Beyond Oscar Wilde
In the theatre industry in 2025, you don’t have to look far to find queer representation. Although the theatre has long been seen as an accepting place for members of the LGBTQ+ community, as soon as you cross the threshold into the nineteenth century, examples of queer lives from the world of the stage become increasingly hard to find.
The best-known queer icon from the stage prior to the twentieth century is Oscar Wilde. Details of his arrest in 1895 for gross indecency, the notorious trials that followed and his imprisonment are well-documented.
Besides the trials of Oscar Wilde, there were other high-profile court cases in the nineteenth century that involved members of the theatre’s queer community. Thomas Boulton and Frederick Park were actors in a theatre company that toured the country, performing in public venues and private houses. It was a common practice in semi-professional and amateur theatricals of the period for the female roles to be played by men—and Boulton and Park had established themselves in this line of acting. However, their interest in cross-dressing extended beyond the stage. They lived much of their private and public lives as women too.
Boulton went much further than this after beginning a long-term relationship with Lord Arthur Clinton, MP for Newark, following an amateur theatrical tour in 1868. He started to refer to himself as Clinton’s wife and even had calling cards printed in the name of Lady Arthur Clinton.
After unknowingly being under covert police surveillance, Boulton and Park were arrested on the evening of 28 April 1870 while dressed in women’s clothes in the audience at the Strand Theatre in London. They were charged with the ‘abominable crime of buggery’, for outraging public decency and corrupting public morals by disguising themselves as women. They were subject to invasive physical examinations and were condemned by the press.
In May 1871, a highly publicised trial ensued and, although they were not found guilty of sodomy, they pleaded guilty to the other charges. Their lives are the subject of Neil McKenna’s book Fanny and Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England.