Difference and Desire: homoeroticism, gender and nation in the life and fiction of Amy Dillwyn

Lead Research Organisation: Swansea University
Department Name: College of Arts and Humanities

Abstract

When in 1872 Amy Dillwyn began to refer to her friend, Olive Talbot, as her 'wife' in her private diaries, the term 'lesbian' (or the idea of a 'lesbian identity') was not available. In later life Dillwyn would come to relish what she called her 'difference' which she accentuated by her unconventional dress, her habit of smoking a cigar in public and her outspoken independence. A pioneering female British industrialist, she transformed a bankrupt spelter works into a profitable concern saving 300 jobs. She was also renowned for her work for social justice, supporting striking seamstresses and campaigning for the vote.

As a novelist, she explored class tensions, adopting the working class male voice of a rioter in one novel (which was quickly translated into Russian and published by the leading revolutionary journal on the basis of its social radicalism). Her fiction is important as an early example of feminist (New Woman) writing and it is an outstanding example of Victorian 'lesbian fiction', innovative and ardent in its coded expression of love for another woman. In an historical context, Dillwyn's writing is both 'pre-sexology' (prior to the major publications on inversion) and contemporary with the development of these paradigms.

The research project will culminate in a book which presents an in-depth study of an important lesbian figure and uses personal papers to revise the suppressed biography of Amy Dillwyn. These papers, alongside contemporary literary theories, will inform a reading of her fiction as an example of 'lesbian' literature. In addition to a focus on sexuality, the book will discuss Dillwyn's 'feminism' and her 'nationalism'. It will reflect on her sometimes troubled sense of belonging to a minority ethnic group and, at the same time, to an oppressive exploitative class of landowners and politicians. The relationship between these different types of identity will be explored in a final chapter.

The book will begin with a chapter on her life and the loves and convictions which are expressed in the diaries and represented later in her fiction. The book will include chapters on: New Woman writing and Dillwyn's literary career (including her work as a reviewer and critiquing her fiction in comparison with other 'feminist' writing of the period); her representation of Wales including her nationalist and radical representation of class conflict; an overview of her lesbian narratives followed by further chapters exploring how Dillwyn encoded lesbian desire through cross-class disguise and masquerade and how she represented gender as performance through her playful or violent use of dress and jewellery. Finally it will end by bringing together theories of (Welsh) national or ethnic identity and lesbian identity in a chapter entitled 'Queer Nation?'.

Website and Public Events:
There is considerable interest in Amy Dillwyn and her family in Glamorganshire. In addition to the book, there will be a website offering further information about Amy Dillwyn's extraordinary family and her non-literary activities in Wales and a series of talks and events, including a literary tour and a symposium incorporating an exhibition and a multi-media theatre production based on my research. The website and events will engage with the wider public whose interest in Amy Dillwyn as a local character is still strong. These activities are associated with a larger Dillwyn project which brings together academics, archivists, family representatives and members of the wider community to document the lives of the Dillwyn family. In addition to the Dillwyn website, transcripts of the diaries of William Dillwyn (the Ameican Quaker anti-slavery campaigner), Lewis Weston Dillwyn (pioneering botanist), Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn (Liberal MP and advocate of home rule) and John Dillwyn Llewelyn (pioneering botanist, photographer and astronomer) have been prepared by a family member and links to these online diaries will be

Planned Impact

Who will benefit from this research?
The academic beneficiaries are discussed in the relevant section above; this section concentrates on the wider non-academic beneficiaries. There are three principal groups who will benefit directly from the research and outputs planned: museums, local history groups and amateur historians; lesbian communities and the wider public whose awareness of lesbian history will be expanded.

How will they benefit from this research?

Museums: Glamorganshire museums, including the National Waterfront Museum and Swansea Museum will benefit from the Dillwyn Symposium and Exhibition. The event will take place in Swansea Museum and alert interested parties to the long connection of the Dillwyn family with the museum (formerly the South Wales Institution set up to promote the advance of science and knowledge in the nineteenth century). In the longer term it is anticipated that there will be increased footfall to the Museum as a result of long-term publicity on the project website and associated diary websites (these last are not part of this project but will be highlighted by the project). There will also be increased footfall to the National Waterfront Museum as a result of the Dillwyn Symposium and Exhibition because their Dillwyn artefacts and history of women's suffrage artefacts will be highlighted by the event and project website.

Amateur Historians/History Groups: One of the outputs will be a local history talk (potentially more than one). This will address the longstanding interest in Amy Dillwyn demonstrated recently by her inclusion in the International Women's Day exhibition at the National Waterfront Museum. The Glamorgan History Society and smaller history groups will be interested in the research, thus there is the potential to reach several hundred interested members of the public directly through history groups and talks. The project website will greatly increase this audience. Full details of this website and its reciprocal links is given in the Case for Support (outputs).

Lesbian community: Lesbian history has been so occluded as to deny the existence of lesbians in history. Although academic studies rightly complicate any attempt to impose anachronistically a modern concept of lesbian identity on pre-sexologist individuals, the discussion of the lives, works and achievements of women who loved women is crucial. Firstly because it undermines the homophobic refusal to acknowledge sexual difference (lesbians are invisible therefore they don't exist). Secondly because it shows that 'lesbian' women made important contributions to their society (political, social, economic) and their works of art or literature are culturally important. As the LGBT History website claims: "Now it's time we began to deal with the legacy of silence. This is not only in the interests of LGBT people but of our whole society. Silence breeds ignorance and distorted imaginings. From these come, at best, embarrassment; at worst, hostility and hate crimes. ... To understand our present and imagine our future, we must first gain insight into our past. This is true of us as individuals; it is also true of societies." [www.lgbthistorymonth.org.uk]

Reaching this wider, more diffuse community will be primarily achieved via interest-group websites and magazines. Advice will be sought from the LGBT history month organisers and the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Press releases will target mainstream lesbian magazines. The republication of the most important of Amy Dillwyn's lesbian novels (Honno, 2012) will also be used to promote my wider research as it can be listed amongst 'lesbian books' on many more websites which use Amazon-generated lists.

The primary impact then will be on enlarging lesbian history and awareness and there the benefits are cultural and implicitly political rather than economic.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Title Mandy Lane - Artist's Residency and Exhibition 
Description Collaboration with sculptor Mandy Lane who was artist in residence at Wales Arts Review. 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact Swansea University Research as Art award 2018. 
URL https://www.walesartsreview.org/a-i-r-mandy-lane-talks-to-professor-kirsti-bohata/
 
Description Contexts:
When, in 1872, Amy Dillwyn named Olive Talbot her wife she was expressing a desire that would dominate her literary career. Her first novel, about Welsh freedom fighters dressed in women's clothes, was a coded love story of one woman's love for another, as well as a tale of national and class revolt. Subsequent novels revisit the story of class conflict, social injustice, the oppression of women and a searching, yearning desire of one woman for another. This research is based on texts and archives previously unavailable to historians and critics. It shows how class, nationality, gender and same-sex desire intersect and intertwine in Dillwyn's novels of the 1880s and has implications for how we understand the connections between female sexuality and national identity, previously an area dominated by heterosexual female roles. In the fiction of Amy Dillwyn, female same-sex desire, figuratively connected the aspirations of the Welsh home-rule movement, is both transgressive and socially transformative.
This research award was designed to allow the final stages of primary search to be concluded, to deliver a number of impact-related activities and to synthesise the research into three publications.

Key outcomes are:

New perspectives on sexual/national identities of relevance to contemporary literary critics and theorists.

New edition of a very rare book, Jill (1884), has been published with an introduction that tells the suppressed history of Amy Dillwyn. This is a key novel about female same-sex desire.

New understanding of the little known translation into Russian of Dillwyn's radical novel The Rebecca Rioter, by Russian revolutionaries in St Petersburg in 1880. This, and the translation of another novel by Dillwyn, demonstrates her significance to feminist and liberal Russian intellectuals.

The creation of a new archive of Dillwyn's personal papers and diaries, previously unavailable to researchers. Thus the history of same-sex desire and literary representations of women who love women , have been considerably augmented. The papers were deposited at Swansea University's archives for public access as part of this research project. Further materials may follow.

Public engagement and knowledge transfer activities undertaken during the project have led to strong connections with literary tourism operators, the heritage sector (national museum), archives, broadcast media and charities. There is an on-going series of walks, talks, documentaries organised by CREW and partners.
Exploitation Route The new edition of *Jill*, two new essays - one on same-sex desire between women in literature from Wales from the seventeenth-century to the present and one on cross-class desire in Victorian literuature - plus the online publication of Dillwyn's diaries to coincide with the forthcoming monograph will provide new evidence of the way in which same-sex desire was experienced and represented in literature in the late nineteenth century. In addition, this study proposes new ways in which to understand possible intersections between a minority nationality and a minority sexuality. This work is already contributing to redefining the canon, making queer writing from Wales visible and available to other scholars.

A sculptor, Mandy Lane, has used my research as the basis of a series of pieces that were on display in 2017. Kate Milsom has created a picture based on my research (on display 2018)

My work on The Rebecca Rioter, Dillwyn's first novel, fed into a new AHRC project, 'A New Literary Geography', led by Dr Jon Anderson, Cardiff University. I am Co-I on the project.
Sectors Creative Economy

Education

Leisure Activities

including Sports

Recreation and Tourism

Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections

Other

URL http://www.swansea.ac.uk/crew/researchprojects/dillwyn/
 
Description The cigar-smoking, straight-talking businesswoman, Amy Dillwyn, was a celebrity in her day and has caught the imagination of contemporary audiences. This research project, (to understand Dillwyn's coded portrayals of female same-sex desire and the ways in which they intersected with themes of social justice, feminist reform and home-rule) had several impact activities built in from the start and is part of a wider 'Dillwyn Project' which extends into the worlds of science and industry, philanthropy and politics. Events organised by the project generated interest in the media, heritage and arts sectors, leading to further public engagement. LITERARY TOUR: A sell-out literary tour in July 2012 took 50 people to visit sites depicted in Dillwyn's The Rebecca Rioter, with readings and lectures en route. The direct impact was improved understanding of the history of the riots and the literary landscape of the area west of Swansea. DOCUMENTARY: As a direct result of this event, a TV producer at Tinopolis commissioned a half-hour documentary on Amy Dillwyn, featuring some of the new research from the project, including a visit to film the new archives. Broadcast as part of the highly successful 'Mamwlad' [Motherland] series, presented by Ffion Hague it was first shown on S4C in English and Welsh on February 2014. A second documentary, by radio producer Dinah Jones for BBC Radio Wales, included Amy Dillwyn's entrepreneurial career as zinc spelter, for which I provided an interview and advice. DILLWYN DYNASTY: SCIENCE, CULTURE, SOCIETY A one-day event of talks by leading historians and critics introduced the wider influence of the Dillwyn family on nineteenth-century life (from botany to anti-slavery, chemistry to literature) to an audience of over 120 at the National Waterfront Museum in June 2012. The event was attended by the Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science Edwina Hart MBE OStJ AM. The event sparked a flurry of further invitations and connections, too numerous to mention here. WELSH WOMEN'S ARCHIVE - 'WOMEN'S HISTORY WALKS': I was adviser to the group who have created a walking tour of Swansea to highlight women's history in the area (Walk designed and first tours September 2014) TALKS and NON-ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS: many invitations have stemmed from the core events above and I have given lectures based to the Historical Association, LGBT events at the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea (and this has led to on-going commitments on cognate research projects), University of the Third Age, and various local history groups. I have also published articles on Amy Dillwyn in non-academic magazines, including one on Sarah Waters and Dillwyn which has generated further invitations to advise on an LGBT community / performance project in Aberystwyth. RADIO: I was interviewed about Amy Dillwyn on 6 February 2018 on Good Morning Wales (BBC Radio Wales) to mark 100 years since the partial enfranchisement of women. As a direct result Companies House wrote a blog on Amy Dillwyn to mark LGBT History Month. ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION The sculptor, Mandy Lane, has chosen to use my research on Amy Dillwyn to inform a new sculpture which she was commissioned to create during her time as Artist in Residence at Wales Arts Review. A whole exhibiton was created and key pieces have been shown at Fringe Arts Bath and Swansea Open at the Glynn Vivian (2017). A blot discussing our collaboration was recorded and published online by Wales Arts Review. Since then another artist, Kate Mosley, has exhibited a work 'Amy Dillwyn' which draws on my research (two versions of which were on display at Martin Tinney Gallery and Battersea Affordable Arts in 2018).
First Year Of Impact 2010
Sector Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Other
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

 
Description Research Grant
Amount £47,155 (GBP)
Funding ID AH/N003764/1 
Organisation Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2016 
End 08/2018
 
Description Symposium Grant
Amount £564 (GBP)
Organisation Learned Society of Wales 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2012 
End 07/2012
 
Description 'Amy Dillwyn: Pioneer', Swansea Branch of the Historical Association, 18 May, 2013, National Waterfont Museum 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This was an invited talk to the Historical Association (Swansea Branch), which looked at the pioneering feminist work of Amy Dillwyn, her writing and her insdusturial and public roles. It was a large event, and the questions ranged widely. There was particular interest in her contribution to female labour protests and questions about her politics. This was connected, for this audience, to their interest in the wider Dillwyn dynasty and their scientific networks, which arises in part from the 2012 one-day event organised earlier in this project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description A Queer Life 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Talk on life and literature of Amy Dillwyn as part of LGBT History Month, part of a Living Histories and LGBT Exhibition launch.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description A Queer-Looking Lot of Women 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Talk on the trans dimensions and queer triangles in Amy Dillwyn's most famous novel, The Rebecca Rioter, as part of LGBT History Month and part of a day-long series of events programmed by the Glynn Vivian art gallery.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL http://www.enjoyswanseabay.com/events/glynn-vivian-at-night-5/
 
Description Abberration, All Queered Up - 19 February 2016 Public talk, Aberystwyth Arts Centre 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This event was organised in Aberystwyth by an LGBTQ group as part of LGBT History month. It was a lively event, mixing talks from academics with music and some resurrection of historical characters. The audience were highly engaged and the evening ended with a discussion of how to treat historical sexualities and how we see present-day sexuality in relation to earlier eras. Feedback from the audience emphasised their enjoyment but also a new awareness of the ubiquity of what has generally been a hidden history of same-sex desire.

My talk was 20-30 mins including questions on Amy Dillwyn, gender and sexuality using her diaries as the main focus.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Amy Dillwyn's Queer Archives 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Tour/introduction to the Dillwyn papers at Swansea University archives including some of the artwork that is based on the archives.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/professor-kirsti-bohata-amy-dillwyns-queer-archives-tickets-511897077...
 
Description Contribution - Radio Cymru 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Very short clip for a Welsh-medium programme on 'heroes' where the guest nominated Amy Dillwyn. Lead-in clip to describe Dillwyn.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Dillwyn science, politics, culture event - collaboration on Digital Heritage Trail 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Dillwyn Dynasty: Science, Culture, Society A one-day event of talks by leading historians and critics introduced the wider influence of the Dillwyn family on nineteenth-century life (from botany to anti-slavery, chemistry to literature) to an audience of over 120 at the National Waterfront Museum. The event was attended by the Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science Edwina Hart MBE OStJ AM.

The event sparked a flurry of further invitations and connections, too numerous to mention here. Plus many further requests for information and offers of new research information.

Digital Heritage Trail: The most important outcome of the Dillwyn event is the present collaboration with the Penllergare Trust who, with a Heritage Lottery Grant of £2.2m are restoring an important Victorian garden. The garden will be the centre of a digital trail which will tell the scientific, industrial, literary and political stories of the Dillwyns who were at the centre of so many Victorian networks and yet have been neglected by historians. The trail will use software developed by Swansea University, train young researchers and provide engagement opportunities for schools and the wider public. The Digital Trail will be launched in June/July 2015.

Welsh Women's Archive History Walk: I was adviser to the group who have created a walking tour of Swansea to highlight women's history in the area (Walk designed and first tours September 2014)

Talks: many invitations have stemmed from the core events above and I have given lectures based to the Historical Association, LGBT events at the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea (and this has led to on-going commitments on cognate research projects), University of the Third Age, and various local history groups.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://www.swansea.ac.uk/crew/researchprojects/dillwyn/dillwynday/
 
Description ISWE Welsh Estates talk: Poaching and Privilege 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Invited paper at an event aimed at the general public and third sector, on the history of Wales's landed estates.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description LGBT History Month - Public Lectures 2013, 2014 - National Waterfront 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact In 2014 I gave a talk on Amy Dillwyn's sexuality, literary and industrial career to mark LGBT History Month. There was considerable interest in the difference between Victorian and contemporary understanding of same-sex desire. The interest in this talk led to the invitation to deliver a further talk, on February 14th 2015, on lesbians in Welsh literature, entitled 'Now you see her...': Lesbian literature from Wales. Many of hte audience were older lesbian women, who were moved and found many points of contact between their own lives and experiences and the imagery and tropes in the literature discussed. They shared personal stories and asked me to circulate a reading list so that they could follow up some of the titles. This interest in lesbian writing and the dearth of easy sources, led me to write an academic survey essay and also to start preparing a 'queer anthology' (short stories, extracts, poems) with a co-editor aimed at a general audience.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014,2015
 
Description Literary Tour, media interest - documentary, drama 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact NB: The tour could only take 50 people, but we had to turn others away with only photographs and write-up on a blog.
A tour, including on-site readings and a lecture, about the historical, literary and biographical dimensions of Amy Dillwyn's novel, The Rebecca Rioter, which tells of the agrarian uprisings of 1843.

There were questions throughout the day-long event and the participants discussed how far Dillwyn's love for another woman was coded in the story, as well as the wider class and national history of the region.

DOCUMENTARIES: As a direct result of this event, a TV producer at Tinopolis commissioned a half-hour documentary on Amy Dillwyn, featuring some of the new research from the project, including a visit to film the new archives. Broadcast as part of the highly successful 'Mamwlad' [Motherland] series, presented by Ffion Hague it was first shown on S4C in English and Welsh on February 2014. A second documentary, by radio producer Dinah Jones for BBC Radio Wales, included Amy Dillwyn's entrepreneurial career as zinc spelter, for which I provided an interview and advice.

DRAMA: Scriptwriter, producer and director Colin Thomas also joined the tour. He is now working with Theatr na N'Og, an Arts Council funded theatre company, to produce a play based directly on the new readings of The Rebecca Rioter revealed by my research. I am working as a consultant on the project which will create a multi-media performance incorporating the fiction and diaries of Dillwyn alongside video footage, protest song and ballads. The intention is for a schools programme to be developed alongside the drama.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://www.swansea.ac.uk/crew/researchprojects/dillwyn/dillwynliteraturetour/
 
Description Public talk - 'Amy Dillwyn: love and life', Port Talbot History Society, 5 December 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This was a one-hour, invited talk to a local history group of about 45. The invitation arose from publicity surrounding the 2012 Literary Tour and an academic conference paper attended by one of the members. It was a well-attended session including local librarians, local historians and members of the public.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Ursula Masson Memorial Lecture 2016: Industrial Fiction by Women in Wales 1880-1914 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This is a prestigious annual lecture, attended by a mixture of academics, students and the general public (the latter being in the majority). This lecture looked at Amy Dillwyn's industrial writing alongside that of her contemporaries. Important outcomes were the audience's assertions that they had a new understanding and awareness of a body of women's writing they didn't know existed. Secondly, one perhaps surprising topic discussed as poaching and one audience member alerted me to a text which might have tangential interest and told me about a relevant community project that is underway. This connection will be followed up.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016