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‘When Two Loving Hearts Beat as One’: same‐sex marriage, subjectivity and self‐representation in the Australian case of Marion‐Bill‐Edwards, 1906–1916

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 17; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09612020802316769

1747-583X

Lucy Chesser,

Australian History and Society

Abstract This article focuses on the Australian case of Marion‐Bill‐Edwards who lived most of her adult life in male attire. It examines three bursts of publicity Edwards encountered, a 1906 criminal trial, her 1908 autobiography and a 1916 court case in which she was a witness. The case is significant because it makes an important contribution to understandings of the sexual subjectivity of women (especially women of the lower classes) who had same‐sex relationships in the early years of the twentieth century. The article explores changes in Edwards’ self‐representation and subjectivity in this pivotal period in which (research has indicated) new models for modern sexual identities began to emerge. Notes [1] Index to Victorian Marriages, 1900, William Ernest Edwards to Lucy Minehan, no: 860. Edwards was born in Murchison, Victoria in 1874, Index to Victorian Births, 1874, Marion Edwards, no: 4329. [2] McKay was Edwards’ mother’s birth name and also the surname of the uncle who had raised her after her parents’ deaths. [3] Marion‐Bill‐Edwards (n.d. c.1908) The Life and Adventures of Marion‐Bill‐Edwards, The Most Celebrated Man‐Woman of Modern Times: exciting incidents, strange sensations. Told in the Graphic Manner by Herself (Melbourne: W. H. Junior). Beatrix Tracy (1908) Marion Edwards. A Modern de Maupin, Lone Hand, 1 January, p. 305. [4] See, for example, ‘A “He‐She’s” Capers’, Truth [Melbourne], 18 September 1909, p. 5. ‘A Lamb in Wolf’s Clothing’, Port Adelaide News, 9 January 1914, p. 3. [5] For an overview of issues related to marriage between women in Australia see: Barbara Baird (2005) ‘Kerryn and Jackie’ Thinking Historically about Lesbian Marriages, Australian Historical Studies, 36(126), pp. 253–271. [6] Sally Newman (2002) Silent Witness? Aileen Palmer and the Problem of Evidence in Lesbian History, Women’s History Review, 11(3), pp. 505–530. [7] See Ruth Ford (2006) ‘Prove First You’re a Male’: a farmhand’s claim for wages in 1929 Australia, Labour History, 90, pp. 1–21; and Lucy Chesser (2008) ‘Woman in a Suit‐of‐Male’: sexuality, race and the woman worker in male ‘disguise,’ 1890–1920, Australian Feminist Studies, 23(56), pp. 175–194. [8] Ruth Ford (2000) They ‘Were wed, and Merrily Rang the Bells’: gender‐crossing and same‐sex marriage in Australia, 1900–1940, in David L. Phillips & Graham Willett (Eds) Australian Gay and Lesbian Perspectives 5 (Sydney: Australian Centre for Gay and Lesbian Research & the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives), pp. 41–66. [9] In 1974 Anne Summers published a two‐page article in Refractory Girl, based on Edwards’ autobiography and the article in Lone Hand. Summers’ interest in Edwards centred upon her status as a woman whose life experience was outside the realms of ‘bourgeois or respectable working class women’. Significant too, was Edwards’ situation as a possible ‘lesbian’, and the meanings with respect to lesbianism that attention to Edwards might reveal. Anne Summers (1974) Marion/Bill Edwards, Refractory Girl, Summer, pp. 21–22; In the early 1990s historians Mimi Colligan and Gail Reekie both returned to the case. Colligan’s approach was explicitly biographical. Her research, undertaken in the 1980s, included interviews with several elderly North Melbourne residents who remembered Edwards. I would like to thank Mimi Colligan for sharing her unpublished work with me. Mimi Colligan (1992) Cross Dressing among the Workers 1850s–1950s, unpublished paper presented at the ‘Bring a Plate’ Feminist Cultural Studies Conference, Melbourne. Gail Reekie’s short article on Edwards was more theoretically driven. It explored the significance of cross‐dressing and its relationships to binary constructions of gender and sexuality, and attempted to locate the case within key historical debates about gender and Australian Culture. Gail Reekie (1994) ‘She Was a Lovable Man’: Marion/Bill Edwards and the feminisation of Australian culture, Journal of Australian Lesbian Feminist Studies, 4, pp. 43–50. [10] Ruth Ford (1996) Speculating on Scrapbooks, Sex and Desire: issues in lesbian history, Australian Historical Studies, 27(106), pp. 111–126; and (1995) ‘Lady‐Friends’ and ‘Sexual Deviationists’: lesbians and the law in Australia, 1920s–1950s, in Diane Kirkby (Ed.) Sex, Power and Justice: historical perspectives on law in Australia (Melbourne: Oxford University Press). [11] ‘“Little Willie”’, Brisbane Courier, 5 October 1906, p. 5. [12] ‘Little “Willie” Remanded to Victoria’, Brisbane Courier, 10 October 1906, p. 8. [13] Ibid. See also ‘The Woman Masquerader,’ Argus [Melbourne], 10 October 1906, p. 8. [14] ‘Masquerading as a Man’, Age [Melbourne], 16 October 1906, p. 6. [15] ‘Miss “Bill” Edwards,’ Age [Melbourne], 23 October 1906, p. 5. [16] Ibid. [17] ‘Shooting Sensation,’ Argus [Melbourne], 22 October 1906, p. 9; ‘“Bill” Edwards Again’, Age [Melbourne], 22 October 1906, p. 7. [18] Chesser, ‘Woman in a Suit‐of‐Male’. [19] ‘“Little Willie”’, Brisbane Courier, 5 October 1906, p. 5. [20] Ibid. [21] ‘Surety Estreated. Helping a Boarder’, Argus [Melbourne], 17 May 1905, p. 4. [22] ‘Masquerading Woman’, Truth [Melbourne], 6 October 1906, p. 5. [23] ‘The Woman Man’, Truth [Melbourne], 20 October 1906, p. 5. [24] ‘Masquerading Woman’, Truth [Melbourne], 6 October 1906, p. 5. [25] ‘Man Impersonators’, Herald [Melbourne], 29 September 1906, p. 5. On De Lacy Evans see: Lucy Chesser (1998) ‘A Woman Who Married Three Wives’: management of disruptive knowledge in the 1879 Australian case of Edward De Lacy Evans, Journal of Women’s History, 9(4), pp. 53–77. [26] ‘“Billy.” The Girl‐Man’, Herald [Melbourne], 18 October 1906, p. 6. [27] Interestingly, in her autobiography she described having taken boxing lessons. Edwards, Life and Adventures, p. 41. [28] ‘Masquerading as a Man’, Age [Melbourne], 16 October 1906, p. 6. [29] ‘Marion Edwards’, Weekly Times [Melbourne], 20 October 1906, p. 5. [30] Re Character of Marion Edwards, Alias William Edwards, Whilst in Brisbane, (Memorandum) Criminal Investigation Branch, Brisbane, 18 October 1906. Criminal Trial Briefs. VA 000667, VPRS 30, Unit 425–1574. Marion Edwards, October 1906. PROV. [31] ‘The Man‐Woman Case’, Age [Melbourne], 3 November 1906, p. 15. [32] Edwards, Life and Adventures, p. 62. [33] ‘The Man‐Woman Case’, Age [Melbourne], 3 November 1906, p. 15. [34] Edwards, Life and Adventures, p. 8. [35] Ibid., p. 10. [36] Ibid., p. 15. [37] Ruth Ford (2000) ‘The Man‐Woman Murderer’: sex fraud, sexual inversion and the unmentionable ‘article’ in 1920s Australia, Gender and History, 12(1), p. 181. [38] Thanks to Ruth Ford for discussing with me the ideas in this paragraph. On Barker, see: James Vernon (2000) ‘For Some Queer Reason’: the trials and tribulations of Colonel Barker’s masquerade in interwar Britain, Signs, 26(1), pp. 37–62. Barker claimed to have told her wife that she was a severely wounded war hero and that injuries prevented sexual intercourse. [39] Lynne Freidli (1987) ‘Passing Women’: a study of gender boundaries in the eighteenth century, in G. S. Rousseau & Roy Porter (Eds) Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 234–260. [40] ‘Male Masquerader’, Truth [Melbourne], 22 May 1909, p. 7. [41] ‘Woman who Posed as a Man’, Truth [Melbourne], 13 August 1910, p. 7. [42] Edwards, Life and Adventures, p. 22. [43] Ibid., pp. 23–26. [44] Ibid., pp. 32, 35. [45] Ibid., p. 37. [46] Ibid., p. 40. [47] ‘Little “Willie”’, Brisbane Courier, 5 October 1906, p. 5. [48] Ibid. [49] Lisa Duggan (1993) The Trials of Alice Mitchell: sensationalism, sexology, and the lesbian subject in turn‐of‐the‐century America, Signs, 18(4), p. 810. [50] Ibid., p. 798. [51] Ibid., p. 799. [52] Edwards, Life and Adventures, p. 32. [53] Ibid., pp. 32, 35. [54] ‘“Little Willie”’, Brisbane Courier, 5 October 1906, p. 5. [55] Tracey, ‘Marion Edwards’, p. 305. [56] Martha Vicinus (1994) Lesbian History: all theory and no facts or all facts and no theory? Radical History Review, 60, p. 60. [57] Ibid. [58] ‘Little “Willie”’, Brisbane Courier, 5 October 1906, p. 5. [59] Colligan, ‘Cross Dressing among the Workers’, p. 3. [60] For example, Martha Vicinus (1991) Distance and Desire: English boarding school friendships, 1870–1920, in Martin B. Duberman, Martha Vicinus & George Chauncey (Eds) Hidden from History (London: Penguin), pp. 212–232; Duggan, ‘Trials of Alice Mitchell’; and Carroll Smith‐Rosenberg (1991) Discourses of Sexuality and Subjectivity: the New Woman, 1870–1936, in Duberman et al., Hidden from History, pp. 264–280. On Australia see Ruth Ford, ‘The Man‐Woman Murderer’; and Michael Gilding (1991) The Making and Breaking of the Australian Family (Sydney: Allen & Unwin), ch. 7, The Making of the Homosexual, pp. 95–148. [61] Michel Foucault (1990) The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, An Introduction (London: Penguin), especially pp. 42–73; Jeffrey Weeks (1990) Coming Out: homosexual politics in Britain from the nineteenth century to the present (London: Quartet), pp. 23–31, 57–67; Lillian Faderman (1991) Surpassing the Love of Men: romantic friendship and love between women from the Renaissance to the present (London: The Women’s Press), pp. 314–331; and Martha Vicinus (1989) ‘They Wonder to Which Sex I Belong’: the historical roots of the modern lesbian identity, in Dennis Altman et al. (Eds) Homosexuality, Which Homosexuality? Essays from the International Scientific Conference on Gay and Lesbian Studies (London: GMP Publishers), pp. 178–198. [62] Duggan, ‘Trials of Alice Mitchell’, p. 793. [63] ‘Man‐Woman Marion’, Truth [Melbourne], 14 October 1916, p. 2. [64] Ibid. All transcripts from this hearing are taken from the same Truth article. [65] ‘Man or Woman?’ Truth [Melbourne], 9 December 1916, p. 3. [66] Ibid. [67] Ibid. [68] Ibid. [69] Sharon R. Ullman (1995) ‘The Twentieth Century Way’: female impersonation and sexual practice in turn‐of‐the‐century America, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 5(4), p. 576. [70] ‘A Sexual Pervert’, Truth [Melbourne], 27 December 1902, p. 2. See also ‘Peters, the Sexual Pervert again under Arrest’, Truth [Melbourne], 24 September 1904, p. 3 and ‘Is he a Sexo‐Maniac?’ Truth [Melbourne], 15 October 1904, p. 3. Psychological defence was also used in cases where men sexually assaulted girls; see: ‘Lustful Young Limb. Psychological problem’, Truth [Melbourne], 20 June 1903, p. 5. [71] ‘Prison Methods’, Truth [Melbourne], 3 October 1903, p. 1. See also ‘A Gallows Gaol’, Truth [Melbourne], 20 December 1902, p. 8. In a 1904 article on female heterosexual immorality, in which women were focused upon in some detail for engaging in sexual relations with men in full public view in Sydney’s Hyde Park, Truth made reference to Krafft‐Ebing’s theories and labelled the women ‘psychopaths’. ‘Shameless Shemales’, Truth [Melbourne], 23 April 1904, p. 3. [72] ‘Exhibitionism’, Truth [Melbourne], 23 February 1907, p. 3; ‘Sexual Symbolism’, Truth [Melbourne], 20 April 1907, p. 8, ‘Sexual Slavery’, Truth [Melbourne], 20 July 1907, p. 7. [73] On this campaign see Lucy Chesser (2000) ‘Parting with My Sex for a Season’: cross‐dressing, inversion and sexuality in Australian cultural life, 1850–1920. (PhD thesis, School of Archaeological and Historical Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University). [74] Victoria Police Gazette, 8 March 1917, p. 154.