Visibilising Edinburgh's Erased Queer History: Drumsheugh School

Delving into Edinburgh’s queer history, we discover the story of two school teachers, accused by their pupil of having 'inordinate affection' for each other. This blog by Poppy Watson paints a picture of the socio-cultural goings on in our city in the early 19th Century, highlighting complexities of class, race and queerness.

Hidden below present-day Drumsheugh Gardens, in Edinburgh's West End, lies a forgotten site of scandal, surrounding the now-erased Drumsheugh School. Founded 1809, by Jane Pirie and Marianne Woods, the School became the centre of a high-profile court case, in which Pirie and Woods were accused of, and later acquitted of, having a same-sex relationship (Morrison, 2022). I first learned about this case during a LGBTQ+ history Tour of Edinburgh Georgian House, hosted by Indigo Dunphy-Smith – a researcher and writer with a focus on queer storytelling through museum collections – as part of UoE’s PrideSocs Pride Month events 2025. I later has the opportunity to write about a site of hidden heritage site as part of my Masters course, in which where I chose to investigate the site of the Drumsheugh School and how it linked to queer history in Edinburgh.

The two women met in an art class years before they opened the school, forming a close relationship in which Pirie turned down a governess job in Glasgow to avoid being away from Woods. As Reasercher and co-chair of the national trust for Scotland’s LGBT network  Dunphy-Smith explains, the women's relationship was likely sapphic, with the women exchanging queer poetry. Dunphy-Smith (2024) suggests that we can read the opening of the Drumsheugh School as a way for the women to create and build a life together, during a time when two women could not.

The women ran the prestigious boarding school aimed at Edinburgh’s upper classes. One such pupil was Jane Cumming, who was enrolled alongside her two cousins. Jane Cumming was the granddaughter of Lady Cumming Gordon, a wealthy new-town woman who occupied 22 Charlotte Square. Jane was the 'illegitimate' daughter of Lady Cumming Gordon's late son, George, and an unknown, never-named woman from India – a detail which later becomes crucial to this story. After George's death, Jane moved to Edinburgh to live with her grandmother and was enrolled at the School as a boarder (Morrison, 2022). The ten boarders at the school were divided into two dormitories where the teachers also slept - with Jane begging to be assigned to Pirie - standard care at boarding schools of the time, but which many sources mention would be shocking if it were to occur today (Morrison, 2022). Records suggest Jane was treated more harshly by her teachers than other pupils - especially by Pirie - due to prejudice surrounding her race and 'illegitimacy'. This is why, researchers believe, she later made the accusation towards the women (Dunphy-Smith, 2024). 

On Saturday, 10th November 1810, Jane visited her grandmother at 22 Charlotte Square, where she divulged having seen Pirie and Woods engage in 'inordinate affection' for each other. In other words, she was accusing the woman of being in a sexual relationship (Dunphy-Smith, 2024). This accusation ran counter to the social, cultural, and political values of the time.  Being accused of same-sex relations was a life-altering experience in nineteenth-century Edinburgh, as sexuality and especially non-normative sexuality were heavily stigmatised. After Jane's accusation, all but two pupils were swiftly withdrawn from the School, which then collapsed under financial and social burdens. The quick withdrawal of these pupils symbolised the influence of Lady Cumming Gordon's social and political standings within Edinburgh's elite society. She leveraged these elite networks to inflict legal and economic damage without justification or concrete proof (Morrison, 2022).

Pirie and Woods retaliated, delivering a court summons to Lady Jane claiming £10,000 for 'defamatory allegations and insinuations' (Morrison, 2022). The case, ‘Pirie and Woods v. Cumming Gordon’, began on 15th March 1811. The case was harsh and went on to debate not only the charge of the teachers’ ‘inordinate affection', but also the very possibility of a lesbian relationship - specifically 'tribadism' - a form of sexual activity (Dunphy-Smith, 2024). The case discussed rumours of Pirie and Woods having “nocturnal visits to each other’s beds,” where they “Caused the bed to shake” and “shared kisses” (Friedman, 2005, pp. 54-55).  The case included testimony from Jane Cunningham, who was interrogated in the courtroom on how she knew the women were engaging in ‘irregular practices’. Jane shared that she learned details about ‘saphhic practices’ during her upbringing in India. The lawyers representing Pirie and Woods weaponised this, in addition to her mixed race identity and ‘illegitimacy’ as a way to discredit her in the courtroom, playing on biased attitudes at the time. 

The two women ultimately won their court case and were awarded the full 10,000, only received 500 each after court and legal fees, and the damage to their reputations was done. The women parted ways and they were not able to work in the Edinburgh again. Bringing a tragic end to perhaps one of the very few Sapphic love stories we know of from the city of the time. 

The school, a queer-coded space, embodies this unofficial heritage as it no longer exists. It was swiftly replaced with housing after the court case, and the present-day location has no reference to the school. This highlights how queer heritage within physical space remains limited (Lustbader, 2016, p.139). Queer histories and the histories of marginalised folks are often villified, left to vanish, or actively erased. This story provides a glimpse into queerness in the 19th century. Unsettlingly however, we only know about it due to the high-profile nature of the court case – which inspired Lillian Hellman to write the play Children’s Hour (1934), adapted into the 1961 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine (Dunphy-Smith, 2024) – not because of a shared love or life together. 

Author bio:

Poppy Watson is the President of PrideSoc at the University of Edinburgh. She is undertaking her Masters in Cultural Heritage Futures at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

References:

Dunphy-Smith, I. (2024). Jane Pirie: a complex woman connecting 19th-century Edinburgh. [online] National Trust for Scotland. Available at: https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/jane-pirie-a-woman-ahead-of-her-time. [Accessed: 07/10/2025]

Ferguson, B. (2013). The ‘lesbian’ teacher scandal that shook society. [online] The Scotsman. Available at: https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/theatre-and-stage/the-lesbian-teacher-scandal-that-shook-society-2479163  [Accessed 09/10/22025].

Friedman, G. (2005). School for Scandal: Sexuality, Race, and National Vice and Virtue in Miss Marianne Woods and Miss Jane Pirie Against Lady Helen Cumming Gordon. Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 27(1), pp.53–76. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/08905490500133113. [Accessed: 09/10/2025]

Harrison, R. 2013. Heritage: Critical Approaches. London: Routledge. Pp.14-32 [Accessed: 26/09/2025]

Jones, S. (2017). Wrestling with the Social Value of Heritage: Problems, Dilemmas and Opportunities. Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage, 4(1), 21–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/20518196.2016.1193996  [Accessed: 07/10/2025]

 Lustbader, Ken. “LGBTQ HERITAGE.” Change over Time; Philadelphia, vol. 8, no. 2, 2018, pp. 136–143, 266. Proquest, https://doi.org/10.1353/cot.2018.0012.. [Accessed 13/10/2025]

Morrison, J. (2022). The LGBT sex scandal of Edinburgh’s New Town - Historic Environment Scotland Blog. [online] Historic Environment Scotland Blog. Available at: https://blog.historicenvironment.scot/2022/02/the-lgbt-sex-scandal-of-edinburghs-new-town/. [Accessed: 09/10/2025]

Staff Writer (2022). Variations on a Theme: The Court Case of Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie – National Library of Scotland Blog. [online] National Library of Scotland Blogs. Available at: https://blog.nls.uk/variations-on-a-theme-the-court-case-of-marianne-woods-and-jane-pirie/. Accessed: 07/10/2025]