“When ‘Harry Leon Crawford’, hotel cleaner of Stanmore was arrested and charged with wife murder he was revealed to be in fact Eugeni Falleni, a woman and mother, who had been passing as a man since 1899. In 1914, as ‘Harry Crawford’, Falleni had married the widow Annie Birkett. Three years later, shortly after she announced to a relative that she had found out ‘something amazing about Harry’, Birkett disappeared.”
Though this is the only female/lesbian/cross-dressing Mugshot, the collection is wonderful. Such amazing characters.
I am intrigued! I’m on the hunt for LGBT history in the archives where I work at the moment, in the hope of doing something for LGBT History Month next year (having been all inspired by a training course I went on last week). Somewhat hampered, of course, by the rather more coy cataloguing and indexing practices that persisted until only a few years ago, but still. I am learning to think very laterally indeed.
I’m currently in university getting a BA and then plan on attending an archives program. I’ve worked in a few archives and love the work, shifting through bits and pieces of peoples lives. I would love to eventual work on a archives project pulling together LGBT history. Finding any scraps is wonderful, even if they are few and far between.
148 notes
