Edward Bringhurst III/V

An amateur photographer, antique collector, and dog breeder who embraced a queer identity behind closed doors.
1884-1939, Wilmington, DE

A white man with short brown hair looking straight at the camera. He wears a gray suit jacket with six buttons, a white shirt, and tie.
A 1910 portrait of Edward Bringhurst III/V.

Edward Bringhurst III is one of the earliest known queer people to have lived in Delaware. He was the youngest of four children, born to the Quaker family, the Bringhursts, who moved into the Rockwood Mansion in 1892.

Prestigious wealth afforded Edward Bringhurst III—who later renamed himself Edward Bringhurst V—a private queer life at the turn of the twentieth century. Although he was ill for much of his adulthood and little evidence exists of his dating life, a set of photographs from 1903, with the inscription “Edw. in masquerade,” depict a nineteen-year-old Bringhurst in a variety of poses while wearing a Victorian day dress, gloves, necklace, fan, and hat. He smiles for the camera, posing in costume.

These photographs, taken on the South Lawn at Rockwood by his close friend and cousin, Florence Shipley, serve as archival evidence of Bringhurst’s queer private life and depict him defying gender norms of the time by dressing in women’s fashions.

Multiple black and white photo of a white man seen smiling softly and posing in a Victorian dress, hat, and gloves.
Edward Bringhurst III/V in costume on the South Lawn of Rockwood in October 1903

Bringhurst was born in 1884 to Anna James Webb (1843-1912) and Edward Bringhurst Jr. (1835-1912) in Wilmington, Delaware. His family was Quaker and affluent, allowing for Bringhurst to travel frequently during his childhood and adulthood, including to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Washington D.C., and many trips to Europe. He was the youngest of four children and, in 1892, his parents moved the family into Rockwood Mansion, the estate of Bringhurst’s great-great uncle, Joseph Shipley (1795-1867).

Two pages of a journal containing cut and pasted ephemera collected on the trip.
Two pages of a journal containing cut and pasted ephemera. The left page contains a hand-drawn illustration of an elevator that had fallen 30 feet to the ground.
Pages of Edward Bringhurst III/V’s journal from his trip to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Courtesy of the University of Delaware Special Collections & Museums.

Edward Bringhurst V was educated at home by private tutors and his family’s significant wealth allowed him to pursue a variety of prestigious activities. At twelve years old, he changed his name from Edward Bringhurst III to Edward Bringhurst V, perhaps to sound more regal. He eventually became a collector of antique furniture, which was a hobby of many historical queer male antique collectors. He also had a passion for breeding show dogs and cared for many canines on Rockwood’s property, notably his Great Danes that he photographed regularly.

A Gothic Revival mansion seen from across a grass lawn.
Photograph by Edward Bringhurst III/V of the South Lawn of Rockwood.
A white man wearing a brimmed hat holds the leashes to 3 great danes in front of a conservatory.
Bringhurst stands in front of Rockwood’s conservatory with his great danes, Guido, King, and Sandora, in this 1904 photograph.

Bringhurst was a prolific amateur photographer and exhibited at the Wilmington Society of Fine Arts (now the Delaware Art Museum) in 1934 and 1935. Thousands of photographs taken by Bringhurst exist today in the Special Collections of the University of Delaware. Not only did he contribute his own creative talents as a photographer, but he also supported the arts as a philanthropic member. He was a member of the Wilmington Historical Society and the Wilmington Society of Fine Arts. In 1926 and 1927, respectively, he loaned antiques to the Wilmington Free Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as to the Wilmington Society of Fine Arts in 1939.

A newspaper clipping titled, “Camera Club Art Exhibition Draws Many Admirers.”
Newspaper article about the Delaware Camera Club annual salon in which Edward Bringhurst III/V’s photograph is displayed that appeared in the February 8, 1938, edition of The News Journal (Wilmington, DE).
A detail of a photograph of men’s hands holding a vintage camera.
A detailed photograph of Bringhurst’s camera in 1911. Courtesy of the University of Delaware Special Collections & Museums.

As an adult, he managed the family’s finances and the Rockwood estate. In 1931, Bringhurst and his oldest sister, Mary Bringhurst (1865-1965), donated a large parcel of land known as “Bringhurst Woods” to the Wilmington park system. In reflecting on Bringhurst’s legacy, Rockwood Park & Museum Director Ryan Grover said:

Edward Bringhurst V of Rockwood Park & Museum was a bachelor his entire life who, instead of the nuclear family, dedicated himself to antique collecting and leisure. … He resisted his sisters’ repeated attempts to be matched into a hetero-normative relationship and was photographed modeling women’s clothing with grand dramatic gestures inside Rockwood’s gardens. While these behaviors do not directly imply sexuality, they easily fall far enough outside mainstream notions of gender and courtship to be qualified as queer.

In 1911 and 1912, Bringhurst was treated for tuberculosis with “the cure” of fresh air, healthy diet, and exercise as a patient at Nordrach-on-Dee Sanitorium in Scotland. Tuberculosis, a deadly disease that is caused by a bacteria, “killed one out of every seven people living in the United States and Europe” in the late nineteenth century, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One man and three women playfully pose for a photograph outside. The man is holding a cane and his knees are turned in together.
Edward Bringhurst III/V and friends pose for a photograph in Kilwaughter,

Throughout it all, Bringhurst left no records or correspondence that indicated he ever dated any women. He died at age fifty-five after another bout of illness, having never married and with no children. His legacy lives on in Rockwood Mansion, which is a museum open to the public.

A newspaper clipping titled, “A Public Benefactor,” about the death of Edward Bringhurst III/V.
A December 11, 1939, newspaper article from The Morning News (Wilmington, DE) after the death of Edward Bringhurst III/V.
A white man and woman standing on a lawn in front of a white house, tree and car.
Mary T. Bringhurst and Edward Bringhurst III/V pose for a photograph on August 29, 1932. Courtesy of the University of Delaware Special Collections.

Photo Courtesy: University of Delaware Special Collections and Newspapers.com

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