James/Margaret Barry

James Margaret Steuart Barry(c. 1789 – 1865) was an Irish military surgeon in the British Army, born in Cork, Ireland. Although having lived their whole career as a man, it was discovered after death that Barry was actually a woman. I’ll discuss the debate surrounding their gender later, but for the meantime I am going to use they/their pronouns to cover all bases!

 

Barry was the second child of Jeremiah and Mary-Ann Bulkley, and was given the name Margaret Anne. The family fell on hard times when her father was dismissed from his post due to rising anti-Catholic sentiment in Ireland. A third child appeared in the Bulkley family and was named Juliana. Although presented as being Barry's sister, it is possible that she was Barry's daughter, the result of childhood sexual assault, as after Barry's death pregnancy stretch marks were present (more on that later).

The teenage Barry was educated to become a tutor, but it appears that no suitable work was found. A conspiracy appears to have developed between the Bulkley’s and some of her late uncle’s influential, liberal-minded friends to enable the teenage Barry to enter medical school.

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On 30^th November 1809, Barry set sail for the University of Edinburgh. It was at this point that Margaret Anne Bulkley became James Barry, nephew of the late James Barry RA, and remained known thus for the next 56 years. In a letter sent on 14 December, Barry asked for any letters addressed to Margaret Bulkley to be forwarded to Mary-Ann Bulkley (whom Barry now refers to as "my aunt"), and mentions that '...it was very usefull [sic] for Mrs. Bulkley (my aunt) to have a Gentleman to take care of her on Board Ship and to have one in a strange country...'. Although the letter was signed "James Barry", the solicitor indiscreetly wrote on the back of the envelope 'Miss Bulkley, 14 December'; this crucial piece of evidence was the one which finally enabled researchers to confirm that James Barry was in fact Margaret Bulkley.

Arriving in Edinburgh, Barry began studies at the Medical School as a 'literary and medical student'. Barry's short stature, unbroken voice, delicate features and smooth skin led many to suspect that Barry was a young prepubescent boy not past puberty, and the University Senate initially attempted to block Barry's application for the final examinations due to this apparent youth. However, the Earl of Buchan, a friend of the family, persuaded the Senate to relent and Barry qualified Medicinae Doctor (MD) in 1812. Barry then moved to London, signing up for the Autumn Course 1812/1813 as a pupil of the United Hospitals of Guy's and St Thomas'. On 2 July 1813, Barry successfully passed the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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Upon their graduation, Barry was commissioned as a Hospital Assistant in the British Army on 6 July 1813, taking up posts in Chelsea and then the Royal Military Hospital in Plymouth, achieving a promotion to Assistant Surgeon to the Forces, equivalent to lieutenant, on 7 December 1815.

Having completed their training, Barry was posted to Cape Town, South Africa in 1816. Barry had a letter of introduction to the Governor, Lieutenant General Lord Charles Henry Somerset. Following the successful, even spectacular, treatment of Lord Charles's sick daughter, Barry was welcomed into the family, developing a close friendship with the Governor, and becoming his personal physician. In 1822 Somerset appointed Barry as Colonial Medical Inspector – an extraordinary promotion. During their decade in the Cape, Barry effected significant changes, among them improvements to sanitation and water systems, improved conditions for enslaved people, prisoners and the mentally ill, and provision of a sanctuary for the leper population. Barry also performed one of the first recorded successful Caesarean sections in which both mother and child survived; the child was christened James Barry Munnik in Barry's honour, and the name was passed down through the family, leading to Barry's name being borne by a later Prime Minister of South Africa, J. B. M. Hertzog. Despite these amazing achievements, Barry proved unpopular with the local officials for criticising their handling of medical matters, but the advantage of a close relationship with the Governor meant that the repercussions of these outspoken views were rarely serious. Barry was promoted to Surgeon to the Forces on 22 November 1827 and was subsequently posted to Mauritius.

In 1829, Barry risked everything by going absent without leave to return to England to treat Somerset, who had fallen ill. They remained there until Somerset's death in 1831. (More on this later too!)

Barry's subsequent posting was to Jamaica, and then the island of Saint Helena in 1836. At St Helena, one clash with a fellow army surgeon resulted in Barry being arrested and court-martialled on a charge of "conduct unbecoming of the character of an Officer and a Gentleman". However, Barry was found not guilty, and honourably acquitted.

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In 1840 Barry was posted to the Leeward Islands and Windward Islands of the West Indies, there focusing on medicine, management and improving the conditions of the troops, receiving a promotion to Principal Medical Officer. In 1845, Barry contracted yellow fever and returned to England to recover. After being cleared to return to duty, Barry was posted to Malta in 1846. Here Barry was severely reprimanded for inexplicably taking a seat in the local church that was reserved for the clergy. He was threatened with a cholera epidemic – a threat which eerily (or coincidentally) became true in 1850.

Their next posting was to Corfu ni 1851, where they were promoted to rank of Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals on 16 May, equivalent to lieutenant colonel. In 1857 Barry was posted to Canada, and granted the local rank of Inspector General of Hospitals (equivalent to Brigadier General) on 25 September. In that position, Barry fought for better food, sanitation and proper medical care for prisoners and lepers, as well as soldiers and their families.

Wherever Barry served across the British Empire, improvements were made to sanitary conditions and the conditions and health of both the common soldier and other, under-represented groups. Barry was incensed by unnecessary suffering, and took a careless and sometimes tactless approach to demanding improvements for the poor and underprivileged. This often ignited anger from officials and military officers and on several occasions Barry was both arrested and demoted for the extremity of their behaviour. Barry held strict and surprisingly progressive views about nutrition, being completely vegetarian and teetotal. Despite their care for human patients, Barry preferred the company of animals, particularly a beloved poodle named Psyche. #canrelate

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Despite protesting the decision, Barry was forced to retire from the army on 19 July 1859 due to ill health and old age. After a quiet retirement in London, Barry finally died from dysentery on 25 July 1865. And so the controversy of their gender began:

The identity of the woman who discovered the truth of Barry's sex is disputed, but she was probably a charwoman who also laid out the dead. The charwoman visited Barry's physician, Major D. R. McKinnon, who had issued the death certificate upon which Barry was identified as male. The woman claimed that Barry's body had been biologically female and had marks suggesting Barry had at one point borne a child. When questioned on how she had come to this conclusion, the woman replied: “I am the mother of nine children and I ought to know.”. When McKinnon refused to pay her, the woman took the story to the press, and the situation became public.

The best pieces of evidence from this time come from letters exchanged between George Graham of the General Register Office, and Dr McKinnon.

McKinnon wrote: “I had been intimately acquainted with the doctor for good many years…and I never had any suspicion that Dr Barry was a woman. I attended him during his last illness…On one occasion after Dr Barry's death…the woman who performed the last offices for Dr Barry was waiting to speak to me...she said that Dr Barry was a female and that I was a pretty doctor not to know this and she would not like to be attended by me. I informed her that it was none of my business whether Dr Barry was a male or a female, and that I thought that she might be neither, viz. an imperfectly developed man….I informed her that my own impression was that Dr Barry was a Hermaphrodite. But whether Dr Barry was a male, female, or hermaphrodite I do not know, nor had I any purpose in making the discovery as I could positively swear to the identity of the body as being that of a person whom I had been acquainted with as Inspector-General of Hospitals for a period of years.”

When this became public, many people claimed to have "known it all along". The British Army, seeking to suppress the story, sealed all records of Barry for the next 100 years. 

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In retrospect, there is evidence that signs were apparent of James’ true identity. In a letter chiding their older brother for abandoning legal studies for the military, 19-year-old Barry wrote: "Was I not a girl I would be a Soldier!".

Barry's interest in medicine was probably encouraged by the liberal-minded friends of the late James Barry RA, who may have advised that a male stood better chance of academic and professional success (any chance, in fact). It would also explain why they were particularly effective in treating women during pregnancy. As previously mentioned, Barry's short stature, slight build, unbroken voice, delicate features and smooth skin led others to suspect that Barry was not a man but a pre-pubescent boy. This identity was maintained through surgical training and recruitment into the British Army which, at officer rank level, did not then require a medical examination. It appears that people were more concerned with sex than with age, and were prepared to overlook Barry’s age for recognition of their talent.

Despite efforts to appear masculine, witness reports comment on Barry's effeminacy and on a somewhat contradictory reputation – being regarded as both tactless, impatient, argumentative and opinionated, but also having a good bedside manner and famous professional skill. Barry's temper and bravado led to a famous pistol duel with Captain Josias Cloete. Barry's aim was better, the bullet striking Cloete's shako military cap and removing its peak.

Barry would never allow anyone into the room while undressing, and repeated a standing instruction that "in the event of his death, strict precautions should be adopted to prevent any examination of his person" and that the body should be "buried in [the] bed sheets without further inspection". Obviously this request was ignored, but seems a strange request for someone with nothing to hide.

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It has been suggested that Somerset discovered Dr Barry's secret and that the pair were romantically involved – which would explain why Barry risked everything to tend to Somerset on his deathbed. Their closeness was noted even during their lifetime, rumours of which ultimately led to an accusation briefly appearing on a bridge post in Cape Town on 1 June 1824 saying that the writer had "detected Lord Charles buggering Dr Barry", which led to a court trial and investigation (homosexuality being a serious crime in those days). However, both were cleared and if Somerset was aware of Barry's true sex, he did not reveal it.

During the Crimean War (1854–1856), Barry got into an argument with Florence Nightingale. After Barry's death Nightingale wrote that:

“I never had such a blackguard rating in all my life – I who have had more than any woman – than from this Barry sitting on his horse…the scolding I received while "he" behaved like a brute . . . After "he" was dead, I was told that (Barry) was a woman . . . I should say that (Barry) was the most hardened creature I ever met.”

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Some scholars have made much of Major McKinnon's statement that he did not know whether Barry was "male, female or hermaphrodite" and suggested that it might be more appropriate to say that Barry was "hermaphrodite" [or intersex] rather than "female", and "may have had ambiguous genitalia". These suppositions are based on the premise that "Concealment of one's sex for ... 40 years in the British Army, is simply unbelievable". However, others such as du Preez and Dronfield show how Barry might have been able to conceal this secret from all but a few people, and those who did know did not reveal it while Barry was alive. N. Turner has commented on Kubba and Young's conclusion that the belief in an intersex condition was based on "vanishingly slim evidence".

Holmes also raises the possibility of Barry being intersex, but acknowledges the impossibility of knowing, expressing surprise that this is a problem for so many people. The suggestion that Barry may have been intersex has been criticised for both biological and social reasons. In a review of Holmes' biography, Loudon firmly rejects the implication that Barry might have been intersex.

Historians, biographers, feminists, and LGBT theorists have voiced the opinion that the intersex theory is an attempt to undermine that someone born female could have achieved as much as Barry did, with one biographer writing, "Dr. Barry couldn’t have been a woman, for women and medicine were contradictory terms ...it was still too much to imagine that any female could perform as brilliantly as Dr. Barry had done."

Personally, I tend to agree that Barry was a woman (hence my inclusion of this story on my page). There are several instances throughout history of women disguising themselves as men to gain access to social and political spheres that they were excluded from as women. There is evidence to explain why this identity was never revealed during Barry’s lifetime, and that Barry was at the very least identified as a girl at birth. It is also true that historical historians would prefer to champion the ‘imperfectly developed man’ theory than “disguised woman” theory owing to a sheer disbelief that women were capable of such feats.

Ultimately though, I agree with Holmes that we will never truly know what Barry’s true gender and biological sexual identity may have been, and that it doesn’t matter anyway. Those who have heard of Barry at all tend to think “the male doctor who turned out to be a woman” rather than “the Dr who saved lives, improved living conditions across the empire, challenged colonial powers, treated all with respect, pioneered maternity surgery, and championed the rights of the oppressed”, and I think that highlights the way that woman throughout time have been reduced to merely sex/gender. Although my page highlights women’s achievements (and highlights that they were even more important because of the oppression faced by women), my hope is that one day we don’t need to distinguish between “Male” and “female” pioneers – they can be remembered and recognised purely for their work. Dr is, after all, a genderless term. Barry chose to keep their gender a secret during their lifetime, and I think they are owed the same privacy in death.