With LGBT+ History Month well underway, an event in Edinburgh’s city centre is set to shine a spotlight on the pioneering queer people of Georgian times.
Held at the Georgian House on Charlotte Square, a tour of the home will be accompanied by tales of LGBT+ people in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Visitors will learn of early drag culture, surprise trans identities and Britain’s first lesbian wedding.
Kicking off on February 25 at 3pm, organisers say the event will explore the stories of ‘people who lived beyond heterosexuality and the gender binary over two hundred years ago’.
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One of the tales brought to attention at the event will be James Barry, one of the most ‘remarkable stories in the University of Edinburgh’s history’. Barry studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1812.
He was sent to South Africa with the army and carried out the first successful Caesarean section in 1826. Going on to have a distinguished career, Barry was often teased by colleagues for his voice and ‘bad-tempered, eccentric’ nature.
Returning to Britain in 1865, Barry had a bad case of dysentery. Laying him out for the funeral, his maid discovered something - James was a woman.
As it turned out, James started out life as Margaret Ann Bulkey in a very poor family from Ireland. A plan was hatched to study medicine in Edinburgh disguised as a man - with women not signing the matriculation roll at the University of Edinburgh until 1869.
Unfortunately, it’s unclear whether Barry considered themselves to be a man. It could’ve been a choice made to get ahead in the field of medicine, or indeed both.
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Also featured in the tour will be Anne Lister, known as the ‘first modern lesbian’. The West Yorkshire woman kept diaries throughout her life, which provide exact details of her life and loves.
Encoded portions of the texts document her ‘passionate’ love affairs with women, with one-sixth of the diaries written in a code which combines algebra and the Greek alphabet. Reportedly, she thought her secret encounters would never be discovered - of course, they were.
Aside from these two British LGBT+ icons, the tour will also investigate the life of Lord Hervey - an English courtier and bisexual man who had a string of affairs within the ‘upper crust’ of Britain throughout the early 18th century.
You can find out more about the event, and the ‘fearless queers’ of Georgian Britain, here.
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