This pride month, I'd love if people could take a moment to learn about and remember Mary Mudge. A trans woman who lived and died just down the road from me ~150 years ago.
Most of what we know of her comes from two newspaper articles and the census records:
1851: Mary Mudge resides at the Old House in Milton Abbot, she is an unmarried farmhand and lives with a lodger Elizabeth Condon (or possibly Langdon).
1861: Now a 56-year-old farmer of 9 acres. Still living at the Old house with Elizabeth and 3 other boarders.
1871: A 66-year-old Mary now lives alone at Cottage No. 3 on the Duke of Bedford’s estate. Her profession is listed as 'formerly dairymaid' and her place of birth is listed as Lamerton, Devon although it is unknown whether that is true.
1881: Towards the end of her life, before entering the union infirmary, Mary's address is listed as simply as ‘Green, Milton Abbot’, she resides there with a family (Richard Northcott, a 31 year-old gardener, his wife and two daughters) and is referred to as an aunt. This contradicts the first newspaper article, which indicated she lived alone before entering the infirmary. I have no correct idea, although I tend to lean towards it being the census.
From Reynold’s Newspaper reported on March 31, 1889.
A MAN EIGHTY FIVE YEARS IN WOMAN’S CLOTHES
There has just died in Tavistock Workhouse an old person eighty five years of age, who was known to the authorities as Mary Mudge, and until some years ago kept a small dairy in that town. On the body being prepared for burial, it was discovered to be that of a man, although previously no suspicion had been entertained as to the sex of Miss Mudge, as deceased had long been called, and had all outward appearance of a woman. No cause has been assigned for the disguise.
From The Bury and Norwich post.
Not even the oldest inhabitant had any recollection of Mary’s childhood and there is no registration to be found. The earliest recollection of her in the village is a full grown young woman, when she was then noticeable for her particularly large size. ‘That girl ought to have been a boy’ seems to have been a common saying at the time. ‘She seemed a very quiet retiring sort,’ said the old villager. ‘We never suspected anything. I was never so struck in my life as when I heard of it after her death.’ Nobody seemed to have known much about Mary. She had lived by herself since her sister’s death, shut up in her lonely house. The two or three cows supplied her bodily needs, and the village doctor does not remember ever giving her medicine; but sickness entered her house four years ago and found Mary Mudge alone in her lonely dwelling. She was recommended to the union infirmary where she entered in July 1885, and has since remained until her death.
I think of Mary all the time. She lived a full life, 85 years. Was she happy? She had a community, to at least some degree. Was her sister a blood relative? Did she know? Did anyone she lived with over the years know? Did she get to be seen and accepted by those around her? People tend to refer to her as she even after her death, why? Would she of been 'a quiet, retiring sort' if she'd been born in a body she felt comfortable in? What did she leave behind? When did she decide she had to live as her true self? Did she experience gender euphoria wearing a dress for the first time? Did she choose her name? Did the alliteration make her smile?
There is so much I will never know about her; the things she loved are lost to history, but I still feel such a strong kinship to this woman. The queer experience is so rarely documented when it comes the working class, just how common was it to move away and live as the opposite gender? We can't know, so I choose to believe it was many, and that they lived full and happy lives.
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