Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie (with Indigo Dunphy-Smith)

Today's special guest is the researcher and museum worker Indigo Dunphy-Smith, who is bringing her expertise to the case of Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie, two Edinburghian school teachers who found themselves embroiled in a sex scandal and court case in the early years of the 19th century. Their legal woes followed accusations by a pupil about sapphic goings-on at their small private school, and raised issues regarding attitudes to sex, race and colonialism in late Georgian era Scotland.

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SOURCES:

Clerk, John, The notorious Drumsheugh Case of 1810: Miss Marianne Woods and Miss Jane Pirie v. Lady Cumming Gordon of Altyre, The Signet Library, Roughead Collection R343.1 H865

Singh, Frances B, Scandal and Survival in Nineteenth-Century Scotland: The Life of Jane Cumming, NED-New edition, Boydell & Brewer, 2020

Rupp, Leila J, Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women, Beacon Press, 2009

Donoghue, Emma, Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668–1801, HarperCollins, 1993

Faderman, Lillian, Scotch Verdict: The Real-Life Story That Inspired “The Children’s Hour”, Columbia University Press, 1983

Faderman, Lillian, Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present, William Morrow & Co, 1981

National Records of Scotland, Burgh Register of Sasines for Edinburgh B22/4/31

Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrienn, distributed under a Creative Commons license. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.