When working with the Archisle I was given a really interesting book to have a look at and take inspiration from. This book is basically about a Colonel who came over to Jersey during the first world war after getting a bad injury. He made his way through the circles and men of Jersey, unknown to everyone else that he was actually a woman. He was arrested and imprisoned when he was found out. This is the basic information that I know but after reading the book I found out so much more and find it so interesting and unique to actually have a transgender person living in Jersey as well as Claude Cahun around the same time who challenged gender norms. The book is called Colonel Barker’s Monstrous Regiment. To me the title sounds awful as if Barker had done something so horribly unforgivable and evil that is was a ‘montrous’ thing to do as if they could be nothing much worse, when in fact all that Barker ever did was pose as a man and maybe because she felt in her self that she was a man.
Victor Barker
Barker was obviously treated differently as a man to when he was a woman and preferred the treatment he received as a man. 1929, Central London Barker was a reception clerk of the Regent Palace Hotel. He wore very formal clothing and constantly wore an extremely tight belt. The story goes that he would tell a long story of how he was blown up in the war and without his surgical belt he would not be able to move. He would often tell stories about his experiences during the war. Something that I found interesting too was that in 1929 there was a warrant for Barker’s arrest, he owed a lot of money after the failure of a restaurant he once owned. The book also suggests that Barker had a son who he looked after and was at boarding school. His first wife left and in 1929 he was with another woman who he took good care of and would take time off work to care for her. This is really intriguing to me as maybe as a woman Barker had a child and when he then went through the transformation [non-surgical] into a man he had to make up a back story and came up with this.
Family Background
father: Thomas Barker
mother: Lillias Adelaide Hill
The couple married in Jersey when he was thirty and she was just eighteen years old. He spent his time on gentlemanly pursuits and enjoyed playing out this role. He also put his dog into shows alongside his wife. He had a smooth-haired fox terrier while she had two bloodhounds. Lillias Adelaide Hill belonged to a family whereby a relative, Olave Baden-Powell [female], founded the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides. The Barker’s moved to Jersey in 1889 and settled in St. Clements. Around this location in the sixteenth and seventeenth century it was the prevalence of witchcraft, were witches were tried. Thomas was the Honorary Secretary of the Jersey Dog Club. He was also club captain at the Royal Jersey Gold Club in 1898. The Barkers first born was a girl on 27 August 1895 but she wasn’t registered until 13 September 1895 due to her father being busy with the Jersey Dog Club holding its 8th Annual Show at the Vegetable Market. She was named Lillias Irma Valerie but everyone was to address her as Valerie. They had a second child, a boy, on 20 April 1899 he was named Tom Leslie. Valerie was very tomboyish and grew up enjoying reading boys books and pranks. Thomas [father] taught her the skills of fencing, cricket and boxing. Valerie attended a convent school at Graty to finally finish her schooling. She would shock the nuns by dressing up as a boy as well as smoking. Back in the Victorian days it was not seen as feminine to aspire or want to achieve success.
Local Transgender cases
William Pallot was an islander who went to court because he would dress as a woman and walk around near Fort Regent. In the court it was declared that ‘from the eccentric manner in which he had seen him parading in the streets’ that he had no sanity and was to be taken to the asylum. He ‘dressed partially like a woman, with curled hair, powdered face, bracelets, etc. He had the voice and gait of a woman, as well as the mind of a woman.’ I find this so interesting to see how people would react to possible transgender cases and how they could not see that a gentleman would ever be trapped inside his own body or that he could quite possibly be trying to be himself with becoming a woman. Their immediate reaction is to say that he must be insane and that he must go to the asylum because no man would ever think in such a way. It amazes me that back then people would be so naive and unaware of what others may be going through. We now live in a time were we are a lot more accepting of transgender people, women and gay people [nowhere near a perfect world but a better one]. These people are so narrow minded and closed minded to the fact that quite possibly this man was born in the wrong body that he knows deep down that he is not a man but in fact a woman. I guess back then that it would be uncommon for a transgender person to be so open and free but then again it seems to me that people have been challenging gender norms more often then than say now in Jersey. Claude Cahun, Victor Barker and William Pallot all seem to know who they are and they all seem to have had this fascination with challenging gender norms and seeing what life is like as someone else or even if they adopted to the opposite sexes way of living. This book is really interesting and I am really enjoying finding out more about local history too. It is interesting to see how men were treated compared to women and how Pallot was found to be insane and that a sane man would never think is such a way. It shows how differently they treated men to women. Women were often found to be witches and were tried and killed while men were never really tried as witches and even though Pallot stated that he was reading another man’s fortune with cards he was not tried as a witch but seen merely as insane.
During the 1890’s there was a huge amount of suicides and attempted suicides. This suggests that for most people that was there only escape with there being on average two suicides a month with a population of barely 55,000. Jersey seemingly hated anyone or anything that was different and so if you did not conform to the norms of life back in the 1890s you were seen to be a witch or insane.
Edward de Lacy Evans was an Australian man who married his third wife, Julia Marquand, a Jersey girl. He would dress as a woman and when in the mines, to amuse the other residents, he would dress as a woman and sing. He suffered an accident in the mines and somehow ended up in court and was checked by doctors and the verdict came of lunacy and was certified with amentia [softening of the brain]. He was admitted to a lunacy ward where he shared a room. He would never change in front of anyone. After a six week period on this ward he was transferred to a hospital in Melbourne where he was furthered examined. It was revealed that Edward de Lacy Evans was in fact Ellen Tremaye, a woman. He was deemed to have amentia by doctors and was insane. There was no way that he could actually think in such a way as a woman. Ellen Tremaye was the anonymous author of a book entitled The History and Confession of the Man-Woman.
Louis Jobosch was a German in his late fifties. He wanted to travel over to France but was stopped and checked by a doctor who then would not allow him to travel into France. As a result he headed to Jersey where a witch hunt was going on and people were told to keep an eye on him. He was arrested as soon as he arrived at his lodgings. He was in fact a woman. The Jersey police soon learned that Jobosch had been living as a man for forty-two years. He was orphaned at the age of thirteen and then went on to travel the world working as a courier and who by then could speak several languages. He was often head saying that he wished he was dead and had before attempted to jump into the sea but was caught by passing boat’s. He died after being taken from Jersey to a Southampton hospital where he died on pneumonia. A note was left after his death that read ‘I die of misery – trust God forgive me’. This is so sad because I think that Jabosch truly felt trapped inside the wrong body and that dressing up as a man wasn’t enough and that throughout Jabosch’s whole life he could never come to terms with himself or make peace with his own demons. He asked for forgiveness from God as though he had done something terribly wrong, this is really sad to read as it makes me think about all those that feel trapped and encaged in their own bodies that the body that they inhabit isn’t actually their own and that they don’t belong.
