Harry Stokes

Who was Harry Stokes?

Harry Stokes was an English person who was born female and lived as a male bricklayer in the nineteenth century.

Stokes first appeared in Whitby, near Doncaster as a girl of about eight years old and said that he had run away from his parents. Stokes went to see the local bricklayer and asked for employment. The bricklayer mistook him for a boy, and Stokes went along with this, giving his name as Harry.

Thereafter Stokes continued to live as Harry for the rest of his life. Stokes even married but Stokes' first wife left after the wedding night with a comment that "he was not a man". Sometime after this Stokes took up with a woman who ran a public house.

Subsequently Stokes became a master bricksetter and built chimneys and fire grates. During the Chartist riots he became a special constable and was made the captain of his company.

Towards the end of his life - perhaps through drink - Stokes' business failed. In October 1859 a body - seemingly a man - was found dead by a passer-by in the River Irwell, standing bolt upright in the water with a top hat still jammed firmly on his head. The corpse was taken to a nearby pub where it was officially identified as Harry Stokes. At the somewhat perfunctory inquest the Coroner was ready to declare the death a simple suicide and release the body for a paupers burial when one of the jurors remembered the words of Stoke's first wife which seemed to cast a doubt on his sex. Two women were sent to inspect the body and in due course confirmed the fact that Stokes was physically female.