I would love to talk about him! I’ve thought of little else for the past year.
To begin with, a brief overview of who he was: Dr James Barry was a surgeon for the British army in the early-mid 19th century. He is probably best known for performing one of the first caesarean sections by a European where both mother and baby survived and for ‘disguising herself as a man’.
Born in Cork to the Bulkleys around 1790, Barry’s uncle was James Barry RA in London and one of only two people to be expelled from the Royal Academy of Arts (the second was expelled in 2004!). When the Bulkleys had money trouble, he and his mother went to London to ask Barry RA for help, which he refused. After Barry RA’s death Bulkley cut his hair, changed his name to James Barry and studied medicine in Edinburgh. Once graduating he continued studying in London then joined the army.
He was stationed in The Cape, Africa where he befriended Lord Somerset and quickly became powerful and important. But alas, the good doctor had quite the temper and was stubborn to boot which resulted in at least one duel and his downfall (several times). Barry’s strict rules for sanitisation, regulation of medication and the care of the vulnerable made him unpopular as did the protection he gained from friendship with the Somersets. There had been rumours about the nature of Barry and Lord Somerset’s relationship for a while especially by those who disliked him, but it all came to a head in 1824 when someone left a message on a bridge claiming they had “detected Lord Charles buggering Dr Barry”. That led to an investigation, a huge demotion for Barry and the Somersets leaving the Cape.
While Barry is best remembered as living in South Africa, in truth he travelled all over the place - Mauritaus, St Helens, Jamaica, Canada, Malta, Crimea and finally retired in London. He continued to advocate for care of prisoners, lepers, and the poor wherever he went which went about as well as it did the first time. Part of the reason why Barry travelled so much was because he angered the people in charge. He got sacked once.
He insulted Florence Nightingale when they first met, something she apparently never forgave. Despite having a brusque manner and a temper he apparently had a great bedside manner and particularly treated women well.
After being forced to retire due to ill health, Barry retired to London. He had little money or friends after the life he’d led, and bounced from one person’s home to another before ending up in a small flat in a poor area prone to cholera epidemics. This is where he died. He is reported as having asked every doctor who treated him, that in case of his death they would wrap his body in the bedsheets and bury him as was. This was ignored and we only know he was afab because of the woman who prepared his body.
Dr James Barry was a vegetarian who always travelled with a goat for milk, a black servant who may or not have been a man from South Africa called Danizen and his dog Psyche. The first Psyche was a poodle from Lord Somerset. He was a flirt and a dandy and wore a red wig. He also wore thigh-high boots and a very long sword. He freed at least one slave, an intersex woman in the Cape, and cared for his godson, James Barry Munnik, the baby who was born via caesarean.
I think he’s really interesting especially since I am also an Irish trans person with family from Cork. One thing I think is particularly funny is how much misinformation is spread about him. Some people say he assumed the identity of his older brother (he didn’t - John got in trouble with debt), or his uncle (who had just died aged 64 while Barry was in his teens). There is speculation that he may have given birth as a young teen to a girl called Juliana and that the father was his uncle Redmond Barry, though I’m sceptical of this. Some people say he was born in Belfast (?? no??) and most commonly, they share images of people who were not Barry. I shall spare you a rant on that by directing you to my post on it here.
If you’re interested in learning more about him, Rachel Holmes’ book The Secret Life of Dr James Barry (previously published as Scanty Peculiars) is very informative and easy to read. I’ve recently started Dr James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time by Michael du Preez and Jeremy Dronfield which I’m not enjoying as much (and no it’s not just because they take the woman stance while Holmes acknowledges that he may have been trans.)