Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie (with Indigo Dunphy-Smith)

Bad Gays

Today's special guest is the researcher and museum worker Indigo Dunphy-Smith, who is bringing her expertise to the case of Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie, two Edinburghian school teachers who found themselves embroiled in a sex scandal and court case in the early years of the 19th century. Their legal woes followed accusations by a pupil about sapphic goings-on at their small private school, and raised issues regarding attitudes to sex, race and colonialism in late Georgian era Scotland.

Subscribe to Extra Bad Gays, our monthly subscriber-only show for conversations about contemporary queer culture and advice segments from your favorite Gagony Guncles. ----more---- SOURCES: Clerk, John, The notorious Drumsheugh Case of 1810: Miss Marianne Woods and Miss Jane Pirie v. Lady Cumming Gordon of Altyre, The Signet Library, Roughead Collection R343.1 H865
Singh, Frances B, Scandal and Survival in Nineteenth-Century Scotland: The Life of Jane Cumming, NED-New edition, Boydell & Brewer, 2020
Rupp, Leila J, Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women, Beacon Press, 2009
Donoghue, Emma, Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668–1801, HarperCollins, 1993
Faderman, Lillian, Scotch Verdict: The Real-Life Story That Inspired “The Children’s Hour”, Columbia University Press, 1983
Faderman, Lillian, Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present, William Morrow & Co, 1981
National Records of Scotland, Burgh Register of Sasines for Edinburgh B22/4/31 Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrienn, distributed under a Creative Commons license. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.