Fanny and Stella

by Neil McKenna

  302 ‘If every roué ’ – Extraordinary Revelations.

  303 ‘crush and spoil’ – Opening speech of Mr Digby Seymour, Trial.

  303 ‘thoroughly’ – Trial testimony of William Kay.

  304 ‘A thrill’ – Daily Telegraph, 13 May 1871.

  306 ‘the most sensational’ – Daily Telegraph, 10 May 1871.

  306 ‘roars of laughter’ – ibid.

  307 ‘Do you think’ – ibid.

  308 ‘acquitted’ – Solomon to Swinburne, 15 May 1871, in LeBourgeois, ‘Swinburne and Simeon Solomon’.

  28 A Rout

  309 ‘The conception’ – The Times, 25 July 1871.

  311 ‘What is that book’ – Trial testimony of Dr James Paul.

  313 ‘Just attend to me’ – ibid.

  314 ‘any Magistrate’s order’ – ibid.

  315 ‘You should be more careful’ – ibid.

  315 ‘getting up evidence’ – Deposition of George Smith.

  316 ‘pay him’ – Trial testimony of George Smith.

  316 ‘a situation’ – The Times, 14 May 1870.

  316 ‘I have watched them’ – Daily Telegraph, 30 April 1870.

  317 ‘the unemployed’ – Letter Book of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, MEPO 1/48, The National Archives.

  317 ‘Maladministration’ – ibid.

  317 ‘Mr Bradlaugh’ – ibid.

  317 ‘young Mr Boulton’ – Opening address of Mr Digby Seymour, Trial.

  319 ‘679 – Dec 1870’ – Treasury Solicitor’s Account Books, TS 40 14, The National Archives.

  319 ‘492 – Dec 1870’ – ibid.

  320 ‘rewards’ – Opening speech of Mr Digby Seymour, Trial.

  29 ‘This Terrible Drama of Vice’

  321 ‘She watches’ – Fanny Fales (Mrs Frances Elizabeth Swift), Voices of the Heart (Boston, 1853).

  322 ‘own beloved Child’ – Mary Ann Boulton to Ernest Boulton, Letters.

  322 ‘wanted strength’ – ibid.

  322 ‘Are you the mother’ – Trial testimony of Mary Ann Boulton.

  322 ‘Exactly so’ – ibid.

  324 ‘a retentive memory’ – ibid.

  326 ‘Ernest has been’ – ibid.

  328 ‘We know as a fact’ – Closing speech of Mr Digby Seymour, Trial.

  328 ‘a friend’ – Trial testimony of Mary Ann Boulton.

  330 ‘nothing indecent’ – Closing speech of Mr Digby Seymour, Trial.

  330 ‘My son sent me’ – Trial testimony of Mary Ann Boulton.

  331 ‘You would expect’ – Closing speech of Mr Digby Seymour, Trial.

  ‘Ernest Boulton’ – ibid.

  331 ‘vile and wicked’ – ibid.

  332 ‘Dr Paul’ – ibid.

  332 ‘morbidly sensible’ – Opening address of Mr Digby Seymour, Trial.

  332 ‘the most exquisite torture’ – ibid.

  332 ‘Surely, Gentlemen’ – Closing speech of Mr Digby Seymour, Trial.

  334 ‘capable of plunging’ – ibid.

  335 ‘Gentlemen’ – Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 21 May 1871.

  30 Clouds and Sunshine

  336 ‘Rose of the garden’ – Fricker, ‘Fading Away’.

  336 ‘MR ERNEST BOULTON’ – Reynolds’s Newspaper, 6 August 1871, quoting from the Era, late July 1871.

  337 ‘his Drawing-Room Entertainment’ – Liverpool Mercury, 14 November/21 November 1871.

  337 ‘Mr Boulton displayed’ – Liverpool Mercury, 9 September 1873.

  338 ‘PORTLAND HALL’ – Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 29 May 1872.

  338 ‘The beauty’ – Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 5 June 1872.

  339 ‘This so-called’ – Hampshire Advertiser, 15 June 1872.

  339 ‘notoriety’ – Birmingham Daily Post, 17 June 1872.

  339 ‘Beams of the morning’ – Fricker, ‘Fading Away’.

  340 ‘the impudence’ – Pall Mall Gazette, 18 October 1873.

  341 ‘comedian’ – New York Clipper, 9 April 1881.

  341 ‘Ernest Byne’ – New York Clipper, 11 April 1874.

  341 ‘Two gentlemen’ – ibid.

  342 ‘ERNEST BYNE, pronounced’ – New York Clipper, 25 April 1874.

  342 ‘Your airs’ – quoted in Laurence Senelick, The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre (London, 2000).

  343 ‘Lord Arthur Clinton’ – Reynolds’s Newspaper, 20 October 1872.

  343 ‘at the Installation’ – Morning Post, 30 January 1878.

  343 ‘My Lord Arthur Clinton’ – Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New South Wales Advertiser, 25 February 1879.

  344 ‘Elegant Parisian Clothes’ – Era, 24 June 1877.

  344 ‘Songs, Eccentricities’ – Era, 10 March 1878.

  344 ‘a most marvellous’ – Era, 24 June 1877.

  344 ‘The Bynes are’ – Era, 22 July 1877.

  344 ‘AN INDIGNANT NONCONFORMIST’ – Western Mail, 14 April 1879.

  344 ‘actor’ – Census of 1881.

  344 ‘Spring’s fairest blossoms’ – Fricker, ‘Fading Away’.

  346 ‘How dare you’ – Evening Standard, 2 May 1870.

  346 ‘N’importe’ – Frederick Park to Lord Arthur Clinton, 21 November 1868, Letters.

  346 ‘I give, devise’ – Last Will and Testament of Frederick William Park, 17 July 1878.

  347 ‘Song of the wild-bird’ – Fricker, ‘Fading Away’.

  347 ‘Society absurdity’ – Era, 22 December 1891.

  348 ‘The performer’ – Era, 13 June 1891.

  348 ‘The Brothers Blair’ – Belfast News-Letter, 13 June 1896.

  350 ‘Hope’s fairy promise’ – Fricker, ‘Fading Away’.

  350 ‘But there’s a land’ – ibid.

  Epilogue

  354 ‘a professional Mary-Ann’ – Statements of Jack Saul to Inspector Abberline.

  354 ‘Lord Euston’ – ibid.

  354 ‘uttering a fictitious cheque’ – Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 25 January 1873.

  354 ‘congestion’ – Death certificate of Amos Westropp Gibbings, 29 March 1890.

  355 ‘I invented’ – Oscar Wilde to the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, 1 October 1894, in Merlin Holland and Rupert Hart-Davis, The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde (London, 2000).

  357 ‘For I’ve got a Peep-Show’ – C. J. Pavitt, ‘I’ve Got a Peep-Show’ (c.1875).

  357 ‘allowed any cloud ’ – Trial testimony of Mary Ann Boulton.

  358 ‘large and beautiful garden’ – unsigned autobiographical essay by John Safford Fiske, History of the Class of 1863 Yale College (New Haven, Connecticut, 1905), in Jonathan Ned Katz, Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality (Chicago, 2001).

  358 ‘passed through his hands’ – Wirksworth Parish Magazine, October 1936, in Derek Wain, The Hurts of Derbyshire (Ashbourne, Derbyshire, 2002).

  359 ‘my uncle’ – Will of the Most Noble Henry Pelham Archibald Douglas Duke of Newcastle, 1927.

  359 ‘His charming manner’ – Hampshire Chronicle, 19 February 1940.

  Index

  Abberline, Inspector, 1

  Abbey Green, Lanarkshire, 1, 2

  Abrams (solicitor):

  acts for Fanny and Stella, 1, 2, 3, 4;

  advises Hurt and Fiske, 1, 2

  Acton, William, 1

  Alhambra see Royal Alhambra Palace

  Allingham, William, 1

  anal sex see sodomy

  Anniss, Inspector Silas, 1

  Attenborough, Mr (pawnbroker), 1

  Attorney-General see Collier, Sir Robert

  Barker, Emily, 1

  Barwell, Dr Richard:

  examines and treats Fanny for syphilis, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6;

  gives evidence at trial, 1, 2;

  later career and death, 1

  Batson, Mary, 1, 2, 3

  Beeton, Isabella and Samuel, 1

  Belfast News-Letter, 1

  Betsey H— (male prosti
tute), 1

  Blair, Ernest and Eden (stage names of Stella and Gerard Boulton), 1

  Boulton, Gerard (Stella’s brother):

  birth and childhood, 1, 2;

  and Lord Arthur Clinton, 1;

  partners Stella as leading man, 1, 2, 3;

  in America, 1;

  returns to England, 1;

  adopts name Eden Blair, 1, 2;

  marriage and son, 1;

  with Stella at death, 1;

  manages theatre in Winchester and death (1940), 1

  Boulton, Mary Ann (Stella’s mother):

  character and qualities, 1;

  marriage, 1;

  and Stella’s dressing up as child, 1;

  decline in fortunes, 1;

  and Stella’s poor health, 1, 2, 3;

  encourages Louis Hurt’s interest in Stella, 1, 2, 3;

  and Stella’s friends, 1;

  and Stella’s relations with Lord Arthur Clinton, 1, 2, 3;

  and Stella’s arrests, 1, 2;

  Louis Hurt offers support to, 1;

  testifies at Stella’s trial, 1, 2, 3;

  death, 1

  Boulton, Ernest see Boulton, Stella

  Boulton, Stella:

  appearance and dress, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6;

  at Strand Theatre, 1;

  arrested (1870), 1;

  gives name as Ernest Boulton, 1;

  Mundell meets and falls for, 1;

  appears before Bow Street magistrate and charged, 1;

  remanded in custody, 1;

  examined by Dr Paul, 1, 2, 3;

  birth and childhood, 1;

  singing, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9;

  dressing up as girl, 1;

  acting ambitions and performances, 1, 2, 3, 4;

  banking career, 1;

  attractive to men, 1;

  friendship with Fanny, 1, 2, 3;

  second court appearance, 1;

  drag wardrobe and accoutrements, 1;

  operation for fistula, 1, 2, 3;

  earlier arrests, 1, 2;

  acts in Oxford with Cumming, 1;

  earnings from prostitution, 1;

  testimonies and evidence against, 1;

  Louis Hurt courts, 1, 2;

  relations with Lord Arthur Clinton, 1, 2, 3;

  coming-of-age party (1867), 1;

  shares lodgings with Lord Arthur, 1, 2;

  character and behaviour, 1, 2;

  stage appearance in Scarborough, 1, 2;

  writes notes to Lord Arthur, 1;

  stays with Lord Arthur at Miss Empson’s in Davies Street, 1, 2;

  and Lord Arthur’s infidelity with Fanny, 1, 2;

  letter from Fiske, 1, 2;

  reconciliation with Fanny, 1;

  in Edinburgh, 1, 2;

  in Newgate Gaol, 1, 2, 3;

  medically examined in prison, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;

  feminine appearance of body, 1, 2;

  supposed hermaphroditism, 1;

  dalliance with Captain Cox, 1;

  attends Carlotta’s ball, 1, 2, 3;

  released on bail, 1, 2;

  trial before Lord Chief Justice, 1, 2, 3, 4;

  charges of sodomy withdrawn, 1;

  grows moustache, 1;

  criminal charges, 1;

  under police surveillance, 1;

  mother testifies for at trial, 1, 2;

  found not guilty, 1;

  resumes theatrical career after acquittal, 1, 2;

  changes name to Ernest Byne and moves to America, 1;

  returns to England, 1;

  as Ernest Blair, 1;

  male admirers in later years, 1;

  final illness, death and burial, 1, 2

  Boulton, Thomas (Stella’s father):

  marriage, 1;

  business reverses, 1, 2;

  and Lord Arthur Clinton, 1;

  Stella’s arrest, 1;

  Louis Hurt offers support to, 1;

  absent from Stella’s trial, 1

  Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, 1, 2, 3, 4

  Bow Street Police Station, 1, 2, 3

  Bradford, William, Governor of New England, 1

  Bradlaugh, Charles, 1

  Britain: social problems and change, 1

  brothels, male, 1

  Brown, Isaac Baker, 1

  Brown, Colonel T. Allston, 1

  Bruce, Henry, 1

  Bryan, Alfred, 1

  buggery see sodomy

  Burlington Arcade, Piccadilly, 1, 2, 3, 4

  Byne, Ernest (stage name of Boulton, Stella) see Boulton, Stella

  Byron, George Gordon, 1th Baron: ‘Don Leon’, 2

  Byron, H.J.: One Hundred Thousand Pounds (play), 1

  Caminada, Detective Sergeant Jerome, 1

  Campbell, George, 1

  Campbell (‘Lady Jane Grey’), 1, 2

  Carden, Sir Robert, 1

  Carlotta see Gibbings, Amos Westropp

  Caroline, Madame, 1

  Carroll, Lewis: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1

  Casper, Dr Johann Ludwig, 1, 2

  Castlehaven, Mervin Touchet, 1nd Earl of, 2, 3

  Challis, John, 1

  Chamberlain, Detective Officer William:

  and arrest of Fanny and Stella, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;

  calls at Martha Stacey’s house, 1, 2, 3, 4;

  testifies against Fanny and Stella, 1, 2;

  and medical examination of Fanny and Stella, 1;

  admits to surveillance of Fanny and Stella, 1;

  payments to, 1;

  retires from Metropolitan police and becomes private detective, 1

  Charing Cross Hospital: Fanny attends for anal syphilis, 1

  chirruping, 1

  chloroform, 1

  Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New South Wales Advertiser, 1

  Clark, Eliza, 1, 2, 3

  Coldbath Fields, House of Correction, 1

  Cleveland Street Scandal (1890), 1

  Clinton, Lord Arthur see Pelham–Clinton, Lord Arthur

  Clinton, Lord Thomas, 1

  Clutterbuck, Dr, 1

  Cockburn Sir Alexander (Lord Chief Justice), 1

  Coke, Sir Edward, 1

  Collette, Charles Hastings (The Society for the Suppression of Vice), 1

  Collier, Sir Robert (Attorney–General):

  prosecutes Fanny and Stella, 1, 2, 3, 4;

  calls witnesses, 1;

  on Home Secretary’s interest in trial, 1

  Colton, Eleanor, 1

  Cox, Captain Francis Kegan, 1, 2

  Cox, Jane, 1

  Creer, Edwin, 1

  Cumming, Martin Luther (‘the Comical Countess’):

  uses Wakefield Street house, 1, 2;

  friendship with Fanny, 1, 2;

  arrested with Stella, 1, 2, 3;

  acting, 1, 2;

  attends Carlotta’s ball, 1;

  Inspector Thomas pursues, 1;

  tried in absence, 1;

  appearance, 1;

  last sighting in Brussels, 1

  Daily Telegraph, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

  Daly, Anthony, 1

  Darwin, Charles, 1

  Davies Street, London, 1, 2, 3

  Departmental Committee on Prisons, 1

  D’Eyncourt, Mr (magistrate), 1

  Dibdin, Acting Sergeant Edwin, 1, 2

  Dickens, Charles:

  on Surrey Theatre, 1;

  Hard Times, 1

  Dickson, Mrs Agnes, 1, 2, 3

  Doig, John, 1

  Druid’s Hall, City of London, 1

  Drag balls, 1

  Drysdale, George, 1;

  The Elements of Social Science, 1

  Dublin Castle Scandal (1884), 1

  Duffin, Hannah, 1

  Duffin, Maria (later George), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Dunton, John: The He-Strumpets, 1

  Edinburgh, 1, 2, 3

  Edward, Prince of Wales:

  at Strand Theatre, 1;

  visits Scarborough, 1;

  in Mordaunt
divorce case, 1

  Edwards, Eliza, 1, 2, 3, 4

  Edwards, Maria, 1

  Empson, Ann, 1, 2, 3, 4

  Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, The, 1, 2

  Era (theatrical newspaper), 1, 2

  Essex Herald, 1

  Euston, Henry James FitzRoy, Earl of, 1

  Evening News, 1

  Extraordinary Revelations see Lives of Boulton and Park, The: Extraordinary Revelations (anonymous pamphlet), 1

  Fair Eliza (male prostitute), 1

  Fanny see Park, Fanny Winifred

  Farrer, Mrs Thomasin, 1

  Farrier, Police Constable, 1

  Fenians, 1, 2

  Fenton, Fred see Park, Fanny Winifred

  Ferguson, Charles see Park, Harry

  Fiske, John Safford:

  in Edinburgh, 1, 2, 3;

  background and career, 1;

  infatuation with Stella, 1;

  and Louis Hurt, 1;

  letters to Stella in police hands, 1;

  visits London to explain relations with Stella, 1;

  premises searched by police, 1, 2;

  arrested and held in Newgate, 1, 2;

  charges of sodomy withdrawn, 1;

  trial, 1, 2, 3;

  Simeon Solomon describes, 1;

  retirement to Italy and death, 1

  Flowers, James, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

  France: cross-dressers, 1

  George, Maria see Duffin, Maria

  Gepp and Sons (Chelmsford solicitors), 1, 2

  Gibbings, Amos Westropp (‘Carlotta’):

  meets Mundell, 1;

  uses Martha Stacey’s Wakefield Street house of accommodation, 1, 2, 3;

  removes incriminating matter from Wakefield Street, 1, 2, 3;

  takes men’s clothes to police station for Fanny and Stella, 1;

  engages solicitor for Fanny and Stella, 1;

  friendship with Fanny, 1;

  hosts ball at Haxell’s Hotel, 1, 2, 3, 4;

  relations with Fanny, 1;

  appearance, 1;

  friendship with Sissy Thomas, 1;

  supposedly finances Fanny and Stella’s defence, 1;

  tours with Louis Munro, 1;

  death, 1

  Gibson, Dr John Rowland, 1, 2

  Gladstone, William Ewart:

  on Duchess of Manchester, 1;

  as godfather, guardian and political patron of Lord Arthur, 1;