Paul Downing

Caroline Brogden

Caroline Brogden (died 1906) was an African American woman from Georgia, USA, who lived in England for several years as a man, Paul Downing. In 1905 Downing was found running after buses on Blackfriars Bridge, "looking for his wife". He had worked as a sailor, travelling across the USA, France, Spain and Belgium and had most recently been working as a farm labourer in Kent. He was arrested, found to be a woman, and sent to the City of London Asylum at Stone, near Dartford, dying there a year later.