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Saturday, 30 November 2019

A special photograph that escaped being binned


Both Frank Paice and Florrie Cox were Baptist missionaries from Melbourne, Australia, stationed in the early 1900s in East Bengal, now Bangladesh.  

Their marriage fell apart in scandal for two primary reasons: 1) Frank Paice had fallen for another missionary, Olga Johnston, during the two-year engagement that the church required Florrie and Frank to spend apart. 2) Florrie had a rare variation of the intersex condition, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Although she looked and felt like a woman, she had male chromosomes and no internal female organs. 






Then I got lucky.  
My hunt was over thanks to a large dollop of luck, and the fact that the distant cousin's family had never been told about the scandal and didn't realise the photo's significance.  

The story of Florrie Cox and Frank Paice is told in Ian D. Richardson’s book God’s Triangle, available in paperback and ebook: http://www.godstriangle.com/ . 

1 comment:

  1. Why is Frank seated while Florrie stands? I have part of the answer. Florrie would have wanted to show off her frock and her large bouquet to their best effect. As for Frank, well it was unusual, but not unknown, for the groom to be seated for a wedding portrait. I am unable to track down any definite explanation, but I suspect it was because Frank was apparently shorter than Florrie.


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