Sir Ewan Forbes-Sempill

Baron, Doctor

Born: September 6th, 1912

Died: September 12th, 1991

Ewan, with dog.

Sir Ewan Forbes-Sempill, 11th Baronet was born in Scotland  on September 6th, 1912 to John Forbes-Sempill, 18th Lord Sempill and Gwendolyn Prodger. Sir Ewan Forbes-Sempill, who identified as a trans man, is most well known for being involved in a lengthy custody battle over the estate of his late father. His case in the British legal system helped to determine the precedent on whether a person’s legal sex was a determining factor in male primogeniture (succession).

Initially born as Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill, Ewan would later contend that his birth registration as female was considered a “ghastly mistake”. His mother nicknamed him “Benjie”, and the nickname continued to be used into Forbes-Sempill’s adult life. According to his book, The Aul’ Days, Forbes-Sempill frequently dressed as a boy and spent a large time playing with his male cousins. Forbes-Sempill similarly recalled a hatred of being “made to dress up [in women’s clothing” for social events and engagements.

Forbes-Sempill was given an educated upbringing and was able to speak and write fluently in Doric as well as various European languages. He also refused to attend an all-girls school. As he grew, Forbes-Sempill studied in Dresden while visiting cities such as Prague and Vienna, which allowed him access to various gender-affirming treatments. His parents seemed to have a fairly lax view on his gender – his mother in particular was quite progressive for the time period. She would often take him to various European medical specialists for gender-affirming treatments such as testosterone shots. Though, he was still expected to dress in feminine clothing and appear as a female debutante even after the emergence of facial hair.

In 1939, Forbes-Sempill was accepted into the University of Aberdeen as a medical student. He would later graduate in 1944 and take up a post in the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary as a Junior Casualty Officer, swiftly being promoted to Senior Casualty Officer not long after. He would begin to work as a general practitioner in Aberdeenshire in 1945. 

After moving to Aberdeenshire, Forbes-Sempill continued to publicly present himself as a man in his daily life. In 1952, he legally and formally became male by requesting a warrant for birth re-registration and changed his name to Ewan. He announced this change with a short notice in the Aberdeen Press and Journal in September 12th, 1952: “Dr E. Forbes-Sempill henceforth wishes to be known as Dr Ewan Forbes-Sempill”. He was reportedly very candid with the curious press. He described his situation as, “a ghastly mistake. I was carelessly registered as a girl in the first place, but of course, that was forty years ago ... the doctors in those days were mistaken, too ... I have been sacrificed to prudery, and the horror which our parents had about sex.”

He would marry Isabella Mitchell, his housekeeper for the last five years, on October 10th, 1952. The union took place at the kirk in Kildrummy, where he had recently joined.

Until 1965, the issue of Forbes-Sempill’s legal gender remained relatively under the radar. In December of 1965, his elder brother died, leaving daughters but no sons. Scotland followed a law of primogeniture – only male sons were allowed to inherit their father’s property and lands. The Times cited that the heir for the baronetcy should be the Hon. Ewan Forbes-Sempill, but this was challenged by Forbes-Sempill’s cousin, John Forbes-Sempill, arguing that Ewan was legally still a woman, and thus the title should pass to John and not Ewan.

For some context, there were times in which gender re-registration was allowed in legal cases. Typically, it was in the case that “the sex of a child was indeterminate at birth and it was later discovered ... that an error had been made”. The judge who preceded over the case determined that “as a matter of probability, the second petitioner [Ewan Forbes-Sempill] is a ... hermaphrodite,” though experts at the time observed that they believed Forbes-Sempill’s condition was closer to that of a ‘standard’ female-to-male transsexual, or a trans man. In any case, John Forbes-Sempill challenged the ruling, which led the case to be referred to the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, who was the individual responsible for the Roll of Baronetage. It was finally declared in December of 1968 that Ewan Forbes-Sempill would be entered into the Roll as the rightful heir and holder of the title. 

Forbes-Sempill’s case was kept under a great deal of secrecy for the time. The records of the case were not made available in Scotland under 1991, with additional documents being made available to the public in 1994. Further release of Forbes-Sempill’s records are limited and were restricted from being publicly documented until 2021.

After taking the baronetcy, Forbes-Sempill would then drop the “Sempill” from his surname. Once he had the inheritance case officially settled, Ewan would then leave the public eye and return to his rural residence at Brux, Scotland. Forbes was an elder at the kirk in Kildrummy and was later appointed a Justice of the Peace in Aberdeenshire in 1969. In 1984, he published a book on his early years, titled The Aul’ Days.

Forbes passed away on September 12th, 1991 and left no children. He was succeeded in his baronetcy by his cousin John – the one who had challenged him back in the 1960s. Ewan’s wife, Isabella, wouldn’t pass away until 2002.

Gallery

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Bibliography

Barnes, Lesley-Anne (2007). "Gender Identity and Scottish Law: The Legal Response to Transsexuality". Edinburgh Law Review. 11 (2): 162–186. doi:10.3366/elr.2007.11.2.162 

Forbes, Ewan. The Aul’ Days. The Internet Archive. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1984. https://archive.org/details/auldaysforb00forb/mode/2up. 

“Isabella, Lady Forbes.” The Telegraph. March 2, 2002. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1386476/Isabella-Lady-Forbes.html. 

Merritt, Stephanie. “The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes by Zoë Playdon Review – a Fascinating Transgender Life.” The Guardian, December 26, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/26/the-hidden-case-of-ewan-forbes-by-zoe-playdon-review-a-fascinating-transgender-life. 

Playdon, Zoë. The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. 

Last updated: December 6th, 2025. Edited by Aidrian.