Valerie Arkell-Smith
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Valerie Arkell-Smith (1895-1960 as Valerie Barker), was a crossdresser who pretended to have fought in the RAF as Colonel Victor Barker.
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[edit] Life prior to crossdressing
Arkell-Smith grew up in Jersey. She expressed desire about being born a boy. Arkell-Smith had a love for horses and cars, and she enlisted, as a woman VAD, in the British Army during 1914. In 1918, she married an Australian officer Harold-Arkell-Smith. She suffered a series of problems during her first marriage, including domestic violence and psychological abuse. Their marriage lasted a short period of time and they divorced shortly after they married. Arkell-Smith soon met another man, Ernest Pearce-Crouch, also from Australia. The couple moved in together, and they had two children, a boy and a girl.
Arkell-Smith and Pearce-Crouch moved to a farm in Sussex, and Arkell-Smith started to dress in a more masculine way.
[edit] Crossdressing
In Sussex, Arkell-Smith met Elfrida Howard. By then, Arkell-Smith had begun to dress as a man. She left her husband in 1923 and began an adulterous relationship with Howard. Howard believed Arkell-Smith was a man.
The couple began living at the Grand Hotel, in Brighton. By then, Valerie Arkell-Smith had begun to use the name Victor Barker. On November 14, Arkell-Smith and Howard married, in what ultimately was an illegal marriage, since Arkell-Smith married using the alias "Victor Barker" and she was a woman.
A highly decorated WRAF officer, Arkell-Smith, as "Victor Barker", was arrested for implying that she was bankrupt while she was actually living comfortably with Howard, a heterosexual woman who did not know that "Victor Barker" was actually another woman.
In 1923, Arkell-Smith was convicted of the acts she had been accused about. While in jail, it was discovered that she was a woman, and she faced further charges, of willifully causing a false statement to be entered into a register of marriage. Arkell-Smith spent a decade in jail.
[edit] After jail
After being released, Arkell-Smith moved to Henfield, where she lived as "John Hill". She was imprisoned for a short period of time in 1934, this time for theft.
Later, she wrote about her life three times, her books being published each time. She also became a circus entertainer, with the well-known act, Man-woman.
[edit] Death
Despite making a good living with her books and her circus appearances, Arkell-Smith died as a poor woman, under the name "Geoffrey Norton", in 1960.
Arkell-Smith is buried at Kessingland churchyard, by Lowestoft.
The Brighton museum and history center celebrated her life during February, 2006, as part of England's LGBT month's celebrations.
