Ernest Boulton ('Stella')

Also known as 'Stella, Star of the Strand' and sometimes as 'Lady Stella Clinton', Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park ('Fanny') used to troll around London in drag, until they were arrested in 1870. They were prosecuted, with four others, the following year for 'conspiring and inciting persons to commit an unnatural offence’ but the jury acquitted them.

Photographed by Fred Spalding of Chelmsford [Essex].