After a mostly illustrious career in Ireland and England appearing as Lavinia Walstein, actress Eliza Edwards’ star waned.
Cross-dressing: “Two females would have excited suspicion”
Another in the series about transsexuals and cross-dressing. Two women disguise themselves as a couple in order to steal cattle as two women driving through the countryside would have looked dodgy. A singular circumstance occurred at the Devon gaol on Sunday last. In the course of that day two persons, the one in male, the […]
Transvestism, 1792: Warrington girl enlists and is discovered
A young female, from the neighbourhood of Warrington, last week applied to a Recruiting Serjeant in Chester and voluntarily offered herself to serve his Majesty : – Being habited in male attire, suspicion slept, and the corporal eagerly cross’d her palm with the royal profile, set in silver; – being initiated – a barber was […]
Trans in the newspaper archives: 1829
Lately I have been digging out stories about cross-dressers and trans people from the British Newspaper Archive and tweeting them. It’s become a little bit of a series so I’ll add them here on this website too. There have been some corkers and, as you might imagine, some of the stories have shown a lack […]
Elopement in Georgian England: Catherine Grierson and Thomas Thomasson (1781)
1781: A young lady elopes from her boarding school. The tale of Catherine Grierson and Thomas Thomasson. The case ends up in court.
Henry Fielding’s attempted abduction of Sarah Andrew
In 1725, 17-year-old Henry Fielding tried to abduct his distant cousin Sarah Andrew. He later based his Tom Jones character Sophia Western on her.