Ellen McGuire, The Great Eastern

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(1816 - 1869)

Not much is known about Ellen Maguire's upbringing or life. What we do know comes mainly from the reports about her trial. 

However, William Dealy in his paper "John Wilson, the so called Great Eastern, although Wilson preferred Ellen: New evidence and new perspectives"  at the Australian Queer Histories conference 2024, put forward the theory that the Tasmanian convict known as John Anderson moved to Melbourne and changed surnames, from John Anderson to John Wilson, aka Ellen Maguire, The Great Eastern. Certainly, Anderson and Wilson share a number of characteristics. If this is so, then we know that Mcguire was transported to Tasmania from the UK for robbing someone while wearing a dress. 

So we have collected the articles about both John Anderson and John Wilson together. 

So here is the extraordinary and ultimately tragic story unfolded of transgender/gender non conforming brothel owner Ellen Maguire, aka The Great Eastern.

She spent two years in Melbourne in feminine attire as a sex worker (although occasionally wore masculine attire when not working). Later, she is running a brothel and, according to the reports, none of her clients ever knew she was 'a man'. Still, she was arrested and charged with sodomy, even though none of the witnesses can confirm if she ever performed this act.

Maguire is clearly popular with the community, at one trial around 1,200 people gather outside the courthouse and at another, when she is taken away, the crowd hoots and she waves her hat at them and bows.

It's also fascinating to see the use of both she/her and he/him pronouns in the articles referring to Maguire, and the use of she/her pronouns by some witnesses.

Sadly, we have no photos of Maguire, and she wasn't photographed for her criminal record, so we don't know what she looked like. 

Image: http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/181533