Fanny and Stella (44 page)

Gerard Boulton gave up the stage after Stella died and moved to Winchester with his wife, Matilda, and their son. Gerard kept the name ‘Eden Blair’, and for many years he was the manager of the Regent Theatre in Winchester. ‘His charming manner earned him the respect of all, and especially of children,’ his obituary in the
Hampshire Chronicle
recorded. In his later years he was a stalwart of the Spiritualist Church in Hyde Abbey Road. He died on 26th January 1940 aged eighty-six. Gerard was just sixteen when the scandal of the Young Men in Women’s Clothes erupted in 1870, and with him died the last living memories of Fanny and Stella.

Notes

Every word of the sensational six-day trial of Fanny and Stella in May 1871 was assiduously taken down by a team of shorthand writers from Messrs Walsh and Son of Little George Street, Westminster. The entire trial was then transcribed in longhand in at least a dozen clerkly hands (of varying legibility), and bound together in one enormous volume.
The Queen v Boulton and Others before the Lord Chief Justice and a Special Jury: Proceedings on the Trial of the Indictment
is a remarkable document, not least because it has survived intact when so many other transcripts of major Victorian trials have been lost or destroyed. The trial transcript is in the care of the National Archives in Kew, along with the bundle of thirty-one depositions given by witnesses at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court in April and May 1870 and some thirty letters, just a tiny fraction of the two thousand documents handed over to Inspector Thompson by Miss Ann Empson, the Dragon of Davies Street.

Much of the material in this book is drawn directly from the trial transcript (DPP 4/6), the depositions (KB6/3) and the letters (KB6/3, part I) in the National Archives, and designated in the notes as ‘Trial’, ‘Deposition’ and ‘Letters’. I have relied heavily on contemporary newspaper reports of the trial and its aftermath, all of which can be consulted at British Library Newspapers in Colindale, London.

1 Leading Ladies

1  ‘When they were seated’ – ‘The Funny He-She Ladies’,
Curiosities of Street Literature, Comprising Cocks and Catchpennies
(London, 1871).

2  ‘the very fairest’ –
Echo
, 3 May 1870.

2  ‘The general opinion’ –
The Lives of Boulton and Park: Extraordinary Revelations
(London, 1870).

3  ‘There was a young man’ –
The Pearl
, November 1879.

3  ‘lasciviously ogled’ –
Extraordinary Revelations
.

4  ‘no harm in it’ –
Pall Mall Gazette
, 6 March 1881.

5  ‘sterner features’ –
Evening Standard
, 2 May 1870.

6  ‘charming as a star’ – Quoted in the opening speech of Sir John Karslake, Trial.

6  ‘Stella, Star of the Strand’ –
Extraordinary Revelations
.

7  ‘I’m a police officer’ –
Daily Telegraph
, 30 April 1870.

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

7  ‘Look here’ – Deposition of Detective Sergeant Kerley/
Reynolds’s Newspaper
, 14 May 1871.

9  ‘Your name and address?’ – Trial testimony of Inspector Thompson.

10  ‘There were flannel petticoats’ – Trial testimony of Detective Officer Chamberlain.

10  ‘One of the police’ – Deposition of Hugh Mundell/
Daily Telegraph
, 7 May 1870.

11  ‘a cruel sell’ – ‘The Funny He-She Ladies’.

11  ‘so brave’ – Trial testimony of Detective Officer Chamberlain. 

2 The Hapless Swain

12  ‘These young men’ –
Extraordinary Revelations
.

12 ‘the nightly resort’ – Jim Davis and Victor Emeljanow,
Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing, 1840–1880
(Hatfield, 2001).

12  ‘a few pilgrims’ –
All the Year Round
(19 May 1877) quoted in Davis and Emeljanow,
Reflecting the Audience.

12  ‘23 years and a half’ –
Daily Telegraph
, 7 May 1870.

13  ‘very little experience’ – Deposition of Hugh Mundell.

13  ‘an “idle” sort of a life’ –
ibid
.

14  ‘Those two are women’ –
ibid
.

14  ‘I took them to be women’ –
Daily Telegraph
, 7 May 1870.

14  ‘We think you’re following us’ – Trial testimony of Hugh Mundell.

15  ‘these monsters’ – ‘H. Smith’,
The Yokel’s Preceptor: Or, More Sprees in London!
(London,
c
.1850).

16  ‘I talked to them’ –
Daily Telegraph
, 7 May 1870.

16  ‘only be too happy’ – Deposition of Hugh Mundell.

16  ‘never anything improper’ –
Daily Telegraph
, 7 May 1870.

17  ‘our private box’ – Trial testimony of Hugh Mundell.

17  ‘Dear Mr Mundell’ –
ibid.

17  ‘It’s a good joke’ –
ibid
.

18  ‘In what way’ –
Daily Telegraph
, 7 May 1870.

18  ‘I shall ask for Mrs Park’ – Trial testimony of Hugh Mundell.

19  ‘a bit of brown’ – ‘Walter’,
My Secret Life
(Amsterdam,
c
.1880).

19  ‘back-door work’ –
The Pearl
, 1880.

20  ‘I said I had’ – Trial testimony of Hugh Mundell/
Daily Telegraph
, 7 May 1870.

21  ‘They were talking’ –
Extraordinary Revelations
.

21  ‘principally dowagers’ – Deposition of Amos Westropp Gibbings.

22  ‘Who
are
they?’ –
Daily Telegraph
, 7 May 1870.

22  ‘I have my doubts’ – Trial testimony of Hugh Mundell.

23  ‘I am not a lady’ –
ibid
.

23  ‘There was a great deal of confusion’ –
The Times
, 7 May 1870/
Extraordinary Revelations
.

23  ‘quite in a myth’ – Trial testimony of Hugh Mundell.

23  ‘led on’ –
ibid
.

3 The Slap-Bum Polka

24  ‘a cute detective chap’ – ‘The Funny He-She Ladies’.

25  ‘He asked whether two gentlemen’ – Deposition of Martha Stacey.

26  ‘My mother remonstrated’ –
ibid
.

27  ‘in drag’ – Deposition of Amos Westropp Gibbings.

28  ‘laughing, chaffing’ – Deposition of Martha Stacey.

28  ‘Slap-Bum Polka’ – Jack Saul,
The Sins of the Cities of the Plain
(London, 1881).

29  ‘very effeminate’ –
Reynolds’s Newspaper
, 5 June 1870.

30  ‘handsomest frocks’ – Trial testimony of Detective Officer Chamberlain.

4 In the Dock

31  ‘When first before’ – ‘The Funny He-She Ladies’.

33  ‘was crowded’ –
Illustrated Police News
, 7 May 1870.

34  ‘crammed’ –
Evening News
, 30 April 1870.

34  ‘great surprise’ –
Daily Telegraph
, 30 April 1870.

35  ‘these two women’ –
ibid
.

35  ‘did with each’ – KB6/3, The National Archives.

37  ‘Both conducted’ –
Daily Telegraph,
30 April 1870.

37  ‘Last evening’ –
ibid
.

38  ‘lasciviously ogling’ –
Extraordinary Revelations
.

38  ‘I have been’ – Deposition of Detective Officer Chamberlain.

38  ‘I found’ –
Daily Telegraph
, 30 April 1870.

39  ‘for a year past’ –
ibid
.

39  ‘seen both the prisoners’ – Deposition of Police Constable Walker.

40  ‘Much of the evidence’ –
Daily Telegraph
, 30 April 1870.

40  ‘The onus’ –
ibid
.

5 Foreign Bodies

42  ‘EXAMINATION OF PEDERASTS’
–
Charles Vibert,
Précis de médicine légale
(Paris, 1893, translated by Dede Smith).

42  ‘I was in the street’ – Trial testimony of Dr James Paul.

44  ‘Step inside’ – Deposition of Dr Paul.

44  ‘Unfasten’ –
ibid
.

44  ‘Without saying’ –
ibid
.

44  ‘I did not use’ –
ibid
.

44  ‘force’ –
ibid
.

44  ‘I examined them’ –
ibid
.

46  ‘a wheezing’ – C. J. S. Thompson,
Ladies or Gentlemen? Women Who Posed as Men and Men Who Impersonated Women
(New York, 1993).

46  ‘doubtful repute’ –
Observer
, 22 May 1870.

46  ‘Maria’ – Thompson,
Ladies or Gentlemen?

47  ‘no appearance of a beard’ – Alfred Swaine Taylor,
The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence
(London, 1861).

47  ‘The state of the rectum’ –
ibid
.

49  ‘abused by men’ – Deposition of Dr Paul.

49  ‘special continental vice’ –
The Leader
, 18 September 1858.

50  ‘I had never seen’ – Trial testimony of Dr Paul.

50  ‘I examined Boulton’ – Deposition of Dr Paul.

50  ‘Boulton was then removed’ –
ibid.

50  ‘The anus was
very
’ –
ibid
.

51  ‘a foreign body’ – Deposition of Dr Paul.

51  ‘an inordinate length’ –
ibid
.

51  ‘Traction’ –
ibid
.

51  ‘the dimensions’ – Ambroise Tardieu,
Étude médico-légale sur les attentats aux mœurs
(Paris, 1857, and seventh edition, 1878, translated by Dede Smith).

6 Wives and Daughters

53  ‘Say Stella’ – Jonathan Swift, ‘To Stella, Visiting Me in My Sickness’, 1720.

53  ‘independent means’ – entry in the 1841 Census.

53  ‘And Ernest was’ – Trial testimony of Mrs Mary Ann Boulton.

56  ‘Mamma’ –
ibid
.

58  ‘everything’ –
ibid
.

59  ‘reverses’ –
ibid
.

59  ‘If he asked his father’ –
ibid.

60  ‘consumptive’ –
ibid
.

61  ‘I was always’ –
ibid
.

7 Becoming Fanny

65  ‘And all that’s madly wild’ – Thomas Parnell,
Poems upon Several Occasions
(London, 1773).

77  ‘sound in principles’ – Sir James Park,
Some Account of Myself
, unpublished and undated MS,
c
.1835.

8 A Tale of Two Sisters