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Revision as of 16:21, 10 November 2021 edit46.208.190.86 (talk) Reference to court decision is visibly wrong, but truth of this unclear so article not edited← Previous edit		Revision as of 19:47, 11 November 2021 edit undoAndrew Gray (talk \| contribs)Edit filter managers, Administrators55,916 edits →Court of Session action; article cannot be correct Next edit →
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	The article describes a decision (here called a 'ruling') of the Court of Session in 1991 and then says "The ruling was appealed to the Lord Advocate, who referred the matter to the Home Secretary, James Callaghan. Callaghan finally ruled in December 1968 that Forbes was the rightful holder of the title, confirming the court's decision". This is visibly nonsense. Court of Session decisions are never, and cannot be, appealed to the Lord Advocate, or to the Home Secretary. They are decisions of a court, indeed the supreme court of Scotland, not a government department. That said, I've no idea what actually happened here- perhaps there was never a Court of Session case at all but some other sort of process? Who knows?] (]) 16:21, 10 November 2021 (UTC)		The article describes a decision (here called a 'ruling') of the Court of Session in 1991 and then says "The ruling was appealed to the Lord Advocate, who referred the matter to the Home Secretary, James Callaghan. Callaghan finally ruled in December 1968 that Forbes was the rightful holder of the title, confirming the court's decision". This is visibly nonsense. Court of Session decisions are never, and cannot be, appealed to the Lord Advocate, or to the Home Secretary. They are decisions of a court, indeed the supreme court of Scotland, not a government department. That said, I've no idea what actually happened here- perhaps there was never a Court of Session case at all but some other sort of process? Who knows?] (]) 16:21, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

			:I think I've tracked down what happened in general terms, and I've corrected this section of the article. It seems that the court decision was not itself appealed (Barnes makes it very clear there ''was'' a court decision, albeit a very discreet one by a single judge), but that the subsequent decision to recognise Forbes as the holder of the title was challenged; the LA was then consulted by the Home Secretary, whose department (at the time) would have been responsible for the official roll.
			:I am hoping to get hold of Playdon's new book shortly, which sounds like it has traced all the technical details here, and hopefully that will shed a bit more light. ] (]) 19:47, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Revision as of 19:47, 11 November 2021

Sir Ewan Forbes, 11th Baronet has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 31, 2009	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 30, 2007.The text of the entry was: Did you know ...that a 1968 court challenge to the right of Sir Ewan Forbes, 11th Baronet, born "Elizabeth", to inherit his family baronetcy rested on the question of his gender?

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Comments

Interesting and curious. Was Sir Ewan intersex and assigned as a baby to the female gender only to discover that he felt male or was he a "true" woman, who simply decided to become a man? pmcray 12:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I honestly don't know. My source was a Telegraph obituary, which was very discreet about such matters. Ewan's quote suggests intersex, though - his comments seem to imply that the doctors could have registered him male but decided on female. Shimgray | talk | 12:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

also this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12/01/nest01.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/12/01/ixportal.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.201.56.156 (talk) 04:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I would be quite interested to find out his/her actual (physical) gender... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.76.209.49 (talk) 15:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this article belongs in the transsexual categories it has been attached to. I realize there are some theories that he was a transsexual who found a legal loophole in inheritance law, but following Shimgray's logic above (which I agree with), implies that Forbes is not a transsexual; rather he is an intersex person who was originally inappropriately assigned to the female gender when male turned out to be a better fit. 2003 Telegraph article while using 'sex-change' in the title states that "It is believed that the aristocrat had always displayed both male and female characteristics." Is the fact that he was believed by some to be transsexual reason enough to put this article in those categories? I can see his life as being interesting to people looking for information about transsexuals in history, but by that test Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Garland would belong in Gay Men Julib (talk) 09:22, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Rated

I rated this article as a C. It would be B, if he was only famous for his gender, but he was also an aristzocrat, so would be notable for that anyway. Currently the article reduces him to only his gender. Sources shuold exist for all aristocratic debutants, so expanding other areas of his life should be easy. Similarly for the Barony. I'm sure there must be more to him than his gender. Yobmod (talk) 09:39, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Woah, that was a quick improvment! I've re-rated it to B, which it clearly is now. GA beckons, although a portrait would make that a much easier pass imo (maybe a scan of the biogrpahy cover would make fair-use?). Great job1 Yobmod (talk) 07:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Like I said, your timing was perfect...

I've had real trouble tracking down a photograph. There's a small number (mostly low-quality) in the book - none on the cover - but the only copy of it I have access to is in the Bodleian, and there's no way I can practically make a copy of the images in it as a result. I've not found any contemporary newspaper photographs that I can easily get at, either, and there's nothing in the NPG.

As for online images to scavenge under fair-use, again, a blank. I've only turned up the one, and it's so grainy as to be of virtually no use. Still, plenty of time to keep looking... Shimgray | talk | 10:26, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Terminology

I've been mulling over these changes ("Pronoun issues resolved", 18 April) for a while, and on the whole I'm not comfortable with them.

The pronoun issue is one where stylistic preference varies, and I concur the MoS does suggest we should use masculine throughout, but the rest of it is less good. With these changes, we're consistently using "Ewan" rather than "Betty" to refer to the subject before 1945ish; I've never seen anything suggesting "Ewan" was used at all, by the subject or anyone else, before that date, and it seems a bit anachronistic to use it in the absence of any evidence suggesting that the subject wanted it that way.

(Forbes's biography is charmingly vague, omitting any details of personal identity in early life, even when you're looking for it. There really isn't much to draw on.)

I've removed the one part that actually changed the meaning of the text - the legal challenge to inheritance was not based on anatomy alone! - but I'll leave the other edits standing for the moment. Any thoughts? Shimgray | talk | 18:21, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Court of Session action; article cannot be correct

The article describes a decision (here called a 'ruling') of the Court of Session in 1991 and then says "The ruling was appealed to the Lord Advocate, who referred the matter to the Home Secretary, James Callaghan. Callaghan finally ruled in December 1968 that Forbes was the rightful holder of the title, confirming the court's decision". This is visibly nonsense. Court of Session decisions are never, and cannot be, appealed to the Lord Advocate, or to the Home Secretary. They are decisions of a court, indeed the supreme court of Scotland, not a government department. That said, I've no idea what actually happened here- perhaps there was never a Court of Session case at all but some other sort of process? Who knows?46.208.190.86 (talk) 16:21, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

I think I've tracked down what happened in general terms, and I've corrected this section of the article. It seems that the court decision was not itself appealed (Barnes makes it very clear there was a court decision, albeit a very discreet one by a single judge), but that the subsequent decision to recognise Forbes as the holder of the title was challenged; the LA was then consulted by the Home Secretary, whose department (at the time) would have been responsible for the official roll.

I am hoping to get hold of Playdon's new book shortly, which sounds like it has traced all the technical details here, and hopefully that will shed a bit more light. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:47, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

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