JAMES BARRY’S TRUE IDENTITY WAS A MILITARY SECRET FOR NEARLY A CENTURY.
Dr. James Barry spent
almost his entire medical career serving in the British Army, yet his records
and work have been kept hidden from the public.
IN 1826 IN A SOUTHERN suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, a
frail-looking doctor with red hair prepped his instruments for a highly
dangerous procedure—a cesarean operation. Once Dr. James Barry, a Royal British
Army surgeon who was no taller than five feet, had assessed the severity of the
patient’s contractions, he saw there was no other choice. The newborn needed to
be removed surgically.
Barry had read of only
three cases where both the mother and the child survived. None of them were
performed in the British Empire. But Barry had a unique perspective to most
doctors of the time.
“Aside from his
expertise in midwifery, he had a secret advantage,” writes Michael du Preez and
Jeremy Dronfield, experts who have written extensively about Barry’s life. “There
was not another practicing physician or surgeon in the world [in the 19th
century] who knew from personal experience what it was like to bear a child.”
Barry became the first
doctor in the British Empire to perform a successful cesarean operation. It was
one of many major medical contributions the Irish surgeon accomplished for the
British military, from enforcing stricter standards for hygiene, improving the
diet of sick patients, to popularizing a plant-based treatment for syphilis and
gonorrhea. Barry served around the globe, eventually earning the title of
Inspector General, the second most senior medical position in the British Army.
But despite these
achievements, Barry’s reputation was kept a secret for nearly a hundred years.
The military locked away the doctor’s records after finding out Britain’s
Inspector General was born a woman.
A well-known miniature
portrait of Barry painted between 1813 and 1816, right before his first posting
abroad. Barry gifted it to the patient he performed the cesarean operation
on.
Around the age of 20,
Margaret Ann Bulkley became James Barry: a hot-tempered ladies’ man donning
three-inch heeled shoes, a plumed hat, and sword. In 1809, she decided to
embody a smooth-faced young man in order to attend the men’s-only University of
Edinburgh and practice medicine—a guise that would last for 56 years. It wasn’t
until after Barry’s death in 1865, that the doctor’s secret was finally
discovered.
Bulkley’s masquerade
was “one of the longest deceptions of gender identity ever recorded,” du Preez
writes in The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
“Dr. Barry is remembered for this sensational fact rather than for the real
contributions that she made to improve the health and the lot of the British
soldier as well as civilians.”
Margaret Ann Bulkley grew up in Cork, Ireland pictured here in
the late 1800s.
Born in 1789 in
Merchant’s Quay, Cork, Ireland to a grocer father, Margaret Ann Bulkley was a
sociable and outgoing child. As a young girl, she once wrote of her desire for
“a sword and a pair of colours [military uniform].”
Bulkley had an older
brother, John, whose “fecklessness and selfishness brought the family in debt,”
writes du Preez in the South African Medical Journal. John
received most of the family’s money to fund his education and an apprenticeship
at an attorney’s office in Dublin. In 1803, he became infatuated with an
upper-class woman and spent £1,500 of the family’s savings on the marriage
settlement. The Bulkley family spiraled into bankruptcy, and Margaret’s father
was sent to prison when she was 14, leaving the family without a source of
income.
Her mother sought the help of her older
brother in London, the famed Irish artist James Barry. The artist had a
difficult personality, however, and was not welcoming to his sister’s family
when they arrived in London. Yet Barry introduced Margaret to his elite circle
of friends, some of whom offered her teaching and mentorship. Margaret did not
have the social standing to marry well, but her family hoped she could study to
become a teacher or governess.
While mentoring his
new charge, the Venezuelan general and revolutionary Francisco Miranda became
impressed by Bulkley’s intelligence. He was the first friend of Barry’s to
encourage Bulkley to take on the persona of a man to enter the male-dominated
field of medicine. After Margaret graduated from medical school, he reasoned,
Bulkley could shed this disguise and practice freely as a woman doctor in
Venezuela. Miranda proposed she use her medical skills in his revolutionary
efforts in Caracas, Venezuela.
General Francisco Miranda was one of the main people who
influenced Margaret to become a doctor.
“In the early 19th
century, only men were admitted to the medical schools in Britain, and
discovery of the sex of the young medical student would have ruined any chance
of success,” writes du Preez.
In 1806, her
uncle James Barry passed away and left his fortune to the family. In turn,
Bulkley assumed Barry’s name and used the money to finance three years of
medical studies at the University of Edinburgh beginning in December 1809.
The new James Barry
was a diligent student. Barry pursued a diverse load of coursework, ranging
from anatomy and surgery, botany, and midwifery. The number of subjects Barry
studied was only exceeded by one Army medical officer and matched by one other
student in his cohort of over 45 doctors, wrote du
Preez.
In 1812, Barry was
nearly exposed on the cusp of graduating. Edinburgh authorities tried to bar
Barry from taking the four-stage final exams, claiming that the student looked
underage but likely suspecting more. Yet at the time it was not unusual to see
16-year-olds at medical schools, and the ban was not enforced. After completing
a thesis on the femoral hernia (primarily a female condition), Barry became the
first woman to graduate from a medical school in Britain.
Unfortunately, Barry’s
post-graduation plans with Miranda would never come to fruition. In the summer
of 1812, Miranda’s revolution was thwarted and he was imprisoned by the
Spanish. But instead of coming out as a woman in Britain instead of Venezuela,
Bulkley opted to continue the role of Dr. Barry—hiding under the false identity
till death.
Barry joined the
British Army’s medical unit in 1813. It’s unknown how the young doctor passed
the mandatory physical exams, but scholars believe Lord Buchan, a nobleman who
had been a friend and supporter of her late uncle, likely played a role. In
1815, Barry was appointed as colonial medical inspector in Cape Colony, South
Africa, and was granted authority over all medical, surgical, and public health
matters in the colony.
People noted Barry’s
unusual lifestyle. The medical inspector was a vegetarian, kept a goat nearby
to drink its milk, carried a small dog named Psyche, and was almost always seen
with a trusted servant, Danzer, who would stay by Barry’s side for 50 years.
Each morning, Danzer laid out six small towels for Barry to wrap and conceal
his curves and broaden his shoulders. The doctor wore high-heeled boots, and
“the longest sword and spurs he could obtain,” surgeon Edward Bradford wrote when he met Barry in Jamaica in
1834.
Barry’s flirtations
with women also threw off suspicion. Many women fell for Barry’s sweet,
beardless face—a latter-day Orpheus, according to du Preez and Dronfield. Women
stated how Barry was a “perfect dancer who won his way to many a heart,” while
comrades often saw the doctor attached “to the finest and best-looking woman in
the room.”
Barry, who cursed
constantly and had a fastidious temperament, often butted heads with other
doctors when their treatments conflicted, and even fought a couple of duels
with rival officers. The hot-headed doctor even got into a tussle with the
medical reformer and nurse Florence Nightingale, who wrote, “he behaved like a brute” and was “the
most hardened creature I ever met throughout the army.”
Despite having a bad
temper, Barry had a comforting bedside manner. During the cesarean delivery in
Cape Town, Barry stayed next to the mother’s side for the rest of the day. The
couple, Wilhelmina and Thomas Munnik, named the child James Barry Munnik and
Barry the godfather. In gratitude, Barry offered what is now one of the most
famous portraits of him—a small painting of the doctor in a red uniform coat.
Barry was reserved
with most people, but had a close relationshipwith Lord Charles Somerset,
Cape Town’s governor. Lord Charles favored Barry, providing the doctor with
private chambers. When Lord Charles was on his deathbed, Barry clashed with the
prestigious physician caring for him. People spread rumors that the governor
and doctor were in an intimate relationship, but the scandal was never proven.
Scholars believe that Lord Charles likely knew Barry’s true identity, and some
claim he may have loved the doctor.
Barry wrote in a diary that Lord Charles was,
“my more than father, my almost only friend.”
In 1857, Barry fell
ill while stationed in Canada and was taken back to London. The doctor and
surgeon died at age 76 on July 25, 1865, most likely of dysentery or cholera.
Barry’s medical career had lasted 46 years, with the celebrated doctor
assisting the wounded in the Peninsular War, at a military hospital at
Plymouth, and treating French prisoners from Waterloo, in addition to stints in
South Africa and Canada, writes du Preez in the Bulletin of the
Royal College of Surgeons of England.
It was Barry’s final
wish to remain in his original clothing and buried immediately, explains Earl
Nation in the Journal Urology. However, Barry’s servant
Sophia Bishop examined her boss’s body and discovered the doctor was “a perfect
female,” with stretch marks indicating the birth of a child.
According to du Preez
and Dronfield, Barry had a daughter back in Ireland, Juliana Bulkley, who never
knew that her mother was an accomplished Army doctor practicing medicine around
the world. It remains unclear who the girl’s father was, but scholars suspect
it could have been one of Bulkley’s relatives.
Military officials
soon found out of Barry’s great disguise, and that they had unknowingly
employed a woman for nearly half a century. Ashamed of these revelations, top
officials in the Army tried to cover it up, imposing a 100-year embargo on all
documentation concerning the “fraudulent” Inspector General.
Barry had already been
given a military funeral at Kensal Green Cemetery in London, but after the
revelations only a plain sandstone marker was placed atop the grave. The death
certificate was male, and there was no obituary in the papers for the well-known
doctor.
The tale was not
unknown to the contemporary public; over the next few years, there were news
stories, novels, and a play that sensationalized Barry’s life and legacy. But
slowly, the military’s efforts to obscure the doctor’s career sunk in, and
Margaret Ann Bulkley and Dr. James Barry’s existence disappeared.
The doctor’s story was
finally unearthed in 1958 by scholar Isobel Rae, who discovered the “Barry
Papers” in the British War Office and Public Records Archives. She wrote the
first researched biography of Barry and Bulkley, which was followed by
articles, books, and a film. On December 13, it was announced that actress Rachel Weisz will
play Bulkley and Dr. Barry in a future biopic.
Margaret Ann Bulkley
found a means to pursue her ambitions despite the gender restrictions of 19th
century society. The globe-trotting doctor worked to advance the field of
medicine half a century before Elizabeth Garrett became the first known female
to qualify as a doctor in Britain, in 1865—the same year Barry died.
While Dr. James Barry
was “pernickety, bad-tempered, frail, fastidious,” one acquaintance
recalled, “this small, curious person raised the standards of medicine and
touched the public conscience about the condition of the most degraded members
of society…wherever she went.”
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