Edward De Lacy Evans

Edward De Lacy Evans was a gold prospector, blacksmith and miner in colonial Australia. Evans was probably born in Ireland around 1830, likely under the name Ellen Tremayne or Tremaye, and emigrated to Victoria in 1856. Shortly after arriving, Evans took on a male name and lived as a man in the mining regions of Ballarat and Bendigo for more than two decades. There, Evans worked in various physically demanding occupations, including as a miner and blacksmith, at times held shares in mining claims and was regarded as a respected worker.

Evans married three women and led a social life as a husband and father. In 1878, his third wife, Julia Marquand, gave birth to a daughter, Julia Mary Evans. Evans was entered as the child’s father and socially assumed the role of father. According to Marquand, the biological father was Jean Baptiste Loridan, her brother-in-law. She later sued him for child support, but without success. Evans was formally listed as the father on the birth certificate and supported Marquand in the case.

It was also Loridan who, in 1879, after alleged episodes of ill health and mental crisis, first took Edward to the lunatic ward of Bendigo Hospital and claimed that he was “dangerous to others”. Edward was committed to the Kew Lunatic Asylum near Melbourne. There, he was undressed against his will and physically examined. Doctors then established that Evans had been assigned female at birth. Newspapers quickly turned the case into a sensation.

Authorities and doctors subsequently tried to force Evans to live as a woman. After his release, Evans was at times made to appear in public shows in which his story was commercially exploited. In the final years of his life, Evans lived in the Melbourne Immigrants’ Home, where he was made to wear women’s clothing and was registered under the name Ellen. Evans died in Melbourne in 1901, impoverished.