Fanny & Stella: a Gender-Bending Victory (2014)

 

   In 1871, two young women walked across the saloon of London’s Strand Theatre (now the site of Aldwych tube station). Their gorgeous satin dresses rustled and shone in the gaslight. They had made quite a commotion in the private box where they’d sat leering at the men in the dress circle. Their loud voices and giggles had caused some in the audience to angrily shush them. Already tipsy, they now proceeded to guzzle sherry and brandy at the bar. A small crowd of men gathered around as they imperiously preened and fluttered. They told their new admirers that their names were Fanny and Stella. The Strand was a renowned pick up place for men wishing to engage prostitutes of both sexes, and the bold young women were clearly touting for business. After half an hour of drinking the women drunkenly wobbled out to their carriage. They called directions to the cabbie, but before the cab could move a policeman let himself in the door and sat down. He told the ladies that he was a police officer from Bow Street and that he believed that they were men in female clothing, attempting to importune. This was in fact the case. Amazingly, the police had had the pair under surveillance for an entire year.

    Fanny and Stella were actually Frederick Park, a judge’s son, and Ernest Boulton, the son of a stockbroker. They were both born in 1848 and they had known each other since they were younger men. Frederick (Fanny) can charitably only be described as being rather plain: she had the air of a dowager duchess and peppered her speech with French phrases. In contrast, Ernest (Stella) was very beautiful. He had been dressing in girls’ clothes since childhood. He had been arrested once before, aged eighteen, when a gang of angry prostitutes set upon the beautiful cross-dresser for stealing their customers.

    For some time, Stella had been introducing herself as ‘Lady Clinton’ because she and Fanny were living in a ménage-a-trois with Lord Arthur Clinton, the godson of the Prime Minister, William Gladstone. There can be no doubt that this was the reason why police had been shadowing the pair for twelve months. Clearly, the establishment wanted Fanny and Stella to suffer, as an example to others.

    Fanny and Stella had been going about London in drag for years. In their flamboyant finery they were the life of every party and social event they attended. They were clerks by day, but by night they sold their bodies to men. Homosexuality was illegal and, if they were caught, gay men faced a sentence of between ten-years to life imprisonment with hard labour. A mere decade before the pair’s arrest buggery was still punishable by the death penalty.

    Fanny and Stella were charged with “conspiracy to solicit, induce, procure and endeavour to persuade persons unknown to commit buggery”. They were strip-searched in the cells with all of the policemen craning their necks to view the show. They then had to endure the most invasive and humiliating bodily inspection by Dr James Paul, who wanted evidence that they had been recently penetrated: he found that they had, and he recorded this in excruciating detail. The police raided their rooms and impounded: sixteen satin and silk dresses, a dozen petticoats, furs, ten cloaks and jackets, various hats and all their makeup. The following day the lads, still wearing their evening drag, went in to face the Magistrate. They were ordered to stand trial and were taken back to jail to await the date, in four months’ time.

   During their trial the evidence for penetration could not be verified after all. It was also found that dressing in women’s clothes did not in itself constitute a crime. Therefore, the only ‘crimes’ that could possibly be attributed were those they might have thought about or imagined. And that, of course, could not be proved. The jury took just fifty-three minutes to find the pair not guilty.

   After the trial, Stella found a small measure of success on the stage, in America. Fanny lived as a woman for the rest of her short life.

   There is a blue plaque on a church wall in Bloomsbury which announces it as the site where these two fearless Victorian drag-pioneers once resided. They deserve our admiration and gratitude. Their courage is an inspiration to all who refuse to live their lives by the arbitrary rules imposed by others.