The Newest Baronet

There is nothing quite like British baronets; they are not members of the peerage, yet they are definitely members of the upper class. One old definition has it that "a baronet is one who has ceased to be a gentleman but has not become a nobleman." That particular axiom required some revision as of last week. For Britain's newest baronet, Sir Ewan Forbes of Brux, eleventh of his line, began life as a girl.

Nothing of the sort had ever happened before in the crusty world of Debrett's, the handbook of the British aristocracy, and it took a three-year court battle to force the decision to confer the title. That struggle really began, however, in 1912, when Sir Ewan was born, registered a female and baptized Elizabeth. As he grew up, Elizabeth became more and more convinced that he was, in fact, male. "It was hell," he recalled in a 1952 interview, "especially when I was forced to attend the debutante balls during my first London season." By the time he left his Scottish home to study medicine, he had cropped his hair and begun to wear male clothing. But officially, it was as a woman that he took his degree and went into general practice in Scotland. At age 40, he decided he had had enough. He reregistered his birth, as male, and a month later married his housekeeper.

Said one of his Aberdeenshire neighbors: "We were not surprised."

In 1965, when his brother died, he began his battle to inherit the baronetcy. As the nearest male relative, he seemed entitled to press the claim. But a cousin, 40-year-old John Forbes-Sem-pill, contested the succession, asserting that he was the rightful heir because Sir Ewan had been registered as female at birth and females cannot inherit baronetcies. "My client," Sir Ewan's counsel retorted, "has been male since birth. He was wrongly registered as a female." Earlier this year, an Edinburgh court accepted Sir Ewan's arguments, and last week Home Secretary James Callaghan settled the matter by ordering that Sir Ewan's name be placed on the official roll of baronets.