Australian Dictionary of Biography

Lady Paula Howard at Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival, November 1980

Courtesy of Greer McGearey and Seahorse Victoria

Lady Paula Howard (1912–2000), fashionista and trans personality, was born on 28 January 1912 at Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales, elder child of locally born parents Donald Burnie, iron and steel merchant, and his wife Alice Mabel, née Harvey. Assigned male at birth, she was named Robert John Donald Burnie, but later in life she habitually went by Lady Paula Howard, while not shying away from use of her former name.¹ In 1915 her father was killed in action at Loos, France, while serving with the British Army during World War I. Educated at Swansea Municipal Secondary School, she trained as an accountant in a firm founded by her maternal grandfather, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1938. Lady Paula also had a successful career as a motorcycle racer, including a victory in the 30-mile English open sand race at Southport, Lancashire, in 1934. On 8 April 1939 at the Sketty parish church, Swansea, she married Joy Agnes Diana Probert. The couple would have two daughters, Rosalind (b. 1941) and Joy (b. 1955).

In August 1939 Lady Paula enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps and went overseas with the British Expeditionary Force in September. Commissioned on 21 February 1940, she was wounded during the evacuation of Dunkirk and spent several months in hospital. In 1944 she attained the rank of major, with a staff appointment at the headquarters of the 21st Army Group in France, and on 4 April 1946 she was mentioned in dispatches for distinguished service in north-west Europe. After the war, she worked for the Dunlop Rubber Co. Ltd in Birmingham until March 1948, when she was appointed chief internal auditor for Dunlop (South Africa) Ltd and moved to Durban. The next year she became assistant general manager of Fine Wool Products of South Africa Ltd in Cape Town, before returning to Durban as general manager (1954–58) of Motor Assemblies Ltd.

Lady Paula Howard is best known for her life as a trans woman. As a child she felt an interest in dressing in girl’s clothing and taking part in performances, and by the 1930s she was experimenting with women’s dress in private. She first ventured in public dressed as a woman in 1939 and during World War II appeared in drag shows to entertain troops. After moving to South Africa, she increasingly experimented with her female persona alongside her business career until, as she later put it, ‘transvestism overtook other pursuits’ (Howard 1999, 3). In 1957 she left her first wife and resolved to ‘live as much of my life in a feminine role as my business and conveniently limited social obligations would allow’ (Transvestia 1964, 2). The next year, on 30 June 1958, she married Carole Muriel Aldred Revelas, née Palmer, the owner and operator of a charm school and modelling agency in Johannesburg. Carole was aware of Lady Paula’s female persona and proved an affirming influence.

Moving again to Cape Town, Lady Paula became the controller of Burlington Hosiery Mills (South Africa) Ltd. She managed to tap into the small but emerging international trans scene, through such organisations as the Phoenix Club in South Africa and the American journal Transvestia, the world’s first known magazine by and for trans people. In 1964, using the name Roma, she published a piece in Transvestia about her life as a trans woman. During this period, with Carole’s help, she also developed her Lady Paula Howard persona. In 1965 she used her business connections to secure an entry for Lady Paula in Who’s Who of Southern Africa, which announced her aristocratic lineage, her education at the prestigious Roedean School for girls in Sussex, an arts degree at Girton College, Cambridge, and various charitable activities. Her life story was full of such colourful embellishments.

In the early 1970s Lady Paula’s marriage to Carole broke down, and they divorced in 1978. ‘Fed up with leading a double life’ (Howard 1999, 3), she left South Africa in 1972 and lived briefly with a widowed trans woman in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 1973 she moved to Melbourne, where she decided to ‘live and dress entirely as Lady Paula Howard, developing and expanding that role as far and as fast as experience told me was wise’ (Howard 1999, 48). She stayed at first at a flat in Kew where trans women gathered. In September 1975 several of these women founded a Victorian chapter of the pioneering Australian trans group, Seahorse, which had formed in Sydney in 1971. Although not a founding member, Lady Paula regularly socialised with Seahorse members and attended their events, including the Trans-Seminars of 1976 and 1977.

Lady Paula eventually joined Seahorse and over the years proved a polarising figure. In 1981 she took over editing the Seahorse newsletter and used it to criticise the organisation’s leadership. The committee resolved to remove her as editor in June 1982, but a year later, with relations rebuilt, she returned for another twelve-month stint. The Seahorse historian Sue Lardner credits Lady Paula’s critical editorials as stimulating members out of complacency, ensuring the club’s continuity and growth. Her relationship with Seahorse continued to be turbulent. In December 1987, when she requested to be reinstated as a member, eleven members threatened to resign. Again, as time passed, attitudes softened, and in 1995 Seahorse Victoria bestowed upon her the club’s first life membership, an honour Lardner attributed to Lady Paula’s inspiring example in ‘passing as a woman and maintaining a charade as a titled lady’ (2000, n.p.). She was also a member of another trans organisation which was an offshoot of Seahorse: the Elaine Barrie Project.

For a decade from 1975, Lady Paula lived in ‘socially conscious Toorak’ where ‘rather to my surprise, and certainly to my satisfaction’ (Howard 1999, 60), she was accepted by the local community. She was well known in socialite circles and for her attendance at cultural events such as orchestra and ballet performances, and horse races. A lover of lavish dresses, from 1978 she began to wear period pieces to Oaks Day at Flemington Racecourse during the Spring Racing Carnival. Twice the judges of the fashion contest awarded her a special prize for ‘sheer elegance.’ She also featured on a 1983 television news report curtseying to Prince Charles and Princess Diana during a reception at the Melbourne Concert Hall.

In 1988, using her former name, Lady Paula published A Gathering of Lilacs, a collection of short stories inspired by her life. Some of these had been published in magazines including Cleo and Australian Outdoors or had won prizes at literary festivals. In 1999 she published an autobiography, Frocks, Frills and Furbelows: The Story of Lady Paula Howard — An Embellished Biography of Transvestism Spanning Forty Years and Four Continents. Having suffered a stroke in 1994, she died on 22 September 2000 in a nursing home at Katoomba, New South Wales. Elaine Barrie wrote after her death: ‘Lady Paula was a LEGEND even in her own lifetime and now that she has gone, that LEGEND MUST BE PRESERVED FOR ALL TIME’ (2000, 21).

1. It is generally considered offensive to refer to trans people by their previous names, known as ‘deadnames,’ without their permission. Lady Paula Howard used her deadname in her autobiography and other writings, so it is mentioned here; but the remainder of the biography uses her chosen name and feminine pronouns. Similarly, it uses the term ‘trans’ in preference to the now outdated term ‘transvestite’ which was common during Lady Paula’s life.