6 LONDON CROSS-DRESSERS
1. Chevalier D'Eon
D'Eon was an eighteenth-century French diplomat and spy whose sexual status aroused much speculation in his native country and in London, where he lived for long periods of his life. Although he was fond of such traditionally masculine pursuits as fighting and fencing, D'Eon delighted in dressing as a woman and, on one occasion, even petitioned Louis XVI to be officially recognised as female. Perhaps caring little what sex the Chevalier was, the king agreed and D'Eon dressed as a woman at court. After the French Revolution, he returned to England, where he had served as a diplomat in the 1760s, and lived the rest of his life there, mostly in drag, dying in 1810. Londoners were intrigued by D'Eon and large sums of money were gambled on wagers about his true sex. Horace Walpole, who met D'Eon in 1786, noticed that he was heftier and more muscular than the average woman. 'Her hands and arms seem not to have participated of the change of sexes,' he wrote, 'but are fitter to carry a chair than a fan.' After his death, examination proved that he was, and always had been, a man.
2.James Miranda Barry
Born in the 1790s, Barry entered medical school in Edinburgh as a man, graduated as a man, practised as a surgeon in the army abroad for many years as a man and retired to London as a man. It was only after death that it was discovered that Barry was, in fact, a woman. She was buried in Kensal Green cemetery in 1865. Barry was described by one contemporary, who had no idea of the doctor's true sex, as 'the most wayward of men; in appearance a beardless lad ... there was a certain effeminacy about his manner which he was always striving to overcome'.
3.& 4. Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park
Boulton and Park were two androgynous young men who delighted in donning silk and satin dresses to cruise the theatres and arcades of the Strand as 'Stella' and 'Fanny'. At their trial in 1871 they were charged with 'conspiring and inciting persons to commit an offence', one of the witnesses against Boulton describing how he had kissed 'him, she or it' under the impression he was canoodling with a woman. Both men were intimate with a young
aristocrat called Lord Arthur Clinton and exchanged letters with him, in one of which Park complained that 'the weather has turned so showery that I can't go out without a dread of my back hair coming out of curl'.
5.Vesta Tilley
Born Matilda Powles in 1864, Vesta Tilley was one of the most famous and best-paid music-hall stars of her era. Her speciality was male impersonation. Dressed as an effete dandy, she delighted working-class audiences in the halls by poking fun at the manners and foibles of the rich. Off-stage she married a theatre manager called Walter de Frece who later became a Conservative MP and was knighted for his fund-raising activities during World War I. Lady de Frece died in Monte Carlo in 1952.
6.Colonel Leslie Barker
Arrested for bankruptcy at the Regent Palace Hotel in 1925, the self-styled Colonel turned out to be an Australian woman called Lillias Barker. She had taken to dressing as a man after World War I and married as such, telling her wife that her 'impotence' was the result of war wounds. After the contretemps in the Regent Palace, she was later arrested as a member of the National Fascist Party, a tiny group of Mussolini admirers, and, in 1927, appeared in court on a charge of illegal possession of a firearm. Barker again made use of alleged war wounds as an excuse, this time claiming to be not impotent but blind and therefore unable to use a weapon. She was still masquerading as a man when she died in a Suffolk village in 1960. letters with him, in one of which Park complained that 'the weather has turned so showery that I can't go out without a dread of my back hair coming out of curl'.
D'Eon was an eighteenth-century French diplomat and spy whose sexual status aroused much speculation in his native country and in London, where he lived for long periods of his life. Although he was fond of such traditionally masculine pursuits as fighting and fencing, D'Eon delighted in dressing as a woman and, on one occasion, even petitioned Louis XVI to be officially recognised as female. Perhaps caring little what sex the Chevalier was, the king agreed and D'Eon dressed as a woman at court. After the French Revolution, he returned to England, where he had served as a diplomat in the 1760s, and lived the rest of his life there, mostly in drag, dying in 1810. Londoners were intrigued by D'Eon and large sums of money were gambled on wagers about his true sex. Horace Walpole, who met D'Eon in 1786, noticed that he was heftier and more muscular than the average woman. 'Her hands and arms seem not to have participated of the change of sexes,' he wrote, 'but are fitter to carry a chair than a fan.' After his death, examination proved that he was, and always had been, a man.
2.James Miranda Barry
Born in the 1790s, Barry entered medical school in Edinburgh as a man, graduated as a man, practised as a surgeon in the army abroad for many years as a man and retired to London as a man. It was only after death that it was discovered that Barry was, in fact, a woman. She was buried in Kensal Green cemetery in 1865. Barry was described by one contemporary, who had no idea of the doctor's true sex, as 'the most wayward of men; in appearance a beardless lad ... there was a certain effeminacy about his manner which he was always striving to overcome'.
3.& 4. Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park
Boulton and Park were two androgynous young men who delighted in donning silk and satin dresses to cruise the theatres and arcades of the Strand as 'Stella' and 'Fanny'. At their trial in 1871 they were charged with 'conspiring and inciting persons to commit an offence', one of the witnesses against Boulton describing how he had kissed 'him, she or it' under the impression he was canoodling with a woman. Both men were intimate with a young
aristocrat called Lord Arthur Clinton and exchanged letters with him, in one of which Park complained that 'the weather has turned so showery that I can't go out without a dread of my back hair coming out of curl'.
5.Vesta Tilley
Born Matilda Powles in 1864, Vesta Tilley was one of the most famous and best-paid music-hall stars of her era. Her speciality was male impersonation. Dressed as an effete dandy, she delighted working-class audiences in the halls by poking fun at the manners and foibles of the rich. Off-stage she married a theatre manager called Walter de Frece who later became a Conservative MP and was knighted for his fund-raising activities during World War I. Lady de Frece died in Monte Carlo in 1952.
6.Colonel Leslie Barker
Arrested for bankruptcy at the Regent Palace Hotel in 1925, the self-styled Colonel turned out to be an Australian woman called Lillias Barker. She had taken to dressing as a man after World War I and married as such, telling her wife that her 'impotence' was the result of war wounds. After the contretemps in the Regent Palace, she was later arrested as a member of the National Fascist Party, a tiny group of Mussolini admirers, and, in 1927, appeared in court on a charge of illegal possession of a firearm. Barker again made use of alleged war wounds as an excuse, this time claiming to be not impotent but blind and therefore unable to use a weapon. She was still masquerading as a man when she died in a Suffolk village in 1960. letters with him, in one of which Park complained that 'the weather has turned so showery that I can't go out without a dread of my back hair coming out of curl'.
4 MUMMIFIED LONDONERS
Title.
1.Catherine of Valois
Henry V's queen, Catherine, died in 1437 and was buried in the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey. More than half a century later Henry VII, making major alterations to the Abbey, felt obliged to move her embalmed body. She was placed in a crude coffin constructed of flimsy boards and left above ground, close to the tomb of her husband. There she remained a public spectacle for more than two centuries. Vergers used to charge a shilling to take off the lid so that curious visitors could view her corpse. Samuel Pepys went one better when he visited the Abbey on his thirty-sixth birthday. He 'had the upper part of her body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it that I did kiss a Queen, and that this was my birthday, thirty-six year old, that I did first kiss a Queen'. The body was finally removed from public view in 1776.
2.Jeremy Bentham
The philosopher Jeremy Bentham died in 1832 at the age of eighty-four and left most of his estate to the newly founded University of London, now University College, London. His worldly goods were not all he left the university. He also left his body. In accordance with his belief that the dead should be useful to the living, he instructed his medical friends at the university to use it as 'the means of illustrating a series of lectures to which scientific & literary men are to be invited'. Once the lectures were over and 'all the soft parts have been disposed of', his skeleton was to be dressed in the clothes that he usually wore and placed on perpetual display. In an unpublished pamphlet written some years before his death, Bentham had put forward the idea of creating what he called 'auto- icons' of people after they died, and he was to become the first 'auto-icon'. He still sits in the college in a large case with a plate-glass front, wearing the clothes he used to put on, and with his stick in his hand. A wax head has replaced his own, which is preserved in a mummified state in a box nearby. His idea of auto-icons has not, however, caught on and his suggestions about their possible use ('If a country gentleman have rows of trees leading to his dwelling, the auto-icons of his family might alternate with the trees') have not been carried out.
3.'Jimmy Garlick'
London's only medieval mummy is in the church of St James Garlickhythe. Known as Jimmy Garlick, the body was discovered in 1839 by workmen excavating under the chancel. Well-preserved, although thoroughly desiccated by time, the corpse, that of a young man, was not artificially embalmed but is the result of natural mummification, a rare event in Britain.
4.The Preserved Lady'
Martin van Butchell was an eccentric who lived from 1735 to 1812. In his marriage contract there was a clause stating that he could own certain articles only 'while [his wife] remained above ground'. When she died, he retained title to the property by having her embalmed, dressed in her wedding clothes and placed in a glass-topped case in his drawing-room. The Preserved Lady' became a great attraction, with van Butchell always introducing her as 'my dear departed'. When he remarried, his new wife - irritated by the competition - insisted the corpse be removed. To fulfil the provision that she remain above ground, van Butchell presented her to the Royal College of Surgeons, where she remained on public view until she was cremated by a German bomb during a Luftwaffe raid in May 1941.
10 PUNK ROCK SITES IN LONDON
1.430 King’s Road, SW10
This was the site of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s SEX Boutique, the epicentre of the punk revolution, where the look (spiky hair, clothes ripped or held together by safety pins) was created and where the Sex Pistols were formed, initially to promote the shop. Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders was one of several future punk stars who worked in SEX.
2.St Martin’s College of Art and Design, Charing Cross Road, WC2
The Sex Pistols had their first gig here in November 1975, supporting a band called Bazooka Joe. (Stuart Goddard, later Adam Ant, was a member of the headlining band.) At the time, several of the Pistols were living in an attic flat in Denmark Street only a couple of hundred yards from the College so they had only a little distance to travel to the gig, an important consideration for McLaren whose earlier attempts to get all the band together at the same time had often ended in fiasco.
3.The 100 Club, Oxford Street, W1
This long-established music venue at 100 Oxford Street (it dates back to World War II) was the scene of a two- day punk festival, organised by Malcolm McLaren, on 20 and 21 September 1976. Many of the later-to-be-famous bands, including The Damned, The Clash, The Buzzcocks and The Sex Pistols, played during the two days. Sid Vicious, not yet a member of the Pistols, lived up to his name by attacking the music journalist Nick Kent with a bicycle chain.
4.Thames TV, Euston Road, NW1
Studio 5 was the scene of the December 1976 confrontation between the Sex Pistols, attended by friends like Siouxsie Sioux, and the TV presenter Bill Grundy. Goaded by Grundy and encouraged to ‘say something outrageous’, the band duly obliged with a volley of four- letter words of the kind not usually heard on TV in the 1970s. Grundy also made a disastrously misjudged London’s Outrage! attempt to flirt with Siouxsie Sioux and was accused of being a ‘dirty old man’.
5.181 Marylebone Road, NW1
The Marylebone Magistrates Court at this address was where Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen appeared on drugs charges in May 1978. Sid made faces at the court officers, fell asleep during the proceedings and then attacked one of the photographers waiting outside the building to snap the couple as they left.
6.Buckingham Palace, SW1
The short-lived signing of the Sex Pistols to A &c M Records took place on a table set up outside the gates of Buckingham Palace.
7.Lansdowne Studios, Lansdowne Road, W11
Here was where the Sex Pistols’ first single ‘Anarchy in the UK’ was recorded. The anarchy was not restricted to the lyrics of the song. Both EMI and Polydor were under the impression that they had booked the group to record, and representatives of both labels squabbled amongst themselves while the band members and their entourage, none of whom had any idea how to make a record, spent two weekends of studio time producing endless, unusable tape.
8. 171 North End Road, WI4
The Nashville Rooms, above a pub at this address, were the venue for numerous early punk gigs. The Stranglers, The Sex Pistols, The Damned and Joe Strummer’s pre- Clash band, the lOlers, all played here. Elvis Costello made his live debut here in May 1977.
9. Screen on the Green, Upper Street, N1
The cinema was the venue for The Clash’s first gig in August 1976.
10. 41-43 Neal Street, WC2
Neal Street was the site of the Roxy, a punk club run by Vivienne Westwood’s former accountant in the first few months of 1977. The Clash played the opening gig, The Jam and The Damned became regular attractions and Adam and the Ants made their debut at the club’s closing party which took place on 23 April 1977.
Holiday apartment London
This was the site of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s SEX Boutique, the epicentre of the punk revolution, where the look (spiky hair, clothes ripped or held together by safety pins) was created and where the Sex Pistols were formed, initially to promote the shop. Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders was one of several future punk stars who worked in SEX.
2.St Martin’s College of Art and Design, Charing Cross Road, WC2
The Sex Pistols had their first gig here in November 1975, supporting a band called Bazooka Joe. (Stuart Goddard, later Adam Ant, was a member of the headlining band.) At the time, several of the Pistols were living in an attic flat in Denmark Street only a couple of hundred yards from the College so they had only a little distance to travel to the gig, an important consideration for McLaren whose earlier attempts to get all the band together at the same time had often ended in fiasco.
3.The 100 Club, Oxford Street, W1
This long-established music venue at 100 Oxford Street (it dates back to World War II) was the scene of a two- day punk festival, organised by Malcolm McLaren, on 20 and 21 September 1976. Many of the later-to-be-famous bands, including The Damned, The Clash, The Buzzcocks and The Sex Pistols, played during the two days. Sid Vicious, not yet a member of the Pistols, lived up to his name by attacking the music journalist Nick Kent with a bicycle chain.
4.Thames TV, Euston Road, NW1
Studio 5 was the scene of the December 1976 confrontation between the Sex Pistols, attended by friends like Siouxsie Sioux, and the TV presenter Bill Grundy. Goaded by Grundy and encouraged to ‘say something outrageous’, the band duly obliged with a volley of four- letter words of the kind not usually heard on TV in the 1970s. Grundy also made a disastrously misjudged London’s Outrage! attempt to flirt with Siouxsie Sioux and was accused of being a ‘dirty old man’.
5.181 Marylebone Road, NW1
The Marylebone Magistrates Court at this address was where Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen appeared on drugs charges in May 1978. Sid made faces at the court officers, fell asleep during the proceedings and then attacked one of the photographers waiting outside the building to snap the couple as they left.
6.Buckingham Palace, SW1
The short-lived signing of the Sex Pistols to A &c M Records took place on a table set up outside the gates of Buckingham Palace.
7.Lansdowne Studios, Lansdowne Road, W11
Here was where the Sex Pistols’ first single ‘Anarchy in the UK’ was recorded. The anarchy was not restricted to the lyrics of the song. Both EMI and Polydor were under the impression that they had booked the group to record, and representatives of both labels squabbled amongst themselves while the band members and their entourage, none of whom had any idea how to make a record, spent two weekends of studio time producing endless, unusable tape.
8. 171 North End Road, WI4
The Nashville Rooms, above a pub at this address, were the venue for numerous early punk gigs. The Stranglers, The Sex Pistols, The Damned and Joe Strummer’s pre- Clash band, the lOlers, all played here. Elvis Costello made his live debut here in May 1977.
9. Screen on the Green, Upper Street, N1
The cinema was the venue for The Clash’s first gig in August 1976.
10. 41-43 Neal Street, WC2
Neal Street was the site of the Roxy, a punk club run by Vivienne Westwood’s former accountant in the first few months of 1977. The Clash played the opening gig, The Jam and The Damned became regular attractions and Adam and the Ants made their debut at the club’s closing party which took place on 23 April 1977.
Holiday apartment London
