Dr Margaret James Barry - very clever, androgynous surgeon

Dr James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time

by Michael du Preez  and Jeremy Dronfield

Margaret Ann Bulkley's mother, Mary Ann Barry, married Jeremiah Bulkley in 1782 and Margaret was born in Co Cork Ireland (c1795-1865). They lived on Merchant’s Quay where Jeremiah held a government post in the Weigh House, having had three children, a son John, daughter Margaret and another younger daughter.

As a result of the oldest child John’s bad behaviour, Jeremiah ended up in the Debtor’s Prison in Dub­lin. Margaret and her mother Mary Ann became fell into "genteel chaotic poverty", and their only hope lay with Margaret’s maternal uncle, James Barry. He was a famous artist and a member of the Royal Academy in London.

A clever child, Margaret hoped to study medic­ine at univ­ersity, a career forbidden to women then. So in 1809 she travelled with her mother to Edinburgh, carrying a reference from the family friend Lord David Erskine Earl of Buchan; then she enrolled under the name of James Barry (her moth­er’s maiden name) as a very young student of Medic­ine and Lit­erature. From the surviving let­ters, it was obv­ious Mrs Bulk­ley was complic­it in her daught­er’s subterfuge. James graduated in 1812.

Fortunately there were influential family connections. The friend already mentioned, Earl of Buchan, supported the education of clever women. And via Uncle James, young James met General Francisco De Miranda, a Venez­ualian radical who wanted to liberate South America. Once General Francisco De Miranda had lib­er­ated Venezuela, Dr Barry would be able to practise medicine in Venezuela. Alas General Miranda was imprisoned by the Span­ish, and died in prison in 1816. So it was fortunate that Lord Charles Somerset (d1831), the Earl of Buch­an’s close friend, became Governor of the Cape in 1814. Nonethe­less, it must have been a lonely era at university.

Dr Barry moved to London, where he qualified at the Royal College of Surgeons, and in 1813, was commissioned as Regim­ental Assist­ant in the Army med­ical corps. He was posted to the Cape of Good Hope and became close to Govern­or Lord Som­erset who provided a private flat in the vice regal residence.

Soon two sets of incompatible rum­ours began to circulate that Dr Barry and Governor Lord Charles had a close relationship. Firstly that they had an illegal homosexual liaison, so a roy­al commission was set up to investigate the scandal. Lord Somerset returned home to Britain to face his critics. Second­ly while he was serving as Somerset’s physician, rum­ours spread about Dr Barry’s real gender. Some believed Barry and Som­erset were lovers, and even created a baby together.

For another 40 years, Barry served as an Army Surgeon, event­ually attaining the rank of Inspector General HM Army Hosp­it­als. Clearly his career was talented and dedic­ated, focusing on hygiene and preventative med­icine. He was clearly a (rare) doctor who worried about the wel­fare of prisoners, lepers and psychiatric inmates. His modern understanding of leprosy and tropical diseases greatly changed the hospitals in which these illnesses were treated.

It was interesting but not surprising that Dr Barry was con­sid­ered fiercely defensive. I am assuming this was because he was harassed by his colleagues for his high pitched voice and smooth complexion, and because he wore high inserts in his shoes to in­crease his height and wore baggy androgynous clothes. Records tell that he fought duels against his tormentors in defence of his honour, at least one of them being fatal for his opponent.

I do believe that Dr James Barry performed the first Caes­arian section in Africa in which both mother and baby mirac­ulously survived. What is less certain was that the thankful parents named the baby James Barry Munnik Hertzog in the doctor’s honour. Was this the same Barry Hertzog who became a Boer general during the 2nd Boer War and later was Prime Minister, Union of South Africa from 1924–39?

Certainly there were court martials, but Dr Barry continued to rise up the army ranks. As Inspector-General of Military Hosp­itals he spent some months in the Crimea, studying the tragic­ally high death rates in Scutari hospital under Flor­ence Night­­ingale. It was shown that this visit led to sweeping reforms of battlefield medicine, for improved sanit­at­ion and for good qual­ity food for ordinary young sol­d­­iers. No wonder Nightingale, once she met him, thought Dr Barry behaved like an opinionated brute.

He went on to have a very distinguished career as an army surgeon across the British Empire eg in South Africa, Canada, on St Helena and in Trinidad and Tobago.

Forced to retire from ill health in 1864, Barry returned home but did not receive the knighthood that an important army doctor would have normally been given. Was that because his years of service saw with arrests and duels, or because of his gender confusion?   

Dr. James Barry’s headstone, Kensal Green

Dr Barry wanted to be understood as male in life and death.

When he died in 1865, the maid Sophia Bishop laid out the body for the funeral, and made an amazing discovery: Dr James Barry was a woman! She also noticed what appeared to be stretch marks on Barry’s stomach indicating an earlier pregnancy. Spec­ul­ation and scandal began to spread.

Barry was buried in Kensal Green cemetery, London. The grave stone says: Dr James Barry Inspector Gen­eral of Hospitals, died July 1865, aged 70 years. After the funeral, rumours ran wild. But despite Dr James having been Inspector General of Military Hospitals, high­est medical rank in the British Army, there was no post-mortem. The Medical Times also reported that the Army issued no obituary and forbade access to the doctor’s files for 100 years.

Two books to read the history of Dr James Barry. Historian Isobel Rae searched army files and wrote The Strange Story of Dr James Barry: Army Surg­eon and Inspector-General of Hospitals (1958). And Cape Town doctor Michael du Preez traced Barry’s family hist­ory in Dr James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time (2008).