Great drag queens of their day
Boys will be girls: "Stella Boulton", far left, and "Fanny Park"

John Preston
24 January 2013

http://www.standard.co.uk/arts/book/great-drag-queens-of-their-day-8464731.html

Fanny & Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England
by Neil McKenna
(Faber, £16.99)

Dressing up in drag in the 19th century could be hazardous. Male ->-bleeped-<- prostitutes often wore false breasts made from boiled sheep's lungs. One, who took out his breasts when he went to bed, was surprised to find the next morning that they'd been eaten by his cat.

However, far greater perils lay in store for "Stella Boulton" and "Fanny Park" when they were arrested outside the Strand Theatre in 1870. Stella had already gained some renown as a great beauty — indeed one man at the Strand mistook her for the Duchess of Manchester, recently described by the prime minister, William Gladstone, as "the very fairest of our land".

But at Bow Street police station, Stella admitted that her real name was in fact Ernest Boulton. As for Fanny, she was really Frederick Park.