In December 1904, a 56-year-old man called Thomas E Boulton died in the National Hospital in London’s Queen Square. In April 1870, a 22-year-old named Stella Clinton was arrested on the pavement outside the Royal Strand theatre, having just used the ladies’ lavatory in that building, and was charged with conspiracy to commit a felony. Between those two dates, a female impersonator who called himself both Ernest Byne and Ernest Blair appeared in theatres and music halls from New York to the Isle of Man, receiving applause as an actor one week, an actress the next

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