The Female Husband

'A woman marrying a woman according to the rites of the Established Church is something strange and unnatural. Yet did this woman, under the outward garb of a man, marry fourteen of her own sex.' [The Newgate Calendar]

Mary Hamilton, who went by the name 'Charles', was an itinerant quack doctor who had been habitually cross-dressing since trying on her brother's clothes when she was 14. By the time she reached public attention, in 1746 (when she was about 20), she had been living as a man some years; she was put on trial in Taunton for marrying a string of women, under the fraudulent pretence of being a man.

'Charles' had full sexual relationships with her wives (one testified that she 'had entered her Body several times', presumably with a dildo). Nonetheless Mary Price, said by some sources to be the fourteenth victim of this female Bluebeard, became suspicious after several months of marriage. At this point 'Charles' confessed, and was sent to prison. From here she did a roaring trade selling her patent medicines to the visitors who crowded to gawp at her.

'Great Numbers of people flock to see her in Bridwell... [She] appears very bold and impudent. She seems very gay, with Perriwig, Ruffles, and Breeches.' [The Bath Journal]

Her crime was considered as a form of fraud: the court determined that she was 'an uncommon notorious Cheat'. She was punished with six months hard labour, and public whipping in Taunton, Glastonbury, Wells and Shepton Mallet. Henry Fielding, magistrate and author, is the likely author of a fictionalised pamphlet on Mary, titled 'The Female Husband.'