The Doctor Who Feigned Manhood

Barrymaniac
/ˈbɑːri meɪnɪak/
noun
person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal for Dr James Barry (1789-1865), a 19th century transgender army surgeon from Cork City, Ireland.

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Joseph Barry

Joseph Barry (1796-1865) was an English wine merchant and banker. He moved to South Africa and spent most of his life in Cape Town where he conducted his business.There is a photo of him that is frequently mislabelled as Dr James Barry.

Writer Jeremy Dronfield stated this on Twitter in 2019

[image description: a tweet dated March 8th 2019 by @jeremydronfield, replying to @DrLindseyFitz and @sarawezzie that reads “That blog post contains a lot of historical errors. Including its use of a photograph of South African banker Joseph Barry, often mistaken for James.” End description.]

So obviously the first thing I did was search for Joseph Barry (though my actual search was “joseph barry south africa”) which brought up the website for Joseph Barry handcrafted Cape Brandy. The ‘Joseph Barry story’ page uses that image and says he arrived from England to Cape Town in 1817. He appears to have been primarily involved with alcohol and trading not banking but anyway.


The next thing is the Riverton stud website. They use the same photo and go into far more detail about what appears to be the same man. As part of that, they say that Joseph Barry (1796-1865) had a brother and a nephew both called James Barry (b. 1789 and 1819) which may possibly have made things more confusing. Further down that page they include a photo of Barry & Nephews (as the company was known) and the man there looks quite similar to the photograph in question.

[image description: a black and white photograph of three men dressed smartly. The one in the middle (Joseph) is seated and facing ahead, while the other two (Thomas and John) are standing and seen at a three quarter view. End description.]


The other reason why I don’t think the photo is of James Barry is because the ears are different.

[image descriptions: the photo of Dr James Barry in Kingston, Jamaica which has been cropped to focus on his face contrasted next to the photo above of probably Joseph Barry. End description.]
Well I mean, their faces aren’t at all alike and I know your face can change over time etc but ears don’t. James has a long, nose with a point, Joseph has a more straight nose. James has a small mouth and narrow face, Joseph has a wider mouth and fuller face. Most of that could be argued away by age, lighting, illness etc but not the ears. James has an interesting shaped ear which goes out then back in, almost like a sideways camel’s back, but Joseph has reasonably tidy ears. They’re not the same at all.
So in conclusion, regardless of my feelings about Jeremy Dronfield and liking that photo, I don’t think it is Dr James Barry. It may not be Joseph Barry either but I highly doubt it is James. Add the fact that every image of Joseph Barry IS that one plus the second one of him with his nephews (that I only saw tonight) makes me think it actually is him especially with my ear thoughts you will notice though that any art of James Barry doesn’t include the weird ear shape but I think that’s just because art is unreliable for things like that since the artist has their own style and also probably brushed things up a little anyway

You can read more about Joseph Barry at South African Brandy Foundation website, Joseph Barry Cape Brandy website and Riverton Stud website.