Lunchtime Talk: A Life in the Archives – Annie Hindle, Female Husband & Enigma

An olive green graphic with an old sepia toned photograph of a woman wearing a soldiers uniform on the left. On the right, in yellow text, it reads 'Annie Hindle, Drag king, female husband and enigma'.

Discover the fascinating life of Annie Hindle – the infamous trans-Atlantic Drag King – with researchers SJ Cooper-Knock and Fiona Moorcroft.

When SJ Cooper-Knock and Fiona Moorcroft decided to write a new play based on the life of the infamous trans-Atlantic 'Drag King' Annie Hindle, they had envisaged that the archives and internet would open up a world that would be both easy to access and accurate. Yet, with every new revelation, they learned that nothing is simple when it comes to researching – even a famous queer woman. It turns out Annie Hindle wasn't quite as well documented as imagined, and for every new thing learnt about her, they found something that either directly contradicted it or made them question if it really happened at all.

This talk looks at how writers use archives, and the difficulties that they face when it comes to pinning any 'facts' down, particularly when it comes to queer historic figures.

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