Victor Dolling, who worked at Smithfield meat market as a porter, and Constance, both of Walworth, London, were married in 1950, and they had a child a year later. Shortly afterwards, Victor increasingly felt female, and twice, in 1952 and 1954, consulted psychiatrists at Guy’s Hospital. The endocrinologist Dr Peter Bishop prescribed female hormones. Dolling quit the job at Smithfield to live full time as female, found work as a clerk at British Railways, and left Mrs Dolling in 1957.
In May 1958 Constance Dolling applied for a divorce decree on the ground of cruelty. Her husband signed a court document as Victoria Dolling, and did not contest the suit. However the judge dismissed the suit saying
“But it is utterly impossible to say that his consent to be treated this way for what is a mental illness is cruelty on his part. He cannot help it any more than any other illness.”
He also pointed out that if Mrs Dolling waited until May 1960, she could apply for divorce on the ground of desertion. She appealed, but the appeal was dismissed.
Kenneth Robinson, Member of Parliament for St Pancras North (and Minister of Health 1964-8), asked the Attorney General, Reginald Manningham-Buller (noted for his 1959 unsuccessful prosecution of D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover), if his attention had been drawn to the legal difficulties arising in Dolling v. Dolling, and if the law of divorce could be amended to enable marriages to be dissolved when either spouse changes sex. The Attorney General gave a written reply:
"I am not aware of any legal difficulties. The Court of Appeal held on the particular facts of this case that the conduct of the respondent did not amount to cruelty. I do not think that there is any need to amend the law by seeking to specify what acts constitute cruelty for the purposes of the law of divorce or by making express provision for the type of case mentioned in the question."
Victoria Dolling’s subsequent life is unrecorded.
- “Man Wanted to Become a Woman”. Manchester Evening News, 22 May 1958.
- “When a husband wants to be a woman”. Daily Mirror,23 May 1958,
- “Sex Changes and Divorce: Question by M.P.”. Birmingham Post, 26 November 1958.
- Richard Collier. Masculinity, Law and the Family. Taylor & Francis, 2002:115.
- Zoë Playdon. The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience. Scribner, 2022: 92-3.
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