originally published as 'The Lives and Loves of Queer Scottish Women in the 19th and 20th Centuries' on https://www.youngwomenscot.org/voices/ June 2022
Scotland’s rich tapestry of queer history has often been underrepresented, brushed under the carpet, or simply not spoken about. This unspoken history is particularly important when it comes to investigating the lives and loves of celebrated queer women in Scottish history. Women whose lives have often been summarised by a small ‘died unmarried’ sentence in Wikipedia when evidence suggests this is far from what their lived experiences were. The following women, whose fascinating lives are slowly coming to light, form a crucial part of queer Scottish history of the last 200 years. While not all of them openly identified as lesbian, homosexual or sapphic, the evidence suggests that they had romantic relationships with other women. While many of these women and their relationships have often been written about as ‘intimate friendships’ and their partners as ‘colleagues’ or ‘companions’, some considered themselves married to their long-term partners, many years before gay marriage was legalised in Scotland.
Flora Murray (1869-1923)
Groundbreaking medical pioneer and suffragette Flora Murray was born in Dalton, Dumfriesshire in 1869, but her life and legacy are celebrated widely across Scotland and the rest of the UK today, with her portrait featuring on the new Bank of Scotland £100 note. On her gravestone, she and her long-term partner, the surgeon Louisa Garrett Anderson (1873-1943), are remembered with the epitaph "we have been gloriously happy."
Raised in Scotland, Murray was a physician who specialised in anesthesiology, having studied medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women, Durham University and Cambridge University, receiving her MD in 1905.
Both Murray and Anderson were dedicated to the Suffragette cause. Anderson, an English surgeon who studied in Scotland, the niece of Millicent Fawcett and daughter of the first female doctor in Britain, was heavily involved in the protests. While she was not imprisoned for her activism like her partner, Murray also played a crucial part in the movement as their ‘honorary doctor’ using her medical skills to treat suffragettes who had been force-fed during hunger strikes. The anger about women’s positions in society must have been felt keenly for Murray and Anderson, as they faced discrimination in the medical field. Before the outbreak of World War One, female medical practitioners were banned from treating male patients, relegated to paediatrics and women’s health. The couple, who met during the suffragette movement, are remembered as medical trailblazers, pioneering a route for female doctors into mainstream hospitals. In 1912 they founded the Women’s Hospital for Children, and when war broke out in Europe the two women founded the Women's Hospital Corps. Staffed entirely by women, their team worked with the French Red Cross in Paris until 1915 when the British government requested that they return to London to run the Endell Street Military Hospital in Covent Garden. The couple ran the trailblazing military hospital until 1919, treating nearly 24,000 soldiers, and dealing with the devastation of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. One patient described the hospital as “one of the best [...] in London”, but after the war female doctors and medical practitioners were once again pushed away from mainstream hospitals.
The couple lived as if they were married, allegedly wearing matching diamond rings, and retired to their jointly-owned cottage in Paul End, Penn, Buckinghamshire in 1921 where they lived together until Murray’s death from cancer in 1923. Murray left everything to her partner in her will, and dedicated her 1920 memoir Women as Army Surgeons to Anderson “my loving companion”.
Janet ‘Nettie’ Gourley (1863–1912)
While not much is known about Scottish Egyptologist Janet “Nettie” Gourley (1863–1912) the pioneering archaeologist from Dundee, she remains a crucial part of the study of ancient Egypt, paving the way for female archaeologists in Britain. Gourley co-directed two seasons of excavations at the Precinct of Mut, Egypt, from 1896, alongside her partner, the celebrated writer, philosopher and Egyptologist Margaret “Maggie” Benson.
Gourley was born and raised in Dundee, Scotland, and went on to study at the University College London alongside celebrated archaeologists William Flinders Petrie and Margaret Murray. In 1896 Gourley was introduced to Benson by a mutual friend, Lady Jane Lindsay, while staying at the Luxor Hotel, where they quickly formed a working and likely romantic relationship. Gourley had the academic experience needed to aid Benson in the latter’s passion project of excavating the Precinct of Mut, an ancient Egyptian Temple complex, the second season of which was the first female-led excavation in Egypt, as they write in the preface of their report on the excavations they had “the first permission to excavate given to women in Egypt”. Working together allowed the women to act independently of men in the field, and the couple continued for two seasons of excavations before Benson’s health declined and they returned to Britain. One of their most significant discoveries was a statue known as The Benson Head, which is now held in the British Museum. They planned to return to Egypt to continue excavations but due to Benson’s health never did. However, the couple co-authored a book on their excavation and findings at the Mut Precinct, which in 1899, became the first book on Egyptology by women to be published. Gourley went on to co-author a journal article with Percy Newberry in 1901, on the Mut excavations.
While historians continue to gloss over the romantic nature of Gourley and Benson’s relationship, describing them as “companions” “friends” and as “dying unmarried”, their own words consolidate their affection for each other. In one letter to Gourley, Benson wrote that she had been “dreaming of you” and later the same month wrote “I wish I knew the Gaelic language, for I believe you are able to say all sorts of affectionate things in it which English can’t express. I do want you in bodily presence very badly, my dearest.” Gourley’s partner was known to have “intense” relationships with women, and according to some historians Benson, her mother and two of her brothers were likely queer. It is understood that in their circles it was well-known that the women were in a romantic relationship, a letter from Lindsay to Benson’s mother suggests Benson, who suffered from mental health issues, was “so full of vigour” and in “high spirits” in the company of Gourley. The two continued affectionate and frequent correspondence until Gourley’s death in 1912.
While not much is known about Scottish Egyptologist Janet “Nettie” Gourley (1863–1912) the pioneering archaeologist from Dundee, she remains a crucial part of the study of ancient Egypt, paving the way for female archaeologists in Britain. Gourley co-directed two seasons of excavations at the Precinct of Mut, Egypt, from 1896, alongside her partner, the celebrated writer, philosopher and Egyptologist Margaret “Maggie” Benson.
Gourley was born and raised in Dundee, Scotland, and went on to study at the University College London alongside celebrated archaeologists William Flinders Petrie and Margaret Murray. In 1896 Gourley was introduced to Benson by a mutual friend, Lady Jane Lindsay, while staying at the Luxor Hotel, where they quickly formed a working and likely romantic relationship. Gourley had the academic experience needed to aid Benson in the latter’s passion project of excavating the Precinct of Mut, an ancient Egyptian Temple complex, the second season of which was the first female-led excavation in Egypt, as they write in the preface of their report on the excavations they had “the first permission to excavate given to women in Egypt”. Working together allowed the women to act independently of men in the field, and the couple continued for two seasons of excavations before Benson’s health declined and they returned to Britain. One of their most significant discoveries was a statue known as The Benson Head, which is now held in the British Museum. They planned to return to Egypt to continue excavations but due to Benson’s health never did. However, the couple co-authored a book on their excavation and findings at the Mut Precinct, which in 1899, became the first book on Egyptology by women to be published. Gourley went on to co-author a journal article with Percy Newberry in 1901, on the Mut excavations.
While historians continue to gloss over the romantic nature of Gourley and Benson’s relationship, describing them as “companions” “friends” and as “dying unmarried”, their own words consolidate their affection for each other. In one letter to Gourley, Benson wrote that she had been “dreaming of you” and later the same month wrote “I wish I knew the Gaelic language, for I believe you are able to say all sorts of affectionate things in it which English can’t express. I do want you in bodily presence very badly, my dearest.” Gourley’s partner was known to have “intense” relationships with women, and according to some historians Benson, her mother and two of her brothers were likely queer. It is understood that in their circles it was well-known that the women were in a romantic relationship, a letter from Lindsay to Benson’s mother suggests Benson, who suffered from mental health issues, was “so full of vigour” and in “high spirits” in the company of Gourley. The two continued affectionate and frequent correspondence until Gourley’s death in 1912.
The Scottish artist, art historian, theorist and writer Clementina ‘Kit’ Anstruther-Thomson lived openly as a lesbian in a long-term relationship with the essayist Violet Paget, also known as Vernon Lee, in Florence, Italy. Born in Edinburgh to a Scottish aristocratic family, Anstruther-Thomson studied at the Royal College of Art and Slade School of Art, becoming an art historian and theorist. Anstruther-Thomson is also remembered for her dedication to social reform, such as her support for the Bryant & May matchgirl strikes, and for her Humanist beliefs, as a member of the West London Ethical Society.
Described by friends and acquaintances as “witty” and statuesque, and likened to the Venus de Milo statue, Paget writes that she was already enamoured with Anstruther-Thomson before they met and fell in love in the summer of 1887. Anstruther-Thomson, the lover, muse and collaborator of Paget, was later described by her partner as a “goddess among goddesses”. The couple travelled around Europe, Anstruther-Thomson using her wealth and connections to tour private galleries across the continent. She was interested in classical art, from ancient Greece and Rome. Paget and Anstruther-Thomson also worked together, publishing their seminal text on the psychological aesthetics ‘Beauty and Ugliness’ in 1897, which theorised individuals were capable of having involuntary physical and psychological responses to visual stimuli such as artworks, creating an empathy with, attraction to, or revulsion of certain artistic works. Their contributions to the Victorian aestheticism movement is a key part of British art history, and as Hilary Fraser suggests, the couple’s pioneering work “made room for multiple versions of spectatorship, and so empowered women’s looking”.
The couple leased a villa in Florence and lived there together from 1888 until 1898, when Anstruther-Thomson left Paget, after suffering from a decline in her mental health, and returned to Britain. Although separated, the two remained close until Anstruther-Thomson’s death in London in 1921. She is buried in Kilconquhar, Fife. Paget compiled her papers into the posthumously published Art and Man, which details Anstruther-Thomson’s life, ideas and work.
Born in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis in 1827, into an aristocratic family, the art collector and philanthropist Louisa Baring, Lady Ashburton, is known to have been in romantic relationships with both women and men during her lifetime.
Baring spent her early childhood in Brahan Castle, Dingwall, before her family moved to Sri Lanka, and then Corfu, and then returned to Scotland in 1843 after the death of her father, a Scottish politician, and colonial administrator. She is remembered as an art collector and socialite, but also was a skilled artist herself. For six years she was married to Baron Ashburton, Bingham Baring, and they had a daughter together. Three years after the death of her husband Baring met the American sculptor Harriet Hosmer, in the artist’s studio in the spring of 1867, a year later, during a trip abroad, their friendship became a romance.
Ashburton acted as both a patron and lover to Hosmer, who is known as the first female professional sculptor, providing the artist with a studio near her home in Knightsbridge, and using her socialite connections to create a community of artists around them.
It is also suggested that her ‘close friendship’ with Florence Nightingale, who is considered by some scholars to have also been queer, was a romantic relationship.
She died in London from cancer in 1903. She is buried in Garve, Highland. After her death, most of her art collection had been sold, and no inventory of it ever resurfaced, however, it is known she owned many important artworks by artists such as Rubens, Rossetti, Titian and of course, Hosmer.
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