Guildhall.

Summary

Mary Smith was arrested for a brothel robbery she committed alongside Susan Reid and Ann Robinson. The report indicates that she was known by the police magistrate as she was discovered earlier in her life in the disguise of a cabin boy while she was trying to follow her lover to India. "She left her home, and sold her stock of trinkets and apparel to procure a seaman's outfit, and engaged as a cabin boy on board of a vessel that was going to carry her sweatheart, a private soldier, to India, but her sex was discovered, and she was put on shore "  Magistrate seeks to remove her from sex work, and return her to her service role with her "friends" (that is to say, her master and mistress); after some time she agrees.

Full Title

12 Jan 1848. Guildhall. Times p. 6 c. F.

Publication

Full Record

Date

12 January 1848

Provisional Category

Woman Worker

Cross-dressing activity

Romance; Work

Cross-dressing occupation

Seaman

Locations

LondonView on map

Primary source topic

Dressed as a man; Pursues husband/lover; Ballad pattern

Item format

News report; Trial report

Motive

Romance; Livelihood

Discovery of cross-dressing

Circumstance

Attire

Sailor clothes

Social rank

Lower class

Stated Sex

Female

Sex Perceived by Others

Female

People Mentioned in This Record

• Mary Smith(Subject of study)Mentions— "a well-educated young woman", "she had respectable connexions",