Bill Edwards: Gender Rebel (1881-1956)

Provided by the Question Mark Collective as part of a forthcoming anthology on Australian Troublemakers to be published by Melbourne based Scam Publications.

Life for working class women for most of the nineteenth and twentieth century left very few options. They could perform domestic work for the wealthy or opt to slave away in their husband's home with a few romantic myths thrown in as compensation. Naturally many women bucked this order and carved out what independence they could within the limits of domestic life. The first wave of feminism and its middle class concentration on votes for women largely ignored the needs of these "sisters". Despite their sexism the radical and labour movements at least afforded a larger role for those women able to fight their way through to demand access to birth control and equality in all walks of life.

Some women however forswore the political path and simply chose to live as men. Many were motivated by their own lesbianism and the popular belief that women who were attracted to other women were by nature more "manly". Havelock Ellis and others gave this theory an academic spin through their "inversion theories." Women such as Ellen Tramayne and Eugenia Falleini lived out lives as men until committing crimes which saw them outed. There is plenty of reason to believe that other women successfully lived as men and husbands until their deaths.

One such case is that of Marion (nee "Bill") Edwards. Whilst Marion/Bill's sexuality was never clearly alluded to in the few interviews she/he granted during her/his life it is true that despite a few brief hiccups she lived out most of her life successfully as a man. Certainly Edwards enjoyed the kind of life available to few working class people, male or female. If nothing else, her rebel life exposed Victorian notions of innate gender roles as the lies they were.

Born in Wales during 1881 Edwards migrated with her family to Victoria four years later. She attended a Geelong school and at the age of 12 was bonded as a domestic worker to a local farmer's wife. Although the exact age at which she began to experiment with her gender varies in her interviews it is clear that she rapidly bored of this life and rejected the usual "escape" option of marriage to a local lad.

"I don't think the world's much of a place for most women. They have the same tiresome graft, day after day; the same tucker (what the old man and kids can't eat!); the same interests (washing the baby, often; and keeping six people out of the wages of one!); and no amusements. That sort of thing would have killed me if I had fallen into it. I've worked like a navvy...but it didn't seem much hardship, when I remembered that I had freedom. Why, look here! if I'd stayed in slip-bodices, at best I might have become a clerk, working eight hours a day to earn one pound a week, and the privilege of spending my spare time in the back room of a boarding house. Or I could have remained a servant- sweated and bullied day and night. Instead I've managed to make a decent living at men's work of one kind or another. I earned two pound and ten shillings a week as a French-polisher and never a breath of scandal about me. Which is a dashed sight better than what lots of decent, hard working girls can say for themselves."

Having rejected all that was due to her, thanks to gender and class, Marion Edwards decided at the age of 16 to head for the bush. She acquired a horse and some men's clothes and transforming herself into Bill headed off for the Riverina area working on a variety of stations. Life was tough and the pressure to maintain his/her new role was intense. Edwards however warmed to the life and spent the next few years working as a station hand and shearer throughout three states.

"I was a funny nipper when I first lighted out. I hadn't much cash; and although I was cutting myself off from everyone who knew me I wasn't a bit sorry or frightened... My first job after I became a boy was a pretty stiff one. I had to keep going from sunrise to sundown and sometimes later; but if I wanted to go off by myself afterwards, I didn't have an angry woman spying on me, in case I should be looking at the stars, accompanied by her eldest son. I learnt to shoot pretty well at that place, and I won a couple of trophies at pigeon matches in the district. A chap taught me how to fight and gave me an idea of wrestling too. Though I'm only 5ft. 4in. those exercises brought me up to 10st. 4lb. Next thing I did was to join some fellows going up to a Queensland shearing-shed... I (eventually) worked on dozens of properties alongside hundreds of different shearers and clipped thousands of sheep... We followed the track for most of our journey, and I thought it finer to go to bed under the stars, with a log fire for a lullaby, and get up to the shrieking of parrots the next morning, than to have everything that's enjoyed by a rich man's daughter."

After three years Edwards became tired of the rigours of bush life and headed for the city working as a storeman, a French-polisher, horse dealer and bar man before heading bush again to work in remote Queensland sorting wool. 1904 saw a drift back to Melbourne where more bar work eventually led Edwards into the lucrative racing game training and owning ponies. Horse racing seemed to attract women like Edwards as in 1975 another gender rebel Bill Smith was found to be a woman upon her death. Smith was an established identity on the North Queensland racing scene working as a jockey and winning the St. Leger Quest in 1902, Jockey Club Derby in 1903 and the Victoria Oaks in 1909-10.

"I liked working amongst the nags and they liked me. The best thing about the ponies was that I could indulge in my favourite vice without much loss... While I was racing myself I won money on my own gees, instead of losing money on other people's, which was a change. I had a partner over the ponies and though he was with me morning, noon and night, he never suspected I was any less a man than himself."

Edwards dealings with the racing scene saw him charged with a major crime. Whilst on bail he skipped out to Queensland where he eluded the law for a further two years. This period saw the occasional person out him as the added pressure led to an occasional slip in role.

"I did everything possible to earn a crust. I was house painting for a time. That was awful- straining for hours under a tropical sun, played old Harry with me. After that I became a barman, which is a better paid and better respected position than a barmaid's. I stayed there until someone put me away about having been a girl and all. It wasn't a half bad job. Lots of time to read and think, and plenty of excitement."

The excitement was interrupted however when an old associate led the Queensland police to Edwards' door. Arrest and deportation to Victoria saw Bill forced by the law back into life as Marion. The trial did not last long however and saw a speedy acquittal. In no time Bill had returned despite continued police attempts to make him remain a woman.

"They tried... but they couldn't do anything about it. I enjoyed living as a man since I could do the things I enjoyed the most...(I continued) to dress in men's clothes. Its more comfortable than female dress and cheaper too."

Due to the time periods (1908 and 1956) it is unsurprising that sexuality was skirted around in the few interviews that Edwards gave during his/her lifetime. From what was said however we know that she/he achieved intimacy with both men and women. Whether these encounters were specifically sexual is unclear. Unlike other women of her time who lived as men she certainly she never settled down with a partner of either sex and was clearly cynical about romance in general.

"I'm a great favourite with the women, perhaps because I know them thoroughly. When I was in Queensland, I was engaged to a girl. Her father insisted on it and she was so pretty and bright that I didn't mind. I got clear of that without treating her badly. I used to take girls out on an evening. As long as they were fond of me it kept them away from more dangerous chaps. Poor kids, their life is miserable enough without having some extra worry about thing like love. Love indeed! I've never seen one solitary man I could stand for a husband, though I've had some splendid pals. A man is decent to a man- he must be, or he might get hurt. But with a woman he seldom plays a fair deal."

Post trial life saw further travels and adventures. Initially capitalising on the trial publicity Bill joined a sideshow travelling the country as a "she-male" attraction. There was talk of writing a book which sadly never appeared. After the sideshow Edwards disappeared for a spell in an attempt to restore some anonymity. Secrecy restored he ran a S-P bookie business and hotel in North Melbourne for a number of years and later boasted of "handling the roughnecks" himself. Edwards also made several world trips as a man and re-entered the horse dealing business delivering horses personally to India. In later life Bill worked as a clerk before retiring to a house in Roden Street, West Melbourne. He was known as a constant visitor to the local pubs. Bill's original gender was by this time a well known fact in the area. Yet, as a neighbour Mrs Golea related it, no one had much of a problem with this, proving that inner city working class communities of the 1950s were far less bigoted than is widely believed.

"Bill always dressed as a man and everyone treated her as a man. She lived next door to me for about 15 years and was always good to me and the children. The kiddies loved Bill who kept them occupied for hours with stories of her adventures. When she stopped work she used to help me around the house and looked after the kids when I went to work."

In 1955 Bill entered the Mount Royal Home for the Aged and Infirm and was forced until death to live as Marion. In 1956 she was buried in Fawkner cemetery only escaping a pauper's grave through the charity of the Golea family. Despite her grave stone bearing the name "Marion" it is as Bill that we remember her.

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