James Barry... The Man Who Never Was !

James Barry (c. 1789– 25 July 1865) was a military surgeon in the British Army, born in Cork, Ireland. 

At the age of 22, Barry obtained a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh Medical School, then served first in Cape Town, South Africa, and subsequently in many parts of the British Empire. 

Before retirement, Barry had risen to the rank of Inspector General (equivalent to Brigadier General) in charge of military hospitals, the second highest medical office in the British Army. 

Barry not only improved conditions for wounded soldiers, but also the conditions of the native inhabitants. During his time in Africa, he performed the first recorded caesarean section by a European in which both the mother and child survived the operation.

Although Barry's entire adult life was lived as a man, Barry’s birth name was actually Margaret Ann Bulkley and she was known as female in childhood. 

Barry was never happy identifying as a man, so as she entered her teens, she lived as a male in both public and private life, at least in part in order to be accepted as a university student and pursue a career as a surgeon. 

Barry's birth sex only becoming known to the public and to his military colleagues after a post-mortem examination.

The woman responsible for preparing his body for burial discovered the truth that Barry had successfully hidden for so many decades.

Furthermore, this woman reported that Barry had stretchmarks, suggesting that he’d had a child at one time. This led to speculation that Barry’s sister, Juliana Bulkley, was in fact his daughter.

George Graham of the General Register Office wrote to Dr. McKinnon, who had been Barry’s doctor, to query the facts surrounding Barry’s death. 

In a wonderfully enlightened reply, McKinnon states: “it was none of my business whether Dr. Barry was a male or a female.”

However, he did go on to give an opinion that “I thought that he might be neither…and that my impression was that Dr. Barry was a Hermaphrodite.”

To avoid scandal, Barry’s army files were locked down for 100 years. They were only opened again in the 1950s when the historian Isobel Rae decided to look into the matter. 

She went on to write the first biography of this remarkable surgeon.