Introduction
Lord John
Sempill, 18th Baron Sempill and 9th Baronet
Forbes-Sempill and his wife Gwendolen had a family of four children, the last
of which was born on 6th September 1912 at Fintray House, Fintray,
Aberdeenshire. This birth was registered
with the Fintray Registrar, John Watt, ten days later. The child was recorded as being female and
given the name Elizabeth. The delay in
registration may have been due to her mother having to decide what her new
baby’s sex actually was, since she had atypical but essentially female
genitalia. Even during her early years,
Elizabeth felt uncomfortable with the sex that had been assigned to her and
disliked frocks and “frilly things”. She
wanted to dress and behave like a boy and progressively, she did so,
particularly favouring the kilt with a tweed jacket, a tie and sporting a
sporran.
Starting in
1939, this scion of the Forbes-Sempill family studied medicine at Aberdeen
University Medical School, graduating MB ChB in 1944. Subsequently, she acquired the general
practice in Alford, Aberdeenshire where she was a family doctor for about ten
years.
Elizabeth
continued to be formally addressed as the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes Sempill
until August 1952 when the details of her birth registration were amended in
two ways at her request. Her given name
was changed to “Ewan” and her sex to “M”.
In legal terms she had changed sex and would henceforth be formally regarded
as a man. One month after the
re-registration the Honourable Ewan Forbes-Sempill married Miss Isabella
Mitchell.
In 1960s
Britain, changing sex was, in itself, sufficient reason to attract the
attention of the popular media but, in this case, there was an additional issue
which threatened to disrupt relationships within this aristocratic family. Ewan did not stand to inherit the Barony of
Sempill because this could pass down the male or female line by primogeniture
and would pass to his niece, Ann, the eldest daughter of his brother,
William. But with regard to the inheritance
of the Forbes-Sempill baronetcy, this could only pass down a male line and by
re-registering his birth sex as male, Ewan appeared to have displaced his
cousin, John, in the line of succession.
John was not happy and challenged Ewan’s eligibility to assume the title,
claiming that he had always been, and was still, female.
The
subsequent medical investigations and legal action, which started in 1965 when
his brother William died and relinquished his titles, were intended to
establish the valid line of descent of the baronetcy. The processes were very intrusive for both Ewan
and his wife, Isabella. However, Ewan’s
case ultimately prevailed and he assumed the title, becoming Sir Ewan Forbes,
11th Baronet, in December 1968.
But the vindictive, unfeeling behaviour of his cousin, John, during this
protracted process and the disruption threatened to Ewan’s way of life may have
induced him to fabricate crucial evidence of his masculinity. This evidence was accepted by the presiding
judge, Lord Hunter, during the summary trial as admissible and swung the
contest in Ewan’s favour.
That is the bare
outline of this complicated and dramatic story.
But there is much, much more to follow.
Presenting this story
The approach
I have adopted in telling this story, as indeed I do to all my biographical
offerings, is to spend a considerable time initially collecting, ordering and
analysing relevant information but during this process trying not to adopt the opinions
of others, or to make assumptions, before I start composing my own account. Facts, as many as are available, are the
crucial starting point for any investigation and their ordering by date and
subject is central to my analysis and the proposal of explanations for why
events occurred in a certain sequence and with what relevance to each
other. Further, when I suggest such an explanation,
I indicate the level of confidence that I have in the idea. Also, I try never to be presumptuous and to
avoid the involvement of my own prejudices on social or political issues.
I have felt
it necessary to include the above statement because in 2025 the subject of sex
change and the debate around the alleged fluidity of sex, as opposed to its
traditional categorisation as being binary, either male or female with no
gradations, is highly emotive. Thus, I
have chosen to use words with their traditional meanings and I have avoided
both the jargon and the redefinitions of pre-existing words, or phrases, which
litter both popular and academic discourse in this area. Am I being overly rigid or traditional, even
archaic? Possibly, but my grammar school
education and my life as a scientist made me that way.
Facts
endure. They may be supplemented by new
facts but they are not replaced and should be retained unless shown to be
erroneous. If a fact is relevant it must
be taken into account, otherwise one is likely to reach a false
conclusion. New facts may be
particularly crucial in deciding an open question, or challenging a previous
conclusion, even years after the event, as will be found below in the case of
advances in bio-medical knowledge.
As I gather
facts for a new investigation I think of the emerging picture as being akin to
a jigsaw puzzle, where most of the pieces initially lack a confident position
but, as more pieces are added, the overall picture emerges progressively. If we could be assured that new pieces being placed
in the jigsaw puzzle were a random selection of all available pieces, then the
emerging picture would best represent the whole scene. But we can never find all the relevant pieces
so our explanation of what is happening in the representation will always be
qualified by the inevitable incompleteness of the starting information. Another set of problems with interpretation
arises from the sources of information.
If one particular source is extensive then part of the picture may be
relatively complete but may also dominate or overwhelm our understanding of
what is happening in more sparsely populated areas. My final point concerning the jigsaw puzzle
analogy relates to untrue “facts” accidentally, or deliberately, offered for
inclusion. The erroneous “facts” may
falsify the emerging picture in a significant way. On this last point I am heartened by my
previous discovery in several different studies that errors of interpretation
engendered by erroneous “facts” may eventually be uncovered. One lie told to obscure a truth usually needs
ten other lies to sustain it, and that is the vulnerability of the initial
fabrication.
Several of
the more significant sources of information that I have used to compile this
tale have aspects to their origins which suggest that some caution should be
exercised in evaluating their contribution to the overall story. Zoe Playdon, a retired University of London
academic has written a substantial account of the life of “Ewan” Forbes. In many ways it is an admirable work which
has clearly involved extensive research, and many of the facts that she has
unearthed appear solid and reliable.
But, from the outset, the book adopts a particular viewpoint which is
coloured by a contemporary concern for “LGB”, etc, and “Trans” rights and even
a particular party political viewpoint. From the start, Playdon refers to the
fourth Forbes-Sempill child throughout life as “Ewan”, never as “Elizabeth” and
uses male personal pronouns consistently which, to me, seems presumptuous.
The use of
popular contemporary initials to identify certain groups of sexually unorthodox
individuals is a relatively modern phenomenon.
Although I detected helplines for male and female homosexuals as early
as 1978 in a newspaper search, the initials LGB were not regularly employed
until the late 1980s and LGBT not until the 1990s, all these dates coming long
after Sir Ewan Forbes was successful in legally establishing his male status.
To employ this modern lexicon, generated by the LGBT rights movement, can
easily give the impression that a conclusion has been reached before the
evidence has been evaluated, or that Sir Ewan Forbes’ case has a fundamental
significance. I prefer to adopt an
agnostic stance on such matters by using traditional language and letting the
facts speak for themselves. Thus, I
refer to the subject of this discourse as “Elizabeth” and “her” until the time
of her birth re-registration, after which I switch to “Ewan” and “him”.
Ewan Forbes
himself produced two books of reminiscences, “The Aul’ Days” in 1984 and the
“Dancers of Don” in 1989. Although both
are interesting in giving an insight into Ewan’s early life, there are reasons
for viewing the contents of each volume with caution. Both were produced after his inheritance of
the baronetcy, which depended on the proof of his maleness being sustained. He omitted all mention of his struggles with
his assigned gender, except indirectly by only including photographs which
portray him in male attire in the first volume.
A similar slant is adopted in the second book. Quotations taken from newspaper reports have
had all references to “the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill” changed by
substituting “Ewan”. There is no doubt
that Ewan was both selecting and altering data in his publications.
But there is
another concern about the extensive evidence given in court by Ewan Forbes-Sempill
himself. Many of the alleged facts on
which the outcome of this legal contest depended came from Ewan alone with no
third party verification or support. He
was a most plausible and considerate but, at times, vague witness and it was
easy for the Court to accept his veracity.
But his self-interest in the outcome of the deliberations was obvious
and should at least give rise to caution in evaluating his contributions.
Aberdeen and
Aberdeenshire are blessed by having a long history of local newspaper
publication, which is sometimes sneered at for being overly parochial. However, the recording of such village-level detail
is a godsend to the biographer, though in the first half of the 20th
century there was a clear emphasis on the doings of the upper classes. The result was that there were published
plenty of early mentions, and even photographs, of the activities of the
Honourable E. Forbes-Sempill.
Undoubtedly local newspapers provide another selective data set, but one
which is at least unlikely to be contaminated by deliberate misrepresentation.
The Forbes-Sempills and their
Aberdeenshire homes
Aberdeenshire
is castle country, as the local tourist literature frequently reminds the
visitor. The county contains many
examples of tower house architecture, defensible but also liveable, statements
of past power and authority over the surrounding lands and populations and of
deadly enmity between rival clans. One
of the most recognisable such buildings is Craigievar Castle, two miles south
of the small town of Alford, located on the river Don thirty miles west of the
City of Aberdeen.
Craigievar
was constructed by the Mortimer family between about 1575 and 1595, the
resulting castle today displaying almost the same form as the original
structure, except at its uppermost level.
Unfortunately for them, the Mortimers ran into financial difficulties,
forcing the disposal of the castle and its surrounding lands. They were then acquired by one William Forbes
in 1610. He was variously known as
“William the Merchant” or “Danzig Willie” and was involved in trading
activities with the ports of the Hanseatic League. Willie was a brother of Bishop Patrick Forbes
of Aberdeen, from whom he habitually borrowed money for his mercantile
ventures, which were not always successful.
Apparently, this man of God, who had been indulgent towards his
entrepreneurial brother, eventually reached a point of resistance and cavilled
at a request for a further loan of 1,000 merks, roughly equivalent to £650
sterling in then contemporary money.
When asked who was his guarantor for the loan, Willie replied, “God
Almighty, I have none other to offer”.
Allegedly, on the basis that God was not to be rejected, Bishop Patrick
extended the desired finance. Or perhaps
he just had a soft spot for his adventurous brother? Danzig Willie subsequently prospered.
Having
acquired Craigievar, William Forbes set about embellishing the upper stories of
the castle to reflect his wealth and influence.
By 1626, the building was finished in its present form with turrets,
towers and balustrades at the higher levels and with fine interior
decorations. The patterned ceiling of the
Great Hall, for example, dates back to the year of completion of Danzig
Willie’s modifications. However, the
castle’s original defensive features remain, small windows (with one exception),
thick walls and only a single small door at ground level. The building has remained essentially
unmodified over the intervening four centuries and today is one of the best
examples of Scottish tower house architecture still extant.
Danzig
Willie’s son, also William, succeeded his father in 1627 and in 1630 William junior
was created a baronet by Charles I, with a grant of 16,000 acres of land in
Nova Scotia, this hereditary title to pass by inheritance only through male
heirs. Danzig Willie had also acquired
land elsewhere in the North-East, including around the settlement of Hatton of
Fintray (usually called simply “Fintray”), also on Donside, about 10 miles
north east of Aberdeen city centre and an area possessing good arable land, as
the following historical verse claims.
“Behold how
Fintray's plains delight the eye.
For fertile
soil there's none with them to vie”.
Thus the
baronetcy initially carried the title of “Craigievar and Fintray”. Three hundred and fifty years later, this
restriction of the baronetcy to male inheritance would prove to be of great,
but unanticipated, impact on the succession of the title.
Members of
the Forbes family of Craigievar and Fintray have, over the centuries fulfilled
many significant roles, as Members of Parliament, in the administration of the
law, in the Colonial Service and in the military, in addition to the management
of their landed estates. A particularly
important marriage took place in 1780 when Sir William Forbes 5th Bt
married Sarah, eldest offspring of John, 13th Baron Sempill. Unlike the Forbes baronetcy, this barony
could pass through either the male or the female line by primogeniture. Thus, the Sempill baronial title was added to
the Forbes baronetcy. Sir Arthur Forbes,
eldest son of Sir William Forbes 5th Baronet and Sarah, 14th
Baron of Sempill, became 6th Baronet of Craigievar and Fintray and
15th Baron Sempill. In
consequence, the Forbes family surname was changed to “Forbes-Sempill” and both
hereditary titles passed together, in lock-step, for several generations.
John
Forbes-Sempill, 16th Baron, 7th Baronet, the great
grandfather of Elizabeth, the subject of this story, was responsible for
building Fintray House in 1824, a substantial granite mansion, where the family
spent most of the year. Its construction
must have been very costly and may have been part of the reason why Craigievar
Castle remained essentially unmodified after that date. John Forbes-Sempill had been employed as a
judge by the East India Company.
At this
point, it is worth digressing, briefly, to consider the significance of
hereditary titles in Great Britain, since rank and title are, today,
increasingly seen as archaic concepts and the divisions in this formal social
hierarchy are not widely understood. The
highest social level is Royalty, members of the royal family, with its own hierarchy
of titles (king, queen, prince, princess).
This is followed by the Nobility, formerly members of a small,
privileged ruling class, again with its own status hierarchy of titles (duke,
marquess [marquis in Scotland], earl, viscount, baron). Members of the Nobility are addressed as
“Lord”. Baronets form a category below
the Nobility and are addressed as “Sir”.
Thus the two titles passing down through the Forbes-Sempill lineage were
at the bottom end of the pecking order of titled status, though the fact that
both the barony and the baronetcy were established several centuries ago did
give them some added cachet.
When this
assemblage of titled people held real status in British society there is no
doubt that its members predominantly saw themselves as an exclusive grouping
within which men exercised most of the power and wives played a subsidiary,
largely social role. Daughters were not
required to have careers but were expected to be cultured, look decorative and
be set on securing a good marriage. Significant
social interactions largely occurred within the group, though they could extend
upwards into the category of royalty. Of
course this description contains an element of caricature and the social trend,
with time, was for a progressive relaxation of these unwritten rules of social
conduct by the upper class. In the
account of the life (1912 – 1991) of Sir Ewan Forbes which follows, many examples
will emerge which illustrate this general thesis.
The immediate family of the Honourable
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill
Elizabeth’s father was John, 18th Lord Sempill and 9th Baronet of Craigievar and Fintray. He was born in 1863 and was educated at Eton, like his father, before joining the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, Gordon Highlanders in 1885, serving in the Sudan in the campaign to rescue General Gordon who was besieged in Khartoum. Subsequently Lord John saw service with the Lovat Scouts and the Black Watch during the Second Boer War (1899 – 1902). His final military employment was in WW1 when he commanded the 8th Battalion, the Black Watch. Sempill had met his future wife, Gwendolen Prodger, in 1880 in the German spa town of Bad Homburg, famous for its mineral water baths and casino, which had been made fashionable by the visits of Prince Albert Edward, later King Edward VII. The couple became engaged during that visit. They were married in 1892 and had a family of four, which was remarkably spread out, the first child arriving in 1893 and the last in 1912.
A good
illustration of the links that the Forbes-Sempills enjoyed with royalty came in
August 1906 when Queen Eugenie of Spain visited Craigievar Castle. Victoria Eugenie was the wife of King Alfonso
XIII of Spain, the daughter of Princess Beatrice, herself the youngest daughter
of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and Prince Henry of Battenburg. Queen Victoria Eugenie had been born at
Balmoral Castle, some 30 miles from Craigievar, in 1887. A further Royal visit took place in 1933 when
King Feisal of Iraq was welcomed to Craigievar Castle by Lord and Lady Sempill,
accompanied by the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill.
William
Francis, who would later become the 19th Baron Sempill and the 10th
Baronet Forbes-Sempill, was the first born and took the courtesy title of
Master of Sempill during his period as the heir apparent to 1934 when his
father died. He too briefly attended Eton before becoming a pioneer in the
emergent aviation industry, of which more later. He died on 30 December 1965 in Edinburgh, a
significant date for title succession, to which I will return. A second child, Gwendolen Janet, was born in
1897. Sadly she died of peritonitis due
to a burst appendix in 1910. Gwendolen
Janet was buried in St Meddans churchyard, Fintray. A third child and second daughter arrived in
1905. She was christened Margaret and
will play a prominent and controversial role in the story which follows. Margaret almost lost her life in October 1916
while swimming in the River Don at Fintray.
She was swept away by the current and her mother entered the water to
effect a rescue but was inhibited from doing so by her voluminous clothes and
lack of life saving technique. Lady
Gwendolen was nearly drowned herself but, fortunately, a local girl, a cousin,
was able to rescue Margaret, and received a testimonial for her bravery. The fourth birth was of another daughter,
Elizabeth, the subject of this story, on 6th September 1912. Her earliest memories were of visiting her
last surviving grandmother and of German Prisoners of War working on the local
farms around Fintray about 1917. All
three girls had been born at Fintray House.
Schooling of the Forbes-Sempill children
There was a
marked difference in the schooling of the three surviving Forbes Sempill
children. William was sent away to Eton
where he could expect to meet other sons of prominent families, destined to
take on significant national roles in British society. At the age of six, Margaret was also sent
away to school, to Queen Margaret’s School in Scarborough, which had been
established in 1901. During WW1, this
school was relocated to Pitlochry, Perthshire and relative safety from the
threat of German bombs. But the purpose
of her education was different from that of her elder brother. She was being prepared to come out as a
debutante. After Queen Margaret’s she
was sent to finishing school in Brussels and in 1924 she had her London season
of events such as balls and garden parties when she was also presented to the
King and Queen. No marriage prospect
resulted from this elaborate social ritual and, in consequence, she was packed
off to India for almost a year, where colonial society had an excess of
eligible men employed in trade, colonial administration and the military. She left Liverpool on the ss California bound
for Bombay in late October 1926. This
ploy for marrying off Margaret, too, failed.
Later, the reason for this lack of marital progress became clear. Margaret’s personal inclination was to be attracted
to members of her own sex and not to men.
Elizabeth, unlike her elder sister, was not despatched southwards to an
educational setting which was perceived as being more cultured and prestigious. Instead she was taught by governesses at home,
where she received “a good grounding in Scottish education together with French
and German in reading and writing”. The
reason for this difference in approach is unclear, because Elizabeth, too, was
expected to become a debutante. However,
it may have been related to Elizabeth’s atypical female genitalia which might
have caused her embarrassment in a residential school setting. Whatever the reason for Elizabeth’s different
mode of education, home schooling was probably responsible for her subsequent
denigration of English public schooling and, later, it probably steered her
towards her native culture, the Doric dialect, both spoken and written,
Scottish country dancing and an attraction to the politics of the emergent
Scottish National Party.
The Forbes-Sempills and WW1
Life on the
estate at Fintray appeared to be typical of the conduct of affairs on landed
properties throughout the North-East of Scotland. The owners had a patronising regard for the
welfare of their servants, and the servants were obsequious towards their
masters. Part of this ritual of mutual
regard between the two classes was the annual supper and dance for the house
servants and labourers on the estate, along with their wives. The year after Elizabeth’s birth this event
was held on Friday 28th March.
At the end of supper, Mr George Spence, estate overseer, in a short
speech, proposed the health of Lord and Lady Sempill, referring to the kindly
interest evinced by them in the welfare of their servants. This was followed by a further contribution
from Mr Henry Harrison, the coachman, who proposed the healths of the Master of
Sempill, the Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill and the Honourable Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill. The Aberdeen Journal, a
local newspaper of considerable antiquity, which in 1921 became the Aberdeen
Press and Journal, locally known, then and since, by the contraction “P&J”,
dutifully reported the goings on at Fintray House. “The company then adjourned to the ballroom,
where they were met and welcomed by Lord and Lady Sempill and the Hon Margaret
Forbes-Sempill. Dancing was immediately
commenced, Lord Sempill leading off the Grand March with Mrs Spence, followed
by the Hon. Margaret Forbes-Sempill with Mr Spence. Before leaving the ballroom, Mr Spence, in
name of the company, thanked Lord and Lady Sempill for their kindness and
hospitality. Dancing was then renewed
and was kept up till an early hour on Saturday morning”.
This
benevolence towards the employees and their families also extended to the
Fintray villagers generally. In the summer
of 1913, a fund was set up with the purpose of constructing a village hall and
Lord and Lady Sempill pitched in, by allowing the use of the grounds of Fintray
House, which enjoyed picturesque views of the Don, for a bazaar. Additionally, they promised a building site
and a donation of £50 to the fund which had already reached £100. The foundation stone for the hall was laid in
May 1914 by the Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill, in the presence of her
parents and her small sister. Even at
the age of nine Margaret was being prepared for the role she was expected to
fulfil in life.
The Forbes-Sempill family were in the habit of annually moving their place of residence from Fintray House to Craigievar at the start of August, the prime purpose of this “flit” being to participate in the autumn series of events associated with the seasonal presence of a royal party at Balmoral Castle. These included the Highland games, principally the Braemar Gathering and the Lonach Gathering, held on Deeside and Donside respectively, which were events at which the upper classes could meet their peers and put their finery on public display, their attendance being recorded in great detail by the local newspapers. The Forbes-Sempills would also mount their own garden party for invited guests in the environs of Craigievar Castle, the 1913 event taking place on 28th August. The sojourn at Craigievar did not last for long, typically only until early October when the journey along Donside would be reversed by the Forbes-Sempills and their servants travelling back to Fintray in an assortment of horse-drawn vehicles.
The start of
WW1 was formally declared on 28 July 1914.
Shortly before this momentous date, Lord and Lady Sempill had been
enjoying Cowes Week on the Isle of Wight.
After the start of hostilities the focus of the Forbes-Sempills changed
from the social round and the conduct of estate and village affairs to concerns
for a country at war. In early September
1914, Lady Sempill donated £5 to the relief fund of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’
Families Association but it was clear that much more would need to be
accomplished in the coming months.
Gwendolen, Lady Sempill, became the president of the Donside Division of
the Red Cross and working parties were established to manufacture clothing and
provide comforts for combatants. In
October 1914, Lady Sempill, signing herself simply as “G. Sempill”, had a
letter published in the Aberdeen Journal appealing for donations of poultry,
eggs and butter to the Base Hospital in Aberdeen which was treating men
seriously wounded at the front. She was
also involved both in supporting and in donating to an appeal by the Aberdeen
surgeon, Sir Alexander Ogston for money to purchase motor ambulances. Lord Sempill had been appointed commander of
the 8th Battalion the Black Watch but suffered a breakdown in his
health and had to return to Fintray House to recuperate in October 1914. He later returned to resume command of his unit. Belgium was invaded by Germany in early
August 1914 and it was not long before wounded Belgian soldiers started to
appear in Britain and were distributed over many locations. Fintray House was opened by Lady Sempill as a
hospital for war wounded and by the middle of November 1914 it was
accommodating eight injured Belgians.
Her charitable war work continued with sewing parties, donations in cash
and kind and her efforts on behalf of the hospital in Fintray House.
WW1 was a
punishing time for the Forbes-Sempill family.
Major the Honourable Douglas Forbes-Sempill, a brother of Lord Sempill,
had been killed while commanding the 1st Seaforth Highlanders in a punitive
expedition against the Zakka Khel clan on the North-West Frontier of India in
1908. On 2nd June 1915, another of Lord Sempill’s brothers,
Lieutenant the Honourable Robert Abercrombie Forbes-Sempill, died of wounds
received in action at Festubert in North-West France. His remaining brother, the Honourable Arthur Lionel
Ochoncar Forbes-Sempill was captain of a battleship in the Royal Navy and had
seen active service at the Battle of Jutland.
He survived the conflict uninjured.
Lord Sempill himself was seriously wounded, being paralysed in both legs
at the Battle of Loos on 25th September 1915 and was invalided back
to Britain where he underwent a long period of convalescence in England before
being able to travel back to Fintray House in June 1916 to continue his
recovery. A short notice was placed in
the Aberdeen Evening Express on behalf of Lady Sempill by a sympathetic
reporter, apologising for not being able to reply personally to the many
expressions of sympathy she had received on the news of her husband’s war
wounds. These tribulations put an enormous load on the shoulders of the capable
Gwendolen, Lady Sempill. She had taken
on a substantial burden of charitable relief work locally and in Aberdeen, she
had to administer the hospital facilities in Fintray House, she had to care for
a sick husband and she had to manage the family estates and household. Apparently, Gwendolen also made a point of
calling on each estate tenant at least yearly, especially if there was illness
in the household, and would even pay for a visit by a doctor if she thought the
family could not afford such expense. On
top of that burden, she had the responsibility of bringing up a family of
three, the youngest of whom, Elizabeth, had been registered at birth as a girl,
but who had atypical external genitalia.
What could, or should, she do about this last problem? According to Zoe Playdon, about 1918
Gwendolen had established that Elizabeth “had a normal female anatomy” and
hinted that she “might menstruate”. What
constituted a “normal female anatomy” was not explained, though one suspects
that it was a reference to her possessing a vagina. Even so, Gwendolen took Elizabeth to see a
paediatrician who referred her to Professor McKeren, an Aberdeen-based urologist
and it is thought that she underwent a minor surgical procedure to widen the
urethral orifice, since she was experiencing some difficulty with micturition.
Early public appearances by the
Honourable Elizabeth Forbes Sempill
Newspaper
reports, first appearing in 1918 and then in subsequent years, of the social
activities of the Forbes-Sempill family started to mention the presence of the
Honourable Elizabeth, usually in the company of her mother and often along with
her sister, the Honourable Margaret. The
form of her name was usually either the Honourable Elizabeth, or the Hon.
Elizabeth. Occasionally her given name
was abbreviated to Eliz. or even E. She
was about six at the time and her elder sister was 13. At a fete held at Craigievar in favour of the
Red Cross in August 1918, “the Hon. Margaret Forbes-Sempill was busy selling
jewellery, and the Hon. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill was also industriously engaged
disposing of pretty buttonholes, all of which found ready purchasers”. Gwendolen, a competent musician, contributed
a “charming selection on the harp”. The
two girls were being trained by their mother to perform an obligatory role in
public life. By 1921, Margaret was starting
to front opening ceremonies and the like, such as declaring open the Young
People’s Missionary Sale, held in the Music Hall, Aberdeen, and the unveiling
of the war memorial at Fintray, accompanied by her sister, both events
occurring in May of that year. Two years
later, the Honourable Elizabeth opened a further iteration of the Young
People’s Missionary Sale.
In 1924, the
Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill came out as a debutante. She was presented to King George V and Queen
Mary at Buckingham Palace, the P&J dutifully recording her elaborate
couture, both at the Royal residence and at the ensuing State Ball. Sister Elizabeth was “dragged over the border
to see and learn what I could of the historic buildings and museums and other
things of interest”. The Forbes-Sempill
family had taken a house in the capitol, 53 Ennismore Gardens, London, for the
season. The following summer the
Craigievar and Fintray family hired a different London dwelling, 44 Onslow
Square, and while they were in residence, perhaps as a desperate measure to get
Margaret married off, Lady Sempill organised a “young people’s dance” at their
temporary residence. The P&J loyally
recorded the attire of both Lady Sempill and her elder daughter and the conduct
of the evening. “Lady Sempill received
her guests wearing a gown of gold tissue, veiled with shot blue and gold net,
and having scarf-draperies at the shoulders, giving a "dragon fly"
effect to the gown. The Hon. Margaret Forbes-Sempill was in silver tissue, with
touches of pink and green, and she danced indefatigably, proving herself an
expert dancer of the Highland reels, Strathspeys, and country dances, which
were a feature of the evening's programme”.
During the
1924 sojourn in London, Elizabeth began harp lessons with Madame Goosens, a
member of the famous Belgian émigré musical family. This instrumental training was encouraged by
Elizabeth’s mother who was an accomplished performer on the instrument. These cultural activities were enjoyed by the
younger Forbes-Sempill girl but the London social events were not similarly
regarded. Elizabeth much later wrote, “The
early twenties was a very wild and hectic time of Society nonsense and as a
child I had a very clear view from my end of the telescope, and had a pretty poor opinion of what I saw”. The so-called “Roaring Twenties” were
characterised by the rolling back of Victorian morality, sexual liberation and
cultural innovation, particularly in the upper classes residing in London. It appeared to have been the relaxed
behaviour of the socially privileged, “when women wore less to go dancing than
their mothers had worn in bed”, which so discomforted the Honourable
Elizabeth. After two months in the
capitol, the family returned north. For
Elizabeth, “Normality and happiness returned when we reached Aberdeenshire
again”. Fashionable dresses, elaborate
jewellery, social gatherings and louche behaviour apparently held no allure for
twelve year old Elizabeth. There is no
evidence that she was forced to endure the London scene again during the
following year.
Sometime
later, though the period is not known, Elizabeth started to take exception to
some of her mother’s invitees to social events, whose conversation she found
boring. She recommended a strategy to
her mother to keep these pests under control, though it is unclear if Lady
Gwendolen adopted her youngest daughter’s advice. Bores always arrived on time, or early, so
when issuing invitations, her youngest daughter advised Lady Gwendolen to make
the staring time for moderate bores 15 minutes later than for interesting
guests, but superbores should have their starting time placed 30 minutes late. Also, she should serve sherry, so that there
would be much diverting conversation by the time the bores arrived. This piece of advice clearly demonstrated
both Elizabeth’s wit and her ingenuity.
Lady Sempill and the Womens’ Rural
Institute
This ladies’
organisation, popularly known as the “Rural” was the rough equivalent of the
Women’s Institute in England and was widely supported, almost every local
village, including both Fintray and Craigievar, possessing a branch. Lady Sempill must have felt obliged to be
involved, bearing in mind the significance of the Rural for most local women. She was elected president of the Fintray WRI
and often took one or both daughters to meetings. As the years progressed, the two girls became
increasingly involved in WRI activities.
In 1923, the Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill, with the collaboration
of Miss Constance Farr, took responsibility for the evening of entertainment
mounted in Fintray Hall in mid-March.
Margaret co-opted her sister Elizabeth who was undoubtedly an
enthusiastic participant. The
description of the programme which appeared in the P&J would today raise
eyebrows, or worse, but in the context of its time it constituted harmless
village fun and would not have offended anyone in the audience, nor would it
have been intended to be offensive. At
the age of 11, Elizabeth seemed well able to cope with these public occasions
and did not appear to be either shy or retiring.
“All
performers were drawn from Fintray House. The programme included plantation
songs, the soloists being Mrs Butcher, Misses Shand, Ogston and Farr. Action
songs were delightfully rendered by the Hon. E. Forbes-Sempill and the Misses
Crombie, and the Hon. E. Forbes-Sempill caused much amusement as the golliwog
in "The Bogey Fox-Trot".
"The Ten Little Nigger Boys" was perhaps the most popular song
of the evening. Lord Sempill and Miss Farr took part in a sketch entitled
"The Burglar and the Girl".
The "burglar", in the act of rifling a chest of valuables, is
discovered by the girl, whom he takes to be an inmate of the house. He is somewhat
surprised, however, when she ultimately renders him helpless, and herself
carries off the treasure. Another sketch, “The Backward Child", acted by
the Hon. Margaret Forbes-Sempill and Miss Maver, in the characters of the
precocious modern child and the gentle, old-world governess respectively,
called forth much laughter”.
Reports in
the local Aberdeen newspapers of the involvement of Lady Sempill and her two
daughters in the affairs of the Rural continued throughout the 1920s. Typical Rural activities were competitions for
knitting and crocheting, presentations on such parochial subjects as gardening
and flower arranging, recitations of Doric verses, cooking competitions, demonstrations
of Scottish country dancing, musical contributions and talks by Lady Sempill on
her experiences of foreign countries or grand occasions of State.
The Forbes-Sempills and major social
events
The
accommodation of house parties at either Fintray House or Craigievar Castle,
usually coincided with major social events, with a group of important guests
put up at the house and forays by the principals and visitors to venues where
they would be seen and where other house parties would also be in attendance. Guest lists would include minor members of
Royal families, military officers, members of other landed families and prominent
visitors to the area such as MPs and wealthy industrialists. Such an event was the Aboyne Highland Games
held in early September 1925 where the most elevated members of society were
accommodated in the reserved enclosure.
On this occasion, Craigievar Castle’s most exotic visitor was Prince Chi
Chu Bu, Crown Prince of Siam. He
attended both the games and the following ball.
The Honourable Elizabeth was recorded as attending the games but not the
ball and her elder sister Margaret, entered a reciprocal presence.
The events in
Aboyne were followed, in late September, by another signal occasion in the
Scottish social calendar, the Perth Hunt Ball.
In 1925, the arrangements for this major opportunity to see and be seen
were the responsibility of Lord and Lady Sempill. The P&J’s description did full justice to
the elaborate preparation of the venue.
“About 350 guests were present at the first of the Perth Hunt Balls,
which was held last night in the County Buildings, Perth. Lord Sempill is Preses (president or chairman) of the Hunt this year, and at last night's
function one of the chief features was the striking representation of the
baronial hall, arranged by Lady Sempill, the entrance and main staircase
lending themselves admirably for such a scheme of decoration. The walls were
hung with Hunting Stewart and Murray clan tartans as a background; the
staircase was draped with the Forbes tartan, broken by bosses of tartan and
bunches of broom, the Forbes emblem; while spears, claymores, and targes
heightened the effect. The flowers used in the decoration of the sitting rooms
were Lady Sempill rose-pink dahlias from Fintray gardens”. This was a regular aspect of the social world
that the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill was growing into, though she later
claimed that she disliked such occasions.
The changing appearance of the
Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill
In September
1921, Lord and Lady Sempill, with their two daughters made an appearance at the
Aboyne Highland games, the second most important such event on Deeside, after the
Braemar Gathering. For the first time, a
photograph appeared in the P&J of both parents and both daughters. Although the reproduction of the picture,
presented here, lacks clarity, it is still very revealing. The individual members of the family are
dressed as expected on such occasions, Lord Sempill in kilt, tweed jacket and
waistcoat with bunnet and sporran, Lady Gwendolen in a long flowing dress,
possibly with an animal fur around her neck and with a broad-brimmed hat, and
the two girls dressed identically in long sleeved dresses and broad-brimmed
hats. Both appear to have long hair and
their similar appearances are decidedly feminine. At the time Elizabeth was aged nine. By comparing successive photographs depicting
the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill, which subsequently appeared in the
P&J, it is possible to follow a remarkable change in the appearance of this
girl, at least in her public persona.
A fete was
held in the grounds of Monymusk House, arranged by the Monymusk Unionist
Association, in August 1928. Both Lady
Sempill and her daughter Elizabeth attended and the P&J both described
their outfits and published a photograph of the Sempill females. “Lady Sempill, Fintray House, smartly attired
in heavy-weight Lomond blue suit and navy felt hat, diamond buckled, brought
her younger daughter, the Hon. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill, girlishly neat in pebble coat and felt hat of the new modish
Saracen red”. The hats of the ladies in
this photograph are cloche hats which were fashionable for women between 1922
and 1933. The caption to the photograph
described Elizabeth, then aged 16, as “the Hon. Betty Forbes-Sempill” and this
appellation was repeated in the accompanying text. Three other newspaper entries have been
discovered where Elizabeth was also referred to as “Betty”, “The Sketch” in
1938 and “The Queen” in 1939 and, most telling of all, an article in the Sunday
Mail in 1952 by a lifelong friend, Mrs Christine Crowe in the immediate
aftermath of the re-registration of Elizabeth’s birth. Christine Crowe was a prominent writer,
broadcaster and amateur dramatist in Aberdeen in the 1930s. During WW2 she wrote frequently for both the
P&J and the Aberdeen Evening Express.
This work was very insightful. Christine
Crowe wrote, “I cannot but remember him as the young girl I first knew. She was
so fussy about the spelling of her Christian name. She pointed out that it was
spelt with the 19th letter of the alphabet and not the last. ... Betty (as she
was always known) ...”. Her sister
Margaret (“Peggy” in the family) also referred to her younger sister by this
common contraction of her given name.
These instances contradict what Sir Ewan Forbes would later say never
happened, i.e. that he was ever known as “Betty”. Also, it was clear from both the P&J’s
description and the younger Sempill girl’s appearance that she could still be very
feminine in both mode of dress and facial looks in 1928.
In 1930 at
the age of 18, the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill came out, rather
reluctantly, as a debutante and was presented to Queen Mary on 10 July before
participating, or being expected to participate, in a series of events at which
eligible bachelors and debutantes could meet.
In preparation for this season of activities, a studio photographic
portrait of Elizabeth was taken by Marian Lewis, a society photographer,
principally of aristocratic women, who was active between the mid-1920s and the
mid-1930s. She had a base in Queen
Anne’s Gate, London. Lewis was well
known to, and extensively patronised by, the upper classes. Her portraits usually had an alluring and
feminine quality, but Marian’s photograph of Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill hardly
merits that description. Little can be
seen of her clothing except for a pearl necklace. Her hair is rather short and set in permanent
waves but her unsmiling expression, though feminine, seems to suggest that she
would rather be anywhere but posing for this photographic portrait.
After 1930,
Elizabeth increasingly resorted to wearing the kilt in public, accompanied by a sporran, though not a big, male, hairy one.
A P&J photograph from 1932 shows her typical garb of kilt, tweed
jacket, bunnet and tie. In this
androgynous outfit she was apparently able to satisfy her own dress preferences
while still accommodating her mother’s wish for her to look feminine in
public. Facially, at least to this
observer, she still had a feminine visage at that time. One exception to the kilted look that
Elizabeth frequently assumed by 1933 was her garb at the Aboyne Ball, which
followed the Highland Games in that town.
The P&J described her attire.
“...the Hon Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill, was in a beautifully cut white
taffeta frock, which had tight-fitting bodice and full skirt, and cartwheel
epaulettes. She had red slippers and a Clan tartan sash”.
The
Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill was an accomplished Scottish country dancer
and, in March 1933, the Scottish Country Dancing Society held an “At Home” in
Kennaway’s Rooms, Aberdeen. The
following day a brief report of the event plus a photograph of a group of three
dancers, apparently members of a set including Elizabeth, was published. All were wearing dresses but there was a
marked contrast between the appearance of Elizabeth and the other two
females. While Elizabeth had rather
short, straight hair with a parting, the total effect being rather masculine,
the coiffure of the other two is decidedly feminine. Their hair is arranged over their ears with
no hint of a parting and with elaborate permanent waves. On this occasion, Elizabeth seems to be
dancing as a female, again something she would later say never happened.
From this
time onwards, Elizabeth’s hairstyle and dress became increasingly masculine. Two photographs from 1935 and 1939, show this
continuing trend, the former one illustrating more obviously feminine facial
features than the latter, which is from her 1939 student year book, when she
entered Aberdeen University. In the
university photograph, because of the hairstyle and the wearing of a sports
jacket, shirt and tie, Elizabeth would have been taken for a normal male student
by most observers.
Although the
Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill’s attire became increasingly masculine
during the 1930s, she still wore, or was required to wear, clothes which were
obviously feminine from time to time and the descriptions of her appearance
made that clear. Elizabeth attended the
Aboyne Ball in September 1931, which followed the Aboyne Highland Games. Her attire and that of her mother were dutifully
reported by the P&J. “The party from
Craigievar included Lady Sempill, who looked very handsome in a beaded flame
cloak and a prettily cut frock of chartreuse satin. She was accompanied by her daughter the Hon
Elizabeth Forbes Sempill whose attractive Courtiseen model of crimon and tin
was worn with an old-rose velvet cape trimmed with white fur”.
In the middle
to late 1930s, the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill increasingly sought to
appear in public dressed in the kilt when attending sheepdog trials or Highland
gatherings and the likes. When she wore
some alternative to this mode of dress it was often a female suit. For example, she turned out in a “black and
white check tailored tweed suit” with a “Cossack cap trimmed with astrakhan”
for a wedding during 1935 and she wore a similar outfit the following year as
noted by the P&J. “The Hon.
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill was in a two-piece suit of a dark navy blue shade,
with felt hat to match, and a scarf spotted with white on a navy blue ground”. But her dress-wearing was not completely over
by 1935, as suggested by Playdon. In June
1936 she “wore a multicoloured floral dress with black ground, and a little
black straw hat trimmed with red”. No
further example of either dress-wearing or ladies’ suit-wearing has come to
light from an examination of the pages of the P&J. Referring to the period starting about 1937,
the Honourable Ewan Forbes-Sempill later said the following in evidence in his
1967 Court case. “Because the sex
assigned to me was not what I felt it was and I felt if I had to dress up and
conform as they thought I should, dress in female clothing, I felt as if I was
acting a false part, and I could not be happy in it”. It seems that from 1937 onwards Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill never again wore clothes which could be described as exclusively
female attire.
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill and Scottish
music
Elizabeth
became a competent performer on the harp at her mothers’ desire, as she wanted
one of her children to carry on the Welsh tradition of her side of the family. It appears that Elizabeth’s lessons on this
instrument started in 1924 during her reluctant visit to London. She was given expert tuition by members of
the Goosens family and, later, by the principal harpist at the Dresden
Opera. Elizabeth’s level of performance
was good enough to make harp recordings for Beltona Records in 1929. However, her instrumental performances in
public were only occasionally mentioned in the local press, for example in 1932
at a WRI meeting when she rendered "Am Meerestrande". The following year Elizabeth was mentioned as
one of two harpists performing in the Aberdeen Strathspey and Reel Society
orchestra, conducted by Mr Alex Sim, in a concert of traditional music in
Aberdeen Music Hall. There were similar
concerts mounted in 1934 and 1936, again with Elizabeth playing her harp. One photograph has been uncovered of Elizabeth
playing this instrument, which may well have been the model she later sold at
auction in Keith. That was an instrument
manufactured by the famous French harp and piano makers and designers,
Sebastian and Pierre Erard. At the
Leochel-Cushnie WRI in 1937, “the Hon. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill rendered lovely
airs on the harp”.
It was also
in 1929 that Elizabeth bought a piano accordion (or melodeon) with prize money
earned from her recording work and, at a meeting of the Leochel-Cushnie WRI in
1932, she gave a complete display of her performing talents. “The Hon. Elizabeth told of her experiences
in gramophone record making and of her visit to the broadcasting station at the
" Press and Journal" Exhibition. She also recited several of
Hamewith's poems with great acceptance, gave selections on the melodeon, and
danced several Highland dances to gramophone music”. There was a similarly comprehensive
performance before this body of ladies the following year, too.
Sir Ewan
Forbes, in his book “The Aul’ Times” referred to Elizabeth’s extensive
appearances under the baton of Alex Sim.
“I was well trained in the beat of Scots and Highland music, as many
long years ago I regularly played with the Aberdeen Strathspey and Reel Society
under the inspiring conductorship of Alec Sim.
The glorious thrill of music that coursed in my “Scots bleed” sent me
wild with delight, and of course had a far more profound effect upon my dancing
than even the special distillates of the barley bree!” This reference to the Scots national beverage
well encapsulates the emotional attachment that Elizabeth felt to her native
musical culture and suggests that she derived substantial pleasure from these
public performances.
It is known
that the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill also took an interest in the
bagpipes but no evidence has been uncovered of her learning to play the
instrument.
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill’s masculine
interests
Sir Ewan
Forbes published his book of reminiscences, “The Aul’ Days” in 1984, after he
had won his battle for the inheritance of the baronetcy of Craigievar by
establishing in law that he was recognised as a male. In that book he included a number of
photographs showing Elizabeth’s appearance between the years 1919 and 1939 when
she would have been seven, eight, 12, 21 and 27 years old. The first three pictures were equestrian
scenes and she appeared to be wearing jodhpurs and thus, inevitably, took on a
boyish appearance. The picture from the
age of 21 was taken at the Lonach Gathering and shows her in kilted attire, and
the photo from the age of 27 was the medical student year book example in
entirely masculine clothes. It seems, by
comparison with the photos published in the P&J that there had been a deliberate
selection of photos which suggested a male persona. The text within the book infers that
Elizabeth enjoyed an exclusively boyish set of pursuits, pranks and attitudes,
such as killing rats with her bare hands, dropping stones down chimneys,
releasing agitated bumble bees into the house and playing ice hockey. It seems highly likely that all of these
examples were real but what is unknown and probably unknowable, is whether
there was any omission of interests that would contradict the general claim of
maleness, as with the failure to choose photos showing her in girls’ clothing. The likely explanation for these data is that
Elizabeth did have masculine desires from an early age but was required by her
mother to dress like a girl on public occasions. In later life, after winning the legal
challenge to his masculinity, Sir Ewan’s two books were probably composed to
conform with his desired persona. During
adolescence, it seems, Elizabeth was increasingly allowed to dress and act as
she pleased in the privacy of the family estates, provided she played the role
of her alter ego, the dutiful
daughter, in public.
At the age of
13, the Honourable Elizabeth was packed off to Switzerland to holiday with a
relative, her Uncle Charlie in St Moritz.
Winter sports had originated about half a century before and this town
in the Swiss Alps was a major focus of this new winter diversion of the upper
classes. Elizabeth grabbed the
opportunity to take part in such exciting events as langlauf skiing, figure
skating, bobsleigh racing (with a member of the Cartier jewellery family) and
ski-joring races, where skiers would be pulled across a frozen lake by
horses. This lattermost sport was both
exciting and dangerous but Elizabeth loved it and even tried to introduce this
activity to the North-East of Scotland on her return. In February 1935, Lady Gwendolen, her daughter
Elizabeth and her granddaughters Ann and June, all left for winter sports in
Murren, Switzerland.
Shooting game
on Scottish landed property has, of course, been a favourite sport of the upper
classes since at least the early 19th century when tenants of small
holdings started to be removed from the land to create sporting estates. But managing land also required shooting of a
different nature, the destruction of “vermin” damaging crops or sporting interests. Elizabeth had an early fascination with guns
and bought an air rifle with which she could practice target shooting. About 1929, at the age of 17 she asked her
father if she could have a shotgun, the kind of weapon which was required for
felling rabbits. Finally, her father
relented and bought a second hand 16-bore (0.662 in. dia. barrel) weapon for
her use. She was sent out with the
estate keepers to prove her capabilities by shooting rabbits and bagged 23 with
26 shots, proof enough of her marksmanship and she was then allowed to shoot sporting
game with the weapon. However, Elizabeth
had a touchy relationship with her father and her prowess with a gun caused
problems in their interactions, as Sir Ewan explained in “The Aul’ Times”. “It gradually caused problems, however, as my
father was inclined to be jealous and when other guns praised my shooting, he
could be very annoyed. On the other
hand, if my day had been less successful, scolding inevitably followed, so
whichever way things went, I was in the doghouse”. Sir Ewan also said that his father had a
“fiery and ill temper”. One wonders what
was the reason for this antagonism. Was
it related at all to his daughter’s increasingly masculine dress and behaviour?
In those
days, reaching the age of 21 was considered to be the age of majority and it
was usual for the newly arrived adult to have some kind of celebratory
event. In Elizabeth’s case, she asked
for a shooting party as a celebration.
It was also in 1933 that Elizabeth accompanied her father, Lord Sempill,
who was president of the Committee of Management, responsible for the
Wapinschaw (weaponshow, an annual shooting
festival mainly for Volunteers) taking place on the Black Dog range north
of Aberdeen. “The Hon. Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill also could not resist the urge to have a sporting shot. She took
her place among the competitors at the 200 yard range and, as there were no
contests open to women, she contented herself with a few sighting shots, under
the guidance of her father, Lord Sempill. She is, perhaps, the first woman to shoot at a
north-eastern wapinschaw, although her score will not find a place in the
records of the association”. Perhaps as
a result of the interest in marksmanship that Elizabeth showed in 1933, the
following year saw the introduction of a competition for women for the first
time. She was an entrant but was beaten
by two other local women who proved to be excellent shots, indeed better than
some of the male “cracks”.
The Honourable Elizabeth Forbes
Sempill and the Doric dialect
Perhaps
because she was schooled mostly at home and also eschewed events at which she
would meet those of her own class, where standard English would be spoken,
Elizabeth became an aficionado of the Doric dialect, the tongue of the estate
workers and house servants, and the country people in general in the North East
of Scotland. It is a very expressive,
even poetic, language and any outsider who goes to live in Aberdeen, or
Aberdeenshire, inevitably picks up and employs Doric words and phrases, though
it is probably necessary to spend the early, formative years in that
environment to become truly fluent.
Charles Murray (1864 – 1941), who was born in Alford, near to
Craigievar, became one of the most famous Doric poets. He was a mining engineer who made his fortune
in South Africa but he never lost his love of his native country and its
language. He bequeathed land in Alford,
in trust, for the benefit of the town’s inhabitants, which today is known as
Murray Park.
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill started to give public recitations of Doric verse, at least from the age of 14, the first of which may have been at a meeting of the Leochel-Cushnie (usually the village was referred to simply as “Cushnie”) WRI in November 1926 when members of the Fintray WRI paid a visit to this settlement located two miles from Craigievar. “The Hon. Margaret Forbes-Sempill, Craigievar, gave an enjoyable talk on Winter Sports in Switzerland, and the Hon. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill gave a Scots recitation which was much appreciated”. A few days later, the ladies of the Fintray WRI were entertained by Gwendolen, Lady Sempill at Fintray House with a programme of games, competitions and dancing. Lady Sempill gave a “charming performance” on the harp and her younger surviving daughter “also delighted the guests by her recitations in Scots, and after supper she gracefully presented the prizes won in the various competitions”.
A year later,
there was a repeat performance at a meeting of the Leochel-Cushnie WRI. Lady Sempill on this occasion gave a talk on
her recent visit to Sicily, while her younger daughter gave four recitations
from “Hamewith”, Charles Murray’s first published anthology of his verse. The last two lines of the title poem read
“Hamewith – the road that’s never dreary,
Back where his heart is a’ the time.”
This sentiment – the longing for home – that Charles Murray felt so strongly, fitted perfectly with Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill’s feelings for her native land and its culture. The P&J described the recitations as “delightful”.
This
performance by Elizabeth at the Leochel-Cushnie WRI during the late summer
sojourn at Craigievar Castle seems to have become an annual feature. In 1928, she again recited a number of poems
by Charles Murray and also “gave a selection of instrumental music”, presumably
on the harp. In September 1930,
Elizabeth performed “an original Scots character sketch” at the Cushnie
venue. Later the same month, all three
Forbes-Sempill ladies made contributions to another WRI meeting, this time in
Kennethmont. “Lady Sempill gave an
interesting talk on her recent visit to Germany, very vividly describing the
Passion Play’’ at Oberammergau. The Hon. Margaret Forbes-Sempill described a
visit to India, and the Hon. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill contributed character
sketches in the Doric to a very appreciative audience”. Likely, the ladies of Kennethmont would have
had no idea of the prime purposes of the Forbes-Sempill ladies’ visits to
Germany and India.
Elizabeth
attended the Aberdeen Music Festival in 1932 and competed in the Scots verse
speaking session. She prevailed with a recitation of “The Braw Lass”. The adjudicator described it as an excellent
one. “She had got a great deal of the humour out of this charming poem by
Charles Murray, and the story was certainly very well told. She was well worth
the 90 marks he had awarded her”. Shortly
afterwards, Elizabeth was invited by Beltona Records to make a number of
recordings for them of Charles Murray’s poems.
This company had been founded in 1923 and they manufactured 78 rpm
gramophone records, mostly of traditional Scottish music. Elizabeth’s performances were recorded in
London and, in addition to her recitations, she also recorded some harp
solos. She was, of course, remunerated
for her performances and with her earnings she bought a piano-accordion.
The year 1932
also saw a major gathering of the North Aberdeen Unionists at Powis House,
which was attended by almost 1,000 people.
There was a variety of entertainments on offer including a performance
by Lady Sempill’s Doric Players, whose tag line was "The freenly fowk frae
Fintray". The Honourable Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill was one of the five performers.
By August
1932, the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill had started broadcasting on BBC
Radio, usually with readings of Doric poetry, but she made a different
contribution in early 1938 when she made an appeal on behalf of the Scotstown
Moor Children's Camp, Aberdeen, which had been chosen as the “Week's Good Cause”. Later the same year she was a panel member on
the Jubilee edition of the programme “Queries”.
In 1935 at
the age of 23, the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill gave an address to the
Aberdeen Business and Professional Club at their meeting held in the Caledonian
Hotel. The subject of her address was
the Doric dialect and after reciting three Charles Murray poems, “It wisna’ his
wyte” (fault), “The braw lassie” and
“Yokin’ the mear”, she explained her own dedication to the language and gave
several wonderfully expressive examples of its use. She said “like all true Scots she was proud
of her country – its history, its traditions, its people, its dancing and
music, and its language. As they all
knew the dialect differed considerably throughout Scotland, and could be
divided into a number of different sections.
She, having been born and bred in the North-East, looked upon the Doric
as her “mither tongue”, and she would rather speak it than any other
language. Was there ever a tongue in
which one could express one’s feelings so well whether speaking tenderly to a
“wee bit lassiky” or, not quite so tenderly, telling some “muckle gype” (big
lout) what one thought of him?” She
relayed two compliments that she had been paid in the Doric, one by an old
farmer who approached her after a poetry reading in the vernacular. “Dae ye ken, fowk wad think ye had nae
education ava”. Clearly her command of
the Doric was good enough to pass herself off as an uneducated farm
servant! The second compliment had been
relayed to her mother while out visiting an old couple on the Craigievar
estate. “Me and John fairly like
Elizabeth. She comes in an’ has a cup o’
tea jist like oorsel’s. She likes it
black, like John an’ she’s jist nae polite”.
Her third example concerned an old keeper addressing a retired Indian
Army officer. “An’ foo lang were ye in
India, Colonel?” “Oh, between twenty and
thirty years”, was the reply. “It’s a
winner ye’re nae as yalla as a haddy”, concluded the keeper!
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill and Scottish
country dancing
It is likely
that Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill learned to perform Scottish country dances from
an early age as she would have been exposed to such activities at frequent
intervals, due to her mother’s interests and social interactions, for example
the dinner and dance laid on by Lady Sempill in January 1926 for the staff at
Fintray House when Elizabeth was a
member of the family party and enthusiastic dancing took place to both the
music of a band provided by Mr Rezin, the factor on the Fintray estate and an
Aberdeen advocate, and to pipe music played by Mr Spence of Dunecht. According to the P&J, Lady Gwendolen
Sempill had been a moving force behind the revival of interest in Scottish
country dancing. The first occasion on
which Elizabeth mounted an individual display publicly, as reported in the
P&J, may have been at Fintray WRI Social Evening held in late November 1927
when, “The beautiful dancing of the Hon. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill” “who gave an
exhibition of the sword dance and the Highland fling, charmed the audience”.
In August
1929, a WRI pageant was held at Haddo House, the home of Lord and Lady
Aberdeen, including a major display of Scottish country dancing by 64 dancers,
which had been organised by Lady Sempill and included her two surviving daughters. The P&J gave a good account of the
proceedings. “The seven teams of dancers
consisted of W.R.I, members from Fintray, Belhelvie, Denmore, Oldmeldrum,
Newmachar, and Insch. Their versatility and proficiency were evinced in their
programme, which covered a wide range of charming and picturesque dances from
bygone days, including such sprightly favouries as "The Eight Men of
Moidart", "Blue Bonnets'', "Delvineside”, "Triumph",
“Princess Royal", "La Tempete", "Scottish Reform",
"Torryburn Lasses", "Speed the Plough", "Soldiers'
Joy" and "The Dashing White Sergeant". The real Highland touch was introduced by the
dancers as they tripped right merrily through the intricate twists and turns of
the dances attired in tam o’shanters and swinging kilts”.
Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill’s grandmother, the Dowager Lady Sempill, died in late December
1930 and was buried in the same grave at Leochel-Cushnie kirkyard as her late
husband, the 17th Lord Sempill, who had long pre-deceased her in
1905. A month later, a new reel, “The
Lady Sempill” was first performed to an 18th century tune, “The
Honourable Miss Sempill”, at the annual dance of the Aberdeen Branch of the
Scottish Country Dance Society held, in the Beach Ballroom. The creator was Lady Sempill’s granddaughter,
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill.
The Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill’s prowess as a dancer was becoming well known in the North-East and she was increasingly requested to organise and participate in demonstrations of Scottish country dancing. One notable such occasion occurred in 1931 when the National Council of Women delegates held a garden party at Grandholme House, adjacent to the famous Grandholm woollen mill belonging to the Crombie family, both situated on the north bank of the river Don towards its mouth. The P&J, as usual, described the scene. “At half-past three, teams, from the Women's Rural Institutes of Denmore, Fintray, and Belhelvie, headed by two pipers, marched to the lower terrace, and gave a display of country dancing. To dance vigorously for any length of time upon grass is not easy, but the dancing of these teams was extremely spirited and polished, and the spectators particularly enjoyed the energetic Eight Men of Moidart and the waltz country dance. Both organisers and performers are worthy of congratulation on this display, and to those members of the National Council of Women who are English the dancing was particularly interesting, for Scottish country dancing has a natural vivacity unknown to English folkdances. The display was organised by Adam Denmore, and the Hon. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill (who was amongst the dancers)”.
Lady
Gwendolen Sempill had, since her marriage, been an ardent supporter and
promoter of Scottish country dancing, so it was entirely appropriate that when
she organised a fete at Fintray House in June 1932, on behalf of the Central
Aberdeenshire Unionist Association, she should choose a massed display of
traditional dancing as a central part of the entertainment programme. The audience was seated on the green slopes
surrounding the lawn where the dancing took place. The dancers “were dressed in tartan kilted
skirts and blouses, and as they went through the dainty evolutions of such
dances as the Glasgow Highlanders, Dumbarton's Drums, and the Lady Sempill Reel
they formed graceful and picturesque patterns. There were two sessions of the
dancing, and both were watched by large and appreciative crowds. Music for the dancing was supplied by Mrs
Shand's Orchestra”. Of course, Lady
Sempill’s younger daughter was one of the dancers.
By 1937, the
status of the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill in the Scottish country
dancing community was such that she was co-opted onto the committee that
organised the annual ball of the Aberdeen branch of the Scottish Country Dance
Society in that year. There was an
attendance of 400, attributed to the growing popularity of this traditional
pastime.
The Dancers of Don
The
Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill was not just a very good performer of
Scottish traditional dances, especially Highland dances, she was also an
aficionado of all other aspects of Scottish culture, poetry, language and
music, in addition to dancing. By 1933,
she was routinely performing, as has been demonstrated, at local events as both
a dancer and an elocutionist delivering Doric verse, usually from the pen of
Charles Murray. It is not surprising
that she should have been inspired to form a dance troop to perform in this
genre, nor that she should call the group “the Dancers of Don”, though it is unclear
if this was on the prompting of her mother, or if it originated with Elizabeth
herself. Throughout its existence,
Elizabeth was identified as the troop’s leader.
Several newspaper reports give the year of creation of the “Dancers of
Don” as being 1933. The first report that
I uncovered of a performance by this group was in May of that year when the
Dancers of Don entered the Ballroom Reel dancing (Open) competition at the
Dundee Music Festival. The group was
placed first, suggesting that it must have been in existence for some months
for its members to have built up to this level of competence. Performing in competitive events at music
festivals, such as Dundee, Moray, Inverness, Edinburgh and the Isle of Man,
some annually, was a staple of the existence of the Dancers of Don, especially
in the early days of its existence. The
group was rarely placed other than first.
The team
consisted entirely of young women drawn generally from County families in the
Donside district of Aberdeenshire, which perhaps reflected the general
predominance of women following this activity in Aberdeen at the time. There were usually eight or ten members performing
in the Dancers of Don and they developed the habit of wearing the kilt, though
sometimes they appeared with the ladies who were taking male parts sporting the
kilt and the rest donning white dresses with tartan sashes. In 1937, the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill
was interviewed concerning this choice of attire. "I have worn the kilt all my life, and
have always found it a very comfortable form of dress. I do not think that the Dancers of Don would
like to change the dress. It was only after
much thought and discussion that it was chosen. We chose it because we wanted
to present the dances to the public as they were originally given, and we
wanted to encourage interest in everything Scottish. I agree that in the old days women did not
wear the kilt, because no doubt they wore long, trailing garments, but now,
when the trend is for women's dress to be simple and short, times have changed
and have made it possible for women to wear what they could not have worn then. When I am at home in my own country, where it
is the national dress, I shall certainly continue to wear the kilt”. Many plaudits were heaped upon the Dancers of
Don, such as “Their dancing was a delight. Such effortless elegance is not met
with often”. “The audience seemed as if
they could not get enough of the Hon. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill’s Dancers of
Don, whose graceful tripping through the lilting measures of Scottish Country
Dances set us all keeping time to their gay, infectious music”.
The Dancers
of Don were also in the forefront of the revival of interest in Gaelic culture
generally and the P&J commented as follows on a Highland concert which took
place in Aberdeen in February 1935.
“That Aberdeen has a public for Gaelic songs and music was proved beyond
doubt on Saturday night, when an audience which well filled the Music Hall - if
applause be any criterion - thoroughly enjoyed the first Highland concert
organised by the Aberdeen branch of An Comunn Gaidhealach. A feast for the eye
was provided by the graceful movements of the "Dancers of Don," led
by the Hon. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill, when they showed how the old Scottish
dances should be performed. Mrs Shand
played for them, and their dances included "Scottish Reform'',
"Glasgow Highlander", ''Hamilton House" and best of all, the
beautiful, lively "Strath and Reel of Tulloch". There were also many performances at
parochial events in the North-East, such as village dances, concerts, WRI
meetings and upper-class garden parties.
Additionally, they were often called on to perform at events taking
place in the City of Aberdeen, such as annual conferences of trades unionists
and doctors, and Round Table Club meetings.
Television
was in its infancy in the 1930s with the first broadcast of 30-line TV occuring
in 1930, but it was 1936 before the first regular, high-definition TV
broadcasting took place. On Saturday 14th
July 1937 the work of Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill and the Dancers of Don was
televised from London. “3.15 The Dancers
of Don in a programme of Scottish Country Dances”. The reputation of this group of traditional
Scottish dancers soon spread beyond national borders. In 1936 they were invited
to perform in Paris and, separately, in the USA, though neither trip ultimately
took place, for different reasons. The
Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill also ventured into choreography. The Lady Sempill Reel was her creation. She set the steps to an old family tune and
dedicated the dance to her mother, Gwendolen, Lady Sempill. Elizabeth also researched and revived old
dances, such as the solo dance “The Earl of Erroll", which had been found
in an old book of dances in a library and had probably not been performed for
100 years. In 1948, another member of
the team, Alice MacLennon, created a new Strathspey in honour of Princess
Margaret and it was first publicly performed by the Dancers of Don, in her
presence, at the Aberdeen Music Hall.
Inevitably, about
September 1939, a clear change took place in the activities of the Dancers of
Don. Two significant events occurred at
that time: the start of WW2 was declared and the group’s leader, the Honourable
Elizabeth Forbes Sempill, began her medical studies at Aberdeen Medical
School. Both events probably contributed
to the suspension of performances until Elizabeth’s graduation in 1944. In November of that year the Dancers of Don
performed at the Michaelmas Ball held in the Northern Hotel, Aberdeen, in
support of the Scottish Children's League of Pity. Dancing activities progressively built up
again but Elizabeth’s availability became increasingly constrained by the
demands of her medical practice in Alford.
In 1946, Dr Elizabeth was appointed as vice-president of the Aberdeen
branch of the Scottish Country Dance Society.
Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret attended a recital of Scottish music
and dances in the Music Hall Aberdeen in August of that year, when the
programme was altered at the request of Princess Elizabeth to include an old
dance, Mrs Stewart’s Strathspey, which was performed by the Dancers of
Don. The members of the team on that
night were the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill, Mrs Smithells, Miss
Maclennan, Mrs Catto, Mrs Gordon, Mrs Pirrie and Mrs Passmore.
The Dancers
of Don continued with their performances and in April 1947 they took part in
the production of a Technicolor film in the environs of Craigievar Castle which
had been commissioned by the Caledonian Society in Mexico. The P&J described their
contribution. “Apart from the exhilarating
action provided by the dancers in their picturesque clan kilts and laced
frilled doublets, the film impresses by the dignity and natural beauty of its
location”. At the end of May1949, the
annual conference of the Scottish Ophthalmic Opticians took place in
Aberdeen. About 150 participants in a
social evening at the Caledonian Hotel were entertained by Mrs Ann Shand and
her band, and the Dancers of Don. Almost
four months later, the Royal Air Force Association mounted a Battle of Britain
concert in the Aberdeen Music Hall and the Dancers of Don were, again, part of the
programme. But it was now clear that the
Dancers of Don would be unlikely to return to the pre-war frequency of their
performances.
In March 1950, the Dundee Evening Telegraph reported an appearance at the Angus Country Dance Club's charity ball, in aid of Dundee Orphanage, by the Dancers of Don. The members of the team performing the foursome reel that evening were Mrs Maurice (“Tibby”) Cramb, Miss Alice Maclennan, Miss Nan Thomson and Dr Forbes-Sempill. A month later they contributed to a concert in the Aberdeen Music Hall at the end of the Aberdeenshire Youth and Community Service Exhibition. Their dancing skills had clearly not been dimmed by the passing years as they had to give several encores. The following year was planned to include a visit to the United States but the projected tour had to be cancelled because of the difficulty of getting all the team members together at the same time. This was a particular problem for Dr Elizabeth who felt that she could not be absent from her medical practice.
1952 was to
be the last year of existence for the Dancers of Don. In April 1952, the group supported a concert
in favour of a Ranger company, held in the Cowdray Hall, Aberdeen in
April. The same month, the group gave
its last performance at a concert in Edinburgh in favour of St Dunstan’s (now
Blind Veterans UK), a charity supporting those blinded in war. Dr Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill then withdrew
from her active involvement with the Dancers of Don. The Aberdeen Evening
Express commented, “When the Dancers of Don lost two of their best members last
year and Dr Forbes.Sempill was unable to spare time for performances it seemed
that the company might have to disband. But public demand has insisted that
they continue the good work”. Some of the former members of Dancers of Don, led
by Alice Maclennan and guided by Tibby Cramb, continued under a new name, the
St Nicholas Dancers. Until the late
1950s they participated in a significant number of events each year, but then
the frequency of performances started to decline and the last mention of the
group in the local press was in June 1962.
It has not been discovered if the St Nicholas Dancers formally disbanded
or if they simply drifted into oblivion.
Dr E
Forbes-Sempill, although she had departed from the leadership of the Dancers of
Don, did not entirely sever her connection with Scottish Country Dancing. In May 1952, she was elected chairman of the
Aberdeen branch of the Scottish Country Dance Society, an honour which the
Aberdeen Evening Express felt was “a well-deserved recognition of her work for
the movement”. Although Dr Elizabeth’s
given reason for departing from the Dancers of Don was the professional pressures
of her medical practice, that had been the case since 1945. Nineteen Fifty Two was
a momentous year for Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill.
She had become romantically attached to Isabella Mitchell, the
housekeeper and receptionist in the Alford Medical Practice for some time and
it was in this year that the pair decided that they would like to marry. However, that would not formally be possible
while Elizabeth’s birth registration recorded her sex as female. Achieving re-registration was not
straightforward but would be necessary before the nuptials could be
planned. In addition to these new
demands on Elizabeth’s time, Zoe Playdon has speculated that one of Isabella’s
conditions for agreeing to marry her was that she sever her links with the
Dancers of Don because of the long-standing relationship with Tibby Cramb. That notion seems plausible.
Whatever the true
cause of Elizabeth’s departure from the Dancers of Don and the group’s
subsequent transformation, it should not be forgotten that this dance troupe
had been a major artistic achievement for Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill and the
other lady members in reviving and popularising traditional dancing in Scotland. Without doubt the Honourable Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill took great pride in the public performances of the Dancers of
Don and her own role in the group’s creation and sustenance.
Treatment of the Honourable Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill’s medical “problem” up to 1940
After seeing
Professor McKeren about 1918, further help was sought by Lady Sempill in 1928,
when Elizabeth reached the age of about 16.
Not surprisingly, seeking medical advice on such a sensitive and
personal matter required a degree of deception and, according to Playdon, Lady
Gwendolen pursued medical help on the Continent under the guise of Elizabeth
partaking in cultural and educational activities. Sir Ewan Forbes in his tome “The Aul’ Times”
refers to Elizabeth’s visit to Dresden in 1928 as being a pre-university course
that she had requested but Sir Ewan made no mention of medical consultations or
treatments taking place there. Most of
the other students were German and so Elizabeth had to speak the native
language constantly. The academic work
dealt with literature, history and architecture and her extra-curricular
activities included harp instruction, skating on the frozen River Elbe and
langlauf skiing in the Bohemian Forest.
Between the spring and summer sessions of instruction Elizabeth’s mother
travelled out to Germany and sought medical help for Elizabeth from the medical
establishment there. She “was given
something to take” but its nature is now unknown. Before returning to Scotland, Lady Gwendolen,
with her daughter, undertook a trip to Prague and Vienna, where the two visited
art galleries and the opera. The journey
continued to Budapest, then back to Dresden for the summer term. Before her journey home, Elizabeth travelled
by steamer on the river Elbe to Meissen, and also visited Moritzburg.
A further expedition, in 1929, was undertaken
to the Sorbonne in Paris, again with a dual purpose: cultural education and
medical advice. Elizabeth found that,
unlike in Dresden, the students in Paris were not required to work hard. Lady Gwendolen again travelled out to meet
her daughter and took her for further medical consultations which were attended
by “a terrible plague of boils and pimples”.
Further, she was subjected to a variety of laboratory investigations and
given a “particularly vile” “vaccine” and “various other forms of
treatment”. But the boils “still went
on”. The identity of these various
“vaccines” and potions is unknown, though the reference to “vaccines” suggests
injection rather than ingestion of the material that was administered. Boils are usually caused by Staphylococcus aureus, a common skin
bacterium, which suggests that the “vaccines” may have introduced bacteria into
her body through a lack of sterility.
In 1930,
Gwendolen, Lady Sempill, arranged another consultation with Dr Schacht in Baden
Baden, which may have engendered some change in Gwendolen’s attitude towards
Elizabeth’s condition. Much later, Sir
Ewan Forbes remarked that, “He must have said something to my mother which gave
her a far better understanding of the situation because after the visit to Dr
Schacht, that was the first visit, there was far less restriction put upon me,
and I was allowed more to dress as I liked and I could smoke my pipe (a rather masculine habit) in the house,
and that kind of thing, otherwise I always had to go outside and smoke
it”. Perhaps if Elizabeth was not going
to grow into a normal girl, a different direction of treatment, as well as
attitude, might be necessary?
At the end of
1932, Elizabeth moved to Munich to stay with her cousins, Alban Ernan
Forbes-Dennis and his wife Phyllis, who was generally known by her maiden name
of Bottome. Alban Forbes-Dennis was a
British diplomat and his wife wrote novels but had also studied individual
psychology under the Austrian, Alfred Adler.
Adler, a former colleague of Sigmund Freud, promulgated an approach to
psychotherapy which emphasised each individual’s need for social connection,
belonging and the need to overcome feelings of inferiority. Does this give a clue that Elizabeth was
suffering psychological consequences due to having atypical genitalia?
According to
Playdon, during her sojourn in Munich, Elizabeth was receiving both
psychotherapy and what Playdon refers to as “hormone replacement therapy”,
though this term is usually reserved for the administration of hormones,
usually oestrogen and progestogen, to menopausal and post-menopausal women,
whose natural production of these chemical messengers has significantly
declined. However, the term can have a
more general meaning of replacing any hormone which is deficient and Playdon
specifically refers to the prescription of the so-called male hormone (though
it can also be produced by women) to Elizabeth.
Testosterone
is a steroid hormone synthesised in humans principally by the testis of adult
males, though it can also be produced at other sites, mainly the adrenal glands
in both sexes. Testosterone was first
isolated from bull testes in 1935 when three scientists independently made this
discovery, Laqueur, Butenandt and Ruzicka, Laqueur being the first and the one
who named and synthesised this hormone.
However, its effects had been known for centuries, as dramatically
demonstrated by the consequences of castration, for example in the creation of
musici (castrati) in medieval Italy by castration of pre-pubertal boys, most
famously to populate the choir of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. As a result, the larynx did not enlarge and
the voice remained falsetto. Other adult
male sexual characteristics, too, failed to develop, such as male pattern body
hair, erections and the production of spermatozoa and seminal fluid. Even before testosterone was isolated and
named, attempts were made to harness its effects as a rejuvenating therapy, in
particular by Serge Voronoff, a Frenchman of Russian extraction. He pioneered transplantation of the testes of
executed criminals onto the testes of his male patients, for which there was
great demand and financial reward. When
this supply of human testes ran out, he turned to the transplantation of monkey
testes, earning himself the sobriquet “monkey gland man”. His techniques were later shown to be
ineffective. Testis extracts taken by
mouth were also without any desired effect, which led to other practitioners
making crude testis extracts and injecting them under the skin. This too failed to produce any therapeutic
impact, partly due to the prompt rejection of the foreign proteins by the
body’s immune system. True testosterone
therapy was not available until the late 1930s and initially could only be
administered by injection of pure crystalline testosterone subcutaneously.
Testosterone
therapy was an obvious potential treatment for Elizabeth if she was male but
imperfectly developed. Although
Elizabeth had been given a variety of treatments on her various Continental
visits, no record has survived of what constituted these medications. If Elizabeth had been given testicular
extracts, even by injection, during her 1932 stay in Munich, they would have
been ineffective. The first evidence
that Elizabeth had received true testosterone therapy was in 1951 when she
consulted Professor Alexander Cawadias.
One
unanticipated experience that Elizabeth had during her stay in Munich was to
witness Nazi marches and rallies building up to their accession to power when
Hitler was named Chancellor on 30 January 1933.
Professor
Alfred Adler, at the time Professor of Medical Psychology at Long Island
College of Medicine, USA, gave a series of five lectures on Psychopathology at
Marischal College, Aberdeen University in May 1937. It was very popular, the first lecture on
Monday 24th being attended by over 200 medical students and medical
graduates. Sir Ewan Forbes later reported
that Elizabeth had attended the lectures and “between times drove Adler around
the countryside”. Adler was staying at the Caledonian Hotel and on the morning
of Friday 28th May he went out for his customary morning walk. On the way back to the hotel at 9.30am he suffered
a heart attack, collapsed on the pavement at the junction of Union Street and
Diamond Street and died in an ambulance on the way to hospital. The cause of death was heart failure. He was 67.
Adler’s funeral service was held in Kings College Chapel, Aberdeen
University and his body was cremated in Edinburgh. On 1st June, a memorial service
was held, also in Kings College Chapel, which was attended by many
dignitaries. Lady Sempill and her two
daughters, the Hon. Elizabeth and the Hon. Margaret Forbes-Sempill, and the
Rev. J. Linton, Corgarff, translator of Professor Adler's latest book, were
also in attendance. It has not been
discovered if Professor Adler visited Fintray House, or if he met with Lady
Sempill during his final days in Aberdeen, but that seems possible from
Elizabeth’s chauffeuse role. Her renewed
interaction with Adler may have convinced Ellizabeth that she was right to
pursue medical studies.
The Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill’s desire to study medicine
In 1930 at
the age of 18, Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill decided that she wanted to attend
Aberdeen University to study medicine.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, in his book “The Aul’ Times”, which was
published in 1984 when he was 72, Sir Ewan Forbes gave no explanation for this
decision or its timing. Elizabeth’s
academic preparation had not involved the study of mathematics or the sciences,
and even when, later, she pursued pre-university courses on the Continent this
deficit was not addressed. That
deficiency would surely have put her at a disadvantage compared to the other
medical students. But to include an
explanation of her decision-making in the book would likely have involved
mentioning the medical investigations and treatments that she had undergone in
the late 1920s. It seems probable that
her medical “condition” and its apparently intractable nature lay behind her
determination to become a doctor. It
would have been entirely reasonable for Elizabeth to want to know more about
her atypical genitals and perhaps even to discover a solution for her growing
dilemma: feeling male but being equipped with a body which was approximately
female.
Elizabeth
informed her father of her plans to study medicine and asked him to pay for her
fees and living expenses during the course but she got a very discouraging
response. He felt he had paid enough
already to have her educated and that it was time for her to earn her
living. There was much work that needed
doing on the two family estates.
Realising that it was pointless to argue with her grumpy and
intransigent parent, she hatched a plan to raise the £1,000 needed to fund her
own medical training. She had already
received some income in fees for making records and from appearing in BBC
broadcasts. She would start saving for
her university education. Reflecting the
fact that from about 1931, the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill started to
play a significant role in the management of the Fintray and Craigievar
estates, in 1932 she became a member of the Garioch Farmers’ Club. Interestingly, her name was given simply as
“Miss Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill”. Perhaps
that would have made it easier for her to converse with her fellow
agriculturalists? She could certainly
speak their everyday language.
The interests and activities of the
Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill
Lady Sempill had failed to find a marriage partner for her elder surviving daughter, Margaret, despite much effort during her debutante year of 1924 and the subsequent sojourn in India. Margaret meantime had started to develop her own interests in life. She became a keen fancier and owner of ponies, especially shelties (Shetland ponies) and was showing her animals as early as 1926 at the Royal Northern Agricultural Show held in Aberdeen. In 1928 she opened her own Shetland pony stud. Parading her animals at local agricultural events became a regular activity and an important way of advertising her breeding facility. At the Blackburn (Aberdeenshire) Show in 1929, for example Margaret was well represented amongst the prize winners in the various pony categories. Another activity that she enjoyed was watching motor racing at the Brooklands circuit, which had opened in 1907 and was the first banked circuit in the world. Margaret, like her younger sister was also a competent Scottish country dancer, though she never showed the same zeal for this activity as her younger sister. In the 1930s the climate in Aberdeenshire was decidedly colder than it is today and all the inland villages could count upon long freezing spells in winter when the national sport of curling, known locally as “the roaring game” could be pursued. Margaret started to play the sport competitively, for example taking part, with her parents, in a match between Fintray and Leochel-Cushnie in March 1930. Interestingly, the P&J noted that the Honourable Margaret was accompanied by a “lady friend from Perthshire, meantime staying at Craigievar Castle”. “The Honourable Margaret Forbes Sempill played in one rink and her friend played in the opposite rink. Both gave a good account of themselves, and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon’s sport”. This was the first delicate hint from the P&J that Margaret was in a lesbian relationship. It would be 1938 before the P&J again mentioned Margaret’s involvement in a curling match, the Dinnet Bonspiel, which involved over 200 participants. Perhaps this was in consequence of her 1930 motor accident? By 1947, she had been elected chairman of the Fintray Curling Club.
The
Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill’s interest in sports cars led to her
suffering a serious accident in late 1930. By that year she had acquired
one of the earliest MG sports cars, the MG Midget (although popularly referred
to by this name its proper designation was the MG M-type). This vehicle
was, as the familiar name suggests, small and was designed to make motoring
accessible to a wider range of customers. On 16th November 1930, in bad conditions caused by deep, lying
snow, while travelling along the drive to Fintray House, Margaret was in
collision at a bend with a Sunbeam saloon, a much bigger and heavier vehicle,
driven by the chauffeur of local resident, Mrs Ethel Harding of Kinharrachie,
Ellon. The two ladies were known to each other, Ethel Harding
subsequently referring to Margaret as “Peggy”. The MG and its driver came
off the worse in the accident, though at first Margaret seemed not to have
suffered serious injury and she insisted on setting off for London on the
morning after the collision. It was in the capital that the seriousness
of her condition suddenly became apparent. Margaret had fractured the
base of her skull and suffered delayed concussion. She subsequently
entered a nursing home in London and was still only semi-conscious five weeks
after the accident. Margaret was hospitalised for about six months, from
December 1930 to May 1931 followed by a period of convalescence at the home of
Mrs Arthur Hobson in Hampshire, extending to late summer of the same
year. Margaret was rendered completely blind for four months but slowly
recovered her sight subsequently. She also suffered impairment of her
memory, which later reversed. The Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill
subsequently sued Mrs Harding for £5,000 in damages in respect of her personal
injuries. Margaret’s action was successful and she was awarded damages of
£2,000. It seems that some effects of Margaret’s motor accident persisted
as she underwent, successfully, a spinal operation in an Aberdeen nursing home
three and a half years later. The recovery from her injuries was
protracted.
The
military connections of the Forbes-Sempill family were very strong and in 1938,
with the threat of war looming in Europe, the Honourable Margaret Forbes-Semple
became commander of the 14th Aberdeenshire
Company the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, affiliated to the 6/7th Gordon
Highlanders Infantry Regiment, though she had no military experience at the
time. But she was from a good family. In effect, members of the ATS
were non-combatant soldiers. Perhaps in preparation for her new role in
the military, Margaret held a sale of surplus furniture and household effects
at Cothal House at the end of June 1938. In December of the same year,
the Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill placed an advertisement in the P&J
seeking to recruit 200 women to the company she now commanded in the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service. February 1939 saw
Margaret enrol for the new recruits training course at the ATS School of Instruction in Chelsea. Margaret was soon on the move again. In April 1939, she
transferred to No. 1 R.A.F. (County of Aberdeen) Company, Auxiliary Territorial
Service, which was attached to No. 612 (County of Aberdeen) (General
Reconnaissance) Squadron, The Auxiliary Air Force and at the outbreak of war in
September of that year, she was gazetted as an officer (Section Leader) in the
WAAF. Further promotions followed later, to Squadron Officer and then to
temporary Wing Officer. The same month, her mother, Lady Sempill,
addressed a group of young men at Fintray and Newmachar and urged them to join
the Territorial Army. Both the Honourable Margaret and her younger
sister were present to hear Lady Sempill’s address. Aberdeen Ladies’
Shooting Club re-elected the Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill as their
president in October 1939. They had use of the Bon-Accord range in
Broomhill Road and had a team entered in the district shooting league.
She also donated the Margaret Forbes-Sempill trophy, for which the lady
shooters could compete. The full nature of her activities during WW2 have
not been uncovered but may have involved intelligence work, according to
Playdon. Margaret was later invalided out of the WAAF in 1945. The
Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill received a number of honours for her
military activities. She was
mentioned in dispatches and was also awarded the US Bronze Star medal, by the
US Ambassador in London in August 1947. After her return to civilian
life, she was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Aberdeenshire and then
assumed a leadership role amongst Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire women. In
June 1947, she performed the opening ceremony for the North-east of Scotland Federation of Townswomen's Guilds rally, held in
the Cowdray Hall, Aberdeen. Her address to the 600 delegates stressed the
need for women to take a greater interest in world affairs and the social
economy.
The last
great interest of Margaret’s life was the purchase, with a sum left by her
mother when she died in 1944, and renovation of Druminnor Castle, Rhynie, an
ancient, formerly Forbes clan-owned fortification. This project will be dealt with later.
Margaret
continued to live at Little Fintray (formerly known as Cothal House), to which
she had a liferent, for several years while the renovation work at Druminnor
was carried out. Margaret held three
sales of goods and chattels before her departure from Little Fintray. The first in October 1948 was of “surplus
furniture and other effects” and was a joint project with Mr William
Black. The objects offered included a
“5-valve Marconi Radiogram”. The second
sale was of a growing crop and occurred in August 1949 and the third, in the
same month, was of motor vehicles, included a Rolls-Royce 25 h.p. Hooper
Close-coupled Saloon. Margaret had
always been a motor enthusiast. A month
later, the Gardener’s House and gardens at Fintray House were offered for
sale. Little Fintray was still given as
Margaret’s residential address in the 1958 edition of the Aberdeenshire
Electoral Register.
The pony stud
remained at Little Fintray and, in 1956, Margaret may have received two
unexpected visitors to Little Fintray.
In April of that year, her cousin, John Forbes-Sempill, the theatrical
actor/producer/impresario was presenting the play “Starlight” at His Majesty’s
Theatre (HMT) in Aberdeen. The play starred
Fay Compton, the prominent actress and sister of author, Compton McKenzie. She was due to pay a courtesy call on
Margaret Forbes-Sempill and the Fintray stud but it is unclear if she would be
accompanied by John Forbes-Sempill. He
also hoped to visit Craigievar Castle.
The previous time John had visited Aberdeen was in 1953. During WW2 he served in the Seaforth
Highlanders, was stationed in Inverness and claimed he often visited Margaret Forbes-Sempill
at Little Fintray, though she was not there for much of that period until she
was invalided out of the services in 1945.
The career of the Master of Sempill, the Honourable William Francis Forbes-Sempill
William
Forbes-Sempill was born at Craigievar in 1893.
He was sent to Eton College in 1906 but apparently disliked the place
and ran away a year later, managing to travel all the way back to Craigievar
which, to the perceptive, would have indicated that he did not lack either
courage or resourcefulness. Subsequently,
he was tutored privately. In 1910
William was apprenticed as an engineer to Rolls Royce and at the start of WW1
he joined the Royal Flying Corps and was assigned to flying duties. His career as an aviator advanced rapidly and
in 1916, he moved to the fledgling Royal Naval Air Service. After the formation of the Royal Air Force in
1918, he served in that formation with the rank of wing commander. By the end of the war he had been awarded the
AFC (Air Force Cross), an Officer of the Crown of Italy and the Croix de
Guerre. Subsequently, William had a
prominent and extensive career in the developing field of civil aviation,
making many pioneering flights and having a few scrapes from which he emerged relatively
unscathed.
In 1920,
William Sempill led a delegation to Japan, seeking arms contracts with the
Japanese and he subsequently maintained his contacts with the Land of the
Rising Sun, which was unwise since the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was terminated
in 1921. He later admitted leaking
secret information to his eastern friends but was not charged with any offence,
possibly to avoid embarrassment to the King, George V, for whom William’s
father was serving as Aide de Camp.
During the 1930s, William’s contacts with Japan continued and he
developed right wing political views and associations. Early in WW2, when working for the Admiralty,
he was detected passing secret information to the Japanese, for which he was
being paid. He was heavily in debt at
the time. Again he evaded prosecution
for spying but was forced to resign from his post.
William led a
chequered personal life as well as having an eventful career. In 1919 he married Eileen Marion Lavery,
daughter of the Irish painter, Sir John Lavery, with whom he had two daughters,
Ann Moira, who later inherited the Barony of Sempill, and June Mary, who was
killed in a bombing raid on London in 1941.
Eileen was a Roman Catholic and William became a convert to that faith
in the early 1930s, though his father was bitterly opposed to that change of
faith. In consequence, William received
only a life rent to the Fintray and Craigievar estates in his father’s will. Sir John Lavery painted a portrait of his
daughter and son-in-law which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1925. In February 1934 William became the 18th
Lord Sempill and 10th Baronet of Craigievar and Fintray on the death
of his father (see later). His wife
Eileen tragically died of tuberculosis little more than a year after his
accession to the titles. William
remarried in 1941 and had three further daughters but no sons, thus resulting
in the Baronetcy of Craigievar and Fintray being separated from the Barony of
Sempill. William died in Edinburgh in
1965 and it was his death and his relinquishing of the title of “Sir William Forbes-Sempill” that led to
a dramatic turn of events in his youngest sibling’s life. That part of the story follows later.
William was
19 when his sister Elizabeth was born.
In consequence, he had little impact on her childhood being mostly away
from the North-East, even after Elizabeth reached an age when she could
remember events. In July 1926, William
and his wife Eileen flew north in a de Havilland aircraft to spend a week’s
holiday at Fintray House. The return
journey was broken at Aberdeen beach, where William landed to take on
fuel. A party from Fintray House,
consisting of Lady Sempill, the Hon. Margaret and the Hon. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill,
and Mrs and Miss Nash, arrived at the beach by motorcar to bid the aviators
goodbye.
The
Honourable William Forbes-Sempill made a further flight to the North-East in
September 1930, when he piloted a Blackburn Bluebird from Stavanger in Norway
to Aberdeenshire. The report in the
P&J was both interesting and inaccurate.
“Col. The Master of Sempill who on Monday flew from Stavanger Norway to
Aberdeen in a Puss Moth monoplane made several flights yesterday afternoon from
Loch of Skene, where his plane was moored. He made a first solo flight and gave
the machine a thorough testing. Then
with his sister the Hon Elizabeth Forbes Sempill as passenger, the Colonel flew
around the vicinity of the loch for about 20 minutes. The airman’s mother, Lady Sempill accompanied
him on a third flight. This lasted for
about an hour. The plane flew above his
parents’ homes at Craigievar and at Fintray and various other calls of interest
– as the Master of Sempill styled them – were made before coming to rest on the
Loch of Skene”. The aeroplane, registration
G-EBSW, was actually a Blackburn Bluebird, not a Puss Moth, and was unusual in
that it was a seaplane conversion, which was later returned to standard landing
gear for land use.
In March
1932, the Master of Sempill again flew to Aberdeenshire, this time from London,
in order to perform the opening ceremony at the Aberdeen Traders'
Exhibition. “From out of the haze his
Puss Moth monoplane came about 4.30 to circle twice over Fintray House before
making a perfect landing in a field on the estate”. William’s swashbuckling life as an aviator
attracted admiration from his sister Elizabeth and the two were emotionally
close.
The death of Lord Sempill
Lord Sempill,
18th Baron Sempill and 10th Baronet of Craigievar, died
of pneumonia on 28th February 1934.
He had been ill for three months.
The funeral took place from Fintray House to St Meddans kirkyard,
Fintray, the traditional burying ground of the Forbes-Sempill family, on the 3rd
of March. Memorial services were also
held in the hall of Craigievar Castle and at Christ Church, Mayfair, the latter
on the afternoon of the funeral. Lord
Sempill left an instruction that all clan members attending the funeral were to
wear the clan tartan and that there should be no symbols of mourning.
The trustees
of his will remained in charge of at least some of his assets for more than a
decade as, in 1948, they instructed the Aberdeen auctioneer, John Milne, to
sell “A valuable collection of scarce antiquarian, classical, early voyages and
travels, sport and modern literature” books, which had belonged to the late
Lord Sempill and had been removed from Fintray House.
The will of
Lord Sempill
This document
was registered in Edinburgh on 25th June 1934 and named the
following as his trustees, all of whom accepted appointment. Alistair Forbes, Underhill, Oswestry; Major
Robert Wolridge-Gordon of Esslemont; The Rt Honourable Atholl Laurence
Cunyngham Forbes, Baron Forbes; Colonel James Ochoncar Forbes of Corse; Edwin
Rezin, Advocate in Aberdeen. They took charge of the whole means and estate,
heritable and moveable, real and personal of the late Lord Sempill. The trustees, together with Lady Gwendolen
were also given the responsibility to become tutors or curators of “such of his
children as may be in pupillary or minority at his death”. The age of majority that the late Lord
Sempill had in mind appeared to be 23 years and so this term of his will only
applied to Elizabeth who reached the age of majority on 6th
September 1935.
Lord Sempill
left the following legacies. £3,000 each
to Margaret and Elizabeth, once they reached the age of 23. £1,000 to each of his granddaughters, Ann Forbes-Sempill
and June Forbes-Sempill. £50 to each of
his trustees. To each of his servants in
service at the time of his death £1 for each completed year and partial year of
service. £600 to the Royal Aberdeen
Children’s Hospital in Aberdeen to fund the Gwyneth Forbes-Sempill cot, in
memory of his eldest daughter who had died aged 12. His wife, Lady Gwendolen was to be paid an
annuity of £700.
Real estate
was to be dealt with as follows. His
wife was to get the use of Fintray House, offices and gardens for a period of
two years, if she so desired. His
daughters, Margaret and Elizabeth, were to get the liferent use and enjoyment
of one of the following properties, St Meddans, Dyce; Fae-me-well, Dyce; Cothal
House, Dyce. Margaret was given first
choice and she selected Cothal House.
Elizabeth chose Fae-me-well. Margaret and Elizabeth were to share the
shooting and fishing rights over part of the Fintray Estate. William Forbes Sempill was granted liferent
use and enjoyment of the estates of Craigievar and Fintray. Had William left a male heir, on his death,
the two estates would have been conveyed to that heir. Unfortunately for William, he had no male
children and so a different path was activated for the inheritance of
Craigievar and Fintray estates. The late
Lord Forbes-Sempill’s brother, Lionel was granted the liferent use and
enjoyment of these properties and, on his death, they were to be conveyed to
his son, John Forbes-Sempill.
The residue
of Lord Sempill’s estate was to be divided pro
rata between his wife and his three surviving children. Lord Forbes’ personal and movable estate had
an estimated value of £30,410, ignoring shillings and pence. No estimate of the value of his real estate
has been uncovered.
William
Francis Forbes-Sempill becomes 19th Baron Sempill and 10th
Baronet of Craigievar and Fintray
Lord
Sempill’s titles were assumed by his son William Francis Forbes-Sempill. William’s work was immersed in aviation and
he had no inclination to change the direction of his life. As a consequence, Elizabeth was asked to
continue managing the Craigievar estate.
One innovation she introduced was the direct sale of estate produce around
the local area. Mrs Christine Crowe, in
an article for the Sunday Chronicle in 1952, gave a telling description of this
initiative. “Following the death of her
father, the 18th Baron Sempill, the Hon. Elisabeth acted for her brother, the
present Lord Sempill, as supervising manager for his Craiglevar Castle estate,
even to the extent of marketing the game and garden produce by means of the
self-driven converted vehicle which came to be known as “Betty's Covered
Wagon””.
A rift had
previously been opened between William, the 19th Baron Sempill and
his father, the 18th Baron, due to William’s conversion to the Roman
Catholic faith about 1930, which his father bitterly opposed, as did
Elizabeth. In 1935, William had asked
Elizabeth if she would travel with him when he flew out to Eichstatt in Bavaria
where both his daughters were being educated at a convent school. The younger girl would also be flying in her
father’s Puss Moth. Elizabeth did not
want to go but felt a family obligation to join William as no other family
member was prepared to support him. This
action by Elizabeth clearly indicated the bond which existed between her and
her brother. Sadly, Lady Eileen Sempill,
the wife of the 19th Baron and the daughter of Sir John Lavery, did
not enjoy her title for long. She died
but a year and a half after its assumption.
In consequence, because she had born only daughters and no sons, the
Barony of Sempill would pass to her elder daughter, Ann, but the Baronetcy of
Craigievar, would find its way through the nearest male relative of her
husband, Lord William Sempill on his death.
At that time the putative successor was John Alexander Cumnock Forbes-Sempill,
the son of Arthur Lionel Ochonchar Forbes-Sempill and the nephew of John
Forbes-Sempill, the 18th Baron Sempill and William’s father. So long as William had no son with another
wife and John survived until the death of William, John would be the
beneficiary. What could possibly
intervene to prevent this transfer of title under the ancient rules of
inheritance?
The Honourable Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill becomes a doctor
As early as
1930, Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill had apparently decided that she wanted to study
medicine at Aberdeen University and that she wanted to become a doctor, though
she gave no reason for her decision. Due
to her father refusing to pay for any further education of his youngest
daughter, she had to set about the laborious process of saving money for her
fees and living expenses. She entered
Aberdeen Medical School in October 1939, though it is unclear why she did not
start her studies earlier since she had received a legacy of £3,000 in her
father’s will of 1934, which she would have received in 1935.
In those
days, preclinical subjects, such as anatomy, physiology and zoology, were
taught at Marischal College in the centre of Aberdeen and clinical work took
place in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. ARI
was originally located at Woolmanhill in downtown Aberdeen but a new hospital campus
was opened in 1936 at Foresterhill about one mile from the centre of the city,
though the Woolmanhill site was subsequently retained for several decades. It is unclear where Elizabeth’s clinical
teaching took place but it may have involved both main hospital sites.
Starting
medical studies was quite daunting for Elizabeth for two principal
reasons. Firstly her prior education had
been biased to literature and arts subjects.
She particularly mentioned that she felt a deficiency in chemistry,
physics and mathematics. Secondly, most
of the other fresher medical students were about ten years younger than her. Elizabeth would have been particularly aware
of this maturity gap when she attended the Freshers’ Reception held in the
Elphinstone Hall, Kings College, on 20th October 1939. The fresher intake (all subjects) that year
was 300 students.
But for both
her fellow medical students and her academic teachers, there must also have
been a dilemma, especially at the start of the medical course. How do you address a fellow student who is
much older than the average, is registered with the university as a female but,
in attire, looks like a man? Much later,
when giving evidence to the Court in 1967, the Honourable Ewan Forbes-Sempill would
claim that his classmates addressed him exclusively as “Wink” because of a
facial tick. His lecturers, on the other
hand, referred to him only by his surname, “Forbes-Sempill”.
While Elizabeth
was at university she first lived in digs and then at 27 “Lewishill
Avenue”. There is no road with such a
name in Aberdeen. It was probably a
transcription error by the Court’s shorthand writer for “Louisville Avenue”,
which is located just off Anderson Drive, close to the North Deeside Road
junction. At this location Elizabeth
claimed she stayed “with a friend”. One
wonders if the shorthand writer made a further mistake with the transcription,
this time with the house number in Louisville Avenue, because at no. 28 lived
Maurice Cramb, an Aberdeen advocate, and his wife Isobel, known familiarly as
“Tibby”. She had been born Isobel Laing
in East Newport, Fife in 1913 and so was a similar age to Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill. Margaret Forbes-Sempill
had written in a letter to Cousin John’s lawyer that sister Elizabeth “stayed
with Tibby Cramb” without giving a time period.
Tibby was an expert on Scottish Country dancing and a member of the
Dancers of Don. Louisville Avenue would
certainly have been a convenient billet for Elizabeth during her medical
studies but did the relationship with Tibby go further than a friendship based
on a mutual interest in traditional dancing?
Elizabeth continued to cooperate with Tibby Cramb both during the war
and for many years afterwards. At a
Grand Fete held at Haddo House in July 1946, the two judges of the dancing
competitions were Elizabeth and her friend, Tibby. A house party from Brux Lodge attended the
Aboyne Highland Games in September 1947. It included Dr E Forbes Sempill and Mrs Cramb,
but not the latter’s husband. Tibby had
been staying at Brux Lodge at least for most of September as revealed by an
unusual letter written by Tibby to the “Sunday Post” newspaper. “Did He Reach Home? PIGEON (No. S.U.R.P. 4225
Q 189) was found in an exhausted condition, and with a chest injury, in our
local doctor's garden. The doctor stitched the wound and kept the pigeon until
it was able to fly again. When released, it flew south. We are anxious to know if
it ever reached its loft. Can anyone tell us? —Mrs Isobel Cramb, Brux Lodge,
Alford, Aberdeenshire”. No need to guess
the identity of the “local doctor”!
The beginning
of Elizabeth’s medical studies almost exactly corresponded with the start of
WW2. As a consequence, Elizabeth claimed,
her course was truncated by teaching being extended into the vacations. She finally graduated in 1944 after five very
intense years during which she had had to undertake supplementary duties, such
as fire watching, auxiliary ambulance service and auxiliary mortuary service,
Aberdeen having suffered some significant bombing raids. It is not surprising that Elizabeth’s dancing
activities had to take a back seat during her period of intensive medical
training, and at a time of national emergency.
In July 1940,
the P&J published the results of student degree examinations. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill had passed her MB
ChB examinations but her performance had not been judged to merit either
“distinction” or “much distinction”. Her
results after a further year of study were even more modest as Elizabeth had
only achieved a partial pass of her MB ChB examinations when the results were
released in December 1941. By April
1942, she had passed the subjects in which she had previously been judged to be
deficient. In December 1943, Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill passed her third MB ChB exams allowing her to graduate in September
1944, along with 63 other doctors from her medical year. At that time, the length of the medical
degree was five years, yet during the interval from 1939 to 1944, Elizabeth
lost two summer vacations “to cram in extra terms and exams”. Was this caused by needing to undertake
re-sits? The answer has not been
uncovered.
Soon after
graduating, Dr Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill was appointed to the post of Junior
Casualty Officer at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
Subsequently, she advanced to become Senior Casualty Officer. It was through working in the emergency
department that she gained significant experience of carrying out minor
surgical procedures.
The fate of Fintray House
Lady
Gwendolen Sempill had a right under her late husband’s will to live in Fintray
House for two years after his death. It
is unclear exactly when she left to take up residence at Cothal House, to which
daughter Margaret had a liferent. During
WW2 Fintray House was occupied by the military authorities. But after it was vacated at the end of the
war, it was never reoccupied by the Forbes-Sempill family and remained empty
for some years until it was sold, along with its policies and gardens to joint
purchasers Mr James T. Ogston, Fintray Mills, Dyce, and Mr lan B. Johnston,
Boat of Hatton, Fintray in October 1947.
A plan was hatched by them to convert this grand building into a
residential school for 60 mentally handicapped children. In addition to the cost of the building a
further £8,000 would be needed for the conversion. Apparently, the Aberdeenshire Education
Committee was in favour but the Finance Committee of Aberdeen City Council,
which would have had to allocate the necessary fund, was not and the plan was
dropped. Fintray House was subsequently
demolished in the period 1947 - 1956 and stones from the old building used to
construct 12 new houses in Fintray, some on a road called “Forbes Place”. It is presumed that after the sale of Fintray
House and estate, the title of the baronetcy changed to “Craigievar” alone.
Lord Sempill,
the 18th Baron Sempill had died in February 1934. At that time, the main residence of the
family was Fintray House, a magnificent mansion containing about 50 rooms, but
a residence requiring substantial upkeep and, as the decade progressed, a grand
home whose usefulness as the main Forbes-Sempill abode had significantly declined. By June 1938 the family had begun occupation
of a smaller, nearby house, Cothal House, which was acquired by her elder
daughter, the Honourable Margaret, as a liferent under the terms of her
father’s will. It had previously been
let to Mr and Mrs Manisty. This house
name was still in use in October 1940. During
WW2, Fintray House, the grand mansion, was occupied by the military and wooden
barracks were constructed in the grounds to house soldiers, including men from
the Black Watch. Another use was to
house troops who had escaped from the Dunkirk beaches.
Gwendolen, Lady Sempill died on 2nd March 1944 in an Aberdeen nursing home following a short illness. She was 75. Unusually, her funeral took place in the chapel of Aberdeen Crematorium. The P&J described the moving scene. “On the catafalque flowers were massed in great profusion - a touching tribute to one who loved flowers. Massive wreaths and humble posies lay side by side. On the chapel wall behind the catafalque daffodils and other spring flowers were banked in a blaze of colour. At the service, town and county joined in giving expression to the affection and respect with which Lady Sempill was held during her life of service to the community in the North-east. Yesterday the ashes were interred in the ancient family burial ground of St Meddans. The urn with the ashes was carried from Cothal House by Lady Sempill's two daughters, Wing Officer the Hon. Margaret Forbes-Sempill and the Hon. Elisabeth Forbes-Sempill. Following immediately behind the sad procession, which was headed by a piper playing "The Flowers of the Forest", were Lady Sempill and Mrs Forbes of Corse”. It appears that immediately after her mother’s demise, daughter Margaret changed the name of Cothal House to “Little Fintray”. Margaret may have decided on a new appellation out of a feeling of nostalgia for the grand pile which had been vacated about 1940, because a small window was let into the wall of Little Fintray so as to provide a view towards Fintray House and the Don. The Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill also acquired a liferent to a house, “Fae Me Well” under the terms of her father’s will. It was located across the road from Little Fintray. This house was subsequently bought by Sir Dugald Baird, the prominent Aberdeen obstetrician.
Lady
Gwendolen’s death must have been a significant shock to Gwendolen’s youngest
daughter, Elizabeth, since her father had taken little interest in either her
education or her medical condition. It seems to have been entirely due to
the initiative of Lady Gwendolen that Elizabeth was shuttled around various
medical authorities, especially on the Continent, in search of an effective
treatment for her sensitive developmental aberration. Additionally,
Elizabeth had been an almost constant companion of her mother over the previous
two decades as she went about her social duties.
Lady Gwendolen had significant financial assets of her own, as distinct from holdings in her deceased husband’s estate. In addition to net cash amounting to £3546, she also left other settled funds (funds which become available once a settlement period was over) to the value of £38,704. It is unclear how these funds were divided but her three surviving children were probably significant beneficiaries.
Each of the
two daughters of Lady Sempill used her inheritance for a specific purpose. The Honourable Margaret bought Druminnor
Castle, Rhynie, in 1954, while the Honourable Elizabeth bought the general
medical practice in the town of Alford in 1945.
Rhynie is located
in a remote part of Aberdeenshire and is at one end of a route made recognisable
by frequent mentions in winter weather forecasts, the Dufftown to Rhynie road,
also called the Cabrach. It is wild,
hilly and liable to being blocked by drifting snow. The Aberdonian comedy trio, “Scotland the
What”, who performed between the 1960s and the 1990s used the Doric extensively
in their performances and had an apposite sketch dealing with the remoteness of
the Cabrach. One chiel tells another
that he is going to live between Dufftown and Rhynie and his mate replies, “Ay,
ye’ll be richt in the middle o’ things there”!
Why did Margaret buy this rather decrepit, remote castle? Firstly, it did have a family significance
for the Forbes clan, the Lords Forbes having been the owners from about 1200 to
1770, when it was known as Castle Forbes.
Margaret had a vision of renovating it and opening the building to
public viewing. But also, being in a
lesbian relationship with Miss Joan Wright from 1953, at a time when such
partnerships were at least frowned upon, she probably wanted a suitably private
location so that she and her female friend could conduct their relationship
with a degree of discretion.
The deteriorating relationship between
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill and her sister Margaret
Before the
start of WW2 in late 1939, both of the Forbes-Sempill daughters nominated
Fintray House as their principal residence and in the 1939 editions of the
electoral registers for Aberdeenshire the residential address of each girl was
given as that location. However, the gap
in their ages and the differences in their interests meant that they saw little
of each other. Margaret’s pony stud was
located at Fintray, while Elizabeth was managing the Craigievar estate about 20
miles to the west. The
inter-relationship between them was apparently cordial, but not close. The initiation of the war coincided with the
start of Elizabeth’s medical studies and her regular absences in Aberdeen,
while Margaret joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and was away from
Aberdeen on military duties in England.
On 29th September 1939, when the England and Wales Register
was compiled Margaret was recorded in Nottingham residing in the County Hotel
along with a variety of other people, many of them also WAAFs.
The paths of
the two sisters may not have crossed again until the death of their mother,
Lady Gwendolen Forbes-Sempill in March 1944, when they both attended her
funeral. The P&J published a
photograph of the two women carrying an urn bearing Lady Gwendolen’s ashes from
her home, Cothal House, the short distance to St Meddans kirkyard for burial. Subsequently, there was a major deterioration
in the relationship between the two sisters, though when evidence was presented
in Court in 1967 on the subject there were significant discrepancies in the
accounts derived from alternative sources as to the cause and extent of this
sisterly rift.
The
Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill also acquired a new property in the
aftermath of her mother’s death. She
took a sub-let of a house with shooting at “Frendret”, Huntly. There is no such place. The likely explanation is that the Court
shorthand writer mis-transcribed “Frendraught” which lies about six miles
north-east of Huntly and where there is a castle and an associated estate. The sub-let extended from 1st
August 1944 to 31st July 1945. At least at the start of this period, Margaret
was still away from home on war duty though at some time in 1945 she was
invalided out of military service and returned to her house, Little
Fintray. Later a disagreement was
exposed between Elizabeth and Margaret concerning the degree to which Elizabeth
had employed Little Fintray as a base in 1944 and 1945 Only one third party source
has been unearthed which suggests that Elizabeth used Little Fintray on multiple
occasions. This dispute will be dealt
with later.
The Alford Medical Practice
In 1945, Elizabeth’s ultimate desire was to become a surgeon as she had undertaken quite a significant amount of surgical work while a casualty officer. Ultimately, she decided against such specialisation due to the financial uncertainty attendant on the impending creation of the National Health Service, which finally came into being on 5th July 1948. In consequence, Elizabeth decided to purchase the Alford Medical Practice, which had become available. This local service was based in a large house called “Rosemount”, located on the outskirts of Alford on the north side of the A944 road from Aberdeen. It contained both living and consulting accommodation. Elizabeth’s occupancy of the Alford practice started on 1st November 1945, one day after the termination of her contract as a senior casualty officer in Aberdeen. The practice had a list of about 4,000 patients spread over an area of about 400 square miles (approximately 12 miles in any direction from Alford) and this required a paid medical assistant in order to service the needs of the patient population. In 1946, Dr Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill was also appointed examining surgeon for the Alford district under the Factories Act.
Large numbers of German prisoners of war were held in Britain both during hostilities in WW2 and until about 1948, reaching a peak of about 400,000 in 1946. Some 30 German POWs were billeted on farms in the Alford area where they provided much-needed agricultural labour. Nine miles away at Monymusk, another 800 PoWs, mostly Germans with a few Italians, were housed in a camp, awaiting repatriation. Relations between the PoWs and the local people seem to have been quite friendly, with home visits and Christmas lunches sometimes offered to the internees by local families. Some prisoners found jobs, married local girls and remained permanently in the locality. Because Elizabeth was a fluent German speaker, she was engaged to provide medical services to these “guests of His Majesty”, for which she received substantial remuneration. Elizabeth was also engaged to serve on the local Repatriation Board.
Dr Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill seemed to be naturally talented as a general practitioner and quickly gained a reputation as a doctor who always did her best for her patients. This side of her character showed particularly during the winter months when the roads were often blocked by snow and some of her patients lived in remote cottages deep in the hills around Alford. She always did her best to reach a patient’s abode. The dissonance between Elizabeth’s given name and her style of dress (she always wore a man’s suit to see patients) did not seem to influence her standing in the eyes of her needy consultees. Whether they considered her to be a woman or a man did not seem to be an issue of concern for them. Her devotion to her patients and their attitude to her was tellingly described by Mrs Christine Crowe. “As a general practitioner in the Alford district she has since become the respected and almost revered doctor who has a sense of welfare as well as medicine, for her patients in the widely-scattered area. Dr Elizabeth or Dr Ewan ... the Christian name makes little or no difference to the folk of the Alford district who have for years been medically served by the one and only Dr Forbes-Sempill”.
Laura
Blackhall Cormack Thompson was the daughter of a master baker in Fraserburgh, a
major fishing port in the extreme north-east of Aberdeenshire. She was born in 1920 and graduated in medicine
from Aberdeen University in 1943. After
junior positions at Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen, Ullapool and Aberdeen Royal
Infirmary, she applied for, and was appointed to, the post of salaried general
practitioner in the practice in Alford.
She was in post by the start of 1946 and lived at “Rosemount”, as did
the owner of the practice, the Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill, or Dr
Forbes-Sempill, as she now wished to be addressed, together with a maid. In the 1946 edition of the Electoral Register
for Aberdeenshire, both Dr Elizabeth and Dr Laura were recorded as being in
residence at “Rosemount”. Dr Thompson
was still recorded as being resident there in the 1950 edition of the electoral
register for Aberdeenshire but she is thought to have departed from Alford in
1949.
The
replacement medical assistant for Dr Thompson at the Alford Practice was Dr.
Marina, who was male. It is unclear if
there was then a further medical assistant before the arrival of a key figure
in this story, Dr Manson. William George
Campbell Manson was the son of George Manson, a bank manager. William was born in Dingwall in 1924 and
graduated MB ChB from Aberdeen Medical School in 1949. He held junior positions in orthopaedics at
Raigmore Hospital, Inverness and in general surgery and gynaecology at Woodend
Hospital, Aberdeen to 1950 after which he became a trainee assistant GP in
Huntly. William was appointed Assistant
GP at Alford in 1952. He did not live at
“Rosemount” because he had recently married, but instead occupied a house
elsewhere in Alford. Dr Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill both lived at, and conducted her surgery from, “Rosemount” until
May 1950, after which she moved her residence to Brux Lodge and continued to
operate as a general practitioner from there.
Dr Elizabeth worked
as a full time GP until 1952 or 1953 when, for reasons which are discussed
elsewhere, she/he became a part time practitioner and this arrangement remained
in place until early 1955. William
Manson had served as Dr Ewan’s assistant from 1952 until early 1955 when he
left to take up a position in Perth. He
too had been a popular GP in Alford and a leaving event was organised in the
Haughton Arms to wish him well in his new post.
He had been at Alford for three and a half years. Mrs George Royan, the District Nurse,
presented William with a wallet containing notes, and a lounge clock for Mrs
Manson. Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill was also
in attendance and made a personal presentation from himself and his wife Isabella
of a set of table mats and a folio of prints of the paintings of Highlanders by
Kenneth MacLeay, which had been commissioned by Queen Victoria and published in
1872, and which presented the Highlanders as a fierce, even threatening, tribe,
the individual exceptions being John Brown and his brother who were portrayed
as having finer feelings and an almost effeminate appearance. It is likely that Dr Ewan’s and Queen
Victoria’s romanticised views of the Highlanders coincided.
The exact
circumstances of William Manson’s departure have not been uncovered but what is
known is at least odd. The report in the
Aberdeen Evening Express in September 1955 revealed that Manson’s name had been
put forward, presumably by Dr Ewan, to the Aberdeen and Kincardine Council of
the National Health Service over a year previously to take over the Alford
practice, but it was not until 1st September 1955 that confirmation
of his appointment in Alford had been received.
Was this inordinate delay simply due to lengthy bureaucratic process, or
was there some aspect of William Manson’s record which had caused concern? The report also revealed that Manson had not
left Alford for a permanent position in Perth but to act as a locum and that in
recent times he had been fulfilling a similar role in Fyvie,
Aberdeenshire. It would appear that Dr
Ewan Forbes-Sempill then moved with all haste to get Manson back to Alford as
he started work there on 1 October 1955.
It looks as though Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill had intended to retire in 1954
but could not do so until a successor had been put in post. William Manson leaving in late April 1955
must have been additionally inconvenient for Dr Ewan because of the financial
crisis building on the Brux Estate, as discussed elsewhere.
One other
curiosity about the circumstances of William Manson’s return to Alford was that
the newspaper report spoke of him being “appointed”. There was no indication that he had purchased
the practice from Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill.
Was he, once more, an employee of the practice? If so, his status would have put him in a
position where he owed an obligation to Ewan Forbes-Sempill. As will be seen, such a subservient position
could have compromised his independence in later dealings with Ewan.
The Honourable Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill acquires the Brux Estate
The Brux
Estate was acquired by Dr Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill in 1949 from Lord Forbes. It is located on the south bank of the Don
between Alford and Kildrummy, indeed “brux” means the lythe, or sheltered, bank. The Estate extended to at least 2,000 acres
in total of which 760 acres were arable.
At the time of the 1967 Court proceedings, Ewan Forbes-Sempill kept a
herd of 300 head of cattle, some of which were pedigree Ayreshire dairy cows. He sent bottled milk to Aberdeen every
day. Ewan also grew 120 - 150 acres of
cereals (mostly barley) and cut an annual harvest of silage from 40 acres of
grassland. In addition to the cattle,
Ewan also kept black-faced ewes and a small pedigree herd of Hampshire Downs
sheep on his hill land. The employees
extended to one full time man dealing with the dairy, a part-time woman
responsible for bottling milk, a grieve (foreman) and one farm labourer. Ewan also personally worked the land, where
he specialised in driving the combine harvester. He had a preference for animal husbandry and,
being medically trained, Ewan was able to tackle some of the veterinary work
himself.
The purchase
of the Brux Estate led to Dr Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill being given the informal
name of “Brux”, presumably a truncation of “Laird of Brux”, by friends and
relatives. It had the great advantage of
not implicitly awarding a sex to the holder, thus avoiding any embarrassment
for either Dr Forbes-Sempill or the person addressing her.
In addition
to Brux, Dr Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill acquired four other farms in Aberdeenshire
sometime between 1945 and 1952, though the precise dates and locations have not
been discovered.
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill’s
testosterone therapy
There has
been speculation that Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill may have been given crude
testosterone therapy during the 1930s (see earlier) but the history of the
discovery of the male hormone, its characterisation and synthesis suggests that
even if this were to be true and no evidence has been uncovered to prove the
case, it would have been ineffective.
The first certain employment of testosterone to treat Elizabeth was by
Professor Cawadias in 1951. On the basis of her partially male characteristics,
Cawadias suggested that there might be a testis lurking somewhere in
Elizabeth’s body and that a short course of high dose testosterone therapy
might cause this wayward organ to descend to its proper position. Ideally the testosterone should have been
injected but, Dr Ewan averred in his 1967 evidence that that would have meant
involving a third party to give the injection.
As an alternative, the testosterone could be delivered by putting a
linguet of the drug under the tongue where it would be absorbed directly into
the blood stream and thus avoid loss in its passage through the alimentary
tract.
This therapy,
25mg testosterone propionate per linguet for two weeks, was followed by a break
of two weeks before the regime was repeated.
It was ineffective. The frequency
of administration (perhaps daily?) was not specified. On the basis that it might enhance
Elizabeth’s male characteristics, this acute regime was followed by taking a
low dose of testosterone, half a linguet weekly, on a continuing basis for some
years. In fact, Ewan was certainly still
taking testosterone in 1967 and possibly beyond that year. At the time there was a concern that
testosterone therapy might be carcinogenic (now known to be erroneous), hence
the low dose regime. In 1951 Elizabeth
would have been 39 years old and it is unlikely that at such a mature age low
dose testosterone therapy would have had much impact on her secondary sexual
characteristics.
In an
interview with a journalist from the Sunday Pictorial in September 1952 Dr Ewan
revealed that he had recently undergone treatment with the male hormone. “I had begun to shave quite often and the change in myself became more marked
recently”. This suggests that his
initial growth of facial hair was not related to the testosterone therapy but
that his beard had been enhanced by this treatment. Interestingly, in the same interview, the reporter
commented that “His voice is not yet fully masculine. It registers changes, sometimes masculine
sometimes feminine but now it tends more
often to be masculine. Perhaps this
was another consequence of the testosterone therapy?
Isabella Mitchell enters the life of the
Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill
Isabella,
familiarly known as “Pat” or “Patty” was born in 1912 at Glenrinnes Lodge, in
the parish of Mortlach on Speyside, where her father worked as a forester. In 1937, she was appointed Assistant
Manageress at the Richmond Arms Hotel, Tomintoul, which lies at the northern
end of the road, known as the Lecht, which crosses the Grampian mountains from
Donside to Speyside. Apparently Isabella
first met Dr Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill in 1946 when she became ill during a
visit to her sister in Aberlour, according to Playdon. The sister called a doctor and Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill turned up. Despite the
doctor’s masculine clothes, the sister informed her that Dr Forbes-Sempill was
a woman. It is perhaps surprising that Aberlour,
which is some 33 miles from Alford across the Cabrach (Rhynie to Dufftown road),
would be within the area covered by the Alford Medical Practice. Isabella renewed her acquaintance with Dr
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill when she applied for, and was appointed to, the
position of housekeeper and receptionist at the Alford Medical Practice. She started this role in January 1947. In the period 1948 – 1950, the Electoral
Registers for Aberdeenshire recorded both Dr Laura Thompson and Isabella
Mitchell as residing at “Rosemount”, Alford, though Laura Thompson is thought
to have resigned her position by 1950. According
to Playdon, Dr Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill terminated a relationship with another
woman in late 1949. Dr Playdon also
speculated that the identity of Elizabeth’s former paramour may have been Dr
Laura Thompson.
In evidence given by Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill to the Court in 1967, she and Isabella Mitchell had discussed getting married about June 1950 but she had, in Elizabeth’s words, “discouraged” her and it would be another two years before they could make plans for the wedding. Although Isabella Mitchell was employed as housekeeper and receptionist at “Rosemount”, she must have moved to live at Brux Lodge by the beginning of 1952 as the Aberdeenshire Electoral Register for that year cites Elizabeth’s home as Isabella’s residential address. This was at least ten months before their wedding day.
The re-registration of the birth of
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill.
In 1933, when
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill was 11, Dr Innes had become the family doctor to the
Forbes-Sempill family and thus acquired a detailed understanding of the
family’s medical issues. This was at a
time when Lady Gwendolen, Elizabeth’s mother was apparently suffering anxieties
about her development and Elizabeth was deeply unhappy with her mother pressing
her to wear dresses. In 1967, during
cross-examination in Court, Dr Ewan was asked why Elizabeth had not approached
Innes to discuss her ambiguous sex and the possibility of re-registering her
birth as male. In reply, Dr Ewan said
that while Innes was hearty he was not a person in whom Elizabeth could
confide. Instead, there was another doctor,
whom she had known for longer and from whom advice was sought. He was Mr Gordon Bruce, who had been the
Royal Family’s surgeon in Scotland between 1939 and 1951. This appeared to be a clever piece of
name-dropping before the Court by Dr Ewan!
Elizabeth and Mr Bruce had become acquainted through a mutual interest
in shooting and fishing and Elizabeth had consulted Bruce about the problems
she suffered with varicose veins.
However, whatever was the advice proffered by Mr Bruce, no action was
taken to re-register her birth at that time.
At least one
reason why Elizabeth decided to study medicine in 1939 was to learn more about
her own medical condition but that proved not to be the outcome, partly because
of her own shyness in seeking advice and partly because there seemed to be no
knowledge of intersex conditions at the Aberdeen Medical School.
There were
years of prevarication before Elizabeth took action to seek change to her birth
registration, principally because she did not want to upset her mother. Even after Lady Gwendolen Sempill died in
1944 it was eight years before Elizabeth was sufficiently energised to take
action. Dr E Forbes-Sempill would later
state that the stimulus causing her to seek help, both with therapy for the
intersex condition and with re-registration of birth came from a family friend,
Miss Aline Scott Elliot, who recommended that Professor Cawadias in London
should be consulted.
Isabella Mitchell
had come to work for Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill in 1947 and over a period of several
years a mutual attraction eventually developed between them. Initially Elizabeth called her “Patty” and
she called Elizabeth “Doctor”. Later,
after the Brux Estate had been acquired in 1949, she started to call Elizabeth
“Brux” like her other friends. Isabella
claimed in Court that she and Elizabeth had discussed the possibility
re-registering her birth sex as male before they discussed marriage but that conversation
may not have taken place until about 1950.
In 1951, Dr Elizabeth travelled to London and sought advice from Dr
Cawadias.
With regard
to re-registration, because Scots law is different from that of England and
Wales, Elizabeth was advised to contact Professor Sir Sidney Smith, the occupant
of the Regius Chair of Forensic Medicine and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at
Edinburgh University, to seek his advice.
Smith’s proposal was for Elizabeth to obtain the certification, under
signature, from three doctors to the effect that she was actually male. Dr William Manson, her new assistant in the
Alford practice, was the first doctor chosen. Dr John Cameron Reid, who had been an Aberdeen
medical student in the following intake to Elizabeth was the second. At the time John Reid was a GP and, at least
at a later date, practised in Strathdon and thus could have been a neighbour of
Ewan’s. Thirdly, Mr James Philip, a
surgeon who had lectured to Dr Elizabeth during her medical course was
engaged. He later became a very
prominent oncological surgeon, pioneering treatment with radium, radiotherapy
and chemotherapy in Aberdeen. There was
no indication that any physical examination took place, or what criteria were
employed to decide the question of Elizabeth’s sex, but the three doctors were
clearly all know to Elizabeth and likely to produce the desired decision, duly
certified, that she was male and not female.
Surely, she would have chosen acquaintances on whom she could rely to
deliver the necessary verdict? Interestingly,
when Dr Manson appeared as a witness at the Court proceedings in 1967, some of
his testimony bore directly on his assessment of Elizabeth’s sex. When asked if Elizabeth was known locally as
a female doctor he replied, “Yes and no.
I don’t think generally the patients looked on Dr Forbes-Sempill at that
time as a woman doctor, you know, completely as one would compare with a woman
doctor elsewhere. She did not dress as a
woman but in a gent’s suit, or in a kilt with a kilt jacket”. Manson was then further asked “if it be fair
to say that she was a woman who appeared to have certain masculine
interests”. He answered this question
rather clumsily, indeed almost incoherently. “To my mind dressed in the kilt, a
pair of legs in the kilt, it did not look like a feminine person below the
kilt, a pair of legs, it looked to me like a good man in a kilt”. Manson’s criteria for judging Elizabeth’s sex
appeared to be based solely on her physical appearance, especially her legs,
and her attire.
This evidence
on Elizabeth’s sex was then forwarded to Sir Sidney Smith, who spoke personally
to the Registrar General based in Edinburgh.
In due course, Elizabeth received a letter from the Registrar General
instructing her to present her evidence to the Sheriff Clerk in Aberdeen. The
action was formally recorded as follows.
“The Sheriff-Substitute having examined upon Oath the Petitioner E.
Forbes-Sempill and considered the foregoing application and Medical
Certificates produced in support thereof from 1. Dr John C Reid 2. Dr William
GC Manson and 3. Dr James F Philip finds that the said petitioner is of the
male sex and that Entry No. 9 in the Register Book of Births for the District
of Fintray in the County of Aberdeen for the year 1912 is erroneous. Grants warrant to the registrar of said
district to make an entry in his Register of Corrected Entries relative to said
entry No 9 substituting “Ewan” for the Christian name “Elizabeth” in the first
column and the letter “M” for the letter “F” in the third column of the said
entry and also to insert a reference in the margin of the said entry. A.J.Loutitt Laing”.
And that was
it! At the stroke of a pen on 21st
August 1952, “Elizabeth” had become “Ewan” and, almost miraculously, “she” had
become “he”. But biologically, of
course, nothing had changed and the issue of her/his true sex would be raised
again, but the next time it would be in excruciating anatomical, physiological
and behavioural detail.
On 11th
September, a notice appeared in the Aberdeen Evening Express, repeated in the
P&J of the 12th. “Dr E Forbes
Sempill, Brux Lodge, Alford, wishes to intimate that in future he will be known
as DR EWAN FORBES-SEMPILL. All legal
formalities have been completed”. This
attempt at obfuscation by using the neutral address “Dr”, by failing to mention
that the “E” had previously stood for “Elizabeth” and that this was in effect a
legalised change of sex, did not throw the hounds of the Press off the
scent. Dr Ewan’s transformation
instantly became both local and national news.
The Evening Express was quickest off the mark in spotting the potential
implications of the change of the Christian name of the Honourable E. Forbes-Sempill. She, now he, had instantly become the younger
brother of the then present 19th Lord Sempill and 10th
Baronet of Forbes-Sempill. Cousin John
Alexander Cumnock Forbes-Sempill had been the next male in line to assume the
Baronetcy of Craigievar and Fintray but now appeared to have been displaced by
Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill. The Evening
Express asked Mr CF Hankinson, the editor of Debrett’s Peerage for his opinion
of the succession of the Forbes-Sempill baronetcy. His reply was clear. “The present heiress to the barony”, said Mr
Hankinson, “is Lord Sempill’s eldest daughter, the Hon Mrs Chant, and I think
this event leaves her position unimpaired, as the barony can descend in the
female line. The baronetcy, however,
cannot so descend, and I think this change means that Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill
becomes the heir to the baronetcy, thus displacing in that respect the present peer's
uncle." Although Hankinson labelled
John Forbes-Sempill as an uncle, he was, in fact, a cousin.
A few days
later, Ewan explained why he had chosen to adopt that particular Christian name. “Brux was once the home of the Camerons. The
last of the Camerons to own it was Sir Ewen Cameron. He was slain by his
enemies the Mowats. According to
tradition, Lady Cameron offered the estate of Brux and her daughter's hand in
marriage to the man who avenged her husband’s death. The individual who won the
bride and Brux was Alastair Cam Forbes, son of Sir John Forbes of the Black
Lip. He married Catherine, heiress of Sir Ewen Cameron of Brux and Drumallachie
in 1409”. The change of spelling, from
Ewen to Ewan, was merely a personal affectation.
It did not
take the gentlemen of the Press long to descend on Alford and, particularly,
Brux Lodge and to start requesting interviews.
This story had three aspects to it with strong reader appeal. The change of sex, the prospect of marriage
and the transmission of an hereditary title.
Dr Ewan did his best to accommodate them and to give his views freely
but, according to Playdon, to avoid the incessant demands on his time, he had
on one occasion to use his Land Rover to make his exit from Brux by a
cross-country route. Three newspapers
carried significant stories on Sunday 14th September. They are particularly interesting for the
insight they give into the thinking of Dr Ewan at that time, 15 years prior to
the adversarial Court case. The media
organs were the Sunday Chronicle, the Sunday Pictorial and the Weekly Dispatch.
Dr Ewan gave
a personal interview to James Dow of the Sunday Chronicle in which he said the
following. “This has been hanging over
my head for a fair time – several years I suppose. It has been a gradual change, but more marked
of late. And above all I hated living a
life of sham. I had to get things
straight with my patients. My practice
is the most important thing in this whole business, not any question of
inheriting a title. People are already
talking of a forthcoming marriage. It is
of course a possibility. Anyway I have
got myself a straight and uncomplicated future”. This statement is compatible with a later
claim he made that his action was mainly motivated by a personal need to live
his life as a member of the sex which he felt sure represented his true
identity, rather than a desire to be in a position to marry legally.
Morris
Linden, a reporter with the Sunday Pictorial, was also granted an interview
with Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill on Saturday 13th September 1952. Linden’s report appeared the following
day. Dr Ewan is alleged initially to
have talked about the prospect of marriage.
“I will marry soon”. “I don’t
know when the marriage will take place, but it is quite clear we cannot be
married at once. It would be like
marriage following too soon on birth.
Somehow it doesn’t seem right.
That is why everything has now come to a head, changing my name and so
forth. Naturally, I am looking forward
to marriage very much. For very special
reasons, I can’t give you my future wife’s name”. He also talked quite openly about the trials
and tribulations of growing up officially saddled with what he considered to be
the wrong sex. “I don’t mind this at
all. I’ve had so much of this throughout
my life”. “Why should I keep quiet?” he said.
“I have nothing to be ashamed of, nor do I feel any bitterness to those
who wronged me. “It has been a ghastly
mistake. I was carelessly registered as
a girl in the first place but of course that was forty years ago. I am sure I was more masculine than feminine,
right from the start. And this is what
I’ve had to fight against all these years – till now. The doctors in those days were mistaken too. I have been sacrificed to prudery and the
horror which our parents had about sex.
I was sacrificed to fear – what would the neighbours think? My mother insisted from the start that I was
a complete girl and dressed me in skirts.
It was bad enough living up here in Aberdeenshire as a child but when I
got older it was hell – especially when I was forced to attend the debutantes’
ball during my first London season. I
got out of that lot as soon as I could.
I had both boy and girl friends as a child but, as I say, as I grew
older things became more difficult. When
embarrassing things were mentioned by girls or among boys I tried to draw away
or be non-committal”. Lady Gwendolen had
clearly acted in what she thought were the best interests of her daughter,
Elizabeth but, because of her insensitivity or lack of understanding of
Elizabeth’s assumed identity, she had ended up creating a life of stress and
discomfort for her.
The third
newspaper to report on Dr Ewan’s change of status on Sunday 14th
September 1952 was the Weekly Dispatch.
Perhaps the most interesting revelation in this outlet was the fact that
the interview given to Morris Linden of the Sunday Pictorial which claimed that
Ewan was planning to marry and including, allegedly, actual quotations from him,
he now denied that that is what he had said.
"It is fabrication and in the worst possible taste. I like the
human race - l would not be a doctor if I did not – but, if these stories
continue going around, I cannot expect to be well received wherever I go. I
object very strongly to this distortion of facts." Now, that was not quite an absolute denial of
the rumour.
However, the
following day, Monday 15th September the P&J published a
statement from Dr Ewan which did amount to a complete denial. It appeared that Ewan was having trouble
retaining his urbane, open demeanour but instead he was getting rattled. “I wish to commend “The Press and
Journal" for its restrained treatment of the news of my change of
name. It published the correct report.
Reports which have appeared over the week-end in two newspapers have caused me
great distress. These newspapers claim
exclusive interviews with me. I am sorry
that the Press Council which is going to be established to investigate cases of
intrusion into people's personal affairs is not now functioning. One Sunday newspaper yesterday said I will
soon announce my engagement to an Aberdeen woman. I absolutely deny that there
is any truth in this. It is pure fabrication.
Rumours of a forthcoming marriage are entirely without foundation. Is it
too much to hope that the statement which I am now making to "The Press
and Journal" will clear away untruths and misunderstandings? Is it too
much to hope that I will now be left to live my life in my own way and in
peace”? Unfortunately for Ewan’s
reputation, part of his account in the P&J was dishonest. It is true there was no engagement and
Isabella was not an Aberdonian, but perhaps he would have justified his P&J
statement as a white lie intended only to throw the press off the scent with
regard to the matrimonial plans of himself and his future wife. Indeed, they were married less than a month
after publication of the P&J statement.
Reporter
Morris Linden, clearly touched by the personality of Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill,
added a final paragraph to his report.
“And here I must pay tribute to the courage with which Dr Forbes-Sempill
has faced his great personal problem. He
is carrying on with his work here quietly and efficiently. He will be glad to know that everyone I
talked to – patients or fellow villagers – spoke highly of him and of the
stoical way he has born his burden”.
Perhaps the gentlemen of the Press were not wholly disreputable?
The marriage of Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill
and Miss Isabella Mitchell
On 5th
October 1952, the banns were proclaimed in Kildrummy Kirk for the marriage of
the occupants of Brux Lodge, by the Rev. Peter J McEwen to a congregation of
about 60 people, to whom the announcement was apparently a complete
surprise. According to the Aberdeen
Evening Express on 6th October, Dr Ewan had handed the intimation of
his intended marriage to the minister only a few minutes in advance of the
service. He did not then stay for the
act of worship but went off on the round of his sick patients. An enquiry was made to George Slessor, chauffeur
to Colonel and Mrs Yates of Kildrummy Castle and session clerk at Kildrummy Kirk,
concerning the certificate of proclamation.
He said, “The doctor has not called for the certificate yet. But we have it ready for him”. After collection, the certificate would then
need to be presented to Harry Duncan, the Kildrummy Registrar, to obtain a
marriage schedule. Ewan and Isabella had
already attended service at Kildrummy and intimated their intention of joining
the congregation. When door-stepped by
the Press on 7th October, Ewan kept schtum, having learned a
bitter lesson from trying previously to be accommodating with the employees of
the print media.
Ewan and
Isabella’s wedding took place after dark on the evening of 10th
October 1952 at their home, Brux Lodge, as was the custom in Scotland. The time and venue had been kept secret from
all but a few close friends who attended the nuptials. As expected, the ceremony was performed by
the Rev. Peter MacEwen and he declined to give any comment on the event. The formalities had only been completed by Dr
Ewan the previous evening. The couple’s friends
in the community had rallied round them to allow at least a semblance of
privacy for this significant personal occasion.
After the ceremony, the guests enjoyed a supper of cold turkey and
champagne, followed by cognac and liqueurs, and, inevitably in Scotland, a
ceilidh. Cousin David Forbes was the
best man and Mrs Alexander Thomson, Isabella’s sister, was the maid of
honour. Lord Sempill, Ewan’s elder
brother was also present. Zoe Playdon
has speculated that Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, may have been a
guest. This would have been feasible
since the Royal Family would still have been on their autumn holiday at
Balmoral Castle, a 30 mile drive across the hills from Deeside. The same night
as the wedding, there had been a dance held in Kildrummy and revellers from
that venue travelling home late noted that the lights at Brux Lodge were still
blazing and strains of music were filtering across the countryside.
One of the most memorable aspects of his marriage for Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill must have been the presentation of wedding gifts to him and his bride by the patients of the Alford Medical Practice. Donations were sought from the people of Mossat, Craigievar, Leochel-Cushnie, Keig, Montgarrie and Whitehouse, in addition to the town of Alford, one of the leading organisers being the Rev. Peter MacEwen. Eventually £220 was accumulated from over 700 individual donations. Probably most of the families registered with the Alford Practice made a contribution. The presentation of gifts was arranged for 13th November 1952 in the Alford Village Hall when over 200 people literally packed in to hear Rev Peter MacEwen pay the following tribute to their GP. “No matter how deep the snow, no matter how high the river or wind, the doctor is always there when we need him.” A new Scottish country dance was composed for the occasion, called appropriately “The doctor’s waddin”. Isabella received a cosmetic case and a suitcase while Ewan was gifted a writing desk and a dirk, the ceremonial dagger that Scots wear tucked into a sock when sporting the kilt on formal occasions.
At the end of 1952, Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill must have looked back with some satisfaction on what he had achieved that year. He had been successful in having his birth re-registered as male, he had adopted a Highland Christian name with significance for his Brux Estate, he had married the woman he loved and he had retained the respect and admiration of his community and, especially, the patients of the Alford Medical Practice, despite changing sex, a happening which must have been entirely novel for the populace of that part of the world. He could look forward to continuing to serve the community as their GP, a job he loved, he could indulge his interests in Scottish country dancing, he had shooting and fishing literally on his doorstep. Later he would recall that a particularly memorable “Glorious 12th”,the opening day of the grouse shooting season, was in 1958 when he went shooting with a few friends, on a hot day with the heather in flower, and killed 68 brace of grouse, though the party was not trying for a record bag. In 1959, Dr Ewan bought a small fishing rod for £3 and it served him well until 1982 when it disintegrated. But more important than the shooting and fishing on offer, Ewan could enjoy a quiet home life at Brux Lodge and that was a priceless possession.
A day before
the wedding gift presentation in Alford, Dr Ewan had attended a dinner dance
and ceilidh mounted in Aberdeen by the MacDonald of Sleat Aberdeen branch of
the Clan Donald Society. The occasion
was marked by the performance of a new piping air, “MacDonald of Sleat’s
Welcome”, which had been composed for the occasion. Another cultural contribution was the
performance of the dance, “MacDonald of Sleat” by a team of four men and four
women. Dr Ewan contributed as one of the
male dancers. A few days after this
event Ewan was again involved in a musical evening in Aberdeen when he acted as
compere for the Aberdeen Strathspey and Reel Society’s concert. Life was looking good for the 40 year old
doctor.
Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill becomes a
full-time farmer
The Brux
Estate was bought by Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill’s alter ego, Elizabeth, in 1949.
At the time Elizabeth was a full time general practitioner in Alford and
the surrounding area, so the Brux Estate was managed by a grieve, but not
necessarily economically. Dr Ewan
Forbes-Sempill discovered by 1952 or 1953 that financially the estate was not
making much return on his investment.
His solution to this problem was to become a part-time farmer, while
still retaining his involvement in the Alford Medical Practice. Some of his surgeries were subsequently held
at Brux Lodge.
During this
period of Dr Ewan’s part-time GP employment, the so-called Great Gale
occurred. It lasted from 31st
January to 1st February 1953, causing a heavy storm surge in the
North Sea which resulted in extensive flooding in the low-lying parts of the
English east coast but also, and especially, in The Netherlands. Many people were drowned. In the east of Scotland there were heavy
falls of snow with drifting and the strong winds resulted in many trees being
snapped off due to their burden of snow and ice. At the time Dr Ewan had one very sick patient
who needed to be sent to hospital but this could not be accomplished because
the ambulance could not reach either Huntly or Aberdeen from Alford, due to the
state of the roads. In consequence, Dr
Ewan looked after his sick patient at Brux Lodge.
It was also
at about this time that Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill, who had always been emotionally
attached to all things Scottish, became involved with the SNP, Scottish
National Party. It had been founded in
1934 through the fusion of two pre-existing political bodies, The National
Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party.
In the 1950s it was not a significant political force and did not gain
its first seat in the Westminster Parliament until 1967. On 27th February 1953, the SNP
organised a Scottish concert in Aberdeen Music Hall titled “From the Hills and
Glens”. The compere for the evening was
Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill. Ewan was both
eloquent and knowledgeable about Scottish culture and thus was ideally
qualified for this role. He acted as
compere at further SNP-organised concerts in September 1954, October 1955, October
1957 and October 1960. Ewan also
compered other concerts which were not sponsored by the SNP. In November of 1953 he fulfilled this role at
a Strathspey and Reel Society concert.
The Aberdeen Evening Express described his performance as “couthy and
cosy”.
In 1955, on
his retirement from medicine to farm full-time at Brux, he dismissed three
employees and then farmed the estate with the help of his wife, Isabella and
two employees, in order to constrain his operating costs.
The Honourable Margaret
Forbes-Sempill’s relationship with Miss Joan Mary Wright
Miss Joan
Mary Wright moved to Scotland in 1932 and she knew the Honourable Margaret
Forbes-Sempill vaguely from that time.
In 1938 both of them joined the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service, a
branch of the British Army) together soon after its formation in September
1938. However, during WW2 they went
their separate ways, with Margaret being seconded to the WAAFs (Women’s
Auxiliary Air Force, a branch of the RAF formed in 1939). Joan Wright became company commander of the
15th Banffshire Company, ATS, attached to the 6th (Banff and Donside)
Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders.
Following the
end of WW2 they saw each other only occasionally until September 1953 when they
met at the house of Margaret’s aunt in Aberdeen. After that time they formed a lesbian
relationship, or to put it in Joan’s more delicate language “they were very
good friends”, which association lasted until Margaret’s death in 1966. They saw each other frequently and Joan knew
Margaret as “Peggy”. From at least 1938,
Joan owned a house, Bridgend Cottage, Inverkeithny, which was located about
four miles north-east of Huntly. She
retained this house as her formal residence until at least 1971. In the 1955 Electoral Register for Aberdeenshire,
she also gave her address as “Boat of Cobblehouse, Bridge of Marnoch” which
lies about two miles from Inverkeithny, and also at the Inverkeithny
address. It is unclear if these
different addresses were two separate properties. Perhaps they were not.
Margaret
moved to Druminnor to live from 1955 to 1960, after which she mostly lived in
Laundry Cottage in the castle grounds until the renovation project was nearing
completion. However, dry rot was discovered in the cottage and for a period she
moved to live with Joan Wright at Inverkeithny, though that involved a 40 mile
round trip each day, as Margaret was supervising the work at Druminnor. The demolition work involved the removal of
an early 19th century extension by the noted Aberdeen architect,
Archibald Simpson, a bold move which allowed the restoration of the castle to
its original lay-out and appearance.
Druminnor was
first available for public viewing in January 1966 and had 1,200 visitors on
its first day of opening. About the time
of the opening of the castle to the public, Margaret took up residence in her
now renovated castle. She started to
become involved in activities of the local community and in early March 1966
she opened a sale of work held in support of Rhynie School. In ending her opening speech, she showed that
her command of the Doric was as good as that of her younger sibling with the
exhortation to the attendees, “G’w’a and teem yer pooches”! (Go
away and empty your pockets).
But this
costly project pitched Margaret into an alleged debt of £3,000. The existence of this debt and its possible
impact on her veracity would later become a central issue in the evidence
considered by the Court in 1967 to determine her younger sibling’s sex. This matter will be dealt with later.
Margaret
Forbes-Sempill had been a horse fancier from an early age. As early as 1924, when she was 19 years old,
she was exhibiting ponies at agricultural shows and by 1929 Margaret had opened
a pony stud at Fintray. Show successes
became a significant way for her to advertise the services of her
stallions. When Margaret and Joan
established their relationship in 1953, Joan Wright joined Peggy as her
“enthusiastic” partner in the pony stud.
After Margaret’s death in 1966, Joan presented a trophy to the Royal
Highland Show in memory of her friend.
In 1967 the trophy was won by a Highland pony that Margaret
Forbes-Sempill had bred six years previously.
Significantly,
both the Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill and Miss Joan Wright enjoyed
friendships with female members of the Royal Family, who travelled to
Aberdeenshire late each summer, extending into autumn, to stay on the Balmoral
Estate on Deeside. The Royal women,
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and her daughters, Queen Elizabeth II and
Princess Margaret, were enthusiastic attenders at various events in the Deeside
season, such as sheepdog and gun dog trials, and Highland gatherings. They were also horse enthusiasts and the
Fintray stud may have been a key factor in cementing these Royal friendships.
Because of her close relationship with Margaret Forbes-Sempill, Joan Wright was one of the few people who were in a position to comment on Margaret Forbes-Sempill’s thoughts and intentions after her death in 1966. Joan Wright’s evidential contribution will be considered later.
The National Trust for Scotland
acquires Craigievar Castle
The 18th
Baron Sempill, John Forbes-Sempill died in 1934. He had fallen out seriously with his eldest
child, William, over the latter’s conversion to Roman Catholicism and he took
revenge on him by leaving only a liferent in his estates to this son. If William had no male children then, after his
death, the estates would pass, in life rent, to the 18th Baron’s
younger brother, Arthur Lionel Ochoncar and from Lionel, on his death, to his
only son, John Alexander Cumnock Forbes –Sempill, Dr Ewan’s cousin, John. The Craigievar
and Fintray estates would then be passed on through the male line issuing from Cousin
John.
The
inheritance of the titles, the Barony of Sempill and the Baronetcy of
Craigievar were decided by different mechanisms. Dr Ewan’s elder brother, William Francis
Forbes-Sempill, through the rules of primogeniture became both 19th
Baron Sempill and 10th Baronet of Forbes-Sempill, as the eldest
child of the 18th Baron and as the eldest son of the 9th
Baronet. The Barony of Sempill would
then pass to his eldest child, his daughter Ann Moira. She became the 20th Baroness
Sempill on his death. However, if
William Francis were to have no sons (and he did not, in spite of marrying
again after the death of his first wife), then the Baronetcy would pass to his
nearest male relative, which would be Dr Ewan, provided that he could sustain
his claim to being male, rather than his initial birth registration as female. Otherwise, the Baronetcy would pass to Cousin
John.
In May 1962,
The Honourable Arthur Lionel Ochoncar Forbes-Sempill, youngest son of the 17th
Baron 8th Baronet died and it may be that this event, as suggested
by Playdon, prompted Lord Sempill’s trustees, the custodians of Craigievar
Castle, to keep it out of the clutches of the Honourable Arthur’s only son, Cousin
John, who lived remotely from Craigievar, its land and people, much of the time
in the London theatrical world. Whatever
the true reason, in October 1963, the NTS bought Craigievar Castle and its
contents from the trustees of John the 18th Baron Sempill. It was the first time that the NTS had
acquired such a large property but its historical significance was so marked
that they felt compelled to secure this almost perfectly preserved, 400-year-old
tower house for the nation.
Additionally, the Trust acquired 30 acres of surrounding land and were
also required to protect the amenities over a further 560 acres. There was an immediate need for the NTS to
raise £30,000 to cover the purchase price, the
cost of adaptations, improvements to the drives and the construction of car
parks for visitors. £10,000 was donated
by the Pilgrim Trust towards the purchase.
A further £60,000 would also be needed, by way of an endowment fund, to
be built up over a period of years. The
then present Lord Sempill, the 19th Baron Sempill (William Francis,
Ewan’s elder brother) and his family would continue to occupy part of the
castle. It was planned for the building
to be opened to the public from the spring of 1965.
The death of William
Francis Forbes-Sempill, 19th Baron Sempill and 10th
Baronet of Forbes-Sempill
In September 1964, Lord Sempill suffered a severe stroke which left him
paralysed down one side. Subsequently,
he underwent an operation which rendered His Lordship even more disabled. Caring for him at Craigievar became very
difficult and the family doctor, William Manson, recommended moving him to a
nursing home, St Raphael’s in Edinburgh about the middle of 1965, where specialist
nursing would be available. Lord Sempill
died at 7.20am on 30th December 1965. He was 72.
The causes of his demise were cerebral
thrombosis, the last incident striking about 10 days prior to death, hypertension
and cerebral arteriosclerosis. His circulatory
system was basically ruined and his imminent passing must have been both expected
and inevitable.
This death of
a minor member of the Scottish aristocracy overnight became a matter for
national curiosity, almost every newspaper in the land carrying the story of
Lord Sempill’s demise and its consequences. Not only had he been a figure of admiration
for his exploits in the heroic early days of aviation, but also his passing
raised again the matter of succession to his titles, particularly the Baronetcy
of Craigievar which could only pass down a male line. Would this title pass unhindered to his
younger brother, Ewan, who had lived most of his life as a female but had
re-registered his birth in 1952, overnight becoming legally male and displacing
his Cousin John from next in line of succession, or would John mount a legal
challenge to the process? The likely
outcome was unclear because these circumstances had never been encountered
before. Mr PW Montagu-Smith, the Editor
of “Debrett’s Peerage” was consulted and his opinion was that Dr Ewan
Forbes-Sempill would succeed to the baronetcy.
Sir Thomas Innes, Lord Lyon King of Arms, was also approached but
declined to give an opinion on the succession, though he admitted, “I may have
to make a decision on this”. An unnamed
member of the College of Heralds was also cautious. “Anybody should be hesitant in committing
themselves to anything concrete on this”, because the situation was entirely
unprecedented.
On 3rd
January 1966, a requiem mass was held for the late Lord Sempill in St Mary’s
Cathedral, Aberdeen. It was attended by
immediate family members, including Lady Sempill, the Honourable Margaret
Forbes-Sempill and the Honourable Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill. Also present was a bevy of cousins,
representatives of various organisations with which Lord William had been
associated and a representative from the National Trust for Scotland. Afterwards, the late Lord Sempill’s coffin,
carried by his estate servants, was interred in Leochel-Cushnie kirkyard about
two miles from Craigievar Castle.
To the
family’s great surprise, Cousin John Alexander Forbes-Sempill, the potential
rival to Dr Ewan for succession to the baronetcy also turned up to the funeral. John rarely looked near Aberdeenshire. His local relatives lived completely
different lives, managing estates, partaking in Scottish culture, shooting and
fishing and acting in the manner of traditional lairds. John’s life was essentially the world of the
theatre, especially in London, where he lived in Chelsea and did exotic things,
like raising two lion cubs in his home.
Although he claimed to have visited Margaret frequently during WW2, when
he was based in Inverness, the last time he was known to have travelled to
Aberdeen was in 1956 when he brought a play to His Majesty’s Theatre. On that occasion he suggested that he might
visit both Margaret at Little Fintray, and Craigievar Castle, but no evidence
has been uncovered confirming that he did so.
The family and especially Dr Ewan, who had only recently recorded his
armorial design in the Lyon Register as the Honourable Ewan Forbes of Brux,
must have been alarmed at John’s presence.
What was his true purpose in being there?
John Alexander Forbes-Sempill pursues succession to the Baronetcy of Craigievar
After the
death of a baronet, the decision on succession proceeds as follows. Anyone making such a claim must do so within
six months of the death of the previous incumbent, by application to the
Standing Council of the Baronetage in London, providing genealogical evidence
that he is the nearest male relative to the deceased. That evidence and the information provided by
any other claimant, is then submitted to the appropriate King of Arms (the Lord
Lyon in Scotland) who passes his opinion back to the Standing Council. Their recommendation is then forwarded to the
Home Secretary for confirmation.
Lord William
Francis Forbes-Sempill died on 30 December 1965. The same evening, John Alexander
Forbes-Sempill suddenly left London to travel to Aberdeen where he had arranged
to meet with his family solicitor, Mr Baird Matthews of Newton Stewart (where Cousin
John owned a large house). This
information led to immediate speculation in the Daily Record on 31 December
that John might be considering a claim to the baronetcy. Further, the speed with which John acted and
the fact that he had arranged to meet Baird Matthews in Aberdeen suggests he
may have been implementing a pre-planned move.
Perhaps John was influenced by the action that the trustees of the 18th
Lord Sempill had taken to dispose of Craigievar Castle to the NTS, thus keeping
it out of his inheritance, though the income from the sale (a sum of less than
£30,000) would have been added to the assets held by the trustees and would
eventually pass to him?
The Daily
Record immediately sought the views of Dr Ewan and his wife Isabella. She said
that her husband was upset at the death of his brother, with whom he had been
close. When asked what she knew about Cousin
John’s journey north, she was quite firm.
“I have not heard of this man and as far as I know there’s no question
of him coming north to meet my husband”.
This answer suggests that there had been no discussion at Brux Lodge of
a possible intervention by Cousin John, if Isabella had not even heard of him. Ewan’s only comment came through his
solicitor. “The titles will fall
according to law”. Perhaps at that point
Dr Ewan was confident that he had established his male sex in law and that he
would very likely succeed to the baronetcy?
It is clear
that at the meeting between John Alexander Forbes-Sempill and Baird Matthews in
Aberdeen, or possibly even earlier, John had given his solicitor an instruction
to pursue a claim to the baronetcy on his behalf. In Aberdeen, Baird Matthews immediately
arranged a meeting with the Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill at her house,
Little Fintray. This meeting took place
in early January, though he could not remember the date, but it appeared to
have been after the funeral. Matthews
asked Margaret for some facts on Forbes-Sempill family history, which were
necessary in order to make a claim to the baronetcy. Dr Ewan’s position was also mentioned in the
meeting. Baird Matthews later revealed
that he had communicated some information on family relationships to the
Registrar of Baronetcies, but this did not amount to a formal claim, as it was
incomplete. Matthews also stated that at
their initial meeting, Margaret had revealed that she was in possession of
“certain information” about Dr Ewan’s upbringing. Inevitably, Margaret Forbes-Sempill was also
asked by the Press and Journal to give an opinion on the succession to the
baronetcy. Her reply suggests that she
knew of Cousin John’s anticipated challenge at that time, 3rd
January 1966. “The usual wheels have got
to grind round no matter what anyone wants.
It is not a personal thing for anyone – this decision whether more than
one person should be considered as having a claim to the title. It will presumably go to the Court of Baronetage
through the office of the Lord Lyon King of Arms, Sir Thomas Innes of
Learney. This is always done when any
succession is not absolutely direct”.
This was hardly a ringing endorsement of her brother’s position. It should be born in mind that at that time a
degree of froideur still existed
between Margaret and Ewan.
Baird Matthews
also issued a statement to the press on behalf of his client. “Captain Forbes-Sempill is in Aberdeen
primarily to pay his respects to his late cousin. He falls heir to substantial property,
including the estates of Craigievar and Fintray. Certain legal questions have arisen out of
this inheritance and these have been dealt with. So far as any other matter is concerned,
Captain Forbes-Sempill has no comment to make”. Ewan, too, tried to present an air of calm
and detachment. “No doubt this will be
clarified within a day or two. Certainly, as far as we are concerned, we
haven’t been thinking about anything else except the funeral”.
Cousin John,
through his solicitor then approached Dr Ewan via his legal representative,
seeking a meeting with him, but would not reveal its purpose in advance. The meeting took place in Alford at an
unnamed venue, though it could hardly have been anywhere else but the Houghton
Arms Hotel in the centre of the town. The
actual date of the meeting is unclear but is presumed to have been in early
January 1966. It was a face-to-face
meeting between John and Ewan with their respective solicitors, Baird Matthews
for John and Harry Forbes for Ewan, present in the building but not in the
meeting. Thus what was said between the
two of them was not witnessed and would be deniable, if necessary. There is an account by Ewan in the Court
papers of what was discussed but no report of John’s side of the
interaction. If Ewan’s version is accurate,
the meeting was utterly bizarre and difficult to interpret. However, it is entirely possible that Ewan
was employing selective recall, as he did on other occasions, to make his
position seem reasonable.
Allegedly,
John said he wanted to see Ewan about the baronetcy and Ewan replied ““What
about it”? He said that he had put in a
claim for it, what did I think of this?”
Ewan replied ““Oh well, it’s a free country, if you want to put in a
claim that’s all right”, and he said he thought he oughtn’t to have done it”
and Ewan said ““Well, it’s up to you”.
Then he told me, he said, “Oh well, my father arranged it before, that
this should be done immediately, I am only doing what my father arranged”. We had a chat which ended quite pleasantly
and he thought he would like to withdraw his claim. We went downstairs and saw Mr Harry Forbes of
Stronach & Son, Aberdeen and he said “How are you doing” and I said, “My
cousin says he would like to withdraw his claim” and Mr Forbes asked him if
this was so and he said “Yes”, but later that afternoon I gathered from Mr
Forbes, Mr Matthews had phoned to say “Did my client say this, because he
doesn’t mean it””.
What was the
purpose of the meeting? It seems
unlikely that it was concerned with the inheritance of the estates of
Craigievar and Fintray, since they were going to Cousin John under the terms of
the will of the 18th Baron Sempill.
The only other significant matter between them, arising from the death
of the 19th Baron Sempill was the inheritance of the baronetcy, as
Ewan claimed John had recounted. But that
was a matter for the law of the land as exercised by the organs of the state
set up to deal with such instances. Each
cousin had an arguable claim to the assumption of the baronetcy. Ewan could claim that he had already
established in law that he was male and thus that the title should pass to
him. On the other hand, John could claim
that, in spite of the re-registration of the birth of Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill,
Ewan was a female and always had been. If
each party was prepared to make a case for the assumption of the Forbes-Sempill
Baronetcy, then it is reasonable to assume that both John and Ewan wanted the
title and had his own reasons for doing so.
By the time
of the meeting, John, through his lawyer, may already have gathered information
which supported his case, whereas Ewan, because of the strong feelings of
maleness that he possessed, may already have held an unshakable conviction that
he was male. What was at stake was the
immediate inheritance of a title which, if he were to outlive Ewan, John would
eventually fall heir to anyway. For John
to prove his case there would need to be a medical examination of Ewan and that
could prove to be very intrusive for the latter. Similarly, for Ewan, that was also the route
by which he might prevail. For both of
them there was a risk of incurring significant cost in proving his position but
the consequences of losing the argument were heavily imbalanced between the two
antagonists. For John there was minimal consequence
but for Ewan the personal cost of losing was dire.
Perhaps
during their discussion both John and Ewan realised that such a process would
be fraught with danger for Ewan? What if
John could prove his case? That could
result in Ewan’s marriage to Isabella becoming invalid, since two females could
not legally marry at the time. Further,
the partners would be looked upon as two lesbians in a relationship. Did John seek to point out the pitfalls for
Ewan and did the two of them then look for a way out of the situation which
would leave Ewan’s marriage and his privacy intact? If John had withdrawn his claim, then the
Standing Council of the Baronetage would have examined an application by Ewan
on the evidence then available that he was male, ie the signatures of three
doctors to that effect in 1952 at the time of the re-registration of
Elizabeth’s birth. Ewan would then
likely have become the 11th Baronet Forbes-Sempill of Craigievar and
Fintray without being required to jump through further hoops.
But John was
not a generous person and had not been close to Ewan. Further, he may have seen Ewan as being
behind the move to sell Craigievar to the NTS and may have harboured a desire
for revenge. It is also possible that
John’s father’s views, which Ewan admitted John had cited, may have impressed
on him that he would inherit the baronetcy, along with the estates. If John changed his mind on withdrawing his
claim after the meeting, perhaps it was because on reflection and in discussion
with his solicitor that he realised the strength of his position.
Following his
initial meeting with the Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill in early January
1966, Baird Matthews, John Alexander Forbes-Sempill’s solicitor, entered into
correspondence with Margaret to gather the evidence necessary to support a
claim to the baronetcy. In a letter of
25th February 1966, he enclosed a partial family history of the
Forbes-Sempills and asked Margaret five questions designed to elicit
information to fill in the gaps in the incomplete account. He also included the intriguing statement “We
were interested to gather that you had some information regarding Dr Ewan
Forbes-Sempill in connection with his having been brought up as a girl and we
shall be pleased to have any information you can give us in this connection
with as much detail as possible to help us in our claim”.
When were the
formal claims to the baronetcy submitted?
According to the Evening News, no petition had been submitted to the
office of the Lord Lyon by 18th January but that was not the initial
destination of any claim, which was the Standing Council of the Baronetage in
London. Baird Matthews later said in evidence that it was about March 1966 that
he received instructions to raise Cousin John’s claim with the Registrar of
Baronetcies but acknowledged that the matter had been under consideration by
his client for “weeks or even months”, which would be consistent with the
matter first being raised on the death of his cousin, the late Lord Sempill. Presumably this instruction was the reason
that Matthews wrote again to Margaret on 4th March, addressing her
familiarly as “Dear Peggy”, politely urging her to expedite her reply to his
previous request for information. “I
shall esteem it a favour if you will deal with this matter as soon as
convenient”.
A letter in
reply to Baird Matthew’s last missive was prepared four days later. It was dictated by Margaret but written down
by her companion, Joan Wright, she said verbatim,
with no interpretation by the scribe, and then signed by Margaret. The evidence was highly supportive of Cousin
John’s claim that Ewan was a member of the female sex, as the following
extracts demonstrate.
“I understand
that a claim had been lodged on John’s behalf with the Registrar of Baronetage
immediately after Lord Sempill’s death.
I hope that the following information is all that you require, as you
will see that I have made three corrections on the family tree that you
enclosed”.
“I always
regarded Dr Ewan as my sister and I feel quite sure that there was never any
doubt as to her sex”.
“After all I
was seven years older than her and when my mother died in 1944, she never said
anything about a possible change. As a
small child, she was very delicate but after her middle teens (about 1927) she became quite strong and
healthy”.
“She went
through the phase (as I did myself and so many girls do) of wanting to be a
boy. She went to parties, dances, etc
and was presented at Court in 1929 or 1930.
She had her periods regularly
just the same as any other girl. (Miss Deal would confirm this. I give you her address later). Miss Deal is alive and living in Essex”.
Margaret also
said that she always called her sister “Betty” and used the female pronoun in
referring to her. This was a powerful
and significant set of claims by Margaret but probably none more so than that
which has been emphasised concerning menstruation. Baird Matthews and Cousin John must have
thought they had won the jackpot when they read Margaret’s letter. Surely John had, by this date, become
convinced that his claim was likely to prevail?
Once Ewan learned that Cousin John had actually submitted a claim to the
baronetcy, he was almost without choice as to his response. The threat to Ewan’s marital status and his
life, away from the curiosity of the public and the intrusions by the gentlemen
of the Press, caused him to explore the possibility of ceding the title to his
cousin without a contest. That way, a
formal investigation of his sexual status might have been avoided and the
question never addressed. But, the
application of the law proved to be paramount.
The evidence would decide who would accede to the title. This development meant that Ewan had to
submit his own claim, which was made just inside the six month window following
the death of his brother, Lord Sempill.
Had Ewan failed to submit a claim, John would not have automatically
assumed the title but the new baronet would certainly not have been Ewan. However, if John were to be successful with
his claim, then the disastrous consequences for Ewan and Isabella’s marriage
and their quiet life at Brux would inevitably descend. No matter how much Ewan valued the baronetage
and its accompanying address of “Sir” Ewan, it clearly did not outweigh the
value he put on his hard-won way of life.
The threat to Ewan’s conduct of his affairs was so serious that about
the end of July 1966 he decided to supplement his local solicitor, Harry Forbes,
by additionally instructing a high profile advocate based in Edinburgh, Herbert
John Haldane, a partner in Messrs Haldanes & McLaren. If there was going to be a legal contest to
decide Ewan’s sex, then at least he would he represented by one of the Scottish
capital’s brightest legal minds. Cousin
John had also by this time made a similar move taking on a representative from
Tods Murray, another very high profile Edinburgh law firm.
The agreement for
Ewan to undergo medical examination in return for the use of the summary trial
procedure
Ewan received a summons in the Action being mounted by John on 21st
August 1966. It was alleged by John that
Ewan “is now and has all along been of the female sex in the physical,
anatomical, physiological and genetic meanings of that term”. Dr Ewan’s counter-petition was that “the second petitioner is now and
has all along been of the male sex in respect that he is a hermaphrodite with
predominant male characteristics”.
The noun
“hermaphrodite” is derived from the combination of Hermes (the male winged
messenger of the gods) and Aphrodite (the Greek goddess of love and beauty) and
denotes a person or animal having both male and female sex organs, or
other sexual characteristics, either abnormally present, or (in the case of
some animals such as most pulmonate snails) as the natural condition. In medical science, the term “hermaphrodite”
originally meant the same as “intersex” but has now been replaced by that term
and “true hermaphrodite”, which means that both ovarian and testicular tissues
are present in the same individual. True
human hermaphrodites are extremely rare.
The application of these terms to Dr Ewan will be considered later.
Herbert Haldane successfully applied to the Court of Session for the
summary trial to be held in private but John refused to agree. He was piling as much pressure on his cousin
as possible. About the middle of
September 1966 negotiations got underway between Haldanes and Tods Murray to decide
whether the petition by John could be determined by the summary trial
procedure. They broke down before subsequently being
reactivated and previous letters between the two parties were then withdrawn
and replaced by a new letter, dated 24th October 1966, which
detailed the terms under which Ewan would undergo medical examination in return
for a summary trial. So, that was the
trade-off, Ewan agreed to a medical examination in exchange for a concession from
John to use the summary trial procedure.
The letter of instruction was signed by both sets of lawyers.
Sometime
about the beginning of October 1966, Ewan learned about the unhelpful letter
that Margaret had written to Baird Matthews concerning Elizabeth’s early
life. The route of transmission appeared
to have been Margaret to Cecilia, the widow of the late Lord Sempill, and then Cecilia
to Ewan. The contents of the missive
must have alarmed Ewan and Isabella, since it so clearly called into question
Ewan’s then current claim to male status.
Although Ewan and Margaret had been distant from each other for some
time past, he decided to invite her to dinner at Brux Lodge and Margaret
readily accepted. The evening of the
dinner is thought to have been 17th October 1966. Margaret travelled there from Druminnor
Castle in her Land Rover, a distance of about seven miles.
According to
Margaret’s friend, Joan Wright, Margaret told her afterwards that during the
evening Ewan, Isabella and she had discussed “the whole thing”. The interchange had been extended, lasting
until about 4.00 am “with a lot of medical documents”. Ewan tried to give Margaret a medical
explanation of his status but the technicalities seemed to be beyond her
ken. Joan said of Margaret, “I know that
she was very tired and she could not understand a lot of the medical documents,
she said it was all Greek and Chinese to her”.
Had she suffered some intellectual
impairment as a result of the car accident in 1930 which had left her blind for
so long? One suspects she may have had
incurred some neurological deficit since she had also been unable to write down
her own letter to Baird Matthews. For
her part, Margaret apologised for the hurt she had caused to both Ewan and
Isabella and some sort of reconciliation seems to have been achieved.
The day after the meeting over dinner at Brux Lodge, Ewan instructed
Herbert Haldane to contact Margaret as she had said she was hoping for a
reconciliation. Probably Ewan was
angling for the damaging letter to be withdrawn. However, and perhaps significantly, Margaret
refused to withdraw the letter. But perhaps
Ewan had made some impact on her perception of his sexual status because
Margaret said to Joan, “When
Brux walked out of my life I thought I had lost a sister but I am by no means
sure now she is not a brother”. Ewan had
also given Margaret permission to approach his GP, Dr Manson, presumably for
Manson to confirm the diagnosis of Ewan’s sex.
Soon after
the dinner at Brux Lodge, Margaret Forbes-Sempill met with Baird Matthews at
the Station Hotel in Aberdeen, though the exact date is unclear. She did not
tell Matthews that she intended visiting Dr Manson. Nor did she say that she thought the whole
matter should be dropped. Matthews
expressed the opinion that it was a common desire of the all those involved
that there should be no publicity about the family. This was the reason why the procedure, a
summary trial before the Court of Session meeting in chambers, was adopted. Was Matthews trying to sooth Margaret’s
anxieties and regrets, so that she would not recant of anything she had
previously communicated?
On 24th
October, Haldanes received a letter from Tods Murray stating the agreed terms
for the medical examination of Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill. The medical experts would be nominated by
John but Ewan would pay all the expenses of both sides. This was not friendly litigation with each
side simply wanting a disagreement resolved by legal experts. John was still
exploiting Ewan’s compliant personality and weak position with his hard negotiating
stance, again illustrating Ewan’s desperation to keep the whole matter out of
the public eye. Also, the first and
second petitioners (legal terms for John and Ewan respectively) were not bound
to accept the findings of the experts as in an arbitration. The experts’ evidence and opinions would
simply provide material for the Court to evaluate.
The third
paragraph of the letter of agreement to the medical examination read, “The
examiners would consist of one or more of Dr Court Brown, Professor Roth, and
Dr Strong but will not necessarily be confined to these three gentlemen”. Who were these medical experts that John had
chosen, or been advised to choose? Prof Michael Court Brown was appointed as Director of
the MRC Clinical Effects of Radiation Unit at the Western General Hospital,
Edinburgh at its establishment in 1956.
In 1967, this MRC unit was renamed the “MRC Clinical and Population
Cytogenetics Unit” and it was heavily involved in the early investigation of the
diagnosis of human cytogenetic disease.
In the event, Michael Court-Brown was not involved in the examination of
Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill and he was replaced by a member of his staff, Dr
Patricia Jacobs, an eminent human cytogeneticist who had been responsible for
the discovery of the chromosomal basis of several human medical conditions. Professor Martin Roth was Head of the
Department of Psychological Medicine at Newcastle University and a consultant
at the Royal Victoria Infirmary. He had
written a chapter in a book on “Intersexuality” and had experience of the
investigation and treatment of such conditions.
Professor John Strong was an eminent endocrinologist who was appointed
to a Chair of Medicine at Edinburgh University in1966. He later served as president of the Royal College
of Physicians of Edinburgh. John Strong
was involved in the discovery of chromosomal abnormalities which resulted in
the creation of intersex conditions. Thus,
there was a heavy involvement of the University of Edinburgh and the Western
General Hospital in the city, and the medical examination of Dr Ewan would take
place at the Western General. How were
these individuals selected? Did Tods
Murray, John’s legal advisers, approach some prominent local doctor for
advice? If so, the most likely candidate
would have been Michael Court-Brown. The
choice of experts from the Edinburgh area looks balanced, with a range of
capabilities in clinical cytogenetics, psychiatry, endocrinology and
familiarity with intersex conditions.
Surely, their opinions would carry considerable weight in the decision
making by the Court? After all, they
were acting for both parties in an agreed process and had not been employed to
advance the interests of either side.
Did the person who selected these experts have a suspicion that the
answer to the riddle of Dr Ewan’s sex would lie in his karyotype (chromosome
complement)? It certainly looked that
way.
The death of the Honourable Margaret
Forbes-Sempill
Following the
reconciliation between Ewan and his sister Margaret over dinner on 17th
October 1966, the pair had agreed to dine together again on 28th
October at Brux Lodge. Two days before
that fateful appointment, Joan Wright spoke to Margaret, whom she said was,
“very bewildered and bemused and very, very tired”. Margaret had also expressed contrition for
the upset she had caused to Ewan’s wife, Isabella, saying, “I can’t bear this
thing to go on because I am so sorry for her”.
She also appeared to have related to Joan a possible solution to the
dispute whereby the baronetcy would be left in abeyance for a generation before
being reactivated. Such a solution would
have been beneficial to Ewan but contained no advantage for John, who would
have to forego inheriting the title, an outcome he must have thought likely to
happen as a consequence of the process of summary trial.
On the
evening of 28th October, Margaret set out from Druminnor for Alford
and Brux Lodge in her Land Rover. In
Alford she was due to see Dr Manson, presumably before travelling on to Brux
Lodge. She never reached her destination.
Three miles from her home, just south of Rhynie on the A97 road, her
vehicle was involved in a head-on collision with a lorry, and a car travelling
behind her ran into the wreckage. The
force of the impact locked the vehicles together and caused a significant leak
of petrol. This hazard prevented the use
of cutting apparatus to free Margaret who was trapped for more than an
hour. She is thought to have been killed
instantly but there were no injuries to the other drivers. Margaret was 61. The following day, the story was covered in
both the P&J and the Evening Express, the headline in the latter reading
“Friend of Queen killed in crash”. The
body of the story contained a summary of Margaret’s life and her achievements,
such as her war record, the pony stud, her representational roles and the
renovation of Druminnor Castle.
Margaret’s
will had been written informally on headed paper from the upmarket Champney’s
Spa, which had started as a nature cure resort in the 1930s, and said simply, “I leave everything I possess to Joan Mary Wright,
Inverkeithny by Huntly, Aberdeenshire.
This cancels any previous wills”.
Joan was thus the sole executor of Margaret’s will and held all her
correspondence. She also continued with
the Druminnor project, holding the castle in trust for the benefit of
Margaret’s heirs, completing the renovation work, opening the building to the
public and acting as guide to visitors.
Thus, a key witness,
the Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill, had been removed from an in-person
appearance during the Court proceedings which would take place six months
hence. Had she been present, more
credibility may have been given to her damning letter to Baird Matthews.
The medical examination of Ewan
Forbes-Sempill at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh
Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill turned up at Professor Court-Brown’s MRC Unit on
26th November 1966 to be medically examined for the purpose of
determining his sex. The conditions
governing this examination had been agreed in advance between the legal
representatives of the two sides. In
order to guard his privacy, the examination of Ewan took place in a private
ward provided by Professor Court-Brown. Professor
Strong would carry out the physical examination and would also take samples of
blood, skin from the arm and buccal epithelium.
Dr Pat Jacobs would be present to witness the sample collection and
would also be responsible for the chromosomal analysis of these tissue
samples. No surgery or anaesthesia would
be permitted, except with the express permission of Dr Forbes-Sempill. It is likely that this last condition was
made to retain control of any proposal to look inside Ewan’s abdominal cavity
to search for gonads, ovaries or undescended testes, which might provide
significant evidence concerning his true sex.
Ewan would later claim that the agreed conditions under which he would
be examined were breached in several ways though he did not object to these
alleged failures at the time of the examination. According to Ewan, the examination lasted for
three hours.
Professor John Strong’s damning report
About a month after the event, Strong’s report on the medical examination
of Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill, which was dated 30th December 1966, was
delivered to the legal representatives of Cousin John and Dr Ewan and was
quickly forwarded to the two petitioners.
Strong gave a comprehensive account of his findings which are summarised
here. In the traditional manner, Strong
first took a patient history, the main points of which were that Ewan had had a
minor surgical procedure on his genitalia at about the age of nine but Strong
was unable to determine the nature of the procedure. He was aware of the claim by the subject that
he had had penile erections and seminal emissions from about the age of 16 and
that since his marriage in 1952 he had had sexual intercourse. Since 1951 he had taken regular therapy with
testosterone-containing linguets.
Strong’s opinion was that the testosterone therapy would be minimally
effective because of the patient’s mature age and the low dose level. Ewan did not have either a normal penis or a
normal clitoris but an intermediate organ about one centimetre long and the
same diameter. In Strong’s opinion it
would be inadequate to achieve either penetration or emission, the urethral
opening not being at the end of the structure but at its base and behind. The unusual urethral opening would make micturition
standing up complicated because it would be difficult to direct the urine
stream. There was a vaginal opening but
Strong did not examine this structure further.
Ewan claimed that he had never experienced any passage of blood, or
anything that resembled menstrual loss, from the vagina.
There was a vigorous growth of hair on the anterior chest wall, pubis
and upper thighs and rather marked breast development, more so than would be
normal in a male. The areolae were three
centimetres in diameter and the nipples were female in form. Because Ewan’s case was a possible example of
testicular feminisation (when sexual development in a chromosomal male is
essentially female due to insensitivity to testosterone) he examined Ewan
thoroughly for the presence of undescended testes but found none in the
inguinal canals. Ewan had pointed out to
Strong the existence of two small lumps on his left side, one in the inguinal
region and one in the femoral region.
Strong examined these lumps and ascribed them to varicose veins, from
which Ewan had suffered since at least the early 1930s. Labia majora were present, but no scrotum and
there was no evidence for the labia containing testes. (The labia majora are the homologues of the
scrotum in a male). He also carried out
a rectal examination but that revealed no evidence for a testis either. Strong’s conclusion was that Ewan’s was a
case of female virilisation, caused by exposure to testosterone during in utero development, probably due to
the presence of a condition called Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. This is a
complex of genetically-determined (autosomal recessive) disorders characterised
by impaired production of the hormone cortisol in the adrenal cortex. There are several genetic variants which can
be involved and the degree of abnormality ranges from minimal to
life-threatening. The condition can
affect boys and girls. One frequent
feature in new born females with this condition is a varying degree of
virilisation (development of adult male characteristics). This is caused by the over production of male
sex hormones by the adrenal glands.
The associated report from Pat Jacobs showed that dividing cells in
lymphocyte cultures had a 46XX karyotype indicating, subject to the qualification
of the limited number of cells examined and the fact that solid staining of the
chromosomes had been employed, that Ewan had a normal female chromosome
constitution. Cells of the buccal
epithelium contained a single Barr-body, suggesting that in that tissue source
cells again contained two X-chromosomes.
The third tissue sampled was skin from which cell cultures were grown,
probably consisting of dermal fibroblasts, cells whose function is to produce
the proteins, such as collagen, which make up the extracellular matrix and give
strength and structure to tissues such as skin.
Again the chromosomal constitution in the cells studied was 46XX with no
variation.
Strong’s report reached Brux Lodge on 5th January 1967 and it
is assumed that Ewan read its contents immediately. His heart must have sunk on seeing the
findings and Strong’s conclusion. His
most feared nightmare had seemingly become reality: the evidence said he had
been born female and not male, as he had probably convinced himself. The likely outcome was that John would be
invested with the title of 11th Baronet of Craigievar. But worse than that, Ewan’s marriage could
now become illegal and the prurient interest of the Press would have to be endured
yet again. What could he possibly do to
recover from this seemingly, irredeemably lost situation, especially since the
hearing in the Court of Session was due in May, a mere four months away? Ewan was both bright and determined, in spite
of his outwardly amiable and accommodating manner. He would not surrender without a fight.
The remarkable
happenings between January and May, 1967
Between these two dates there was a remarkable burst of activity by Ewan
and those acting on his behalf in order to collect evidence which might be used
to overturn the conclusions in Professor Strong’s report. A lump which, allegedly, now appeared in Ewan’s
groin was biopsied three times and two of the samples were successfully
analysed by at least four different pathologists/cytologists. He gave three or possibly four urine samples
several of which were analysed for their hormone content. Two blood samples were taken but how they
were analysed has not been uncovered. He
was physically examined by three further doctors, by one of them on two
separate occasions, the last time being during the period of the Court
hearing. He was psychiatrically examined
twice. In contrast, John appeared to be largely
content with the findings of Professor Strong and Dr Jacobs, and appeared
confident that he would win the day in Court, since their evidence seemed so
clear-cut in support of his contention that Ewan was a female. In contrast, Ewan had a hill to climb but he
spared no expense or effort in pursuing his goal. However, what seemed to be driving him was
not the desire to gain the baronetcy but the need to preserve his marriage and
his way of life.
Ewan began to search around for medical experts to support his
case. He approached Professor Cawadias
for help but, though Cawadias was still alive, he was too old to be consulted. Instead, Ewan was advised to approach
Professor Paul Polani at Guy’s Hospital Medical School, at the suggestion of Dr
Stewart Houseman, who had been his brother’s physician in London. Polani and his research unit at Guy’s were
deeply involved in the then rapidly developing field of medical cytogenetics. He was one of the discoverers of the XO (ie a
single X and no second sex chromosome) constitution of Turner’s Syndrome
individuals and later, in 1960, of the cause of Down’s Syndrome in young
mothers, due to a translocation of chromosome 21, rather than trisomy of that
member of the human karyotype, which was typical of older parents. Ewan visited Polani, although the date of the
visit has not been uncovered, and they had a long chat especially about chromosomes. This was new information to Dr Ewan, whose
medical training had ended in 1944 before the emergence of human cytogenetics,
and especially the involvement of sex chromosomes in the determination of sex,
as a new field of enquiry. Polani
recommended that he approach Dr Peter Bishop, which Ewan did, but he could not
help as he had already been consulted by Cousin John. In the end he engaged Mr Dewhurst of
Sheffield University to examine him.
A testis appears, suddenly and fortuitously
Almost immediately after the delivery of the Strong Report curious
events started to happen either involving Ewan or the sudden recall by him of
earlier incidents.
Ewan claimed that during mid-January he had a particularly severe attack
of bronchitis which caused fits of coughing and the lump in his left groin,
which he had been aware of for some time and which he had pointed out to
Professor Strong in October the previous year, became more prominent and
protruded further from the place where it had been hiding “and became quite
evident”. His immediate thought was that
it might be a testis or that it might be a cancerous mass, or both. The family issues which brought these worries
to the front of his mind were, he claimed, two-fold. In 1959 he had ruptured a tendon and his
medical advisors initially thought that it might be cancerous. It proved not to be malignant but this event
had implanted an anxiety about cancer in his mind. Soft tissue cancers (fibrosarcomas) are rare,
being more frequent in the elderly and those who have previously been treated
with radiotherapy, neither risk factor being present in Ewan’s case. The second event concerned a nephew of his
wife, Isabella. This lad had experienced
an undescended testis which had been left until he was 17 or 18 before an
operation was performed, upon which it was discovered that the gonad was
pre-cancerous and it had to be extirpated.
The first biopsy
At the time it was known that an undescended testis increased the risk
of testicular cancer and Ewan claimed that his cancer anxieties had been
triggered. He needed peace of mind, so
how did he set out to settle his worries?
He decided to biopsy the suspicious lump himself! But why take this route when there was a
compliant doctor a few miles down the road who would have all the necessary
materials and instruments available to carry out the procedure?
Ewan’s next
problem was to secure a competent analysis of the biopsied tissue’s
character. The sample was sent,
presumably by post, to his brother’s physician in London, Dr Stuart Houseman,
who had undertaken to get the sample analysed privately by a retired, or
semi-retired, pathologist. Tragedy then
struck as the pathologist suffered a coronary thrombosis and the tissue sample
remained unanalysed. So, all this private
effort by Ewan to diagnose the nature of this emergent lump in his left groin
came to nought.
The urine samples
The rush to
gather evidence was not confined to the identification of the recently emergent
inguinal lump. Ewan also set about
collecting evidence relating to the hormones present in his urine. He turned to his friend, Mr James Philip who
had certified his male status in 1952.
Ewan talked
to him about adrenal hyperplasia, which had been postulated by Professor Strong
as an explanation for Ewan’s intersex condition. Philip suggested analysing the hormones
present in Ewan’s urine which might provide decisive evidence on whether CAH
was present. A 24-hour urine sample was
collected on 20th/21st January 1967 and was received
sometime in February 1967 by the Pathology Department at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. Dr Klopper
analysed the sample and sent his detailed report back to Dr Philip, so it must
have been submitted as though Ewan was the patient of Philip. It is interesting to note that Ewan could not
produce a urine sample when he was examined by Strong on 26th
November 1966, which would have been a verifiable sample, though inability to
urinate on demand is not uncommon in patients who may be feeling some tension
from their situation.
A further
urine donation was made on 5th April 1967, this time in the presence
of the Reverend Reid in his house. It
was a small sample, not a 24-hour sample as had been given previously. Since hormone production often shows a
diurnal variation, a 24-hour sample would have been preferable but, of course,
harder to verify as being from a particular subject.
Dr Dewhurst examines Dr Ewan
Forbes-Sempill
Ewan’s
frenetic activity continued. On 24th
January 1967 he was examined by Dr Dewhurst of Sheffield University. Dewhurst had been contacted after the initial
person recommendation by Professor Polani had declined to help. But, unlike Professor Strong, Dewhurst was
engaged by Ewan to represent his interests, rather than take the dispassionate
middle ground that was required of Strong, acting for both petitioners
jointly. The instruction to Dewhurst was
rather vague. He was told there was a
problem and requested to give an opinion on Ewan’s sex in the medical sense. What “medical” actually meant was not
explained but it may have been taken to mean “clinical” rather than
“biological” on the basis of his comments.
Dewhurst’s
physical examination of Ewan reached similar but not identical conclusions to
those of John Strong. He had a mixture
of male and female characteristics, summarised as follows.
Female. Short stature (5ft 2in); Female pattern pubic
hair; Urethra opening behind the phallic organ; Rudimentary vagina; skin folds
resembling the labia minora; Female breast development.
Male. Muscular; No subcutaneous fat; Vigorous hair
growth on the chest, limbs and to a lesser extent on the abdomen; Receding hair
line; Small phallic organ 2cm length and 1cm diameter with glans; Male length
perineum.
Dewhurst also
asked for two blood samples to be taken from Ewan, though the purpose was not
explained. They were extracted by Dr
Manson on April 4th. Perhaps
Dewhurst was independently having Ewan’s karyotype analysed? If so, and the result was 46XX, that would
account for no report being forthcoming as the information would not have been
helpful to Ewan’s case.
The second biopsy
Having failed
in his first attempt to have a biopsy from his inguinal lump analysed
histologically, Ewan repeated the process of self-biopsy on 3rd
March 1967, after he had first phoned William Manson and asked if he (Manson)
could send the biopsied tissue to the Pathology Department at Aberdeen
University for examination and identification under Manson’s name. William agreed to this request which was
highly irregular and un-professional.
Manson was told by Ewan that it was a biopsy from the left inguinal
region. He was not told who made it and
he never saw it. The covering letter, in
Manson’s name was not written by him.
This second biopsy was performed in the same anatomical place as the
earlier one. Ewan carried out the
operation early in the afternoon after lunch.
He put the biopsy in a small container “the kind one gets medical
samples sent in”, sealed it up and posted it addressed to the Pathology
Lecturer at Foresterhill, Aberdeen. Ewan
wrote the covering letter, which accompanied the sample, in William Manson’s
name. It read as follows. “From Dr WGC Manson, Coreen, Alford. Patient’s name – Forbes, Ewan. Biopsy from inguinal region. Please identify tissue and state if any
malignancy present”. Manson later acted
as apologist for his former boss’ behaviour, offering an explanation for this
unusual request. “I feel he was no
longer actually engaged in the practice of medicine in the County and no longer
was sending specimen samples, etc, to the University of Aberdeen for
examination, and I thought that the idea was that he would do it through his
practitioner, and a person who was in the habit of sending material, etc to
this department in Aberdeen”.
Whatever
strategy Ewan was adopting to counter Strong’s report William Manson was now
becoming complicit in that scheme. At
the Pathology Department the assumption would naturally be made that Manson
himself had carried out the biopsy as part of his duties on behalf of his
patient. The report on the biopsy was
subsequently sent to Dr Manson. Again,
with this second biopsy the procedure employed did not verify the origin of the
sample.
The testis
biopsy was received by the Pathology Department at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
during the week 27th February – 4th March, the entry in
their day book reading, “689 Ewan Forbes, Dr Manson of Alford, Biopsy of
Inguinal Region”. The samples were
delivered to Dr Alexander Logie Stalker, who was a lecturer in Pathology at
Aberdeen Medical School at the time.
Later, in 1969, he was promoted to a personal chair. Dr Stalker delivered his report on the
histological investigation of the biopsy on 17th April 1967. He examined the tissue and came to the
conclusion that it was testicular tubule tissue with very little
spermatogenesis. Most of the tubules
were lined by supporting cells and there was a certain amount of interstitial
tissue. The appearance was typical of cryptorchism, or undescended testis. Curiously, Stalker also considered if the
tissue came from a non-human source and concluded that this was very unlikely,
as he carried out certain tests, the results of which were consistent with a
human origin for the testis sample.
The third biopsy
Dr William
Manson’s involvement with Ewan Forbes-Sempill’s attempt to overturn the
conclusions of Professor John Strong’s report into his sexual status became
progressively deeper. About the 21st
of March1967, Manson visited the City Laboratories at the City Hospital in
Aberdeen to order heparinised tubes in preparation for collecting peripheral
blood from his patient, heparin being an anti-coagulant. Why did he visit in person rather than make a
telephone request? Perhaps he was in a
hurry and hoped to collect and take away the tubes as a result of his
visit? Unfortunately there followed an
administrative bungle and the heparinised tubes were posted to the wrong Dr
Manson, one who worked in Peterhead and it was the end of March before the
tubes reached their intended recipient in Alford. The blood samples (2 x 10cc)
were taken on 4th April.
On 28th
March 1967, Ewan’s now much-assaulted inguinal lump was biopsied on a third
occasion, this time at “Rosemount”. Dr
Manson performed the surgery and the Reverend Reid, then minister at Kildrummy
Kirk, witnessed the procedure and took charge of the sample. Presumably the Reverend Reid was chosen
because a Man of God’s veracity and rectitude would be beyond challenge. Ewan had been an elder of the Kildrummy Kirk
since about 1965 and was well known to the Reverend Reid. Had Ewan been given some advice on the
collection, preservation and transmission of evidential items in a verifiable
way? That looks likely when the
conditions surrounding the three biopsy occasions are compared. Ewan later revealed that it had been
suggested, but he did not say by whom, that a fully authenticated biopsy should
be sent to Dr Klopper. Reid was charged
with personally transporting the biopsy to Aberdeen and delivering it to Klopper.
Superficially,
the process by which the third biopsy was collected and secured in the
possession of the Reverend Reid seemed to be watertight. Manson put the tissue in a bottle and handed
it to Reid, who wrote Ewan’s name on the container. He personally delivered it to Dr Klopper’s
department at the Aberdeen Maternity Hospital and it was never out of Reid’s
possession on its journey.
The psychiatric investigations
On 6th
April 1967, Ewan Forbes-Sempill was examined by Professor Martin Roth, Head of
the Department of Psychological Medicine at Newcastle University and a
consultant at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle. He had been one of the doctors included in
the original joint agreement with Cousin John as potential participants in the
investigation of Ewan’s sex. Clearly,
this high status psychiatrist’s view was being sought on Ewan’s psychological
sex, where he could be confident of the outcome. Ewan travelled down to Newcastle for the
consultation.
Roth first
carried out a standard psychiatric examination of Ewan in order to discover his
main personality features and this was complemented by the administration of
the Terman-Miles psychological test, which was designed to assess the place an
individual occupies on a masculinity – femininity scale. However, to increase the confidence Roth had
in his findings, he requested that this test should be repeated when Ewan had
returned to Aberdeen.
After Ewan
had reached home, arrangements were made for the Terman-Miles psychological
test to be repeated, along with other tests.
These were administered in early May 1967 by Mrs Constance Mina Matheson,
or Cordiner, Principal Psychologist with the North-East Regional Hospital
Board. The repeat of the Terman-Miles
test ascribed a score of +18 to Ewan, “plus” indicating a leaning to maleness
and “minus” a leaning to femaleness. A
further test that was employed by Mina Matheson was the Minnesota Multi-Physic
Personality Inventory which measures trends towards various psychiatric
illnesses. Masculinity-femininity is one
of the properties measured and Ewan’s score was within the normal range for
masculinity.
The examination of Ewan Forbes-Sempill
by Professor Armstrong
In 1967, Professor Charles Nathaniel Armstrong was Director of Postgraduate Medical
Education at Newcastle University and consultant physician at the Royal
Victoria Infirmary. At the time he was
73 and during the previous two decades he had developed a particular interest
and expertise in intersex conditions. While Ewan was present in Newcastle consulting
Professor Roth, he was also examined by Professor Armstrong, perhaps at Roth’s
suggestion, on 6th April 1967.
Armstrong’s findings were similar to those made by other clinicians who
had examined Ewan. On the basis of
external genitalia alone, Ewan was mostly female but the enlarged clitoris,
hair distribution and general build suggested maleness, which Armstrong
attributed to the apparent presence of a testis.
Lord John Hunter is appointed to hear
the petition of John Forbes-Sempill and Ewan Forbes-Sempill
John Hunter was the son of a QC.
He had been born in 1913 and studied law at both Oxford and Edinburgh
universities. Hunter practised as a KC
in Edinburgh and was elected as a Senator of the College of Justice in
1961. On 13th March 1967, the
petitions from the two Forbes-Sempill cousins were published.
“Court of Session,
Scotland. Petition of (First) John
Alexander Cumnock Forbes-Sempill and (Second) The Honourable Ewan Forbs-Sempill
for Determination of a Question under Section 10 of the Administration of
Justice (Scotland) Act, 1933.
Addresses. 3 Mallord Street,
Chelsea, London, SW3 and Brux Lodge, Alford, Aberdeenshire”. Three days later, “The Lord Ordinary having
heard Counsel for the parties appointed a proof to be taken before him in
chambers, appoints said proof to proceed on Monday the 15th day of
May 1967 at ten o’clock forenoon and grants diligence for citing witnesses and
havers”
The summary trial 15th – 18th
May 1967
It is a
convention in the British legal systems that representation of a party in the
supreme court must be by a barrister.
The barristers engaged to present the cases of the two petitioners were
Charles Jauncey, QC for Ewan and William Grieve for Cousin John.
Lord Hunter
had agreed after conferring with the legal representatives both the first and
the second petitioners to hear the case in chambers. But the venue proved not to be his grand
official accommodation but a solicitor’s office elsewhere, probably in Edinburgh
and possibly the premises of one of the two solicitors representing the
petitioners. It is perhaps not
surprising that Lord Hunter should agree to this unusual arrangement, given the
very delicate nature of the issue to be decided and the inevitably detailed
anatomical and physiological evidence that would be presented and debated. It seems unlikely that Ewan Forbes-Sempill
was being granted privileged treatment because of his aristocratic status. This was not a trial of someone accused of
law-breaking but an example of the judiciary being requested to decide a
disputed issue between two members of the same family. There was not an obvious public interest
argument and the protection of the privacy of Ewan Forbes-Sempill was probably
just down to Lord Hunter showing some sympathy with this aspect of the case
before him.
After the
death of Lord Sempill, the first petitioner (Cousin John) had raised an action
against the second petitioner (Dr Ewan) for the reduction (ie reversal) of the
re-registration of Ewan’s birth in 1952) and a declaration that Cousin John was
the heir male of Lord Sempill. The
summons was signeted and served on Ewan but the two sides had agreed that it
would not be lodged for calling.
Both
petitioners had registered claims with the Home Secretary to succeed to Lord
Sempill’s baronetcy, though the second petitioner had withdrawn his claim prior
to the Court hearing. This action did
not cede the title to Cousin John, as the Secretary of State had indicated that
he was not prepared to enter John’s name on the Register of the Baronetcy “in
present circumstances” but if the Court were to find that the first petitioner was
the heir male to Lord Sempill then he would enter John Forbes-Sempill’s name on
the register. So, it was up to John and
his legal representatives to prove their contention that Ewan was, and always
had been, female.
In reporting
on the conduct of the Court proceedings, I have chosen to stay with the
sequence in which the various witnesses appeared, except where re-examination
occurred, thus generally preserving the revelatory sequence in which the Court,
especially Lord Hunter, gained information.
The examination of Professor John
Strong
John Strong was a doctor of considerable status and experience. He
was concerned with general medicine and had a particular interest in
endocrinology. Initially, following his
examination of Ewan, he had concluded that the subject was female but had
suffered from adrenal hyperplasia in
utero. “I felt confident about it,
this was entirely in keeping with what one might expect in congenital adrenal
hyperplasia”. Strong was clearly reluctant to accept the finding of a
testis in Ewan. He had sought an
undescended testis and not found one. He
searched assiduously for undescended testes because another possible
explanation for Dr Forbes-Sempill’s condition was testicular feminisation in
which the testes fail to descend properly.
The lumps that Ewan had pointed out to him were in his opinion caused by
varicose veins. However, if a testis was
believed to be present it caused as many new problems as the old problems that
it apparently solved. Adrenal hyperplasia would then not be a tenable
explanation if a testis was present.
Three different tissue samples were taken from Ewan by Professor Strong
or his assistant, Dr Price, and they had produced consistent results in
indicating that his sex chromosome compliment was XX, yet in order for a testis
to form there had to be a Y-chromosome present.
Thus, the XX sex chromosome constitution ruled out testicular
feminisation as an explanation. Ewan
Forbes-Sempill had claimed that he had never menstruated but Strong stated that
he had menstruated when young and that would have been consistent with ovarian
tissue being present. It is unclear what
information allowed Strong to make that assertion. He was asked if a Y-chromosome might be
present in some cells, or had been present in the past but could not be found
now and, of course he had to admit that this was a possibility and that Ewan
might well be a mosaic and a true hermaphrodite. That was his final conclusion. When pressed in Court to say if Ewan was more
male or female he declined to answer, simply because it depended on how one
viewed the different characteristics which might be used to determine sex.
Strong had submitted his second commentary, dated 24th April
1967, following his receipt of the report authored by Dr Stalker on 17th
April. If Dr Stalker’s slides had shown
Barr-bodies in the testis cells, then that would have been a strong indicator
that the testis had come from an individual with at least two
X-chromosomes. But his colleague Dr
McLean, an expert on Barr-bodies, was unable to say one way or the other if
Barr-bodies were present.
A further question put to John Strong concerned the process by which he
would make a decision on someone’s sex.
He agreed that chromosome
sex, gonadal sex, genital sex and psychological sex all had to be considered, but
that no single test was infallible.
However, of all the tests available chromosomal
sex was the most reliable.
John Strong also made a possibly significant point concerning Ewan’s
receding hairline, which had started in his 20s. While such recession is common in men and
uncommon in women, it becomes more frequent with age in the female sex and also
in women who have undergone virilisation.
At times the cross-examination of John Strong descended into obscure
hypothetical questioning to which clear answers could not be given. Such questions often started with “I don’t
know if you can answer this question ...”.
They were often designed to get Strong to admit that a Y-chromosome
could be present, even if not directly demonstrated and that an hypothetical Y
could have been the cause of Ewan developing some male features.
The examination of Dr Patricia Ann
Jacobs
Pat Jacobs
was a permanent member of staff at the MRC Clinical Effects of Radiation
Research Unit at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh and had been in charge
of the Cytogenetics Laboratory there for the last 10 years. She had been involved in seminal research on
human cytogenetics and was a person of high status in that scientific community. Pat Jacobs had personally cultured and
analysed the lymphocyte samples but had also sought the help of colleagues with
other aspects of the work. Although Dr
Jacobs stained the buccal smears, Dr Neil McLean analysed them for
Barr-bodies. Dr Michael Faed cultured
the skin fibroblasts for both sex-chromatin and karyotype analysis and that
analysis was performed by both Jacobs and himself. Additionally, it had been possible to examine
the polymorphonuclear leucocytes (another class of white blood cell) from
Ewan’s blood for the presence of so-called “drumsticks”, small, clubbed
extrusions of the nuclear membrane containing dense chromatin and being the
equivalent of Barr-bodies in buccal epithelial cells. The presence of a drum stick in some
polymorphonuclear leucocytes indicates the presence of two X-chromosomes but
says nothing about the individual’s Y-chromosome status.
The data
derived from the karyotype analysis of lymphocytes and skin fibroblasts showed
46 chromosomes with an XX sex chromosome constitution consistently. Together with the indirect determination of
the X-chromosome constitution of buccal epithelial cells and polymorphonuclear
leucocytes, all the data were consistent with Ewan’s chromosome constitution
being that of a normal female but, at this point, clever questioning by Ewan’s
QC started the recovery from a situation where Ewan’s case appeared to have
been lost. Pat Jacobs had to concede
that she could not exclude the possibility that there might be a Y-chromosome
lurking in some tissue of Ewan’s, because the conclusion that he did not
possess one must always be limited to the cells which were actually observed
and that number would always be limited.
He might still be a mosaic of cells with different chromosome
constitutions. In light of the
subsequent discovery of a testis by and in Ewan, she also conceded that his
most likely constitution was that of a true hermaphrodite, i.e. 46XX/46XY.
Pat Jacobs
then made several important points dealing with the improbability of the
hypothesis being latched onto by Ewan’s legal representative. If Ewan Forbes-Sempill was a mosaic, then
there had to be a mechanism by which this situation came about. An XX – XY mosaic was difficult to envisage
arising by non-disjunction, unlike other common sex chromosome anomalies such
as Turner’s Syndrome and Kleinefelter’s Syndrome. She added, “Sex is determined by chromosomes
at the point of conception” and “A true hermaphrodite is neither a boy nor a
girl”. In the plethora of information
assailing Lord Hunter, these truisms either failed to register or were later
disregarded.
The
possibility that Ewan was an apparent XX male due to a small translocation from
the Y-chromosome which was undetectable by solid staining was also postulated
by Ewan’s QC. He further suggested that
a Y-chromosome might have been present in some cells but was no longer
detectable. These two additional
hypotheses were theoretical concepts which had to be considered, even though
there was no direct evidence for either of them. The QC’s questioning went on in this vein,
posing hypothetical situations to Dr Jacobs which were difficult to answer
precisely and tended to give the impression that this alleged expert was not
really an expert at all. However, the idea put to Pat Jacobs that the existence
of an XX or XY sex chromosome constitution in an individual was merely
coincidental with sex and not determinate drew a sharp response. “No, we know in the vast majority of
individuals a Y chromosome is necessary for the development of testes and an XY
chromosome constitution is necessary for the development of a normal male, and
conversely the XX chromosome constitution is necessary for the development of a
functioning ovary in a normal female, this we know”. The reality was that this type of examination
served to create confusion in the minds of the non-biologists who were
listening. Indeed, this whole episode
demonstrated the fundamental differences between the adversarial legal process
and the methodology of scientific enquiry.
Representative legal minds latch on to improbable things as being
possible explanations, if they benefit their client, whereas scientific minds
are disinterested in promoting an obscure explanation unless it is backed by reliable
facts. They first consider the most
probable, usually simplest, explanation for a phenomenon. They exercise Occam’s Razor.
The supplementary report by Professor
Strong
Dr Stalker’s
findings on the identity of the tissue biopsy were communicated to Professor Strong
and, as a result, he wrote a supplement to his earlier report, though one
suspects he harboured a degree of incredulity at the findings of the Aberdeen
pathologist, because he wrote at the start of his report, “If Stalker’s
findings have to be accepted congenital adrenal hyperplasia is not tenable”. He discussed with his colleague, Dr McLean,
if it was possible to examine the Barr-body status of the tissue biopsy but
McLean, an expert of Barr-bodies was unable to say. The presence of a Barr-body would have
indicated an XX sex chromosome complement as had been found in the other
tissues tested but its absence would have been consistent with the testis being
XY. Strong had changed his preferred
hypothesis to account for Ewan’s condition.
“If the presence of testicular tissue is accepted it is likely to be a
case of true hermaphroditism”, ie Ewan would be a mosaic of both XX- and XY-bearing
cells, with the XY cells being hypothetical as far as direct evidence for their
presence was concerned. Not
surprisingly, the true hermaphrodite hypothesis later became the favourite
explanation of Ewan Forbes-Sempill’s intersex condition by his legal team.
The examination of Dr William Henry
Price
Price accompanied Professor Strong when he examined Ewan on 26th
November 1966, acting as his assistant. Price’s training had been in general
medicine but for the previous two years he had been concerned with clinical
cytogenetics. He did not work on the
samples taken from Ewan but was present when Prof Strong took the history and
carried out the examination, thus corroborating some of Strong’s findings. William Price personally took the samples of
blood and skin. He was asked about his
diagnosis of Ewan at the time that the clinical examination had been concluded
and the chromosome constitution was known to be that of a normal female. His conclusion was that Ewan was a female
intersex (female pseudohermaphrodite) because the genitalia were mainly female,
there was development of breast tissue and the sex chromosome constitution was XX. Price also thought that intercourse for Ewan
would be very difficult. However, if
testicular tissue was present his view would change to that of true
hermaphrodite, that is, an individual with both ovarian and testicular tissue
present and the intersex condition being brought about by the presence of a
testis producing male hormones.
It was
becoming clear that a consistent pattern of opinion was emerging as to Ewan’s
status. If it was accepted that a testis
was present he could not be a female pseudohermaphrodite (intersex) but was
likely to be a true hermaphrodite, having both male and female gonadal tissue.
The examination of Dr
Neil McLean
Neil McLean, Pathology Department, Western General Hospital, who was medically qualified and an
experienced histologist, was involved in this case in two ways. Firstly he had examined the buccal epithelial
cell samples from Ewan for the presence of Barr-bodies and secondly he was
asked to examine the slides of testis biopsy material produced in Aberdeen.
His analysis of the buccal smears was unambiguous. Barr-bodies were present indicating at least
two X-chromosomes were contained in the cells.
Formally this could have indicated a normal female (XX) or a
Kleinefelter Syndrome male (XXY).
However, Kleinefelters individuals are unambiguously male and have long
spidery limbs, which was inconsistent with Ewan’s ambiguous genitalia and his
5ft 2in stature.
The two testis biopsies which had been examined at Aberdeen were called
samples “1” and “2” and were from the second and third biopsies
respectively. Sample 1 had been examined
by Dr Stalker and sample 2 had been examined by Dr Klopper. The slides from these samples were prepared
in Aberdeen, examined there and then passed to Professor Strong in Edinburgh by
Dr Shivas who had travelled to Aberdeen.
Strong, in turn, transferred them on to Dr McLean via his secretary. The slides were transported in a small wooden
box, which was labelled with an identifying number 313239 and “Department of Midwifery, Aberdeen”. The individual slides were not labelled on
the glass. Specimen 1 (two slides) were
sections of two small pieces of immature testis with little or no
spermatogenesis evident. Specimen 2
(three slides), on the other hand was not of testis at all but of an adult ductis
deferens, the tube whose function is to conduct spermatozoa from the testis to
the seminal vesicle. Curiously, on one
of the slides from specimen 2 there was also found a section from a mature,
active testis, which had apparently been included as a check on the success of
the staining reaction. This was a less
than impressive example of record-keeping by the Aberdeen hospital/medical
school.
Neil McLean’s
conclusion was that if the testis specimen came from a person with two X
chromosomes the only reasonable explanation was that the person was an
hermaphrodite. He examined the ductus
deferens (as late as three days before the start of the Court hearing,
employing new sections sent down from Aberdeen) for the presence of sex
chromatin (Barr-bodies) but while he thought they might be present, which would
have indicated that that the ductus deferens had an XX sex chromosome
constitution, he was not confident in this conclusion. However, he had no reason to suspect that the
immature testis and the ductus deferens came from different individuals.
The examination of John Alexander
Cumnock Forbes-Sempill
Cousin John,
the first petitioner in this action, lived in London. He confirmed that the only issue at stake in
this action was the inheritance of the Baronetcy during the life of his cousin
Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill. At that time
Ewan had withdrawn his claim to the Baronetcy, so the only issue remaining was
whether or not John was to be the next Baronet.
This phase of John’s interrogation pointed up starkly his meanness of
spirit, in contrast to Ewan. It also
showed that the title mattered very much to him.
The examination of Dr Alexander Logie
Stalker
Alexander Stalker
was a high-status medical man in Aberdeen, being a Deputy Lieutenant of the
City, holding a higher doctorate and being a Reader in Pathology. His department had received certain samples
from Dr Manson of Alford in the period 27th February – 4th
March 1967. It was the second self-biopsy
taken by Ewan Forbes-Sempill, which was prepared for histological examination
by a junior pathologist and examined by Dr Stalker himself. He identified the tissue as being from a
testis, but one in which there was very little spermatogenesis. Its appearance was that of an undescended
testis.
Mr Jauncey,
Ewan’s QC, was struggling with some of Stalker’s answers. Jauncey appealed for understanding. “I want to understand because I do not want
to be misled by this evidence – you must take it that I am not particularly
well up in the cellular structure of the human body, you are really speaking to
the uninitiated”. This was a problem for
the examination of many of the professional witnesses. It would also be a problem for Lord Hunter in
reaching his conclusions. When asked to
say what kind of person the sample was derived from, Stalker would go no
further than saying the person had an undescended testis.
On 28th
March 1967, William Manson had biopsied Ewan’s inguinal lump for its third
time, but it was the first time that Manson had performed the operation himself. The sample was transported to the Aberdeen
Royal Infirmary by Rev Reid, prepared for histological analysis and actually
analysed by Dr Arnold Klopper. However,
at least one slide from this tissue sample was sent to Dr Stalker for his
opinion. He identified it not as testis
tissue but as a part of the ductus deferens, called the epididymus, which
conducts spermatozoa from the testis to the seminal vesicles. It contained no spermatozoa suggesting that
it had not come from a normal functioning testis, a finding which was
consistent with the two separate biopsies of 3rd March and 28th
March being derived from the same origin.
Stalker had also carried out a fluorescent antibody test to check if the
tissues were of human or animal origin but the results indicated that they were
human. The transcript of the Court
proceedings does not make clear if this test was applied to both biopsy samples
or only to one. No reason was given for
Stalker suspecting that the tissue samples might not be of human origin.
The direction
of questioning of Dr Stalker then changed tack.
Did he know Ewan Forbes-Sempill as a student? By sight, yes, Ewan was two years behind
Stalker. Of course, at that time this
student was known as Elizabeth. Was Dr
Forbes-Sempill a masculine or a feminine she?
The answer was a masculine she.
On Saturday 6th
May 1967 the box containing five slides, two from the first sample (second
biopsy) and two from the second sample (third biopsy), were handed to Dr
Shivas, who had personally travelled from Edinburgh to collect them, presumably
because time was pressing due to the imminent Court proceedings.
The examination of Dr Andrew Armitage
Shivas
Andrew Shivas
was a senior lecturer in pathology at the University of Edinburgh and
specialised in the examination of tissue removed from patients during the
course of surgery, typically for the diagnosis of malignancy. He had experience of histologically examining
undescended testes, which show a higher incidence of cancer than normally-descended
testes. When he visited Aberdeen on 6th
May 1967 to collect the slides from two of the biopsies (second and third) from
the left groin of Dr Ewan Forbes Sempill, he actually examined them
microscopically in Aberdeen. The first
sample was typical of an undescended testis.
The second sample was much smaller, barely adequate and was from either
the proximal part of the ductus deferens or the distal part of the ductus
epididymus. The two samples could have
had the same origin.
Andrew Shivas
was pressed to give an estimate of the age of the subject from which the
biopsies had been taken but generally declined to do so. However, he gave one piece of information
which might be pertinent to the origin of the samples. “... one point I should have added in this
connection is that quite often in mal-descended testes there is a substantial
thickening of the basement membrane of the tubules. Had that been present, it would have been
possible to say quite categorically this was regression indicating atrophy, but
in fact it was not present which means it is, as I have said, not possible to
say precisely whether the thing is progressing or regressing. I do know that much has been written on this,
but for what it is worth it means that this
particular testis is substantially nearer to normal than the average run of
mal-descended testes.
The examination of Dr William George
Campbell Manson
William
Manson was an assistant general practitioner in the Alford surgery between
December 1951 and March 1955.
Subsequently, in late 1955, he became principal of the Alford practice
and Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill was a patient on his list. He had been one of the three doctors who, in
1952, had certified that Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill was indeed a man and he
repeated that belief under questioning in the Court.
Manson had
been the agency by which Ewan Forbes-Sempill had been able to send his alleged inguinal
lump biopsy of 3rd March 1967 to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for
histological analysis, through allowing his name to be used as the sender, thus
legitimising the request for analysis.
Manson, for whatever reason, was clearly prepared to behave in an
unprofessional way at the request of his aristocratic patient and former
boss. In Court he even justified the
actions of both Ewan and himself.
The questioning
then turned to the events of 28th March 1967 when Dr Ewan
Forbes-Sempill attended the Rosemount Surgery in the company of the Reverend
Reid of Kildrummy. What was the purpose
of the visit? “That I might take a small
biopsy from a mass in the left groin and give this to the Reverend Reid to take
in to Dr Klopper in Aberdeen.
In conducting
the biopsy, Manson said that he used a local anaesthetic, made an incision and
“brought forward” the lump which he described as a “small rounded mass the size
of a small walnut”. He was further
asked, “Was there anything significant to you”?
Manson’s reply, “No. This was a
mass which could have been a gland or it could have been perhaps an undescended
testicle ...”. How was the tissue
transferred to the Reverend Reid? “I
took the piece of tissue and put it into a little stoppered glass bottle which
I handed to the Reverend Reid”.
Manson was
also asked about his views on Dr Forbes-Sempill’s appearance, for example the
doctor’s muscularity. The Alford GP saw
many women on the farms around the town where farmers’ wives and daughters did
much manual work and became very strong, but they still did not look as male as
Dr Forbes-Sempill.
There was
extensive questioning of William Manson on the likelihood that Dr Forbes-Sempill
would be able to operate on his own groin.
Manson’s conclusion was that probably he would be able to perform that
task.
The examination of the Reverend David
Reid
At the
relevant date of his involvement with the biopsy, the Reverend Reid was Minister
of the Parish of Kildrummy and Auchindoir, including the village of Lumsden,
and Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill was an Elder of Kildrummy and Lumsden Kirk Session.
The examination of Mr Baird Matthews
Baird
Matthews was, of course, a solicitor who acted for Cousin John and who had been
involved in the contacts with the Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill early in
1966. His biggest triumph was probably
the letter that Margaret wrote to him on 8th March dealing with the
early life of Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill. Inevitably, he was quickly asked about that
missive. There was an immediate
objection from Ewan’s legal representative against admission of the letter as
evidence but this was repelled by Lord Hunter, subject to competency and
relevancy. The basis of the objection
had clearly been that the letter was not written by Margaret because the
handwriting of the letter and of the signature were in different hands. Baird Matthews was aware of this fact and
pointed to the closing of the letter which clearly indicated that this part was
written by Margaret. “Miss Wright has
written this letter – as I have talked – hence its being so disjointed. We have kept a copy. Yours sincerely”. Had the submission of a claim to the
Baronetcy by the second petitioner been before or after this letter was
written? Baird Matthews was not in
possession of information which would allow him to answer the question. What about the decision to mount an action in
the Court of Session in relation to receipt of the letter? They had not anticipated such a move at the
time. Instead, they were expecting a contest before the Registrar of
Baronetcies. This line of questioning
was, of course, related to the explosive contents of the letter, particularly
the statement that Elizabeth had menstruated in her ‘teens.
The examination of Miss Joan Mary
Wright
At the time
of the Court action, Joan Wright lived at Inverkeithny. She moved to Scotland about 1932 and knew the
Honourable Margaret Forbes-Sempill from that time but, from 1953, “she knew her
much better”. On 8th March 1966, Joan
Wright was asked by Margaret Forbes-Sempill to write a letter for her. At this point in the proceedings, Ewan’s legal
representative again tried to object to the admission of the letter as
evidence. He was once more rebuffed by
Lord Hunter with the same caveat as delivered previously. Joan Wright confirmed that she had seen
Margaret sign the letter. She had
written down exactly what Margaret had said and had not edited it in any way. Joan Wright was pressed on whether she had
read the letters from AB and A Matthews, Baird Matthews’ family firm. She thought she had but was unsure. She had taken little notice of them. Margaret was being pressed for a response and
Joan was only trying to help in expediting a reply but she did not know why a
quick response was required. She had not
been present when Margaret met Baird Matthews in the Station Hotel, Aberdeen in
January 1967 and she did not know what transpired at the meeting. This line of questioning seems to have been
designed to uncover if the letter was actually composed in any way by Joan, in
which case it could have been classed as hearsay and thus not admitted as
evidence.
Writing the
letter took about half an hour and was transcribed verbatim, including punctuation,
crossings out, underlining, everything.
Joan gave the opinion that Margaret just wanted to get to the truth,
rather than to help Cousin John, and to avoid publicity for the family. However, she was directed to a sentence which
read, “That will show her whose side I am on”, which implied that Margaret was
prepared to help John’s case. Joan was
probed further on whether or not Margaret had changed her opinions as expressed
in the letter after she dined at Brux Lodge shortly before her death. That
might have opened another route by which the letter of 8th March
1966, could be rejected as evidence.
However, Joan related an oral statement by Margaret, which was the only
thing she said in their last meeting before Margaret’s death, “I don’t go back
on anything I have said”.
The examination of Mrs Constance Mina
Matheson or Cordiner
Mina Matheson
held the role of Principal Psychologist with the North-East Regional Hospital
Board, having gained a post-graduate degree in Educational Psychology. She re-administered the Terman-Miles test,
which estimates the balance of masculinity and femininity traits in an
individual. Mrs Matheson was carrying
out the test at the suggestion of Professor Roth in Newcastle and was also
asked to interpret the results. Ewan’s score
in the Terman – Miles test was strongly positive which indicated a male
psychology. She also administered the
Minnesota Multi-Physic Personality Inventory.
It is designed to look for trends towards various psychiatric illnesses. It also measures masculinity – femininity and
in this aspect Dr Forbes-Sempill scored in the normal range for
masculinity. A further test was the
Objective Relations technique where the subject is required to make up a story
based on a series of photographs. An
individual tends to incorporate his or her own attitudes into the characters
invented. She found that Ewan identified
predominantly with males and with heterosexual relationships. Without doubt, in her opinion, Ewan thought
as a heterosexual male.
The examination of Dr
Arnoldus Ilardus Imanuel Klopper
Arnold Klopper
was a senior lecturer in obstetrics and gynaecology at Aberdeen
University. He had specialised in
endocrinology for the past 15 years and had dealt with individuals of
questionable sex. He was asked what
factors would be proper to take into account in determining sex. His answer was the clinician’s answer, not
the biologist’s. In the clinical field,
a doctor’s primary responsibility is to his patient and that is largely a
matter of orientating the individual to his society. In the case of a true hermaphrodite, which
Ewan might be, sexual orientation should predominate in deciding how to treat
the patient. The factors he listed were
as follows. Gonads, whether ovaries or
testes are present; genital anatomy; hormone characteristics which determine
secondary sexual characteristics and, finally, psychological orientation. He did not mention sex chromosomes in this
answer but he did later when asked how he would determine biological sex. In society one has to appear as either a male
or a female even though biologically the person does not easily fit into either
category.
The
questioning then moved on to Klopper’s role in analysing the biopsies allegedly
taken from Dr Ewan. He confirmed that he
had received a biopsied sample delivered by a minister, whom he was told was
the Reverend Reid, during March of that year.
He had been warned in advance of its arrival but he was unsure who had
delivered the message. It might have
been Mr Haldane or Dr Manson. The tissue sample was small and fresh and he
placed it in a fixative to preserve it.
Subsequently it was prepared for histological analysis. When he examined this sample under the
microscope he found seminiferous tubules, blood vessels and a small segment of
muscle. About this time Dr Klopper was
absent in the USA and either Mr Haldane or his client Dr Forbes-Sempill asked
for access to the slides and they were given in his absence to Dr Stalker, but
with Klopper’s permission.
Two urine samples,
one being a 24-hour urine sample and one a morning sample, were also delivered
but at different times and again Klopper was given forewarning, this time by Dr
Forbes-Sempill but this happened in early February 1967. At least one of the samples was initially sent
to Mr Philip, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Surgery and is presumed to have been
passed on by him. Klopper analysed the
urine sample for the level of pregnane triol which is produced in large amounts
in adrenal hyperplasia. The levels of
this hormone were normal and not compatible with the presence of adrenal
disease. Klopper also tested for the
levels of female estrones which are produced in significant quantities by young
women but not by post-menopausal women or men.
The urine samples had low levels of estrones. So his conclusion was that the urine samples
came from either a male or a post-menopausal female.
In answer to
a question on the purpose of the urine analyses, Dr Klopper said the
following. “The common clinical
encounter which one has (in dealing with
intersexes) is of young female children who are masculinised by adrenal
disease and as such are diagnosed in childhood as being males when they are in
fact true females”. He also said that in
the case of true hermaphrodites that they are neither male nor female but both.
Arnold Klopper’s views on sex
determination
Arnold
Klopper was also asked how he would decide if he was trying to determine if a
patient was male or female, as opposed
to advising him how to fit in with society.
He said he would do the following.
“In the context of determining whether he was a man or a woman, his (ie the patient’s) opinion
would not be of particular importance, I
would then consider only his endocrine state, his gonadal state, his anatomical
state and of course his chromosome analysis. Klopper stated that he was not an expert on
hermaphrodites (ie intersexes and true
hermaphrodites) but they may be mosaics, or XX, or XY. He thought most
commonly XX.
The examination of Dr Christopher John
Dewhurst
Dr Dewhurst
was at the time of the Court hearing a Reader in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at
Sheffield University. He had experience
of intersexes at all stages of development.
His instruction was to give an opinion of Ewan’s sex in a medical
sense. Dr Dewhurst had examined Ewan on
two separate occasions firstly, on 24th January 1967 and secondly on
16th May 1967, that is during
the conduct of the Court proceedings, indeed the previous evening to his own legal
examination! Did Ewan’s legal
representative feel that there was some crucial piece of information missing
from his case? It proved to be related
to what was lurking under the large plaster present in Ewan’s left groin on the
occasion of the first examination. “I did gently palpate the area but in view
of the tenderness that was present I could not make out anything”. On the second occasion there was no covering
in the left groin. “There was only one
scar although part of it looked as if it might have been a second incision over
the original scar”.
One important
observation by Dr Dewhurst was that there was a small swelling in the left
groin close to the external inguinal ring which he guessed might be a testis,
or an ovotestis, or perhaps a lymph gland, there being many of these structures
in the groin. But he could not go
further than speculation. When asked in
Court to account for Ewan’s condition he said he was uncertain. He could be an example of Kleinefelter’s
Syndrome, because of the development of breasts, in which the Y-chromosome was
not detected. This guess by Dewhurst
ignored the observation that Kleinerfelters individuals are usually abnormally
tall and lanky, whereas Ewan was particularly short for a man at 5ft 2in. It is also worth bearing in mind that adult
males suffering from adrenal hyperplasia are typically abnormally short, though
early growth is often enhanced. When
asked further if the existence of an XX sex chromosome constitution would make
any difference to his diagnosis he replied, “I can only take it into account,
but I would assess it clinically if he was my patient, I would assess it as most unimportant”.
But this would have been
an answer to the question of what assumed sexual identity a patient should
follow, not what was the patient’s biological sex. Dewhurst was asked if Ewan’s external
genitalia were predominantly female but he replied that they were neither male
nor female being as abnormal in the male sense as they were in the female
sense.
Dr Dewhurst
was finally asked to speculate on the cause of Ewan’s condition. He said the following, “I would think it
probable that the condition of hermaphroditism existed, but not certain”. If he was not certain, what were the
alternative explanations? “The possible
alternatives would be that the situation was similar to those of Kleinefelter’s
Syndrome in which somehow a Y-chromosome has not been located on the chromosome
analysis, or had been present for a short period of time and lost during
development”. Even though Dewhurst was
in the pay of Ewan and there to advance his cause, he was unable to come up
with a truly convincing explanation for his condition.
Dewhurst
subsequently had to endure extensive hypothetical questioning, posing
situations involving the presence of Y-chromosomes, testes or ovaries to which,
in many examples, no easy or confident answer could be given, even by an
acknowledged expert. Several times
Dewhurst had to ask for a question to be repeated or re-phrased. But that is what happens when scientific
matters are subjected to legal examination. The questioning of Dr Dewhurst
appeared excessively extended and repetitious, with many hypothetical questions
that Dewhurst (or anyone else for that matter) found (or would find) difficult
to respond to in a precise way. The
examination and cross examination of Dr Dewhurst extended to 81 pages of the
papers detailing the proceedings, more than 15% of the total. It took much persistence by this author to
plough through them all!
The examination of Professor Martin
Roth
Martin Roth
was Head of the Department of Psychological Medicine at Newcastle University
and was also a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Royal Victoria Infirmary. He examined Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill on 6th
April 1967. Roth emphasised that there
is a difference between using psychological tests to evaluate an individual’s
biological sex and his, or her, psychosexual leanings. They do not always correspond. “There is one class of intersexual
personalities who have no identifiable physical abnormalities but do deviate
very markedly in their behaviour or in their psychological characteristics to a
sex which conflicts with the physical sex, so that they exhibit the phenomenon
of psychological intersex. In the case
of Ewan, Roth thought that he was predominantly of male orientation. If a testis was present it was likely to be
producing androgens and they in turn were likely to have influenced his
development of male psychosexual orientation.
Martin Roth also acknowledged the possible limitations of obtaining his
history solely from Ewan himself, who had an interest in the outcome and a
medical training. In spite of this
potential limitation on the reliability of the evidence he felt that two
different trained observers would be likely to reach similar conclusions. In this case the Terman-Miles test was
repeated in Aberdeen with closely similar results. “I must confess that I should strongly prefer
in such a case to have my findings confirmed by the testimony of individuals
who have known the individual from childhood”.
When asked if Ewan had lesbian leanings he declared this was not
so. Most lesbians do not seek to change
their sexual identity. When shown a
series of photographs of Ewan between the ages of 7 and 17, Roth agreed that
these were consistent with Ewan’s story that he had felt male from an early
age. However, these photos were likely
selected by Ewan and his legal advisers to illustrate exactly what they wanted
to achieve. Martin Roth also gave the
opinion that the virilisation seen in Ewan could not be attributed to the hormonal
treatment he had received. He also said
that the case of Ewan was unique in his experience. When he made a physical examination of Ewan, “I
had no reason to believe from outward physical examination there was a male
gonad, but I was subsequently given authoritative information about this”. This observation was entirely consistent with
the findings of John Strong. Martin Roth
was told by Ewan that he had been aware of a lump in his groin for a
considerable time but “I did not consider I am afraid at that time that it was
likely we would be finding something as clear and specific as has been
discovered”. However, he accepted that
Ewan was probably a transsexual. Martin
Roth thought that the administration of low doses of testosterone might enhance
the male secondary sexual characteristics but would not have the effect of
causing an undescended testis to descend.
The examination of Dr Charles
Nathaniel Armstrong
At the time,
Charles Armstrong was Director of Postgraduate Medical Education at Newcastle University
and a consultant physician at the Royal Victoria Infirmary. He had made a special study of
intersexuality. Ewan Forbes-Sempill was
examined by Dr Armstrong on 6th April 1967. He concluded that Ewan was not a normal female
and, under questioning about his conclusion as to Ewan’s sex, if it were
assumed that a testis was present, Armstrong felt that he was predominantly
male due to the enlarged clitoris, hair distribution and general build.
When asked
for an explanation of Ewan’s condition he gave two possible hypotheses. Firstly, that he was a true hermaphrodite
possessing both ovarian and testicular tissue.
Secondly, Klinefelter’s Syndrome, but with an XX sex chromosome
complement. He justified his second
suggestion by pointing out that rarely males could have an XX sex chromosome
constitution. However, that proposal was
being made in 1967 when cytogenetic techniques were relatively
unsophisticated. Today, in the case of
an XX male, a search would be made for the SRY gene, normally resident on the
Y-chromosome, having been translocated to one of the autosomes. The general conclusion was that Ewan had a
mix of both male and female characteristics and with a testis apparently being
present, there was not an easy explanation for the origin of the condition. How many true hermaphrodites had he seen in
his career? “Only 2 or3 because they are
very rare”.
Dr Armstrong,
too, was subjected to extensive hypothetical questioning.
The examination of Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill
Ewan was the
first witness to take the stand on Thursday 18th May 1967, the last
day that the Court sat to gather evidence relating to the two petitioners. He first gave an account of his early life,
being schooled at home, having boyish interests, such as riding, shooting,
tobogganing and fishing and having no interest in dolls “... in fact I disliked
them intensely”. One particularly
masculine activity that he relayed was to ride his pony through the woods,
chase cattle, lasso them and jump on their backs. His parents expected him to dress up in
“frilly things or dresses and that kind of thing” for social occasions, which
made him “most distressed”. Did this
tale of hair-raising, dare-devil behaviour, coupled with Ewan’s dislike of
dolls and female attire, make a significant impression on Lord Hunter as to
Ewan’s sex? It is possible.
Perhaps the
most difficult item of evidence suggesting that Ewan was, in fact, a female,
was the letter written by his sister Margaret to Baird Matthews, Cousin John’s
solicitor, on 8th March 1966 which contained the following
sentences. “She had her periods regularly just the same as any other girl. (Miss Deal would confirm this. I give you her address later). Miss Deal is alive and living in Essex”. This testimony by his sister was a powerful
indicator that Ewan was female, no matter what were his personal preferences
and inner beliefs. When asked for his
comments on this section of Margaret’s letter, Ewan adopted his most benign,
winning and accommodating manner in rejecting the notion that it contained any
veracity. “I feel that this is
absolutely untrue, but I do feel that nobody can blame my sister for having
said this, because I know that as I explained already my parents were very much
of a Victorian outlook, and they did not wish to give the impression to the
outer world that there was anything wrong, and therefore it was decided,
apparently, not to tell my sister anything, because she was very much in the
social swim, with a lot of bright young things, and it was believed she would
not be able to keep this information to herself, and ... well, I suppose my
parents were shy, in fact, or ashamed of the fact, and so she was not in fact
given the information so it could therefore not be passed on to anyone”. When asked directly if he had ever
menstruated, he replied “No, I did not”.
On several occasions when he was studying on the Continent, his mother
had him visit various doctors, one alleged reason being the continuing lack of
periods.
So, it wasn’t
his uninformed sister’s fault, it was the attitudes of his parents and
especially his mother. However, had
Margaret still been alive and available to answer questions, she could have
revealed how she knew that Ewan, then Elizabeth, had menstruated and how Miss
Deal could confirm this statement.
This matter
came up again later in the cross-examination and this time Ewan made a
suggestion for why Margaret wrote these damning sentences. “I think I know why she said it, but I think
the reason is unpleasant. I don’t know
whether you want to hear it”. Surely
Ewan was being disingenuous at this point?
Surely, the Court could only demand to hear his reasoning? But, again, it cast Ewan in a good light,
appearing to be caring and sensitive about his sister’s reputation, while delicately
dishing the dirt on her. “May I explain,
in a way it is irrelevant, and I would rather not say it. My sister died in a motor accident in October
this last year, and she was in fact in financial straits, as she left £9,000
and apparently her total debt was £12,000.
I cannot vouch for these figures, but I have seen them on paper”. He went on to give hearsay evidence and was
given a gentle wigging by Lord Hunter, but Ewan’s statements remained in the
Court record.
Ewan had
“erections and emissions” from the age of about 16 but he was too shy to
mention this to his mother, who was kind but who would not have understood, so
he continued with the status quo. His
friendships with other boys were based on camaraderie but with some girls he
found they were attractive to him to the point where in his early 20s he had
his first intimate relationship with a girl.
About this time he also found he needed to shave and hair started to
grow on his chest. However, he was about
30 before his hair line started to recede.
Between 1931 and 1939 when Ewan was working at Craigievar he had sexual
intercourse with “more than” one female.
They all subsequently married, that is, Ewan was hinting that they were
heterosexual. Ewan also claimed to have
had sexual relationships with women while he was a medical student between 1939
and 1944. He had never had sexual
relations with, or sexual feelings towards, a man.
In 1951, he
consulted Professor Cawadias in London and he recommended a short, high dose
treatment with testosterone in an attempt to make any testes that Ewan had
lurking in his abdomen descend. The
treatment was unsuccessful, but he continued taking a low dose of testosterone
for many years.
Ewan had
known his wife, Isabella, since February 1945 and they married in 1952. They had “intimate relations about the time
of the marriage” and the pair had sexual intercourse since that time. During intercourse, his rather small organ
was “just in the orifice of the vagina”.
He ejaculated from his urethra which was placed at the base of and
behind his phallic organ. Since his
marriage, he and his wife had enjoyed a quiet and undisturbed life at Brux
Lodge.
In order for Cousin
John to consent to the Court proceedings being held in chambers, Ewan had to
agree to undergo medical examination, which took place in Edinburgh on 26th
November 1966. He had expected there to
be only Professor Strong and Dr Jacobs present but initially he found seven
people in the room, though their identities were not revealed. One of the additional people was Dr Price,
who had been brought along by Professor Strong to act as his assistant. Ewan did not object to his presence at the
time. He had brought the two lumps in
his left groin to the attention of Professor Strong and Dr Price, “But they did
not seem to think much about it”. When
challenged with Professor Strong’s assertion that he carried out a thorough
search for undescended testes, Ewan subtly cast doubt on the capability of both
examiners. “... he (Strong) did not seem to bother very much with this, he put Dr Price
on to it, and Dr Price examined it, and I showed him two swellings, one
inguinal and one femoral which is slightly lower, and I don’t know what he
said, he went across the room and mumbled something to Professor Strong, but I
gather that they could not be certain of interpreting the findings”. The implication of this statement was that
the inguinal lump was subsequently proved to be a testis but that neither of
the examiners had proved capable of recognising this identity.
In Court, Ewan made formal objection to the presence of Dr Price at the medical examination because he was not included in the agreement under which the examination was to proceed. He further charged Price with incompetence. “I don’t think his examination was a good one ...” and “... he also did damage to my arm, and I had a loss of sensation for three months in my thumb and first finger”. Ewan claimed he had given this information to the people representing him and also to Mr Philip, his medical friend in Aberdeen, though there was no indication of the dates of these various conversations. Philip had also been shown his damaged thumb and forefinger resulting from the medical examination of 25th November 1966. Ewan further consulted Philip, who was head of the Cancer Treatment Group and of the Radio-Therapy Department, at ARI until his retirement in 1976, after the lump appeared in January 1967, because of his concern that it might be cancerous. Further, Mr Philip helped with the test for the presence of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasty. “... and here again I was ignorant and behind the times in modern procedures but he advised me that there was a test which could be done and said he would get the special specimen bottles for 24 hours and I gave him a 24 hour specimen, I believe which he took to Dr Klopper and this was examined and you have Dr Klopper’s report on that”. It was in consultation with Mr Philip that Ewan decided not to make a formal complaint because he did not want to make a fuss about it, but he felt justified in raising the matter in Court. Ewan also pointed out that the agreement said there would be no use of anaesthesia without his express permission. Now, it was likely that this clause was for the purpose of controlling any proposal to look inside his abdominal cavity for evidence of gonads or other reproductive structures, whereas the use of a local anaesthetic (Ewan acknowledged that it was a local anaesthetic) by Dr Price was likely to have been for the purpose of anaesthetising a small area of skin while a sample of tissue was collected. Since it would have to be from the full thickness of the skin in order to contain dermal fibroblasts for cell culture, it would have been painful if performed without an anaesthetic. So, though Dr Price should have gained Ewan’s formal permission before proceeding, Price was probably acting in the best interests of the subject. If Ewan’s thumb and forefinger were both affected for a period of three months, damage would have had to be inflicted to the superficial branch of the radial nerve, which would have been possible, depending on the site of collection, but no information was given on that site’s location. Later in the proceedings, Counsel for the First Petitioner made a statement to the Court that he had not known that Dr Price had injected an anaesthetic into Ewan’s arm but now acknowledged that he had done so.
Ewan also
gave an account, in his now familiar Courtroom style, of his meeting with
Margaret over dinner at Brux Lodge on 17th October 1966, prefaced by
more hearsay. “I am coming back to my
own knowledge, but as a result of what my sister said to my sister-in-law, that
she had given certain written testimony and that she now regretted, and she
would really like to have been friends with me, and I felt sorry that she might
be drawn into any litigation, and I called her on the telephone and I said,
“Would you like to come over to dinner and discuss this”, and she did in fact
come to dinner with me and my wife ...” .
She came over and she said to me that she wanted to understand about
things, and she was beginning to understand about things, and she was very
sorry that she had written something, but it was written and she could not take
back what she had written because she had already done it, but that my cousin
had inferred that if she would help him he would take care of her financially
and she also told this to my sister-in-law”.
It was put to
Ewan that he was suggesting that Margaret had made up the story of Elizabeth
having periods for financial gain.
Without giving a straightforward and uncomplicated “yes” to this
question he entered on another verbose circumlocution. “I say this again because she is dead and she
is not here, she cannot defend herself, but I think that it would only be fair
to say that she was ignorant of the facts, because as I have told you there
were facts kept from her because my parents did not consider that she would be
able as a bright young thing to keep things to herself, and I think that one
should take that into consideration”.
Ewan was not finished. “She was
hurt because she was the one who was the outsider, because my brother and I got
on very well, and she had in fact done something to him that was not quite
fair, and he had forbidden her his house”.
Finally, Ewan
was asked again “Do you say your sister wrote the paragraph about your having
your periods regularly because she hoped to get some money out of your cousin
John, or because she honestly believed that that might have been true, or for
some other reason, or for none of those reasons”? Still no direct answer was forthcoming. “She just said to me in my own house, and I
think my wife was present at the time, that “I am very disillusioned now, but I
did believe in John and he said he would provide for me”.
Yet again,
Ewan had been allowed to get away with hearsay, vagueness and innuendo.
The examination of Herbert John
Haldane
Herbert
Haldane was a partner in the firm of Haldanes & McLaren, Edinburgh. He was instructed by Ewan about the end of
July 1966 and in October of that year he was in communication with Margaret
Forbes-Sempill. Haldane probably spoke
with her on 18th October 1966.
His instruction was that Margaret wanted a reconciliation with Ewan and
he was to phone her, which he did. She
had had dinner at Brux the previous evening and she was expecting to receive
Ewan shortly. Margaret told Haldane she
regretted the letter but that she could not withdraw it. She also said “When Brux walked out of my
life I thought I had lost a sister but I am by no means sure now she is not a brother”. Haldane said she regretted what she had
said but not why. She did not say she
regretted her statement because it was not true. In total, he had three telephone
conversations with Margaret.
The examination of Mrs Isabella
Mitchell or Forbes-Sempill
Isabella had
known Ewan since 1946, which was six years before their marriage and very
shortly after he took up the practice in Alford. She reached the conclusion that he was very
much of a recluse, a very lonely and frustrated person and very unhappy. His behaviour was that of a man and he always
wore male attire. Although he was fond
of wearing the kilt he rarely did so for his medical work as he thought it was
unsuitable. Instead he wore a suit most
of the time. Like most men, he shaved
daily. Isabella admitted that she had
had intercourse with another man before marrying Ewan. After marriage she had intercourse with Ewan
and she was asked in anatomical detail to describe their sexual behaviour. Ewan’s phallic organ was placed in her
vagina, it had a natural erection and he reached a climax during
intercourse. He had an emission which
she initially claimed came from his phallic organ but she then corrected that
statement to emission from directly behind the phallic organ. “Does he live a vigorous life at the moment”?
she was asked euphemistically. “Yes”,
was the reply, she had never had doubts about his male sex during their married
life.
Some of the
questioning of Isabella was quite brutally direct, for example, “But you know
now, don’t you, that your husband is not a normal male”? Isabella replied coolly, “I would rather say
there might be an imbalance of nature”.
Her antagonist continued, “I am sorry to put this question to you, but
you know he is not a normal male to look at”? Isabella, retaining her composure, brought
forth this rejoinder, “I am sorry, I can’t agree to that, I think he is”. “You are not suggesting for instance that his
genitalia are normal male genitalia”?
“No, I am not”.
Lord Hunter
even joined in with this intrusive line of questioning of Isabella. Q: “Perhaps at this stage I might ask you
this, can you describe in your own words what effect intercourse has so far as
you are concerned”? A: “Complete
satisfaction”. Q: “Can you elaborate, I
am thinking of the physical effects on you if you can describe them? A: I can honestly say a normal complete
reaction and satisfaction”. Q: “I take
it you know what I mean by orgasm, do you”?
A: “Yes”. Q: “Can you say whether
or not you experience that during intercourse”?
A: “Yes, I do.” Q: “On all
occasions or on some”? A. “On all
occasions”. What legal purpose Hunter’s
intervention served is quite unclear.
Isabella had
not been intimidated by this room full of stuffy male legal entities and had
delivered a supporting message about Ewan’s sexual capabilities which bolstered
his case. She was very loyal to Ewan.
The Opinion of Lord Hunter
On 19th
May 1967, the day after Lord Hunter had finished hearing evidence, he “heard
Counsel for the first named petitioner thereon continues the same until Friday
26th May at ten o’clock forenoon”.
On that day he heard Counsel for the Second Petitioner on the evidence
before making avizandum (time taken for further consideration of a judgement). With regard to the expenses of the hearing,
the case was continued beyond the end of 1967
Although the
Court proceedings ended on 26th May 1967, Lord Hunter’s Opinion was
not delivered until 29th December of the same year. At least it did not linger on and spoil his
Hogmanay celebrations. To be fair, after
reading through all the Court papers, I am not surprised that it took Hunter
seven months to finalise his decision on the two petitions, with his reasons
for reaching his conclusion. He was
faced with volumes of evidence much of it in fields with which this judge can
only have had a passing familiarity.
Even legal sources were not of much help in providing guidance on
principles, the counter-petition being concerned with an issue which seems to
have been essentially unique. His
opening sentence acknowledged this position.
“This Petition for Summary Trial raises questions of a highly unusual
character on which there appears to be little authority in the Law of
Scotland”. So, he had to derive his own
principles in order to cut through the mass of evidence, much of it confusing
and some of it contradictory. He did
find a way through but, and I will return to this question later, did he get
the right answer?
Lord Hunter
first summarised the recent family history of the Forbes-Sempill family which
gave rise to the situation where John Alexander Cumnock Forbes-Sempil (“Cousin
John”) was displaced from the order of precedence for the inheritance of the
Baronetcy of Craigievar and Fintray, which was decided by male primogeniture,
by Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill succeeding in 1952 in re-registering her birth to
change her given name to Ewan and her sex to male. At the time, difficulties with the succession
to the baronetcy were anticipated and discussed in the Press but the problem
only became real on 30th December when the Right Honourable William
Francis Forbes-Sempill, 19th Baron Sempill and 10th
Baronet, the elder brother of Ewan Forbes-Sempill, died.
After the
death of Lord Sempill both Cousin John and Dr Ewan deposited claims with the
Home Secretary to succeed to the Baronetcy of Craigievar and Fintray and it was
agreed between the petitioners that this matter should be settled by the
mechanism of summary trial held in chambers, so that proceedings should not
enter the public domain. Although Ewan
had withdrawn his claim before the start of the Court proceedings in mid-May
1967, that did not, in itself, leave the route clear for Cousin John to assume
the baronetcy. First it had to be proved
that he was the next male in line of succession before the title would be
his. So, this trial before Lord Hunter
was a process of great importance for the succession, but had no relevance to
the inheritance of real or moveable estate between the generations of the
Forbes-Sempills.
Lord Hunter’s
next problem was that: “The evidence led at this Proof involved considerable
controversies, both of fact and of medical opinion, but before dealing with
those matters it is convenient first to deal with the principles of law which
have to be applied in a situation where the sex of a person is in doubt ...”. On the traditional basis of assigning sex at
birth by visual inspection of the sex organs, very few, far below 1% of live
births, have genitalia which are ambiguous, neither fully male not fully
female. Often such unfortunate
individuals were referred to as “hermaphrodites” whatever the cause or detailed
description of the condition. However,
the term has a specific biological meaning of possessing both male and female
reproductive apparatus, so today the general term for this group of non-male
and non-female individuals is “intersex”, which may be divided into “true
hermaphrodites” which have both testicular and ovarian tissue in the same
individual and “pseudo-hermaphrodites” which do not.
Lord Hunter
consulted several legal authorities as to how they treated “hermaphrodites”,
though it was far from clear how this term was defined in each case because of
the time period of their generation, though it was generally assumed to be
consonant with “intersexes”. Various
proposals were unearthed such as assigning an individual to the sex which
predominated in their constitution, or, if equal, assigning the individual to
the male category, or allowing an individual to choose his or her own sex, but
the decision then being irrevocable.
Lord Hunter’s conclusion was that intersex individuals must be assigned
to one sex or the other because the law as it stands does not deal with the
case of individuals who are neither wholly male nor wholly female, though he
recognised that as our society moves in the direction of equal treatment of
both sexes, the need to assign intersexes to one category or the other becomes
less pressing. Thus an assessment needs
to be made with each intersex individual of the balance of male and female
characters and which type predominates.
For Lord Hunter this was a practical test and in the case of true
hermaphrodites, the answer might be different in different individuals. However, the category of individuals with
equal extents of maleness and femaleness would remain. How were they to be treated? He was hostile to the remedy of personal
election “in an age where one regularly sees perjury committed in a manner
which can only be described as light-hearted...”. As has recently been seen in Scotland, such a
freedom, when enshrined in ill-thought-through law, born of an entrenched
political belief, can have disastrous consequences, particularly for biological
women. Lord Hunter’s solution to this
conundrum was Onus of Proof, which brought this discussion back to the specific
facts pertinent to the case of Ewan Forbes-Sempill.
Lord Hunter
listed the different aspects of sexual differentiation which could be employed
in decision-making concerning the sex of intersexes. They were:
Chromosome constitution: Gonad type: Phenotype: Psychological sex. But even with his primer on sex, provided by
several of the medical experts appearing in his Court, John Hunter could still
find himself baffled by Ewan’s case where he apparently had an XX sex chromosome
constitution, a vagina and a testis.
Hunter stated that there were three hypotheses which might account for
Ewan’s case, XX – XY mosaicism where the XY line had not been detected,
Y-chromosome translocation to an autosome where the Y fragment was too small to
be identified by solid staining and initial presence of an XY cell line which
was subsequently lost. It was the
apparent presence of a testis which obliged the doctors involved in the tests
and examinations to find a Y since that was essential for the formation of a
testis. None of these hypotheses was
appealing, which led John Hunter to conclude that, “Whatever the true
explanation of these matter may be, I am satisfied that, at any rate in the case of a true hermaphrodite,
chromosomal sex is the least valuable of the available criteria”. What Lord Hunter appeared to have forgotten
was that a true hermaphrodite was neither male nor female but both, as several
of the medical witnesses, such as Pat Jacobs, had proposed to him. In which case, chromosomal constitution,
XX/XY, perfectly predicts the sexual status.
Lord Hunter’s statement about chromosomes being the least valuable
criterion in cases of true hermaphroditism would only hold if it was maintained
that the individual had to be forced into one sex or the other.
Turning to
gonadal sex, in which category he appeared to include hormonal sex, it was
simple to state what the normal situations were: females had ovaries, usually
two and males had testes, usually two.
The identity of gonadal tissue as ovary or testis was relatively
straightforward to determine using histology.
Then Lord Hunter turned to Ewan’s case.
“In the present case it is in my
opinion established by the evidence that the Second Petitioner has one male
gonad in the form of a mal-descended testis ... . I do
not go into the somewhat unusual circumstances under which the biopsies,
leading, together with other evidence, to this finding, were taken, because it was accepted by counsel for both parties that
the presence of testicular tissue on the left side had as a matter of
probability been proved”. It is
slightly alarming that Lord Hunter could notice the “somewhat unusual
circumstances” under which Ewan’s testis was discovered without being curious
about why Ewan had behaved in such a bizarre way.
Although there was no direct evidence for the
presence of ovarian tissue in Ewan, it seemed a reasonable assumption that it
would be found, again pointing to Ewan perhaps being a true hermaphrodite. And if Ewan was a true hermaphrodite, was he
an abnormal male or an abnormal female? Lord
Hunter rejected the evidence of Margaret, Ewan’s sister, that Elizabeth had had
periods in her younger days. He was
“disposed” to accept Ewan’s evidence that he had never menstruated. Of course, menstruation would be direct proof
of the presence of at least one ovary.
Lord Hunter’s grounds for rejecting Margaret’s letter were that there
was no evidence of how Margaret discovered that Elizabeth had menstruated,
though it may have been based on hearsay, Margaret may have intended the
information to be misleading as she was trying to help Cousin John’s case and,
finally, the parental anxiety about Elizabeth’s failure to start having
periods. He ruled that the letter was
inadmissible as evidence, which greatly helped Ewan’s case.
The
alternative hypothesis that Lord Hunter entertained was that Ewan was an
atypical case of Kleinefelter’s Syndrome but with an XX rather than an XXY sex
chromosome constitution. Unfortunately
for Lord Hunter it was a non-starter.
Kleinefelter’s individuals are unambiguously male, having testes, a
urethra emerging from the end of the penis and no vagina, though with some
breast development, They are also tall and gangly in body form unlike Ewan who
was rather short in stature for a man.
Had this hypothesis been more justifiable, it would have solved a major
problem for Lord Hunter, ie that he could confidently declare Ewan to be male.
One further point
made by Lord Hunter appeared to be central to the solution of this conundrum of
the identity of Ewan’s sex and that was the presence of a testis. “... what in my opinion is far more important
from the point of view of legal identification of sex, is the practical
consideration that the presence of a testis would readily and logically account
for signs of masculinisation in the Second Petitioner, regarded from both the
physiological and psychological points of view”. This was, indeed, a crucial point. If the testis had not been discovered at the
time it was, much of the theorising about Ewan’s sex would have been cast aside
as invalid.
Lord Hunter
then turned his attention to phenotypical sex, the methodology by which sex is
pragmatically determined. With disarming
honesty, Lord Hunter declared himself “almost baffled” in analysing the actual
form and presence of both the primary and the secondary sexual features
presented by Ewan, and in coming to terms with such expressions as
“under-developed male” or “masculinised or virilised female”. His conclusion was that anatomically Ewan was
female but functionally he was male. The
latter conclusion being based upon his acceptance of the evidence of Isabella,
Ewan’s wife, concerning Ewan’s sexual performance. She had stood up remarkably well to intrusive
questioning which had bolstered her standing in the eyes of this eminent judge,
despite his admission that she might have “a strong interest in the
matter”. In taking this position, he
completely disregarded the opinions of several of the eminent doctors who gave
the opinion that Ewan’s tiny todger would make penetrative sex difficult or
impossible. Having accepted the evidence
of Isabella, Lord Hunter then went on to place great reliance on its
veracity. “The fact that in sexual
intercourse the Second Petitioner is, despite his physical handicaps, able to
penetrate with his phallus the vagina of his wife and to function mechanically
as a male, to the satisfaction of both himself and his partner and to the point
of orgasm and emission, is in my opinion of greater importance than the
predominantly female external appearance of the genitalia, ...”.
Finally, in
this section, Lord Hunter turned his attention to psychological sex. He emphasised that there was a considerable
difference between deciding someone’s legal sex as opposed to deciding which
sex would better fit the individual’s social circumstances and personal
preferences. He concluded that
psychological sex, on its own, was not decisive in concluding sexual identity
but, as in the case of Ewan, the psychological sex was male, the individual
could function sexually as a male and there was a male gonad present then he
considered that psychological sex was an adminicle of evidence (something
contributing to prove a point without itself being a complete proof). Lord Hunter then delivered his conclusion.
“Taking all
the criteria together it is my opinion that the Second Petitioner is a true
hermaphrodite in whom male sexual characteristics predominate, and that this
has been the position throughout his life.
The evidence of expert medical opinion, led on behalf of the Second
Petitioner, is in my opinion both coherent and weighty, and my conclusion,
after considering the whole evidence more than once with the greatest care, is
that it must prevail against the evidence to the contrary effect, particularly
from Professor Strong, whose views may have been coloured to some extent by his
original diagnosis of congenital adrenal hyperplasia, a diagnosis which has now
been disproved. ... It follows from what I have said that I answer the question in the Petition in the negative”.
Dr Ewan
Forbes had won the legal battle with Cousin John!
The Honourable Dr Ewan Forbes Sempill
becomes Sir Ewan Forbes of Brux
Not only did
Ewan and his wife Isabel have to wait over seven months for Lord Hunter to
deliver his Opinion, they then had to wait a further year for Ewan’s name to be
entered in the Roll of Baronets as the 11th Baronet of Craigievar,
his formal title being Sir Ewan Forbes of Brux.
Ewan made application for registration in the usual way to the Home
Secretary in London. The responsibility
for the decision was handed to James Callaghan who had been appointed to this
post in November 1967. However, Cousin
John still opposed Ewan’s accession to the title, which caused Callaghan to
seek the opinion of the Lord Advocate.
Unfortunately for Ewan, Cousin John was still unconvinced by the outcome
of the summary trial but without compelling new evidence all he could achieve
was a significant delay in the inevitable decision being taken. The Aberdeen Evening Express made its
announcement on 4th December 1968.
“A man who was once known as a woman has become 11th Baronet
of Craigievar. The direction by the Home
Secretary that the name of Dr Ewan Forbes Sempill should be entered in the Roll
of Baronets comes after three years of wrangling which has made legal history”.
There was a similar piece in the P&J on the same day.
Life on the Brux Estate after the
summary trial
The notorious
case of the disputed baronetcy triggered by the change of registered sex of
Ewan Forbes-Sempill and the death of his brother in 1965 quickly receded into
history. The outcome of the dispute with
Cousin John had been better than Ewan could have hoped for after receiving the
report of Professor Strong’s medical examination in early 1967. Only occasionally over the next 20 years was
the dispute mentioned in the local or national press. This allowed Sir Ewan,
the Laird of Brux to reassume his traditional and desired role in Aberdeenshire
society, conducting his life quietly on his landed property but also venturing out
into society without constant references to his chequered past being made. Yesterday’s news, no matter how dramatic,
soon becomes today’s fish and chips wrapper.
Very soon,
the only mentions of Dr Ewan in the local press were concerned with mundane matters. He had kept two herds of milking cows on the
Brux Estate, one of pedigree Ayrshires and one of pedigree Jerseys. The milk of Jersey cows is characterised by
its high cream content and it sells at a premium but soon after the end of the
trial in Edinburgh, Ewan decided to sell off these doe-eyed milkers with the
salon-length eye lashes. They were put
up for sale at the Kittybrewster Mart in Aberdeen on 9th June
1967. This dispersal was followed in
1973 by the sale of the Brux herd of Hampshire Downs sheep. With his advancing years Ewan appeared to be
simplifying his farming operations.
In July 1967,
soon after the end of the trial in the Court of Session, Ewan addressed the
pupils at the annual prize-giving ceremony at Lumsden School, with his wife
Isabella handing out the prizes. The
following month he was appointed a JP for the County of Aberdeenshire. Ewan continued to be active in the Church,
welcoming Mrs Clarke, the wife of the Keig minister to the Auchindoir –
Kildrummy sale of work, where she performed the official opening. Ewan and Isabella made their estate available
to the Kildrummy Sunday School kids at the end of June 1969 and later the same
year Ewan was present at Druminnor Castle for the launch of the book “The White Rose of Druminnor”.
More prominent leadership roles followed. In 1970, Mrs Mary Royan, who had been the district
nurse for 38 years in Alford was given a public presentation on her
retirement. Seven hundred residents had
subscribed for gifts to mark the occasion and the principal speaker was Sir
Ewan Forbes of Brux. William Manson, who
was still the local GP also made a speech.
The presentation was followed by a concert to which Sir Ewan also
contributed. The following year it fell
to Sir Ewan Forbes to make a speech of welcome for the new minister, the
Reverend Edgar, to the Auchindoir and Kildrummy parish. The new incumbent also received a gift from
Sir Ewan. In 1974 there was a threat of
closure hanging over the one-teacher Kildrummy School and Sir Ewan was to the
fore in opposing this move by the Aberdeenshire Education Authority, speaking
forcefully at a public meeting organised in protest. He was, of course, kilted for this public
appearance. Occasionally
he ventured further afield, such as to a reunion of his medical class at the
Coylumbridge Hotel, Aviemore in October 1974, when he was asked to speak at the
celebratory dinner. This was the “life
amang his ain fowk” that he and Isabella had sought to preserve.
Ewan’s
nationalist feelings had not deserted him and at the annual meeting of the
Alford district branch of the SNP held in the Vale Hotel in February 1975, he
was installed as the branch president.
The passing
years were catching up with Ewan. In
1975 he and Isabella made a major disposal of household furniture, effects and
musical instruments through the Keith Auction Rooms, including a “Magnificent Gilt Harp by Sebastian and Pierre Eraros
(this appears to have been a mis-spelling of “Erard”); superior and neat Inlaid
Mahogany Spinet and Valuable Regency Table Inlaid with Brass”. Was Ewan now too infirm or disinterested in
musical performance to play his treasured harp? The following year, Ewan suffered a stroke,
which left him paralysed down one side. He
eventually made a recovery and, with great determination, relearned how to
walk. Presumably to make life easier
after this medical set-back, he had a Scandinavian chalet constructed on the
banks of the River Don at Brux and he and Isabella moved there to live. At least he retained sufficient health to
attend a ceilidh, held in the Kildrummy Castle Hotel, just down the road from
Brux, to celebrate 25 years of marriage to Isabella.
In the 1980s
Ewan also started to suffer from diabetes and it was in this late period of his
life that he spent time writing his two books of reminiscences, “The Aul’ Days,
published in 1984 and “The Dancers of Don”, published in 1989. But his literary talents were not directed at
giving a full account of his life, indeed, his two books of reminiscences
pointedly omitted any mention of re-registration of his birth, or the summary
trial which decided that he would accede to the Baronetcy of Craigievar. He also seemed to become an avid watcher of
television programmes and on several occasions wrote letters to the local
newspapers praising productions about the Castles of Mar (including, of course,
Craigievar) and traditional music, for example the singing of Anne Lorne
Gillies.
Even in the
twilight of his life, Sir Ewan Forbes occasionally reprised his performances as
compere at musical and other events. In
1979 he acted in this role when the children of the Kildrummy Primary School
staged their annual concert in the Kildrummy Inn Hall. However, the event which probably stirred his
emotions as a Highlander the most was a re-enactment of the traditional
ceremony of “Beating the Retreat”, organised by the NTS and held at Craigievar
Castle on Midsummer’s night in 1980. The
Lonach Pipe Band and the pikemen of the Lonach Highlanders were present,
parading in front of Sir Ewan’s childhood home and there were also
demonstrations of Scottish country dancing.
Sir Ewan was engaged to give an introduction to the event. The ceremony ended with the sounding of “The
Last Post and the playing of “The Flowers of the Forest” from the Castle roof
accompanied by the lowering of the Forbes-Sempill family standard. It must have been a very emotional occasion
for Sir Ewan. In 1982, he made what was
probably his last public appearance as a compere when he performed this duty at
a variety concert held in the Lonach Hall, Strathdon in support of Roxburghe
House, Milltimber, a hospice and palliative care home founded in 1977 and a
facility which was held in high esteem in Aberdeenshire. His friend, James Philip had become the
foundation director of Roxburghe House on his retirement from ARI.
But the sands
of time were running out for all the actors in this drama. In 1984, Cecilia, Dowager Lady Sempill, the
widow and second wife of Ewan’s elder brother William, died. In September 1991, shortly after his 79th
birthday, Ewan, too, departed this life.
He had become ill and was admitted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary where he
suffered a further stroke. He died on 12th
September. Ewan’s body, like his
mother’s, was cremated and his ashes were scattered on Coillebhar Hill about 2
½ miles east of Kildrummy and part of the Brux Estate. A service of thanksgiving was held at
Kildrummy Kirk by his friend, the Reverend Reid in mid-November 1991. Other friends, too, were shedding their
mortal coil. In 1996, Tibby Cramb,
Ewan’s long-standing friend, died.
Ewan’s widow, Isabella retired to Aberlour and she died there in 2002, perhaps
the last surviving confidante of Ewan’s who had a deep knowledge of his days at
Brux. Sir Ewan left no personal papers
which might have given some insight into what truly happened in the first five
months of 1967 when he was fighting to overturn the conclusions of the Strong
Report on the status of his sex. Perhaps
having won the dispute in the Court of Session, he was happy to see the whole
matter consigned, not just to history but to oblivion. Cousin John, who outlived Ewan, succeeded to
the Baronetcy of Craigievar 23 years after his first attempt to claim the title. He enjoyed the honour for 11 years, dying in
2000. At the end, did he still retain
the conviction that Sir Ewan had succeeded to the Baronetcy of Craigievar on
false pretences? Perhaps so.
The reliability of Ewan Forbes-Sempill
as a commentator and witness
Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill, despite her intersex condition, seems to have led a blameless
life of drive and purpose, at least until 1952 when she managed to re-register
her birth, changing her name to Ewan and her sex to male. She had learned to play the harp competently,
declaim Doric verse and act in sketches in order to entertain an audience at
public performances. Her harp playing
was sufficiently skilled for her to be invited to make musical recordings at a
time when that industry was in its infancy.
Elizabeth became an accomplished Scottish country dancer, forming and
leading the Dancers of Don, which for almost two decades was admired for its thrilling
performances throughout Scotland and elsewhere, including making early
television appearances. She gained entry
to Aberdeen Medical School and qualified as a doctor, despite her father’s
opposition, and she successfully managed the Craigievar Estate for about seven
years. Elizabeth became a dedicated and
much admired general practitioner in Alford, amongst her ain fowk. But perhaps her biggest achievement was to
reach all these goals whilst living in a household which did not understand her
medical condition, was probably embarrassed by it and had little idea of how to
accommodate it.
The biggest
dilemma that Elizabeth faced in her early life was her attire. Although her birth was registered as that of
a girl and her external genitalia were nearer in appearance to those of a
female than a male, Sir Ewan later claimed that Elizabeth had always felt more
male than female long before the Court case in 1967, when he was engaged in an
adversarial process to prove that he was male and it is likely to have been a
genuine sentiment.
The P&J
helpfully and independently chronicled the changing attire of Elizabeth
Forbes-Sempill both photographically and descriptively, particularly between
1921, when she was 11 and 1939, when she reached 27. Now, the P&J contributions derived almost
exclusively from public appearances when Elizabeth would have been under the
influence of her mother and trying to satisfy her mother’s expectations for her
daughter. Even so, there was a clear evolution
of Elizabeth’s dress and appearance when out and about. Throughout the 1920s she was often dressed in
frocks and her hair was, at least initially, long. Facially she looked feminine and in 1928 the
local newspaper could still describe her as “girlishly neat”. But during the 1930s there was a marked
transformation in her appearance. Her
hair was cut much shorter and towards the end of the decade she sported a
parting. The last occasion on which she
is known to have worn a dress was in 1936, though she had by mid-decade
developed an almost obsessive fondness for the kilt. This was a means by which she could appear in
masculine clothing in public without offending her parents and it was
compatible with her dancing activities where she usually took the male part. The evolution of Elizabeth’s attire reached
its apotheosis in 1939 when she entered medical school. In her student year book photograph her hair
and clothing were such that she was visually indistinguishable from a normal
male student.
This
evolution of clothing and hair style related to public occasions, but what of
everyday life on the estates at Fintray and Craigievar? The only source of photographs relating to
Ewan’s early life on the estates came from Ewan himself, both presented as
evidence in the 1967 Court case and in Sir Ewan’s book, “The Aul’ Days”, published
in 1984, long after his victory at the summary trial. The photographs of the young Elizabeth
included in this book showed her exclusively wearing riding breeches, both
looking like a boy and acting in a boyish manner. No visual record was offered of Elizabeth playing
the harp, or declaiming Doric verse in public, or acting a part in a sketch,
activities more usually associated with girls.
This choice by Ewan looks partial.
Sir Ewan’s
second book, “The Dancers of Don” was published in 1989. In this book he claimed that Elizabeth never
danced as a female, but there is photographic evidence that she did so in 1933
at least. This book also contained a
clear example of Ewan’s willingness to bend the truth, when he expunged all
references to “Elizabeth” Forbes-Sempill from P&J captions and replaced
them with “Ewan” Forbes-Sempill.
Ewan was
clearly prepared to be selective in his choice of photographs to bolster his
case that he was male and not female right from an early age. This selectivity was not confined to
Elizabeth’s dress. In Court, Ewan’s
account of Elizabeth’s interests concentrated on her wilder side, riding her
pony through the woods, lassoing and jumping on the backs of cattle, winter
sports, athletic competitions, and so on.
There was no mention of musical activities, her dancing, her interest in
Doric verse, or her public drama performances.
Much of what
is apparently known of Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour
during both her transition to adulthood and through her adult life, came from
the testimony of Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill during his lengthy examination and
cross-examination in Court in 1967. At
that time, his brother William was dead, his sister Margaret had expired in a
road traffic accident and both his parents had met their demise. The only significant contemporaries still
alive were Dr Manson, his GP and one-time assistant, and his wife, Isabella, neither
of whom could be described as a disinterested party. This is not to say that Sir Ewan’s testimony
should be summarily dismissed, but an important caveat to bear in mind in
evaluating what he said is that he was usually the sole, or at least most
substantial, information source.
It seems
unlikely that neutral issues, such as dates or statistical data concerning his
estate, could be open to question.
However, it must be born in mind that the Court process was adversarial,
with Ewan’s legal representative trying to prove that he was male and Cousin
John’s lawyer trying to prove the opposite, not by considering all the evidence,
as a scientist would do, but by selecting evidence and arguments which most
favoured the client’s case.
Perhaps the
most egregious example of Ewan’s selective recall was his account of the names
by which he was known or addressed at various times of his life. Ewan claimed that Elizabeth was never known
as “Betty” and that at home his mother called her “Benjie”. This claim to his mother’s form of address
may be true but has not been independently verified. On the other hand, many examples have been
unearthed of Elizabeth being addressed as “Betty” This reference occurred at
least four times in different newspapers, her sister Margaret referred to her
as “Betty”, as did her acquaintance Mrs Christine Crowe, who said “Betty, as
she was always known”. Mrs Crowe also
added the intriguing information that Elizabeth demanded that her given name be
spelled “Elisabeth”.
This denial
that the name “Elizabeth” was ever used continued in 1939 when she became a
medical student. Asked in Court if his Christian
name was ever used, Ewan replied, “Not that I recall”. Further, he alleged that letters Elizabeth
received were addressed only to “The Hon. E Forbes-Sempill” before he obliquely
qualified his statement by saying that he just wanted to be known as “Dr
Forbes-Sempill”. Ewan asserted that he
never received a communication addressing him as “Miss”. He was asked if he was accepted by fellow
students as a woman. “I think they
perhaps they thought I was a pretty odd kind of being, but I was friends with
everybody, both men and women, and I kept myself to myself”. His reply did not answer the question, yet he
was allowed to get away with this self-deprecating vagueness.
This whole
episode of alleged fixed name usage, aided by the gentlest of
cross-examinations, looked implausible for several reasons. In more formal times, educational
establishments frequently adopted a convention on name usage where males were
addressed by surname only and females exclusively by the given name. Imagine a member of staff addressing the
Honourable Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill for the first time knowing she was
registered as a female but being confronted by a student dressed in male
clothes and with a masculine hair style.
Such a member of staff would surely be cautious in the extreme in his or
her mode of address. To use only the
surname would appear at least presumptuous and might be taken as a slur on the
mode of attire or sexual identity.
Similar considerations would have applied to her fellow students
addressing her for the first time. It
stretches credulity to believe that the familiarity of the nickname, “Wink”,
derived from a personal characteristic, could possibly have been used ab initio, rather than evolving over a
period of increasing familiarity.
Similarly with the receipt of letters, it is difficult to conceive that
all letters during the period of medical studies and training used only one form
of address, “The Hon. E. Forbes-Sempill”, after all in MB ChB pass lists issued
by the university she was identified as “The Hon. Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill” or,
in April 1942, simply as “Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill”. Further, after graduation, while Elizabeth
might formally have been addressed as “Dr Forbes-Sempill”, her friends would
surely have employed some more familiar form of address or greeting in the
period prior to 1949 when the Brux Estate was purchased?
Ewan’s claims
concerning Elizabeth’s social contacts were also contradictory. She was “friends with everybody, both men and
women”. In spite of this alleged wide
familiarity, Sir Ewan still wanted to claim that, as a medical student, he
“kept himself to himself”, despite in the 1930s being very active socially in
relation to public performances of dancing, recitation of Doric poetry, playing
the harp and acting in sketches. Mrs
Christine Crowe also contributed a significant statement on Elizabeth’s social
contacts at Aberdeen University. “As a
student she was popular at the university and well liked among the feminine sex
for her forthright views and humorous slant on things generally”.
On a number
of occasions, while giving evidence, Ewan gave two versions of a story which
differed in some detail. While such an
individual anomaly might seem insignificant in isolation, several such examples
might alternatively suggest that a made-up story was being recounted, rather
than a true one. The most significant
example of a changed story related to the role
of Miss Aline Scott Elliot in directing Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill to Professor
Cawadias
Allegedly,
the stimulus which induced Elizabeth to act was a visit by a family friend,
Miss Aline Margaret Scott Elliot. Miss Aline’s father had been a brother
officer of Elizabeth’s father. Her
family lived at Belhelvie near Aberdeen at least between 1930 and 1938. Though the year of this fateful visit remains
unclear, it is presumed to have been between 1944 (when her mother died) and
1951 (when she consulted Professor Cawadias).
According to Elizabeth’s testimony at the 1967 Court proceedings, Miss
Aline had said to her “I always remember you as a small miserable child that
looked like a boy and was dressed like a girl”.
Miss Aline was also alleged to have said, “I was sure you had a problem”
and would Elizabeth like to tell her about it.
Ewan added, “She thought she could help me”. Presumably Elizabeth then opened her heart to
Miss Aline who suggested she contact Professor Alexander Cawadias, a Greek
physician based in London. This
prominent doctor was a proponent of holistic medicine and homeopathy. He also had experience of human intersex
conditions and believed that the male-female axis was a continuum, and that all
individuals were a mixture of male and female traits. According to further testimony given by Dr
Ewan in 1967, Miss Aline Scott Elliot had apparently called at the house and
brought “a man” with her (name and personal circumstances unspecified) who had
seen Professor Cawadias and been helped by him. Was this one visit or two by Miss
Aline? The content of Dr Ewan’s
testimony suggests that there were two visits, though he said “a visit”. The
presence of the “man” who had been helped with some unspecified, but presumable
intersexual, problem would have been highly unlikely on a first visit by Miss
Aline. Why would she have brought such a
person to see Dr Elizabeth unless she knew the nature of her problem, which she
did not know before her first visit? Apparently Miss Aline also had some
discussion with “my wife”. Elizabeth had
not changed her registered sex and thus was not married at the time of the
visit(s), so presumably this was a careless reference to Elizabeth’s (Ewan’s)
future wife.
At this
point, the reader might think that I am being unduly suspicious but this
account by Sir Ewan of his interactions with Miss Aline Scott Elliot was
utterly vague and apparently contradictory.
Yet again, he was not questioned closely by Cousin John’s barrister and
required to provide further detail which could have clarified how many visits,
when they took place, whether they were pre-arranged, the identity of “the man”
and the nature of his problems, how Professor Cawadias had been able to help
and what was discussed between Miss Aline and Isabella Mitchell. Aline Scott Elliot was still alive at in
1967, living in Devon and could have given a statement. Professor Cawadias, too, was still alive but
apparently too old to become involved.
This absence of legal probing and the lack of corroboration were all
very convenient for Dr Ewan when he appeared in Court in 1967.
Ewan also gave two versions of the story concerning the undescended
testis in Isabella’s nephew. Firstly, Ewan said that that the purpose
of the operation was to remove the testis, whereupon it was found to be
pre-cancerous, and the second version was that the operation was performed to
move the testis to the scrotum, at which time it was found to be
pre-cancerous. Was this difference
significant? Who knows? If he was telling an untruth he may have
forgotten the exact form of the first version by the time he delivered the
second account.
The charge by
Margaret in her letter to Blair Matthews that Elizabeth had menstruated
normally when she was in her ‘teens was completely rejected by Ewan with a series
of statements which were not verified by third party evidence. Although the letter was judged to be
inadmissible by the Court, it cannot be ignored by any objective re-examination
of this dispute now, some 60 years later.
Margaret’s veracity or accuracy of recall
might be called into question on the basis of her perhaps being a paid witness,
or on the basis of her poor health following her motor accident. But is it likely that she actually manufactured
this evidence? Was it an out-and-out
lie, especially as she had cited a corroborating witness, Miss Deal? It seems at least as likely that she was
merely showing a lack of family loyalty by bringing forward evidence that she
might otherwise have conveniently forgotten.
There was another inconsistency in Ewan’s evidence concerning Margaret’s
letter. One of his reasons advanced for
Margaret’s statement concerning Elizabeth’s menstruation being untrue was that
he knew that his parents had decided not to tell Margaret anything about
Elizabeth’s condition because she could not be trusted to keep the information
to herself. It is difficult to square
that claim with the assertion that his parents were prudish and embarrassed by
such matters. If this was the case, why
would they have shared the information concerning non-disclosure to Margaret
with Elizabeth, who was the younger by seven years?
Margaret also
wrote, “I was invalided out of the service in 1945 and my sister used to spend
almost every weekend with me at Little Fintray which was my home”. In Court, Ewan was asked if Margaret’s
statement was true. Ewan’s reply was confusing, appearing both to confirm and
to deny what Margaret had claimed in her letter to Blair Matthews. “It is quite true to say that she saw very
little of me until she was invalided out of the Service, but after she came
home to stay at Little Fintray I had been staying when I had a weekend off from
my casualty department, which was one in three weeks at little Fintray”. (What
he had not made clear was that his regular visits to Little Fintray occurred
prior to Margaret being invalided out of military service). “On the first day I went out to see her she
presented me with a huge bill for my stay there, and I went to the cook
housekeeper and said, “Your boarding house is ower dear, I’ll never be back”,
and I did not go back either, so I did not see her and I did not spend the
weekends with her, and it is quite untrue.
I was out on one occasion seeing her and she came to see me in Alford on
one occasion otherwise the rest is quite untrue”. Ewan was not required in Court to clarify his
statement, other than conceding that he had stayed with Margaret one weekend
after he had been involved in a motor accident and she took him back to his own
department in the hospital to get stitched up.
He agreed that he did stay with her at Little Fintray that weekend. Ewan even admitted that on that occasion she
had been very kind to him. In the 1945
Electoral Register for Aberdeenshire, Elizabeth gave her residential address as
“Little Fintray” which surely confirms that her use of Margaret’s house was
frequent, not occasional and certainly not only once. This appears to be another instance of Ewan
at least appearing to be economical with the truth through vagueness, but the
Court failing properly to hold him to account.
Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill’s attraction
to women
Ewan claimed
that Elizabeth’s adherence to a male persona extended to her sexual
preferences. He asserted that when, in
1925 aged 13, Elizabeth went to visit Uncle Charlie in St Moritz, she fell in
love with her female cousin, then in her late ‘teens. Indeed, she was “infatuated” with her. He said that Elizabeth had a good
understanding of sexual reproduction, having been a frequent visitor to the
Home Farm at Fintray. Sir Ewan also
claimed that Elizabeth had “erections and emissions” which began when she was
about 16. He averred that she never had
intimate relations with a man and never had sexual feelings for men but in her
early 20s, while she was looking after the Craigievar estate for her brother
William, she had her first intimate relationship with another female. Further, during the 1930s, she had sexual
intercourse with “more than one” other women.
These liaisons occurred despite claiming to have had very few social activities
because she tended to withdraw from society due to the embarrassment she felt
having been assigned to the wrong sex. This alleged pattern of sexual liaison
continued during her medical studies, again involving more than one woman.
The
proceedings of the summary trial also detailed extensive descriptions of the
sexual interactions of Ewan and his wife Isabella by the participants, which,
if taken at face value, would be consistent with Ewan being a male heterosexual
performing sexual intercourse in a conventional way to the point of mutual
orgasm, with Ewan ejaculating through his urethral opening behind his phallic
organ. However, it should be recalled
that Professor Strong, an experienced clinician had said that in his opinion Ewan’s phallus would be inadequate to achieve
either penetration or emission. Dr Price
gave a similar opinion. One
interesting observation by Dewhurst was that Ewan’s phallus was 2cms long,
whereas Strong had measured it at only 1cm.
A typical penis extends in length on erection by 50%. Thus Ewan’s phallic organ, when erect was
likely to have been only 1.5cms – 3.0cms in length. Long enough for intercourse? It’s questionable, as Strong and Price
suggested.
Sir Ewan was
asked in Court if the Dancers of Don had any male members and he answered,
slightly ambiguously, that the company was mixed. A search of the P&J for reports of the
performances of these accomplished dancers did not reveal any occasion when
there were male members reported in the group, though there were sometimes male
accompanying musicians. Now, the heyday
of the Dancers of Don was the period between 1933 and 1939, the very time
interval when Sir Ewan claimed that Elizabeth became sexually experienced
through liaisons with women. There are
many questions which could have been asked in Court of Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill,
but were not, concerning the conduct of the group and the interactions between
its members. If the members were all
women, what arrangements were made for changing into their dancing outfits at
performance venues, where Elizabeth presumably maintained a female
identity? Did she find sharing changing
facilities with other women arousing in any way, since she was attracted to the
female sex? Did she have romantic
liaisons with any other member of the group?
She was clearly close to Mrs Tibby Cramb, a member, since Elizabeth
probably lived in the Cramb’s house during part of her medical training, but
that relationship was neither identified nor explored in Court.
Ewan was at
least guilty of selective recall, if not downright fabrication concerning many
aspects of his early life as Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill. Perhaps, to many observers, this aspect of
Ewan’s/Elizabeth’s personality might appear to be normal, understandable, even
acceptable, a matter of putting one’s best foot forward. But it might also have been a harbinger of a
deeper and more fundamental dishonesty, which might kick in on an occasion when
there was severe external pressure and extreme personal detriment threatened?
Ewan’s psychological sex
The one thing
that emerges as a constant and unchallenged theme of Ewan’s testimony is that Elizabeth
felt male and progressively dressed as a male from the mid-1930s, and this
belief was consistently backed up by several independent sources. The subsequent psychological investigation of
Ewan Forbes-Sempill in the run-up to the trial in May 1967 was entirely
consistent with Ewan’s own statements about his sexual identity, as opposed to
his biological sex, or his sexual activities.
In Court,
Professor Roth summarised his findings on Ewan’s psychological sex, which he
emphasised was particularly important from the point of view of treatment. His simple conclusion was that
psychologically Ewan was predominantly male.
From an early age he felt convinced his real sexual identity was male
yet he had been registered at birth as a female. As a result, he assumed the identity of the
opposite sex by all means available to him.
He tried to wear clothes which were masculine or ambiguous and this
trend became more marked as he grew older.
Sadly, his parents discouraged his personal dress preferences and his
identification with maleness.
Roth made an
important point regarding the objectivity of clinical examinations and Ewan’s
personal position, being the second petitioner. “In the case of clinical
history the findings cannot be wholly objective, you are dependent on your
source of evidence, and naturally I am obtaining my history from a person who
is interested and so I don’t think you can regard any clinical examination as a
wholly objective procedure by any means”.
However, even taking into account that Ewan was medically-trained, “The
attitudes measured by psychological tests are not easy to acquire or simulate”.
When
questioned about the purpose of undergoing testosterone therapy, Roth replied, “The
purpose is to produce some of the secondary sexual characteristics that are
associated with the male sex” but the amounts taken by Ewan would be
insufficient to cause the emergence of an undescended testis, but they might
produce some change in the pitch of the voice and in the growth of the
hair. They would not be sufficient to
produce the degree of virilisation exhibited by Ewan, implying that there must
have been some additional source of testosterone during early development.
Mrs Matheson
had employed the Objective Relations technique, where the subject is asked to
make up a story based on a series of pictures, which showed Ewan to have a
predominantly male and a predominantly heterosexual orientation, though she
acknowledged that Ewan, with his medical training would be aware of what was
being attempted and might have shaped his answers according to the result he
wanted to achieve. It was also
acknowledged that these tests had nothing to do with determining biological
sex, but only with measuring sexual orientation. Ewan’s responses showed that he had a fairly
close, affectionate and perhaps dependent relationship with a member of the
opposite sex, which would have cheered up Isabella. Mina Matheson also concluded that he did not
have lesbian tendencies.
Did Ewan Forbes-Sempill fabricate
evidence?
Zoe Playdon
in her magnum opus “The Hidden Case
of Ewan Forbes”, first published in 2021, was quite open and definite in her
conclusion that significant parts of the evidence presented at the summary
trial in 1967, so crucial to its outcome, were faked. “Of course, it was a scientific impossibility
for such a thing (the descent of the
previously undescended testis) to happen to a 54-year-old man with Ewan’s
medical history. He had obviously
acquired a sample of testicular tissue after his visit to Polani and used it to
manufacture the evidence he needed for his audacious plan”.
Having
reached this initial conclusion that there had been no late descent of Ewan
Forbes’ left testis, Playdon then seemed to assume that every possible
opportunity for deception had been employed on circumstantial grounds
alone. For example, in relation to the
examination by Professor Martin Roth, Playdon wrote, “But of course as a
clinician, Ewan was aware of its purpose (the
Terman-Miles Test) and gave answers that supported his case”. This was an unevidenced claim.
Playdon also
cast doubt upon the character and principles of some of the key individuals in
this story, again as far as I can determine without a solid evidential
basis. Dr Manson: “Manson was an “easy”
doctor, immensely popular as someone who didn’t take life too seriously, and
wouldn’t castigate his patients if, like him, they enjoyed their whisky and
cigarettes”. Professor Polani: “Ewan had
provided enough evidence to make his incredible story almost believable. Whether he got his medical sample of a testis
from Polani, or from a supplier Polani had alerted him to, and whether he did
so himself or through an intermediary such as Wullie Manson didn’t matter. Every doctor knew that such samples were easy
to acquire”. I have uncovered no source
to back up either of these claims, nor does any source seem to be cited in
Playdon’s book. Even though most of the
characters in this story are dead and thus cannot be libelled, it would be
unfortunate to be accused of traducing someone’s character, especially if, like
Paul Polani, they had been prominent in public life, if there was not a sound
evidential base for making the accusation.
While
collecting data at the start of my project I had read Playdon’s book and her
shocking claim of evidential fabrication certainly sensitised me to the
possibility that deception had been employed by Ewen and perhaps others. However, if I were to reach the same
conclusion I affirmed to myself that it could only be on the basis of an
independent evaluation of the factual evidence that I was able to collect. It is my intention to stick resolutely to
hard evidence, albeit sometimes circumstantial evidence, in the discussion
which follows.
Before
embarking on this factual analysis, I believe it is necessary to give some
background, including recent statistics, which will allow the arguments I employ
to be evaluated.
What is sex and what is it for?
There is a fundamental issue which runs, not only through the legal
process in Ewan Forbes-Sempill’s case, but through the length of the whole
story. What is sex, how is it to be
defined and is sex binary? The popular
and the traditional view, codified in law since Roman times, is that there are
only two sexes, male and female and all individuals are to be shoehorned into
one category or the other. Another, more
recent, view of sex is that it is not binary but a continuum running from male
at one extreme to female at the other, with a range of gradations spreading progressively
between the two. The use of the term
“continuum” implies to some commentators that all stages on this scale from
unambiguously male to unambiguously female have an equivalence in terms of biological
status. But this is not so. The frequency distribution of various sexual
configurations is clearly bimodal with most individuals (>98%) being
unambiguously male or female but with a scatter of individuals, in terms of
frequency between the two, which do not obviously fall into discrete categories. These intermediate types all exist at low
frequency, much, much lower than the groups of individuals who are obviously
either male or female. To a first
approximation, there are only two sexes, male and female.
Put simply but fundamentally, the evolutionary success of sexual
dimorphism exists in its ability to bring about the recombination of gene
variants within a species by two mechanisms, random assortment of genes lying
on different (non-homologous) chromosomes and exchange of equivalent parts
between homologous chromosomes. Also,
the process of producing gametes results in the halving of the chromosome
number so that at fertilisation the diploid number is regained. It also allows for gametic differentiation
with male gametes donating little more than a haploid set of chromosomes to the
developing embryo after fertilisation, while the female gamete donates, in
addition to a haploid set of chromosomes, a large volume of cytoplasm
containing many structures and substances needed for early development of the
embryo. This gametic differentiation
allows one gamete, the stripped-down male gamete, the sperm, to be motile,
while the bulked up female gamete, the egg, remains immobile in most animals,
including humans. The lack of
understanding of the fundamental role of sex in evolution and in the
reproduction of many species leads some, perhaps including those with a
sociological bent, to underestimate the fundamental purpose and importance of
sex and sexual dimorphism, and to give undue prominence to aberrant individuals
of either intermediate sex or atypical sexual orientation. Human populations would soon be put under
stress if non-binary sexual behaviour became the norm.
How frequently are
the abnormal sexual development types encountered in human populations?
The use of the adjective “abnormal” here is in the sense of different
from what is usual or predominant. It is
not to be read as being perjorative.
Intersexes at
birth in humans, assessed on the basis of the appearance of the external
genitalia, i.e. not obviously fully male or fully female, lie in the range of
0.02% - 0.05%. This is a developmental
classification. However, if other
criteria are used in addition, such as sex chromosome compliment, gonad type or
sex hormone production, the proportion increases and may be as high as 1.7% of
all live births. But the fundamental
point remains that the (male + female) category is predominant and has a
frequency of >98%.
There are
multiple ways in which sexual development can be defective but they are both
individually and collectively rare. The
most common type of abnormal sexual development caused by chromosomes, the
common sex chromosome aneuploidies constitute about 0.145% of live births.
Homosexuality
is another kind of abnormal sexual development, but a behavioural one. On average about 93% of males and 87% if
females are exclusively attracted to the opposite sex. Additionally, 4% of males and 10% of females
are mostly attracted to the opposite sex, leaving only 3% of males and females
who are mostly or exclusively homosexual.
There is a
further behaviourally abnormal category, people who identify with the opposite
sex to their own, so called (in modern parlance) trans-men (women who identify
as men) and trans-women (men who identify as women). Data from the 2015 US Transgender Survey found
that 0.5% of the US population aged over 18 identified as transgender with
roughly the same proportions of trans-identity in each sex. Medical intervention to make a body with
female characteristics more male-like, or to make a body with male
characteristics more female-like can be addressed by hormonal therapy and/or
surgical interventions.
The male to
female transition may involve the following procedures. Surgical removal of the testes and penis,
surgical creation of an artificial vagina.
Hormonal treatment with oestrogen, a feminising hormone, produces more
feminine secondary sexual appearance such as breast growth, reduced muscle mass
and redistribution of subcutaneous fat.
Surgical intervention for women who wish to be men may involve mastectomy,
the building of an artificial penis and hysterectomy. Treatment with testosterone, a masculinising
hormone, produces beard growth, male pattern baldness, the clitoris increases
slightly in size, muscle bulk increases and the voice deepens slightly.
But trans-men
and trans-women are usually sterile and if they retain or regain fertility it
is the fertility of the original sex, not the adopted one. It is impossible truly to change sex, as sex
is essentially a genetically-controlled developmental phenomenon mediated by
the sex chromosomes and no matter what therapy has been applied, surgical or
pharmacological, the chromosome complement, including the sex chromosomes, of
every somatic (body) cell remains the same.
As was
pointed out above, in a small proportion of new births, examination of the
external genitalia is inconclusive in assigning the baby to the male or female
sex and that is the category into which Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill fell. All the therapies mentioned above in relation
to trans-men and trans-women may, depending on the circumstances, be applicable
to intersexes to move them in their desired developmental direction. Elizabeth underwent testosterone therapy over
many years but had no surgical intervention, with the possible exception of
surgery to the urethral opening to make micturition easier.
Homosexual
behaviour has probably always existed in human societies and evidence for this assertion
extends back to pre-history and the depiction of homosexual acts in
pre-historic art. Probably because
homosexuality, especially exclusive homosexuality, is so rare, it is not
surprising that some societies looked upon such behaviour not just as abnormal
but as undesirable and suppressed it.
Other societies have found such practices to be harmless and
acceptable. This divergence of views is
still the case in present day societies.
But the contemporary sociological discussion of homosexuality and
trans-identity does not appreciate and usually overlooks some of the most
fundamental facts of biology, as noted above.
The diversity
of species which have existed on the earth, including those which are extant
today, was produced by natural selection acting upon the natural variations
arising in the genetic instructions coded in DNA. Any variant of human body form, behaviour or
function which is at least partially determined genetically and which leads to
reduced reproductive success, or a complete failure to reproduce, is selected
against and will be reduced in frequency in human populations. It is for this reason that abnormal sex
chromosome complements, defective sexual development, exclusive homosexual
behaviour and transsexuality can be justifiably described as
abnormalities. It also accounts for the
rarity of these conditions. But that characterisation
in no way validates the denigration, suppression or punishment of individuals
so affected. Such conditions are just
part of the developmental diversity inherent in human populations. The individuals concerned are not responsible
for how their bodies and behaviours developed and they should be accommodated
in society, so long as they do not infringe on the rights and safety of others.
Cryptorchism (undescended testis)
Dr Ewan
Forbes-Sempill claimed that he was male and that he had a left testis which
remained undescended until he reached the age of 54. This was the single most significant claim he
made on which the outcome of the summary trial pivoted. So, does the current understanding of this
medical phenomenon help in any way to evaluate Dr Ewan’s claim?
The cells which
go to form the testis are recognisable as such by the second month of gestation
and are located on the gonadal ridge close to the developing kidney. Subsequently, there is differentiation of the
various embryonic cell types to produce the normal testis at birth. The testes generally retain a high position
in the abdominal cavity until the seventh month of gestation when they start
their journey towards, and then down, the inguinal canal on each side,
eventually reaching the scrotum. In
full-term male infants, 97% have fully-descended testes at birth, though about
30% of premature male infants have at least one undescended testis. About 80% of undescended testes at birth
complete their journey to the scrotum by the end of the first year of life, ie.
only about 0.6% of male infants still have an undescended testis at one year. After that age spontaneous descent is unlikely
to occur. Descent of a previously undescended testis in a 55-year-old man is, as
far as I have been able to discover, unknown.
The descent
of the testis can come to a halt at any position from remaining within the
abdominal cavity, to a location within the inguinal canal, to exiting the
external inguinal ring but not entering the scrotum. Rarely the testis may wander off into an unusual
position away from its normal path. An
undescended testis can be palpated if it lies in the inguinal canal in about
90% of cases. After the passage of the
testis through the inguinal canal this structure, which penetrates the
abdominal wall, closes almost completely.
The testis remains in contact with the abdominal cavity through the
spermatic cord which contains the vas deferens (for conducting spermatozoa to
the seminal vesicles after puberty), various nerves and blood vessels. Closure of the inguinal canal normally
follows after the descent of the testis but complete closure would prevent
these important structures from working and the testis would die.
One can never
say “never” in biological science, but if Ewan Forbes-Sempill underwent
spontaneous descent of a testis, which had previously been undetectable, at the
age of 54, it would have been an extremely rare, possibly even novel, medical
phenomenon. Zoe Playdon was, in my
opinion, entirely justified in her conclusion that some form of deception was
involved in the apparent discovery of a recently descended testis in Ewan
Forbes-Sempill as a mature adult.
The human sex
chromosomes
At the time of Ewan’s medical examination in1966, the study of human
chromosomes was in its infancy. It was
only in 1956 that the human chromosome number was reliably confirmed as 46 in
somatic cells. Those 46 chromosomes
consisted of 22 homologous pairs of autosomes and two sex chromosomes and the
cells are referred to as being diploid, ie having the doubled chromosome
number. Gametes contain the haploid, or
halved, number of chromosomes, with only 23 items. When viewed under a microscope, the 46
individual chromosomes in somatic cells, such as dividing lymphocytes, can be
distinguished by both overall length and the position of a structure called the
centromere, and the chromosomes, excluding the sex chromosomes are identified
by numbering them on the basis of decreasing length, 1 being the longest and 22
being the shortest. These 22 chromosome
types are called autosomes and they are not concerned with sex
determination. That is the function of
the sex chromosomes, the so-called X and Y chromosomes, males having one of
each type, ie XY, and females having two X-chromosomes, ie XX, in their somatic
cells. The X chromosome is much bigger
than the Y chromosome and has its centromere in a different position. Egg cells normally contain one X chromosome,
while sperm cells are of two types, normally containing either an X or a Y
chromosome. These two types are produced
in equal numbers and the consequence, after fertilisation when a sperm cell
fuses with an egg cell, is that equal frequencies of XX and XY fertilised eggs
are produced. After embryonic
development this results in the sex ratio of 1 : 1, males to females. Even in 1966 this chromosomal sex-determining
mechanism in humans was well understood.
When somatic cells divide, they normally result in the two daughter
cells having the same chromosome constitution as the parent cell. Similarly with the production of eggs and
sperm cells, the gametes normally contain 23 chromosomes. However, like all biological processes, the
behaviour of the chromosomes occasionally malfunctions at cell division and an
irregular number of chromosomes passes to each daughter cell. Such cells are referred to as being
aneuploid.
The first human aneuploid was discovered in 1958 in the somatic cells of
individuals with Down’s Syndrome. They
had three copies of chromosome 21, rather than the normal two copies. Soon afterwards aneuploidy involving the sex
chromosomes was discovered. Turner’s
Syndrome (abnormal females) proved to be caused by the presence of one X
chromosome but no second sex chromosome.
Kleinefelter’s Syndrome (abnormal males) was due to three sex
chromosomes being present, XXY. Dr Pat
Jacobs was directly involved in some of the work on human sex chromosome
aneuploids.
The next major advance in human chromosome technology took place in
1960. This was the development of a
technique for stimulating T-lymphocytes (a type of human white blood cell) to
divide when cultured outside the body.
It is during cell division that the chromosomes contract and can be
recognised by their microstructure. Thus
the chromosomes of any individual can easily be studied simply using a small
blood sample. Another significant
advance in chromosome technology occurred in 1970 when techniques were
developed for producing patterns of characteristic banding along the
chromosomes and individual chromosomes and parts of chromosomes could be
reliably identified under the microscope.
Thus in 1966 when Pat Jacobs analysed Ewan Forbes-Sempill’s chromosomes
it was in the period when so-called solid staining was in use and chromosome
number, size and shape could be seen and measured but sub-regions of
chromosomes were not recognisable.
Chromosome behaviour can go wrong in other ways, besides producing
aneuploid cells, parts of chromosomes can be lost (deletions), doubled
(duplications), turned round within a chromosome (inversion), or moved from one
chromosome to another (translocation).
Normally, all the somatic cells within an individual have the same
chromosome constitution, but occasionally two or more cell populations with
different chromosome constitutions may co-exist in the same individual
(mosaics).
There is another important general point to bear in mind concerning the
functions of chromosomes and that is that their influence on development and
function is due to the genes that they contain, perhaps 20,000 different genes
in humans, all with different purposes.
But the functioning of genes depends not just on the presence or absence
of particular genes but on the ratio of one gene to another. This is illustrated dramatically in the case
of Down’s syndrome which is usually due to three copies of chromosome 21, one
of the smallest human chromosomes and therefore having fewer genes than the
larger chromosomes. In the case of
Down’s syndrome individuals all the right genes are present but in the wrong
ratio and abnormal development is the consequence. Probably the reason why Down’s syndrome
babies survive at all is because chromosome 21 has a relatively small gene
complement.
Sex chromosomes are a unique case which requires a special mechanism to
overcome the general principle of gene ratio being important for normal
development. The X-chromosome is a
relatively large chromosome with many genes, mostly not concerned with sexual
development, and the ratio of X-chromosome genes to genes on the autosomes is
1:2 in males and 1:1 in females. This
problem is overcome by a mechanism within the cell which shuts down the
functioning of one X-chromosome in females so that a ratio of 1 : 2 functioning genes is maintained in both
males and females. Interestingly, when
more than two X chromosomes are present in a cell all but one are shut
down. In a normal female, the
non-functional X-chromosome remains tightly packed in the cell nucleus between
cell divisions to form the so-called Barr-body and so the number of X
chromosomes in a cell can be indirectly determined between cell divisions by
staining the cells with an appropriate dye and counting the number of
Barr-bodies. Thus, normal females have
one Barr-body in somatic cells and normal males have none. The cells of Turner’s Syndrome (XO) females
lack Barr bodies and the cells of Kleinefelter’s Syndrome males (XXY) contain a
single Barr-body.
The Y-chromosome is different in its behaviour when compared with the
X-chromosome. It is never present in
females and contains few functional genes, the most important of which is the
SRY gene, which are concerned with male-specific activities, such as the
development of fertile sperm cells or the switching to male development in the
embryo. The general rule regarding
Y-chromosomes and development is that if a Y-chromosome is present, no matter
how many X-chromosomes, then development in the embryo will proceed in a male
direction but if there is no Y-chromosome present then female development
ensues.
The karyotype analysis carried out on the tissue samples taken from Dr
Ewan Forbes-Sempill had shown, within the limits imposed by the practical
restriction on the number of cells analysed, that his chromosomal makeup was
46XX in lymphocytes and dermal fibroblasts, and the inferred sex chromosome
complement was XX in polymorphonuclear leucocytes and buccal epithelial
cells. So, the direct evidence, as far
as it went, was consistent with Ewan having a normal female karyotype in all
his somatic cells.
However, the apparent finding of a testis in Ewan required a chromosomal
explanation for the presence of a male gonad since the Y chromosome is
necessary for its formation and function.
Perhaps, it was suggested, there was a Y chromosome present but not in
all cells, which had not been detected, either because not enough cells had
been analysed, or the right tissues had not been examined, or a Y chromosome
had been present but had subsequently been lost, or a part of the Y chromosome
had been translocated to an autosome but was undetectable by the methods then
available. Indeed, the favoured
hypothesis from several of the medical witnesses, if it was accepted that a
testis was present, was that Ewan was a true hermaphrodite with both testicular
and ovarian tissues present. However,
each of these hypothetical ideas was unlikely to be true.
Pat Jacobs had said that it was difficult to envisage a true
hermaphrodite, an XX-XY mosaic, arising by aneuploidy, the usual mechanism by
which abnormal chromosome complements arise and there had to be a plausible
mechanism for the origin of such a constitution. It is now known that hermaphrodites usually
arise from the fusion of two fraternal blastocysts, one male and one female,
resulting in a mixed blastocyst with similar frequencies of 46XX and 46XY
cells. Although Pat Jacobs did not
relate how many lymphocyte karyotypes she had analysed it would be normal to
look at about 20 arrested metaphases. Now, if Ewan was indeed an XX-XY mosaic
which arose by this fusion mechanism, then if only 10 cells were observed, the
probability of missing an XY cell would be about 0.510 =
approximately 0.001, or 1 in 1,000 trials.
Even if Ewan had been a mosaic in which XY cells has a lower frequency
of, say, 0.2, the probability of missing an XY cell with ten cells observed
would be approximately 1 in 10 trials.
With 20 cells scored that probability falls to about 1 in 100
trials.
The fond notion of Ewan’s QC that a Y chromosome present in only a few
cells might be enough to produce a normal, if undescended, testis seems highly
improbable, unless all or most of the cells which were the progenitors of the
testis had this sex chromosome compliment.
That seems unlikely when the early development of the embryo is
considered. In about the third week of
development the human embryo consists of several thousand cells. They then differentiate into three basic
layers which go on to form different tissues and organs in the body. These layers are called the ectoderm,
mesoderm and endoderm respectively. The
dermis of the skin, the bone marrow (which produces white blood cells) and the
gonads are all produced by the mesoderm layer.
There was no mosaicism observed in either the lymphocytes or the dermal
fibroblasts of Dr Ewan, all observed cells being 46XX, so it is likely that the
mesodermal cells which were destined to differentiate into his gonads were also
46XX.
The inevitable conclusion of this analysis is that Ewan was unlikely to
be a mosaic of cells with different chromosomal constitutions and that his
karyotype was most likely to be 46XX and invariate, i.e. that of a normal
female. This does not rule out that he
may have had a genetic make-up which was very rare and able to produce his
intersex condition but it renders it improbable.
Four chromosome constitution hypotheses were advanced by various medical
experts and Ewan’s QC to account for his intersex condition. They were:-
46XX normal female, subject to virilisation during development, possibly
due to Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, causing exposure to testosterone. This hypothesis was supported by Professor
John Strong, Dr Pat Jacobs and Dr William Price, prior to the alleged descent
of Ewan’s left testis. Dr Arnold
Klopper, while not specifically endorsing this hypothesis did point out that
these circumstances were frequently found in intersexes. “The
common clinical encounter which one has (in
dealing with intersexes) is of young female children who are masculinised
by adrenal disease and as such are diagnosed in childhood as being males when they
are in fact true females”.
46XX/46XY true hermaphrodite containing both testicular and ovarian
tissue. If a testis was assumed to be present,
this hypothesis was supported by Professor John Strong, Dr Pat Jacobs, Dr
William Price and Dr Neil McLean. Dr
Dewhurst tentatively favoured this hypothesis but would not commit himself, as
did Professor Charles Armstrong.
Armstrong reminded the Court that true hermaphrodites are extremely
rare. He had seen only “2 or 3” during
his long career. In fact, it is now known that true
hermaphrodites are indeed very rare and are usually produced by the fusion of
two fraternal blastocysts in early development, one male, one female.
46XX with a very small Y-translocation to an autosome. Ewan’s QC also suggested this hypothesis. He found no medical support for his idea,
possibly because possession of such a translocated Y segment in all cells would
likely produce unambiguous males and not intersexes.
47XXY Kleinefelter Syndrome in which the Y had not been detected, or had
been lost during development. This
hypothesis was considered by Dr McLean but rejected on the grounds that, while
such a diagnosis would explain Ewan’s breast growth and his possession of Barr
bodies, his short stature did not fit with the hypothesis. Klinefelter’s
individuals are tall with spidery limbs.
They are unambiguously male, not intersex. Ewan’s QC also supported this idea with the
Y-chromosome being lost during development.
Professor Charles Armstrong also considered this hypothesis and did not
reject it outright but accepted that the apparent lack of a Y-chromosome was a
problem.
The apparent
discovery of a testis in Ewan, rather than clarifying the status of his sex, as
he naively hoped, simply produced a new set of problems in searching for an
explanation for his condition to which no expert called before the Court could
give a convincing proposal.
Zoe Playdon had already concluded that Ewan’s testis was bogus, though
without giving a closely argued reason for her conclusion. I have argued on statistical grounds that
Ewan’s late testis descent was highly improbable and also that Ewan’s chromosome
constitution was likely to be 46XX, the same as a normal female. I suspect that several of the medical
witnesses harboured similar doubts, especially Professor Strong who said
pointedly, “If Stalker’s
findings have to be accepted congenital adrenal hyperplasia is not tenable”. Also, Professor Armstrong said that he had seen only “2 or 3” (true hermaphrodites) during his long career, yet this hypothesis
emerged as the most favoured explanation for Ewan’s condition if it was
accepted that a testis was present. One
final indicator of doubt among the medical experts was Dr Stalker’s action in
testing if the testicular material sent to him was not human in origin. Why would he do that if he did not harbour a
suspicion that this might be the case?
It will be clear from
the above discussion of possible explanations for Ewan’s intersex condition
that almost all of the problems associated with the four alternative hypotheses
disappear if it is concluded that there was no testis present in Ewan. Three options are immediately rejected and one
hypothesis emerges as the likely scientific truth, that is, that Ewan was
chromosomally female but had an intersex condition due to exposure to
testosterone during intra-uterine life.
Was Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia involved in the production of
testosterone in Elizabeth’s early development?
It is possible because CAH is very variable in its expression. Also, lumping
all CAH variants together, it is the most common human genetic disease. Some people with the non-classical,
non-symptomatic form of the condition may not need any treatment. It may be significant to observe that
Elizabeth, when she was between the ages of eight and twelve, seemed, from
photographs, to be tall and slim for her age, yet as an adult she/he was
notably of short stature, being only 5ft 2in in height. CAH individuals are characterised by having
an early growth spurt followed by a premature cessation of growth. John Strong also made a possibly significant
point concerning Ewan’s receding forehead hair, which had started in his
20s. While such recession is common in
men and uncommon in women, it becomes more frequent with age in the female sex
and also in women who have undergone virilisation. Additionally, Ewan had also been taking
testosterone since 1951, which may have enhanced this male secondary sexual
characteristic.
The remarkable events of January to
May 1967 – a re-evaluation
Firstly, it
is important to return to the events of 1952, when Elizabeth took action to
re-register her given name as Ewan and her sex as male. In order to achieve re-registration she had
to obtain the certification of three doctors, under signature, that she was
male and not female. Of the three
doctors that Elizabeth nominated to give an opinion on her behalf, two, Dr
Manson and Mr Philip were clearly close to her because they reappeared in this
story to help again on several occasions.
Dr Reid is assumed also to have been a friend, being a neighbouring GP,
though no independent evidence of his further interaction with Ewan has been
uncovered. As far as is known, certification
did not appear to involve any medical investigation. The whole process looked like three medical
mates doing Elizabeth a favour and, in the case of Dr Manson, Elizabeth’s
generally masculine appearance seemed to be the criterion he employed in his decision-making.
The reader of
this story, if he or she has persisted to this late stage, will have noted on
numerous occasions that Ewan was either the sole, or the main, source of
information on various aspects of his life both before and after his name
change and especially during the 1967 summary trial. Thus, he was in a strong position to influence
the narrative of his life. If no independent
account was available on an issue in the Edinburgh in May 1967, what could the
Court do other than give credence to what he said? Also, two of the main individuals who gave
testimony on Ewan, Dr Manson and Isabella Forbes-Sempill, were not disinterested
witnesses. Manson had been Dr Ewan’s
assistant at Alford, but left and was then brought back by Ewan to serve as
principal in the Alford practice, though Manson’s employment status was
unclear. He might still have been an
employee of the practice in 1967. Manson
certainly seemed to owe an obligation of loyalty to Ewan, since he was prepared
to act unprofessionally on his behalf.
Isabella was, of course, Ewan’s wife.
Apart from any fondness and devoition based on their mutual feelings of
affection, if Ewan were to lose his case in Court, Isabella would be badly impacted
in just the same way as her husband. She
had a strong self-interest motive for supporting Ewan’s case.
Ewan also
seems to have been very smart in the way that he manipulated the Court’s
impression of him. His vague and at
times bumbling style of answering questions was laced with examples of apparent
concern for the reputation of others and his self-deprecating remarks seemed to
give the judge, Lord Hunter, an impression of inherent honesty. This characteristic also appeared to have the
effect of getting him off lightly during cross-examination. A vague, oblique or indirect answer was
usually not followed by penetrating questions designed to uncover the full
truth. Also, Mr Jauncey. the QC representing
Ewan, was struggling with the technical aspects of medical science with which
he was unfamiliar. A typical example of
this phenomenon concerned questioning over the administration of testosterone
when Elizabeth visited Professor Cawadias in 1951. She claimed the compound could not be
injected because it would involve a third party and, in consequence, that she
would need to take the preparation as a languet instead. But surely a person who would later undertake
the self-biopsy of a lump in her/his own groin would also be capable of
injecting her/himself using a syringe?
However, in
spite of these general factors which aided Ewan’s case – medical palls prepared
to do a favour, Ewan’s ability to influence the narrative and the Court’s
benevolent attitude towards him – there are many indicators that the Court
process was being manipulated, over and above the analysis given earlier
concerning the improbability of a testis descending late in adult life and Ewan’s
true chromosome constitution probably being 46XX. That evidence will now be considered.
Perhaps the
most important piece of circumstantial evidence which raised suspicions over
the origin of Ewan’s alleged testis was the timing of its apparent
emergence. The report of Professor
Strong, with Pat Jacobs’ chromosome analysis, arrived at Brux Lodge about 5th
January 1967. Its conclusions were
devastating for Ewan and his wife Isabella.
It reported that he had a normal female karyotype and his intersex
condition was due to exposure to testosterone in utero. In “mid-January”,
about 10 days later, after a severe coughing fit, a lump obligingly appeared in
the left inguinal region. At the beginning of 1967, Ewan was 54 and the lump,
should it prove to be a testis, had remained quiescent somewhere in Ewan’s
abdominal anatomy for more than 50 years.
What a remarkable coincidence!
Ewan’s next move was quite bizarre.
He decided to self-biopsy the lump and have it analysed privately to
identify its nature. Although the
operation is, in itself, trivial, it is not easy to operate on oneself. Surely the rational thing to do would have
been to go down to the Alford surgery and report the occurrence to Dr Manson
who, in all likelihood, would have referred Ewan to a urological surgeon or an
oncologist. Had this been done, it is
likely the lump would have been extirpated and sent for histological analysis
and the problem would have been resolved.
The histological nature of the lump would have been identified,
including any cancer present. Why did
Ewan not take this obvious route? It is possible that what Ewan was trying to
do was to keep something about the process secret.
Under cross-examination in Court, Ewan gave the following diverse, reasoning
for his action of self-biopsy, which took place on 19th January 1967. “The
purpose was to, the present purpose at the moment was to find out whether there
was testicular tissue present and whether it was in fact all testicular tissue,
and incidentally to find out whether it was healthy tissue”. When asked if the health of the tissue was a
primary reason for the biopsy, he admitted in a roundabout way that it was
secondary. What he said concerning the
primary purpose was as follow. “I had to
do something about the Court case, which was pressing, because I understood
counsel required facts by the beginning of February or early February”. Ewan was then asked if he had done the biopsy
because he was dissatisfied with the report from Prof Strong. He agreed he was dissatisfied but also that
he was worried that he might have adrenal dysplasia which, he declared
dramatically, could kill him though, having survived for 54 years, that outcome
seemed improbable.
So, if the emergent lump was indeed a testis it must have been
descending down the left inguinal canal and if coughing had aided its passage,
the inguinal canal would have to have been patent over its whole length for
increased abdominal pressure to act as the motive force. If his left inguinal canal had still been
open after 55 years, it would have been remarkable that he had not incurred a
left inguinal hernia long before as a result.
After all, he admitted to having a “weak chest”, which presumably
implies that he got frequent chest infections, with attendant coughing.
Further evidence that Ewan gave on this mobile lump was as follows. “It
was more obvious, it was not permanently down but it had come down and it had
protruded from the external inguinal ring, which it had not really done
before. This is what I always thought,
you could feel it on the rim, but as you know, testes do retract because they
have this special muscularity and also if you happen to be cold it goes up, you
see”. This reference to the cremasteric
reflex (retraction of the testis), which occurs in the fully-developed,
fully-descended testis, looks irrelevant to the movement of a putative testis
along the inguinal canal both forwards and back again.
This whole scenario
appeared to have been manufactured.
Professor John Strong, a man of considerable experience and status could
not find a testis in Ewan, but had examined the two lumps which Ewan pointed
out on his left side and ascribed them to varicose veins. This was a conclusion
that Ewan only read of about one week into January 1967 and which had serious
implications for his assumption of the baronetcy, the legality of his marriage
and his private life away from the intrusions of the Press. One week later, after remaining undescended
for 54 years a testis apparently emerged from his left inguinal canal after a
coughing fit. Ewan only had three weeks
in which to prove that this emergent lump was a testis, so he biopsied it
himself one further week later, with no witness present to certify the biopsy’s
origin, though the purpose was to present the findings, if favourable, as
evidence in Court. The three-inch
incision, which looks excessively long, was then covered by a large plaster,
obscuring the operation site from further inspection. This account raises several questions which
were never put to Ewan. Did he use an anaesthetic? If not how did he manage to cut off part of a
testis? Any male will relate how painful
a blow to the testis can be! Did he
stitch the wound, another potentially painful procedure without an
anaesthetic? How did he preserve the
piece of tissue? If not properly
preserved it could have been degraded in transit, making it impossible to
analyse microscopically afterwards.
So, in total,
Ewan’s given reasons for self-biopsy were as follows. The lump might be cancerous. The lump might be a testis. The lump might be a cancerous testis. The lump might contain some testicular
tissue. Securing evidence for the Court
case by the beginning of, or early in, February was pressing, which was the
primary reason. Dissatisfaction with the
Strong Report. Anxiety that he might
have adrenal hyperplasia, which could kill him. When he was medically examined in Edinburgh in
November of the previous year under conditions which were supposed to protect
his privacy, he claimed that someone had leaked information to the Press,
because after that time its members continued to harass him. He was attempting to protect his privacy by
avoiding the possibility of further information leakage. This plethora of
reasons looks like an over-justification for an apparently irrational act. Did Ewan protest too much? Perhaps the true justification for taking
this route was undeclared?
After the
failure to secure a histological analysis of the first biopsy sample, Ewan
decided to operate on the lump for a second time, but on this occasion to have
the analysis performed locally. The
operation took place at Brux Lodge on 3rd March 1967 “after
lunch”. Ewan then conveyed the sample to
Dr Manson who had agreed that it could be sent under his name for analysis in
the Medical School. Manson did not
observe the sampling process and did not write the covering letter which was
sent in his name. Ewan could have
obtained a testis fragment from another source and placed it in the specimen
container. Also, the name applied to the
sample bottle was “Ewan Forbes”, not “The Honourable Ewan Forbes-Sempill”. This simplified form of personal address may
have been intended to obscure Ewan’s rather public identity from those
receiving the material in Aberdeen, “Ewan” and “Forbes” being common names in
Aberdeenshire. The request for a report on the presence of
any malignancy looked like a justification for submitting the sample for
analysis because the lump did not appear to be actively growing, indeed would
have been in stasis for half a century.
The report on
the histology of the second biopsy did not arrive with William Manson until 14th
April 1967 but, before its receipt, the decision was taken to biopsy the lump
yet again, only this time the operation would be performed by William Manson
and the sample would be delivered in Aberdeen by the Reverend Reid. No reason was given for this decision but it
looks likely, since there would on this occasion be independent verification of
the biopsy’s origin and custody, that it was done following legal advice, in
order to avoid any accusation of evidence substitution in Court. When the report from Dr Logie Stalker arrived
on 14th April, it confirmed that the second and third biopsied
samples were from an immature or undescended testis, or from its associated tubular
structures. This result instantly killed
off the speculation that Ewan was a virilised female suffering from Congenital
Adrenal Hyperplasia and neutralised Professor Strong’s initial, damning
report. He was compelled to withdraw his
earlier explanation of Ewan’s condition.
If deception was employed on this occasion, William Manson must have
been actively involved. The Reverend
Reid, on the other hand might have been no more than an unwitting accomplice.
When William
Manson appeared as a witness in the summary trial in May 1967, his evidence
revealed several anomalies relating to the three biopsies and his role on the
second and third occasions. Manson tried
to justify his own unprofessional behaviour in allowing the second biopsy to be
transmitted under his name though he had had no part in its retrieval. “I feel he was no longer actually engaged in
the practice of medicine in the County and no longer was sending specimen
samples, etc, to the University of Aberdeen for examination, and I thought that
the idea was that he would do it through his practitioner, and a person who was
in the habit of sending material, etc, to this department in Aberdeen”. Yet, in Court, he was not asked why he had
agreed to behave in this unethical manner.
Further
anomalies emerged from Manson’s description of the operation that he had performed. “There was on the skin an incision just
above, there were marks of an incision on the skin just above where I went to
take my biopsy”. After using a local
anaesthetic, Manson made his incision in the left iliac fossa, an area through
which the inguinal canal runs and exits from the abdominal cavity at the exterior
inguinal ring. The scar from the first incision was about three inches long
about two fingers above the inguinal ligament.
Manson said his incision was approximately the same length and about ½ in. below the first incision. The lump was superficial rather than deep
and, according to Manson, “close to the position of the scrotum” (except
that Ewan did not have one). Its appearance was “a small rounded mass
the size of a small walnut”. No marks
were seen on the lump, which is interesting since this was the third time it had allegedly been
biopsied within ten weeks. A small piece
of tissue was cut off and placed in “a small, stoppered glass bottle which was
handed to the Reverend Reid”. After
removal of the third biopsy it was never in the possession of Ewan, as far as
Manson knew. He speculated, “It could
have been a gland or an undescended testicle”.
Manson also passed to Reid “a short covering note stating that this was
a small portion of tissue which I had removed and was sending that morning via
Mr Reid to him (Dr Klopper)”. It read as
follows. “From Dr WGC Manson, Coreen,
Alford. Patient’s name – Forbes
Ewan. Biopsy from inguinal region. Please identify tissue and state if
malignancy present”. Interestingly, this
note had exactly the same wording as
the covering note which accompanied the second biopsy, sent in under Manson’s
name though he had not taken the biopsy and had not seen the sample. Manson admitted that he had not written the
second covering note or seen it before the third sample was given to Reverend
Reid, but later contradicted himself and said that he had written the covering
note with the third sample. However, the
identical wording indicates that, with a high probability, it was written by
Ewan. Although Manson had performed the
surgery, Ewan appeared to be very much in control of the process.
Manson
described this third biopsy as the “second” sample because he had not then
received a report on the “first”
sample (actually the second sample).
Also, Manson only saw evidence of one
previous incision, not two, which
should have been present. Although later
in Court, Ewan would state that on the second biopsy occasion the incision had
been made “in the same place”, it seems highly unlikely that the two incisions
(for the first and second biopsies) could have exactly corresponded, leaving no
evidence of the first, especially under the condition of self-performance of
the surgery. This raises the possibility
that Ewan had not told Manson about the first self-biopsy. It also raises the possibility that the first
biopsy never took place at all. When
Ewan alleged he had first biopsied the lump in his groin on 19th
January 1967, it was not witnessed. He
then covered the area with a large plaster so that when he was examined by Mr
Dewhurst on 24th January, the area where the incision had allegedly
been made was obscured and was allegedly too tender to be examined. The purpose of the plaster could have been to
cover the absence of evidence for a recent incision.
Manson’s description
of the third biopsy as “a small rounded mass” seems vague when one considers
that a living testis is ovoid and sheathed in a shiny membrane with blood
vessels on the surface, a substantial adhesion on one side, the epididymus,
blood vessels running to and from the organ and the ductus deferens extending
from the epididymus. In particular it is
remarkable that he did not mention the epididymus because the small biopsy that
he “nicked off with a scalpel” consisted entirely of epididymus or ductus deferens. He was further asked, “Was there anything
significant to you”? Manson’s reply,
“No. This was a mass which could have
been a gland or it could have been perhaps an undescended testicle ...”. So, he speculated that the lump could be a
testis but did not mention any anatomical features in his description of it
which would have led him to his proposal.
Ewan was examined by Dr Dewhurst for a second time during the
trial. His observations partly agreed
with the evidence of Dr Manson but were also partly inconsistent in two
separate ways. According to the
statements of Dr Ewan and Dr Manson, three biopsies were taken on 19 January, 3rd
March and 28th March, all 1967.
But before Manson took the third biopsy there was only one scar, 3ins
long, visible. He then claimed he had
made a second incision 1/2in below the first scar. When Dewhurst examined Ewan on 16th
May there was evidence of two scars but they appeared to coincide, not be ½in
apart. So, how many biopsies had been
taken, two or three? Why was there no
second scar visible before the extraction of the third biopsy? Where did Dr Manson make his incision? Was it coincident with the previous scar or
1/2in below it? Cousin John’s QC did not
pick up on these inconsistencies. Had he
done so and teased out the truth with further questions, more light would have
been shed on the whole mysterious episode of the biopsies, their number and the
position of the incisions.
Manson was
asked how the tissue was transferred to the Reverend Reid. “I took the piece of tissue and put it into a
little stoppered glass bottle which I handed to the Reverend Reid”. And how attentive was the Reverend Reid? When asked which groin the sample originated
from he replied, “I am not sure which groin”!
He clearly was not observing the process closely. Was he too squeamish to watch what was going on
and, in consequence, compromised the security of the process? It would have been a simple matter for Manson
to substitute a testis sample from another source.
Manson was
also asked if Ewan would have been able to perform a self-biopsy. He answered, “Yes, I think so”. He then qualified his answer. “With a reasonable degree of difficulty. Not extreme difficulty and not extremely
easy”. But then he rowed back a bit
further by adding that he thought self-operation would be relatively easy for
someone medically trained. This looks
like another example of Manson being as generous as he could be towards the
veracity of Ewan’s story.
There is
another truth which is relevant to the capacity of undescended testes to perform
their biological functions and that concerns the reason why most mammals
perform this complicated manoeuvre of translocating the developing testes to a
position outside the body cavity where their environment is a few degrees
Centigrade below the core body temperature.
It turns out that this lower temperature is necessary for normal
testicular functioning. Undescended
testes are usually sterile.
Other than
the anomalies arising from the testimony of William Manson, a significant
scientific observation was made by Andrew Shivas, the Edinburgh pathologist who
had examined the slides prepared from the two analysed testis biopsies. “... one point I should have added in this
connection is that quite often in mal-descended testes there is a substantial thickening
of the basement membrane of the tubules.
Had that been present, it would have been possible to say quite
categorically this was regression indicating atrophy, but in fact it was not
present which means it is as I have said not possible to say precisely whether
the thing is progressing or regressing.
I do know that much has been written on this, but for what it is worth
it means that this particular testis is
substantially nearer to normal than the average run of mal-descended testes”.
At the time of the alleged descent of
this testis Ewan Forbes-Sempill was 54 years old and any undescended testis
would have been stuck in the inguinal canal for the whole of that period and
would likely have been regressing or even atrophying, yet the basement membrane
of the seminiferous tubules was not thickened.
This indicated that the undescended testis present on the slides was
probably from a young person in whom the lodged testis had not been stuck for a
long period and thus was near to normality in its histological appearance.
It has been
pointed out that Ewan and his legal representatives did not know that they had
solid evidence that the lump allegedly biopsied from Ewan’s left groin had been
identified as being testicular and that, on its own, it negated the hypothesis
of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia being responsible for Ewan’s intersex
condition, until 14th April 1967.
Long before that knowledge came to hand, a further move had been made to
counter John Strong’s proposal of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia as an
explanation for Elizabeth’s virilisation, and that was to analyse the hormones
present in Ewan’s urine. The excess
hormones and their metabolites produced by the adrenals in CAH appear in the
urine and the condition and its severity can be estimated through this
route. But, as with the biopsies, there
are curious inconsistencies in the evidence given by Ewan. He said he approached his friend Mr Philip on
this matter “probably during March
1967”, yet the date on the first 24-hour urine sample analysed by Arnold
Klopper was 20th/21st January. Ewan also said that
he subsequently gave two further 24-hour urine samples which went to Dr Brown
at the Department of Chemical Pathology.
They too were tested but by whom and with what purpose and result, was
not reported. So, were there three or
four urine samples in total, since Dr Klopper said he received two samples?
Arnold
Klopper thought that they had been warned in advance, he believed by “Dr
Forbes”, that the samples would be coming.
Klopper explained the purpose of the urine analysis. This sample was tested for pregnane triol, a
steroid hormone which is produced in large amounts in cases of adrenal
disease. “This is a condition which very
commonly gives rise to masculinisation of females and is one of the common
bases of a mistaken diagnosis of the male sex.
Both urine samples contained pregnane triol in very small quantities
well within the normal range for normal males and females”. Additionally, Klopper tested for the major
component of the characteristic female estrones and found less than 2
milligrams present for 24 hours which is consistent with a normal male or a
post-menopausal female but “very much less than would occur at most times
during the normal menstrual cycle”. The
normal age of menopause is 45. Fifty
would be a fairly rare advanced age for the start of the menopause. Ewan was 54 at the time, so this result would
have been expected whether he was male or female. The gist of Klopper’s report was that adrenal
hyperplasia was not a tenable hypothesis.
But there was no information given on the conditions under which the 24-hour
urine sample was collected and verified.
The second
urine sample sent to Dr Klopper was witnessed by the Reverend Reid. No questions were asked of the Reverend Reid
in Court about how Ewan passed the urine sample. As his urethra did not exit at the end of his
phallus, he would have had difficulty directing the stream into a bottle. What exactly had Reid witnessed? Was he merely present in the room? If so,
Ewan may have been able to substitute a sample from a different source, Manson
being the most likely potential donor. Was this urine collection, witnessed by
the Reverend Reid, an attempt to repair the deficiency in the method of
collecting and verifying the previous urine samples? It would be difficult to verify that a 24-hour
urine sample came from one individual.
The Reverend Reid took Ewan’s urine sample, intending to give it to Dr
Klopper but he was absent when Reid visited the Foresterhill campus, so Reid
had to leave the urine specimen, which was in a sealed envelope, with Klopper’s
secretary. Clearly, from its method of
conveyance, this sample must have been quite small in volume.
The evidence
arising from the analysis of hormone content of the urine samples was
straightforward. The person producing
the sample, presumed to be Ewan, was not suffering from CAH, a conclusion which
was subsequently corroborated by the finding that the two analysed biopsies came
from a testis, probably undescended.
Manson travelled to the City Laboratory in Aberdeen on 21st
March 1967 to acquire heparinised blood collection tubes, which involved a 60-mile
round trip. This was a highly unusual
action by a GP on behalf of a patient, unless he was being urged by Ewan to do
so because of shortage of time and William was happy to oblige his former
boss. It is also curious that if this
need for some type of blood analysis was so urgent, why then was there no
report on the findings, unless the findings were not helpful to Ewan’s case?
Sir Ewan
Forbes is dead, as are most of the characters involved in this drama. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered
on the Brux Estate. It is likely that no
preserved tissues taken from his body have survived, even in the recesses of
Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and its associated Medical School. Thus, no further analysis of Ewan’s body
tissues is possible and the reasoning in this account of his life depends
almost entirely on the survival of contemporary documentary evidence.
It is
difficult to assert categorically that any one piece of evidence proves
absolutely that there was a grand exercise in deception perpetrated before and during
the summary trial in 1967, though the failure of Ewan’s left testis to descend
for a period in excess of 50 years, only to emerge, conveniently, shortly after
receipt of the report from Professor Strong, comes close to qualification as
that item. But the strongest evidence
that indeed this deception took place is the need for several improbable events
to have coincided. The compound probability
of such a multiple coincidence is the product of the individual probabilities
which, though I cannot give it a numerical value, must be vanishingly small. Along with Zoe Playdon, I too, am very confident
that Ewan Forbes-Sempill mounted a major exercise to subvert the
decision-making of Lord Hunter in the Court of Session in 1967.
Who was involved with the deception plan?
Ewan surely
needed the help of other, probably medically trained, friends who could be
relied upon to provide expert advice, to give access to human tissues and to
maintain confidentiality. One obvious
candidate for such a friend was Mr James Philip, the Aberdeen surgeon who had
been one of the signatories certifying Elizabeth’s sex as male in 1952. Philip had been consulted by Ewan, but on an
unknown date, concerning his damaged nerve following the medical examination on
25th November 1966. He also
consulted Philip on two other matters early in 1967. Firstly, sometime between the 5th and
the 20th of January, concerning Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and
its diagnosis. Secondly, concerning the
risk of cancer in a late (very late!) descending testis between about 15th
and 19th January 1967. All
three issues could have been dealt with at the same meeting with James
Philip. Clearly, Ewan’s first instinct
was to turn to James Philip for advice and, possibly, help. The speed with which Ewan consulted Mr Philip
certainly suggests that Philip could have played a part in Ewan’s evolving
deception plan, but would this have been as an active and fully-informed
participant, or inadvertently as a trusting friend simply trying to help by
complying with an acquaintance’s requests?
It is likely that James Philip, being a senior surgeon at ARI, would
have found it easy, if asked, to acquire an undescended testis which had been
surgically removed, whether by himself or by a colleague. But how would Ewan have been able to justify
a request for the provision of an undescended testis that had been extirpated? There seems to be only circumstantial
evidence which suggests that Philip might have been involved in Ewan’s
deception of the Court.
William
Manson, on the other hand, is the inevitable focus of the search for an active
medical collaborator. He appeared to be
subservient and to owe an obligation of loyalty to Ewan, and this showed in his
willingness to participate in the minor deception of Drs Klopper and Stalker by
allowing his name to be cited as the sender of the sample from the second
biopsy of Ewan, and allowing Ewan to compose the covering letter, both for the
second and third samples. As has been
shown above, it is almost certain that Ewan did not have a late descending
testis. At the very least William Manson
must have been actively involved in the substitution of foreign testicular
tissue for the alleged third biopsy from Ewan because the operation was
performed by Manson. If he was so
involved in the third biopsy, why not also in the origination of the tissue presented
as the second biopsy sample and the urine samples, possibly even as the urine
donor?
Isabella
Forbes-Sempill, Ewan’s wife, is likely also to have been a participant in the
deception to the extent that Ewan may have tutored her on what to say, in relation
to their sexual activities, when questioned in Court. Given Ewan’s anatomical deficiencies, it
stretches credulity to its limits to accept at face value her description of
sexual intercourse with him, yet she was a confident witness and her robust responses
under deeply intrusive questioning convinced Lord Hunter of her veracity, in
the face of the opinions of Drs Strong and Price. But again, there seems to be no evidence that
Isabella was actively involved in the whole of the deception plan.
The true
deceivers were likely to have been Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill and his side-kick, Dr William
Manson.
The
reactions to Zoe Playdon’s book
When this
book was published in 2021 it caused quite a stir in both the literary and the
legal worlds. She received a mixture of
plaudits and brickbats for her efforts.
While some reviewers found her opus to be laudable and the story
she told to be fascinating, others were critical of her efforts on several
grounds. While Playdon was awarded, or
recommended for, a number of literary prizes, some commentators found this work
to be like the curate’s egg and others were seriously critical of the
book. Christina Patterson in the Sunday
Times described the retired academic as a “skilful storyteller” but was
unconvinced by the politico-social stance that she adopted on LGBT rights,
etc. Others used critical terms such as
“scientifically eccentric” and “a campaigner’s book”. Particularly trenchant criticism came from
some legal sources, who found her claims of the special treatment, secrecy and
significance of the case to be unconvincing or factually wrong. Barrister Barbara Rich was scathing about
Playdon’s claim that the case “threatened to upend the British establishment as
“utterly unevidenced and highly tendentious”.
Perhaps the most vitriolic response to Zoe Playdon's work came from W. H. Amos, who wrote the following. "... numerous legal minds have plainly shown the case of Sir Ewan as presented by Professor Playdon to be a tendentious melange, consisting of misrepresentation of the law, the exploitation of known DSDs (disorder of sexual development) for political and ideological ends, crude biological essentialism and the misuse of legal history to advance an anachronistic project of historical revisionism. The unconcealed (and until now uncontested) truth is that Ewan Forbes was born a male intersex individual, which became apparent in later life, whereupon he inherited his baronetcy by simple right in open court".
Oh dear! Surely Zoe Playdon deserved a more reasoned and less vituperative response to her book? Had this reviewer managed to grapple with the biological facts of the case he/she might not have been so quick to conclude that Ewan Forbes-Sempill was male and inherited the baronetcy "by simple right in open court".
In my account
of Sir Ewan Forbes’ life I have deliberately chosen not to enter the legal
realm, in which I have no expertise, but I did find many of the criticisms of
Zoe Playdon’s work disappointing because I found them to be unbalanced. No one seemed to give her credit for the
enormous amount of research she undertook to uncover the most salient facts
relating to Sir Ewan’s life. Having gone
through a similar exercise myself, I recognise the great service that she has
done in furthering our understanding of the life of this son on Donside, a part
of the United Kingdom with which I have a strong affinity.
For me
perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the totality of the reviewers’
comments was the inability of any of them to get to grips with the facts
relating to Sir Ewan’s remarkable life and, especially, Zoe Playdon’s
conclusion, based on these facts, that Ewan Forbes mounted an extensive and
elaborate campaign of deception which the summary trial in the Court of Session
proved incapable of uncovering. That, in
my opinion, was the most remarkable finding in Playdon’s book. I agree entirely with this fundamental
conclusion that Zoe Playdon reached, though my arguments are perhaps more
extensive than those employed by her.
Indeed, I was slightly disappointed that she did not further explore the
implications of her conclusion. Perhaps
she thought that Sir Ewan’s actions were justified since she fully sympathised,
and agreed, with his assertion that he was and always had been male? Perhaps she thought that misleading the Court
of Session was justified by the need to serve a higher purpose, the right of
trans-sexuals to live the life of their choice unhindered by legal strictures
or societal disapprobation?
Conclusion
In addition
to my assertion that Ewan Forbes-Sempill deceived the Court of Session in 1967
by planting bogus evidence suggesting that a testis had recently descended in
his left groin, my further summary conclusions are that, with high probability,
Elizabeth/Ewan Forbes Sempill was genetically female, that she was virilised by
exposure to testosterone in utero, that the developmental influence of the
androgens may also have induced the conviction of maleness and thus that Ewan
Forbes-Sempill was indeed a trans-man.
For me also,
deliberately subverting a legal process is a serious issue which can never be
approved, no matter how much the end might appear to justify the means. Cousin John was almost certainly wrongly
deprived of the Baronetcy of Craigievar in 1968. Although Sir Ewan Forbes will likely be
remembered as a devoted general practitioner on Donside, it should also be recorded
for posterity that he was capable of underhand actions in defence of his
marriage and way of life when he was cornered by the unforeseen consequences of
his birth re-registration.
Don Fox
20250729
