance at the heart of their drag. Right.
- [51:44]
A
And actually what's great about that is, despite this being not life and death, because people are not killed at this Point in time for same sex activity and they're found not guilty anyway. Spoiler. But they are, to a certain extent in their element, in a perverse sort of way, because of the theatrical element of it. I suppose now would be a good time, and we're gonna wrap this one up, but now would be a really good time to kind of point that this trial, directly or indirectly, whatever way you want to look at it, impacts what's coming with wild in the 1890s. Because what we see is the Labouchere Amendment act coming afterwards. And this is where it changes from this idea of having to prove sodomy to ideas of gross indecency. And this is how Wild is tried and then jailed because you wouldn't have been able to prove penetration with Wilde either.
- [52:39]
C
No. Well, the interesting thing is, right, so the defence get a team of six. Six. Well, five medical professionals and a Member of Parliament, because the Crown has a vested interest in the prosecution, right, and they perform another medical inspection and they see no sign of sexual sort of action to their genitals at all. And what the. So what Fanny and Stella do prove, actually, and what's really exciting about this trial is that they've got friends. They went to drag balls. They knew gay men from a variety of social backgrounds, which, being a minority sexuality, even today, I know you can attest this as well, brings you into quite interesting places with, like, I used to work at a gay bar that Chris Bryant used to go into. Do you know the mp? He used to come in sometimes and like, you do get access to these people by this identity factor. And what Bolton and Park showcase is not necessarily gay sex. That's what the trial is for. And it's. It's. They're bad people to do that with because one of them's pretending to be a widow and the other one. The other one is actually quite a committed, happy marriage.
- [53:52]
A
Yeah, so true.
- [53:53]
C
So they have a maid, for example, who's a witness.
- [53:56]
A
This is, and I say this in queer Georgians, this is what it comes down to often with queer or same sex attracted or gender non conforming histories. They always go for the sex part of it as if there's not other. And sex is really important, but there's. It's not. They don't concentrate on that potential household unit that you're discovering there, or the fact that, you know, they have this community around them of joy and camaraderie and that they're crossing these class boundaries. But one thing I do want to let you go, Fanny I was going to say, I don't want to let you go. Fanny, Aphrodite, both of them. Why did I go there?
- [54:34]
C
I know stuff.
- [54:35]
A
Because you've got a fur sound and she's Fanny. Okay, so before I let you go, I want to know what happens to them. We know, oh, this, or some people do that. This trial happens, and it's so big and theatrical and devastating at another side. But what happens in the rest of their lives? Do we even know? Because often people disappear from the archive at this point.
- [54:54]
C
Yeah, I mean, my favorite thing about the culmination of the trial is they're found not guilty. Guess how long the jury take to come to that conclusion.
- [55:01]
A
Oh, okay. I really don't know, but I'm gonna guess. I'm gonna say they find them not guilty within 30 minutes.
- [55:07]
C
It's a bit 53.
- [55:08]
A
Okay.
- [55:09]
C
But, yeah, they find them not guilty. And a cheer of bravo in the public gallery. And Stella faints.
- [55:17]
A
Aw. Which is quite sweet.
- [55:20]
C
And then immediately. So they are found guilty. They're just not found guilty of this
- [55:24]
A
crime of that particular.
- [55:25]
C
They are bound over by the law. So they promise to keep the peace and not disturb the public by cross dressing for, I think it's about two years. They're bound over for. They're not allowed to appear in public. Stella immediately is like, well, the newspapers are writing about me. I'm going on tour. And she goes, she go on this
- [55:47]
A
gorgeous tour of the North. It's like she's just been on Drag Race. She's like, oh, my God.
- [55:50]
C
Well, it's in my mind, it's kind of like the Victorian Chicago.
- [55:54]
A
Right.
- [55:54]
C
Like at the very end. So she goes on tour doing her domestic comedies again with quite a hot actor. And we know that because she puts an advertising call out for, I want a hot actor.
- [56:09]
A
Well, yeah, if you read between the
- [56:10]
C
Victorian lines, it's like, yeah, I want a hot piece of meat to accompany me on stage and make me look great. Wear it. Whereas Fanny's brother Harry gets discovered during the course of the trial, as you'll remember, for opportunitying a police officer.
- [56:25]
A
That family has a lot on the plate.
- [56:26]
C
Has a lot on the plate. And they arrest him and he goes to jail. But Fanny's dad dies. He gives character witness stuff during the day.
- [56:37]
A
And he's the judge, right?
- [56:38]
C
He is the judge. And he dies about six weeks after the verdict comes out. And so Harry and Fanny hightail it to New York and Fanny dies in 1881. So she's 32, 33. Probably as a result of late stage untreated syphilis, because you had said that
- [56:57]
A
was discovered during the intrusive inspection. Yeah.
- [56:59]
C
Which I think adds another element to this story. Right. Is like sickness. And that is something that has always appealed to people about. This is, you know, in more modern parlance, we connect it with like HIV and aids, but like syphilis kind of was for a very long stretch of
- [57:14]
A
history and for not just people in what we would now understand as queer
- [57:17]
C
community across society, it was endemic. Right. And so she has a minor theatrical career in America and she actually, ironically plays Broadway. The theater that she performed at is one of the few that is still standing on Broadway.
- [57:32]
A
That's kind of amazing.
- [57:33]
C
Which is, I think, a really nice end for Fanny. Even though she does die quite young. Stella lives for a lot longer. And Stella sees they get fanfiction written about them at the time that they were living. So Stella would have known, been aware that that was there. Yeah. She'd been out to America at that point. She kind of packed in the acting. After a while, she changes her name. So she's not allowed to go by Stella Bolton, she has to go by Ernest Bolton. And then a few years after the trial, she changes it to Ernest Bain, I think in a bid to kind of distance herself from the scandal. And then she sees the installment of the criminal Amendment Act, 1885. And she would have known about Oscar Wilde because she dies in 1904.
- [58:19]
A
Oh, yeah. I mean, she outlives Wilde.
- [58:21]
C
Yeah. She dies of a brain tumor, which is quite a horrible end to go, the particular type of brain tumor that she has. But she sees the long term implications of what she did. And the archive just kind of goes quiet because she doesn't get in trouble
- [58:35]
A
again, does she not?
- [58:37]
C
No. But I don't think she learned her lesson. I reckon she just learned to keep her head.
- [58:41]
A
Listen, Aphrodite, that was. I knew you'd be perfect for this. I knew this would be the perfect way to introduce you to the After Dark audience with this particular history. Because it is so. It is so joyful. Yes. It's hard. Yes. There's awful things that happen to these two people. But at the same time, I always try and say this when I'm talking about queer Georgians, that we really need to remember the lives that they did lead as opposed to the lives that were taken from them or the lives that were highlighted in court documents. And I think with this we do get an idea that there was this community around Fanny and Stella that they were part of that they were loved in and that they were celebrated in and that they were able to live that life. If you have enjoyed this episode, you probably want to find out a little bit more about HRH Aphrodite. Where can they find you?
- [59:27]
C
Anywhere now. So if you would like to follow my adventures in history, you can look me up on Instagram. HRH Aphrodite with a pH, not an F. It's a very different Aphrodite I at the end. H R H Aphrodite I on Instagram. If you would like to shoot me an email, it is HRH aphroditeimail.com she
- [59:48]
A
wants to be booked and blessed. Guys, you've done this already. You've worked with the National Archives, you've worked with the National Maritime Museum. She's experienced. If you want, I feel like I'm her agent now.
- [59:58]
C
Please be. If you want a historical drag queen to come along and spice up your heritage location, I will do it. So please get in touch. And also, I am the producer of a history drag cabaret.
- [60:12]
A
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
- [60:13]
C
That I always love to talk about.
- [60:15]
A
Go on.
- [60:15]
C
So if you would like to see drag queens, kings and things talking about history and historical subjects, then please come on down to Horrible Herstories. We host them at the Divine in Dalston. Please don't sue us Scholastic. Thank you so much. Come on down and learn about queer history from, you know, the dozens. I'm not the only drag queen doing this. I also do want to vouch and say that this is a whole shelf of performers, including my drag king husband, Hunter Gatherer. Castor Hex is great. She makes all her own clothes. Elizabeth, the thirsty Medusa has been, you know, there is. This is a very, it may seem niche. This is a big world. So yeah, come on down and talk about queer history with queer people in fancy dress. It's quite fun.
- [61:02]
A
We love it. We love to see it. So that's where you can find Aphrodite and the queer ensemble of drag. If you would like to see myself and Maddie, we are going to be hosting a live book event for her new book Hoax, which comes out on the 7th of May. And you can find tickets on Maddie's socials. If you have an idea for an episode on after dark, it's after darkistoryhit.com if you've enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcast. Because what does it do? It helps other people to discover us and we're on YouTube. Go to YouTube now and you'll find us at After Dark History hit and you can watch us as well as listen to us. Thanks very much. I'm going to have an ave. Goodbye.
- [61:49]
B
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