Luke Blaidd
(NB: Be advised that this blog contains descriptions of historical queerphobia and mention of 19th Century mistreatment of mentally ill individuals, intersex surgery, death)
As ever with these history blogs, I like to draw upon classical history as a metaphor for the journeys I go on when researching queer Welsh history. When studying the ancestry of historical figures, I am reminded of the passion for ancestral retrospectives that the Romans had in creating their civilisation. The founding story with brothers Romulus and Remus is particularly fascinating- in it, there is a dramatic and mortal resolution to the dispute about where to found the city that would become Rome. Given that there is no such city as Reme, the winner of that dispute is evident enough. And so, as with all individuals throughout history, no one is ever unaffected by other individuals around them and decisions that they choose to make. Especially when those other individuals are family and blood-related. When studying queer history, it can be quite useful to study familial relations and other peers of historical queer people, which is what this blog is about today.
I have chosen a few individuals for which we have enough records to trace their immediate family with. With this, we can not only illustrate a queer Welsh individual’s personal life, but also some of their family life as well.
Edith‘s Great Escape- 1901:
Edith Gertrude Phillips was born in January 1886 in Glamorgan. They were assigned female at birth and
given the name Edith Gertrude. On Monday 30th of September 1901, aged just 15, Edith was discovered to have been cross-living and cross-working as a boy in the Plymouth Colliery in Merthyr Tydfil. Upon being interviewed, Edith told the press that they had been living with their parents and other siblings in the Glynderis Engine house in Abercanaid- but had decided to run away and cross-live and cross-work after experiencing domestic abuse from their mother, who had forced them to do all of the housework (1). Their mother, Margaret Phillips, had reportedly ‘knocked [them] about the head, shoulders and back with her fists’ on Friday the 20th of September as a reaction to Edith not having finished the washing (2). After this incident, Edith decided that they must escape the home where they were being abused.
Edith had other siblings that they lived with alongside their parents. Their dad, James Phillips, was a pitman with two scars on his left thumb, but they were not acquired in the pits. Ten years before Edith was born, James (who was himself born in Herefordshire) was reported by the Police Gazette in the 8th of December 1876 edition to have deserted the Royal Marines (3). Military documents note his thumb injury as a means of identifying him, as well as that he had brown hair and light brown eyes. In that same year, James returned to Wales and married Margaret, with whom he had Evan James Phillips with in 1879. Evan was twenty-two when Edith left the home to attempt to cross-live and cross-work as a boy. Newspaper reports mention that Edith dressed in clothes belonging to an older brother, before promptly cutting their hair and dumping their old clothes into the Glamorganshire canal. But the 1901 census does not list Evan as living at the Glynderis Engine house at the time of Edith’s escape (4). these boys’ clothes must have belonged to their other older brother, Joseph E Phillips, a boy of just seventeen in 1901. This story is corroborated by an interview that Edith gave immediately after they were found (1).
Supposedly forced to do all of the housework by their mother, Edith would have had unquestioned access to all of the clothes of the household (the beating Edith experienced on Friday the 20th of September from their mother was because they had not done all of the washing in time, so certainly Edith would have been foisted with other people’s clothes to deal with by themself on a regular basis) – this means that access to boy’s clothes was, in a small way, the easiest part of Edith‘s great escape. Nobody in the house would have thought that Edith’s possession of boys’ clothes was in any way suspect, as they all believed and expected that they would wash and clean the garments of the whole family. In any case, the house was largely empty that afternoon and Joseph had had his trousers washed by his sibling earlier in the day. After they had dried on the bushes, Edith assembled Joseph’s clothes, dressing in the back garden. The next part of this great escape meant that Edith had to make like their father in the Marines and desert the house quietly without being detected.
As their father slept upstairs, they slipped out of the house on Monday the 23rd of September and headed to Dowlais Steelworks to find work- but was told to enquire again in the morning. One night passed and Edith slept on the streets. After having no luck at Dowlais, they tried the South Pit of the Plymouth Colliery on Tuesday the 24th of September, where a collier called Matthew Thomas took them on as a boy under the name John Williams. From there, they headed to Nightingale Street in Abercanaid and finally obtained some secure night-time lodgings for themself. It wouldn’t be until Friday the 27th of September that Edith‘s father would raise the alarm about the disappearance of his child. For five days, Edith was able to escape the domestic abuse at home and live as a boy in a colliery in Glamorgan. But on the 30th of September, they were finally discovered by someone who informed PC Dove of their location.
An attempt was made to force Edith to go back to living with their parents, but they refused to do so. During an argument about moving back, it is said that they passed out from exhaustion and were taken to the infirmary. Later, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) investigated the case, during which a public appeal was set up for Edith to help them get financial independence from their parents. There were outpourings of generosity from as far away as the Home Counties. Briefly, they were returned to their parents on the 31st of October- but after a few hours they were taken away again to the Salvation Army Home in Cardiff.
By February 1904, the money raised for Edith ran out and they had to leave Cardiff. Petitioning the Merthyr Board of Guardians, Edith persuaded them to let them come to Merthyr Workhouse and stay there. This was recommended by Edith’s doctor, who said that they did not have long to live. And so Edith was able to return to Merthyr. they did not pass away as quickly as the doctor expected- they lived another 59 years and were in the service of a house in Penydarren before finally passing away aged 77.
[This story has also been written about in greater Norena Shopland’s book Forbidden Lives, which I very much enjoyed and highly recommend]
A Tale of Dressmaking and Daring- 1891:
Thomas Owen was born in 1866 in Denbighshire. They were the subject of a Llangollen Advertiser article on the 13th of March 1891 (an entry which can be found here). The article claimed that Thomas Owen, a from Ruthin, was found wandering the Rhydygoleu area of Mold at night dressed in women’s clothing. They were promptly locked up by PC Barker for alleged ‘wandering lunacy’. Mr. Tilston- a blacksmith in the area- told the police that he had seen a man that night wearing women’s garments in the street. At around 11:15pm the police finally caught up with them on the top end of High Street and subsequently took them to the police station, where they proceeded to question them about what exactly they meant by wearing women’s clothes (5).
Thomas’ answer was cause for alarm, evidently, as they were swiftly sent away to North Wales Hospital in Denbigh, an asylum which opened in 1848. The newspaper alleges that they had been let out of that asylum last October and that they had obtained the women’s clothes from the house of their mother. But Thomas’ story goes much deeper and gets much stranger than that.
Thomas was 15 years old in the census year 1881. Their mother Mary Owen was 52 and listed as a widow- except her husband Moses Owen was 56 and alive and well- but was living in the Ruthin Union Workhouse- strangely also listed as a widower. In this period, however, consistency in documentation was difficult for authorities to check as the census required no proof of status.
Thomas lived with their brothers John Owen (17) and William Owen (16) in a house at 44 Well Street in 1881- but two other people also lived in the house. One Elinor Salisbury, (20) and Alice Roberts,(15) (6). Just ten years earlier, in the 1871 census, Thomas’ father was living with the rest of the family in 44 Well Street (7). But at some point, between 1871 and 1881, Moses found himself in the Ruthin Union Workhouse (8).
Raised by a single mother from the age of 15 (if not younger) Thomas was admitted to North Wales Hospital Mental Asylum for the first time when they were 17. It was a short stint in the hospital, lasting just 67 days between the 16th of July and the 21st of September 1883. They were again admitted to the hospital on the 25th February 1890 and discharged on the 18th of October 1890. This time their stay spanned 235 days. The Llangollen Advertiser from March 1881 claimed that Thomas was released from a mental asylum in October the previous year (5) and it is likely that this discharge on the 18th was the release mentioned.
On the evening of their arrest, the Llangollen Advertiser reports that Thomas had gone to their mother’s house on Rhos Street to acquire the women’s clothes they were wearing. Upon first reading this, I had assumed that it was their mother’s clothes that were taken and worn by Thomas. However, the 1881 census lists the occupations of the two girls boarding with the family- Elinor as a dressmaker and Alice as a dressmaker’s apprentice (6). The presence of two dressmakers that Thomas himself had lived with would certainly have been convenient for anyone wishing to acquire women’s clothes. It is also plausible that Thomas’ first stint in the asylum was for wearing women’s clothes as well, since their mother and the two girls would have been living in the home at the time of their first admission, as well as their second in 1891. It could be speculated that if the first admission into the asylum was for wearing women’s clothes, it was either not witnessed or that witnesses did not speak to the press. The second admission, however, was witnessed and became the subject of a local newspaper headline. It is also possible, given that Thomas and Alice were the same age and if the two were close, Thomas might have tried on some of her creations as a ‘joke’ or a ‘laugh’. Or that there might have been some degree of awareness on the girls’ part for Thomas’ desire to wear dresses. Even if that desire was laughed off as unserious and joking. Of course, this bit of speculation is wishful, if anything. Some parts of history are retrospectively regarded as bigoted and intolerant, but oftentimes tolerance was more widespread than people might assume. But North Wales Hospital records paint a very intolerant picture of Thomas’ proclivities after their crossdressing in 1891.
Thomas was admitted into the asylum again on the 2nd of March 1891 (9). The newspaper report in the Llangollen Advertiser mentions that they were examined by doctors on the Monday morning (5), which was the 2nd of March. Extrapolating from this, it is likely that the crossdressing took place on the evening of the 1st of March 1891, a Sunday. The 1891 census took place on the 5th of April and lists Thomas as a lunatic pauper-patient of the asylum (10). While their brothers and mother are listed as living at 18 Rhos Street, Ruthin (11). Thomas was released from the asylum on the 30th August 1892 having resided there for 537 days. While inside the asylum, they would have been assigned tasks such as gardening, farming, tailoring, shoemaking and joinery on-site. Treatment at the asylum included sedation with chloral hydrate and the use of steam baths from 1871. The rest of Thomas’ life would unfortunately be marked by a cycle of admissions and discharges from the hospital until their death on the 23rd of December aged 35 in 1901.
This story is one marked by sadness and sombreness, but it really does bring to light the material reality of outed queer people living in Wales in the late 19th Century. It is not a subject that a lot is known about- and most of these stories are uncovered by complete accident, as was the case with this story. But learning and knowing about these individuals’ lives brings us a step closer each time to having a queer Welsh history that we can all look back on. A history that is free from unfounded and negative narratives which have obscured these parts of history for so long.
A Commercial Traveller and his Offspring- 1906:
In the Second Quarter of 1902, an intersex child was born in Cardiff. The Second Quarter refers to the months of April, May and June. For this child, records of their existence are limited to just one for birth and two for death- so the precise date of their birth has been lost to time. Tragically, this child would pass away in 1906. But their short life became the subject of a newspaper story in a 25th May 1906 edition of The Cambrian (12). Their name given at birth was Francis Knight and they were the child of one Henry Knight, a commercial traveller operating from Penylan Road.
On Friday the 25th May 1906, The Cambrian reported the death of Francis. The inquest held after their death on Thursday the 24th of May found that they died from a blood clot in the aorta. But the inquest also took the liberty of trying to determine the sex of the child, who was (according to the mother) ‘so formed that it was impossible to tell if [they] were a boy or a girl’. The result of that inquest by one Dr Boyd was that the child was a girl, however, many intersex children are often assigned a sex based on the opinion of a single doctor. Constrained by a strict binary, medicine of the time did not allow sympathetic doctors to register intersex infants as a sex other than male or female. In some cases intersex children put through surgery to make their genitals match the most apparent sex. This practice still happens today in some countries and is a key issue for advocates of intersex causes (13). Dr Boyd’s assessment in 1906 declared that the child was a girl, which appears to have influenced the death certificate’s choice of name for the child. In the Second Quarter of 1906 a child called Frances Knight, born in 1902 (14), was recorded as having passed away in Cardiff (15).
Conventionally, the name Francis written with an ‘i’ before the ‘s’ denotes that the person named is a boy. Conversely, the name Frances written with an ‘e’ before the ‘s’ denotes that the person named is a girl. And so, it is possible to extrapolate from this change in name that Francis/Frances was declared a boy upon birth and a girl upon death. There are no other children called Francis or Frances Knight who died in Cardiff in 1906, meaning that this record almost certainly refers to the same child mentioned in The Cambrian’s 1906 article. Francis/Frances died at the age of 4 in 1906, but many intersex individuals have lived and died not only in Wales and the UK, but around the world since the dawn of humanity. This child’s intersex status is unfortunately only known because of their death, but their story nonetheless is invaluable to Welsh intersex history and lives on in some form when we remember the stories of those who have come before us.
1 Shopland, Norena Forbidden Lives: LGBT stories from Wales (Seren Books, 2017)
Sources:
- The Carmarthen Weekly Reporter, 11th October 1901, page 4
- Merthyr History- The Melting Pot, 5th October 2017, https://www.merthyr-history.com/?tag=edith-gertrude-phillips (accessed: 18/07/2022)
- UK Military Deserters, 1812-1927 [database online]- UK Police Gazette, 8th Dec 1876, page 5
- 1901 Wales Census, Lower Merthyr Tydfil, District 06, schedule 55, page 11
- Llangollen Advertiser, 13th of March 1891
- 1881 Wales Census, Denbighshire, Llanrhydd, Ruthin, District 09, page 21
- 1871 Wales Census, Denbighshire, Llanrhydd, Ruthin, District 09, page 8
- 1881 Wales Census, Denbighshire, Llanrhydd, Ruthin, District 09, page 9
- UK Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, 1846-1912
- 1891 Wales Census, Denbighshire, North Wales Counties Lunatic Asylum, page 9
- 1891 Wales Census, Denbighshire, Llanrhydd, Ruthin, District 09, page 3
- The Cambrian, 25th May 1906, https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3348188/3348190/5/hermaphrodite , (accessed: 22/07/2022)
- Intersex NGO Coalition UK, NGO Report (for PSWG) to the 8th Report of the United Kingdom on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 2018, page 4
- England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915, – 1902, Q2-April-May-June, K, page 381
- England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915, -1906, Q2-April-May-June, K, page 173