Queer Welsh Stories

Katherine Philips was known as the “Matchless Orinda,” or sometimes, the “Welsh Sappho”. Born Katherine Fowler in London in 1632 to a wealthy family, she was an intelligent child - could read and write from a young age, learned the Bible and several languages, and was even sent to school.

One of Katherine’s closest friends at school was Mary Aubrey, who would become ‘Rosania’ in Katherine’s poetry - some of the earliest romantic friendship poetry known of in Britain. This was perhaps when Katherine began her ‘Society of Friendship.’

Katherine’s father died when she was 10 years old and when her mother remarried, they moved to Wales. Katherine herself got married at about 17 years of age, to a distant cousin James Philipps, who was certainly older, though there is debate around his age, which may have been mid-20s, or mid-50s. This was shortly afted Katherine penned the poem “A Marry’d State,” which was certainly critical of marriage.

She then moved to Cardigan Priory, which became central to her ‘Society of Friendship,’ where she, ‘Orinda,’ wrote poetry to other women, and was herself admired by women in poetry, as the ‘Matchless Orinda’. As Katherine lived between London and Wales, perhaps rural life in Wales more isolated and lonely, she expanded her Society of Friendship, taking on new members such as Anne Owen from Pembrokeshire, who was known in Katherine’s poetry as “Lucasia”.

Katherine’s relationship with Mary Aubrey ended bitterly when she didn’t invite Katherine to her wedding, perhaps because of Katherine’s intense poetry (it’s difficult to know what Mary’s reaction would have been as her responses don’t survive), Katherine wrote ‘On Rosania’s Apostacy, and Lucasia’s Friendship.’ This made clear her feelings for Lucasia, as did ‘To My Excellent Lucasia on our Friendship’ and ‘To my Lucasia, in Defence of Declared Friendship.’ This relationship ended when Anne Owen remarried in 1663. Before her death, Katherine also wrote poetry to ‘Berenice,’ whose identity is unknown.

Katherine’s sexuality and the nature of her poetry has been debated, but it is clear that Katherine shared romantic relationships with women, and had strong feelings for them, which survive in her poetry. She herself mentioned Sappho in her poems and was compared to Sappho after her death.

Katherine died of smallpox on the 22nd of June, 1664, only 32 years old, in Rosania’s arms in London. Katherine was survived by 1 daughter, who she’d named Katherine, and also had 1 son with James, Hector, who had not survived. Though her poetry was published posthumously, Katherine became obscured, but has been appreciated again since the 20th century, as one of the first British female poets to be celebrated in her own lifetime, as well as one of the first British poets to write romantic friendship poems.

Katherine Philips can certainly be appreciated as an acclaimed Anglo-Welsh poet who was highly influential in her writing of female same-sex love. Katherine’s poetry certainly mostly focussed on women and, as her Society of Friendship was influential to women in her lifetime, at least 2 of which she had passionate relationships with, Katherine continued to be an inspiration to other woman poets after her death.

Sources & Further Reading:

Katherine Philips Manuscript c. 1655 on People’s Collection Wales.

Katherine Philips, National Library of Wales.

Katherine Philips poems held by the British Library.

Some more biography on Poetry Foundation.

Norena Shopland, Forbidden Lives: LGBT Stories from Wales, 2017.

Kathleen Freeman was born on the 22nd of June, 1897, in Yardley, Birmingham. By 1911, she and her parents, Charles H Freeman, a commercial traveller, and Catherine Freeman (née Mawdesley) had moved to Conway Road, Cardiff. Kathleen attended Canton High School and University of South Wales and Monmouthshire (Cardiff University).

After graduating with a BA in Classics, Kathleen stayed on at the University as a Greek lecturer, being awarded an MA and D.Litt. During the Second World War, she lectured for the Ministry of Information and HM Forces in South Wales. In 1946, having become a senior lecturer, she resigned from Cardiff University to focus on her writing and research.

As well as publishing academic texts on Classics and Greek translations, Kathleen was a mystery and detective writer. She was admitted into the Detection Club in 1951, a group of mystery writes which included Agatha Christie. Mary Fitt was her most used and well-known pseudonym, under which she published 27 novels and short stories from 1936, but she also wrote as Stuart Mary Wick, Clare St Donat, Caroline Cory and ‘T’other Jane Austen.’

From the 1930s until her death on the 21st of February 1959, Kathleen lived with her partner Dr Liliane Clopet, a GP and writer, at Lark Ride, Druidstone Road, St. Mellons (outside Cardiff). Several of her books were dedicated to Liliane. Liliane died in Newport in 1987, aged 86.

Sources:

‘FREEMAN, KATHLEEN (‘Mary Fitt’; 1897 - 1959), classical scholar and writer,’ The Welsh Biography

‘Inspirational People: 3. Kathleen Freeman – Classicist and Fiction Writer,’ Judith Dray, Cardiff University Blogs

‘How to Conceal a Female Scholar; or, the Invisible Classicist of Cardiff,’ Edith Hall, The Edithorial

Gwen John was born Gwendolen Mary John on the 22nd of June, 1876, one of four children of Edwin William John and Augusta John (née Smith). Gwen was 8 years old when Augusta passed away, when her family then moved from Haverfordwest to Tenby, where they would often sketch the Pembrokeshire coast.

Her earliest surviving works are from when she was 19, when she began to study at the only art school in the UK that would take female students, Slade School of Art. She developed a relationship with artist Ambrose McEvoy (a portrait by him of Gwen survives), but she also had a relationship with another woman at Slade - her identity is unknown but the relationship was known to Gwen’s brother to be so intense that the woman’s ‘love’ for Gwen ‘turned to hate’.

Gwen won the Melville Nettleship Prize for Figure Composition at Slade, and first visited Paris in 1898, studying under Whistler. She exhibited in London when she returned in 1899, living very poorly, before returning to France in 1903. Gwen was an artist’s model in Paris in 1904, including for Rodin, who she developed a relationship with - she was devoted to him for the next decade.

Despite the famous European artists Gwen met, she preferred to work in solitude. She could afford to work independently and no longer work as a model when patroned by John Quinn from 1911. She continued to exhibit but could be too perfectionist to complete some works. After the end of her relationship with Rodin, Gwen became increasingly Catholic.

Of course, she also lived in solitude, except for her cats. She possibly remained living in France to avoid personal relationships, like with her family. However, she still developed feelings and relationships in France that could be intense and sometimes one-sided.

It is certainly known that Gwen was attracted to men and women, and was likely bisexual. Rodin drew Gwen erotically with Hilda Flodin, his assistant who he also had a sexual relationship with, but Gwen’s own main subjects in her work are women (and cats). Certainly it’s possible to see Gwen’s interest in women in her paintings of various women, whether or not she had relationships with those women.

As well as the women already mentioned, Gwen also was infatuated with another unnamed woman, a married woman in France, and German artist Ida Gerhardi herself was infatuated with Gwen. This was unrequited, as was Gwen’s most intense infatuation with Véra Oumançoff. Gwen wrote 2000 letters to Rodin, especially when she could not get his undivided attention in person, telling him of different aspects of her day and her life. He died in 1917 and it was in 1926 she developed an attachment to Véra, who she also wrote letters to, some (but not many) of which survive at the National Library of Wales. Though these aren’t many, in one of them, Véra asks Gwen whether she needs to write to her every day.

“I don’t think so,” Véra wrote, in French, “- and I even think that it is bad for your soul - for you are too attached to a creature, without ever knowning it, so to speak. I am well aware that you have great sensitivity, but you must direct it towards Our Lord, towards the Blessed Virgin.”

Gwen also sent Véra about 100 drawings, which were discovered in a cupboard after Véra’s death in 1959. This one-sided relationship ended in 1930 as Véra’s family wanted to concentrate on prayer.

By 1933, Gwen had stopped painting, and lived the end of her life in isolation, leaving to Dieppe in 1939, with a will and burial instruction, and dying in a public hospital there on the 18th of September.

The grave was unknown until it was found that Gwen had been buried as ‘Mary John’ in a Dieppe Cemetary, in the 2015 S4C documentary Mamwlad, presented by Ffion Hague. A memorial plaque was added in Dieppe in 2015, finally marking the rest place and celebrating one of the most famous artists from Wales - or perhaps even the most famous artist from Wales, and not just the most famous female artists from Wales either. (Though of course how Welsh her identity was can be also debated.) As she is herself more recognised, rather than just her associations with men, her bisexuality also is increasingly recognised, and perhaps Gwen John is also better understood.

The plaque is inscribed with a quote from a letter of Gwen’s:

Mae pobl fel cysgodion i mi ac fel cysgod ydwyf innau.

(People are like shadows to me and like a shadow I am to them.)

Sources & Further Reading:

Gwen John Self-Portrait.

Gwen John sources at National Library of Wales.

Ceridwen Morgan-Lloyd, Gwen John: Letters and Notebooks

National @museumwales blog ‘LGBT Figures from Welsh History.’

Berto Pasuka photographed by Angus McBean.

“Pasuka was a Black queer Jamaican dancer, choreographer, director, performer, writer, and painter. He moved to Britain in 1939 and his work in mid-twentieth century Britain, Jamaica and France focused on themes of Black diasporic history, colonialism and racism, and Black social, spiritual and cultural lives and identities. In 1946 he co-founded the Black ballet company Les Ballets Nègres, along with queer Jamaican dancer and artist Richie Riley.” - Dr. Gemma Romain

Read: Pasuka who? Black, Queer, British and visible - BlackOut UK

Angus McBean was born on the 8th of June, 1904, in Newbridge, Monmouthshire, and died on the 9th of June, 1990, in Ipswich.

Born to a Welsh family, his father, Clement McBean, was a chartered surveyor of mines around Wales, who died from tuberculosis at the age of 47. Angus was educated at Monmouth School and Newport Technical School, where he became interested in photography and the theatre. He made masks for the theatre, including for Ivor Novello’s ‘The Happy Hypocrite.’

Angus was also commissioned by Ivor Novello to take photographs of Vivien Leigh, who he from then photographed for most of her theatre performances. A surreal photographer, Angus photographed 20th century celebrities such as Audrey Hepburn, Agatha Christie, Cecil Beaton, Quentin Crisp, Shirley Bassey, and many more, including other Welsh Queer people, such as Ivor Novello, Emlyn Williams, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies and Binkie Beaumont.

Angus was gay, and during the Second World War, spent 4 years in jail for ‘homosexual acts’ in Bath, but he was able to resume his career after the war, for decades more. Angus was also a witness when Quentin Crisp, his friend and former lover, was on trial for soliciting. In the 1920s, Angus married Helena Wood but their marriage lasted only a year. Photographer David Ball [1926-] was Angus’s partner, who he also photographed.

Here’s one of Angus McBean’s beautiful photograph, posted by Aber School of Arts, of Berto Pasuka [1911-1963], a Queer, Jamaican dancer who co-founded Europe’s first Black dance company.

Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on the 28th of July, 1844 in Essex, to devout High Church Anglicans, who may have had Welsh roots (based on the surname Hopkins).

At Oxford, he became close to poet Robert Bridges and became estranged from his family due to his conversion to Catholicism. Gerard then became a Jesuit.

He continued his education at St Beuno's College in Denbighshire and started to more strongly identify with Wales. He wrote poems about Wales and Welsh identity and started to learn Welsh and of Welsh poetry such as the 'Cywydd' and 'Cynghanedd'. He left Wales when ordained to the priesthood.

Many of his poems also were homoerotic. It is thought some of these poems were inspired by, or directed towards, Digby Mackworth Dolben, another poet, who he seemed to have fallen in love with at Eton. Gerard was told by his Anglican confessor to stay away from Digby, who died a couple of years later from accidental drowning.

Digby was a 'Urainian poet,' a group of 'male homosexual poets' of the 19th and 20th century, and arguments have been made that Gerard should be included in this group. His sexually was however certainly repressed and he isolated himself at the end of his life.

Gerard suffered from ill health and so-called melancholia, which today some believe to have been bipolar disorder or major depression. His last words were "I am so happy, I am so happy."

John Davies, the highly influential Welsh historian, came out in 1998 and turned his attention to look at LGBT History before his death in 2017. He gave his first speech on LGBT History at the first LGBT exhibition in Wales, at the Senedd in 2012.

Davies speaks of the ‘mute centuries’ of LGBT history. He applies this phrase particularly to LGBT people in Wales, who did not develop a ‘subculture until the late 20th century,’ and previously found refuge in London’s gay subculture.

The 18th century couple, the Ladies of Llangollen, are an exception to this, ‘the most famous lesbian couple in Europe.’ Davies notes, however, how the guides around their house, Plas Newydd, were forbidden from uttering ‘the L word,’ until ‘recent years.’

In the mid-twentieth century, Cardiff’s Ivor Novello composed ‘Gay’s the Word’ and reputedly popularised ‘gay’ as the synonym for homosexual.

Wales’ greatest contribution to the ending of the ‘mute centuries’, Davies says, came in 1967 with the decriminalisation of male homosexuality. (Leo Abse, MP for Pontypool, promoted the bills to decriminalise.)

Other developments included Jan Morris becoming one of the most famous trans women when she published Conundrum in 1974, an autobiography that told the story of her transition. Others were the development of CYLCH and Stonewall.

Davies concludes: ‘Waldo Williams also wrote the line “Gobaith fo'n meistr: rhoed Amser i ni'n was.” “Hope is our master: time was given to us as a servant.” And I’m sure that through the mute centuries there were those who lived in hope. At last, time has fulfilled some of those hopes but, as everybody’s stressed, much more needs to be done…

Portraits by ‘Queen of Bohemia’ Nina Hamnett (1890-1956):

‘The Student,’ portrait of Dolores Courtney, 1917

Portrait of Mary Torr, 1924

‘Portrait of a Woman,’ 1917

Portrait of Torahiko Khori (1890-1924)

Portrait of Lady Constance Stewart-Richardson, 1917

Nina Hamnett (1890-1956) was born on the 14th of February, 1890 – on St Valentine’s Day in Tenby, as it says on the plaque marking the place of her birth.

Like Gwen John, who also grew up in Tenby, Nina was bisexual - openly, unlike many other queer people of the time. Affairs with women such as Vanessa Bell are rumoured (rumours possibly started by Nina) while she also had affairs with male artists who she modelled for, such as Roger Fry and Modigliani. As well as portraits by Fry, and one portrait by Modigliani, she was painted by Walter Sickert with her husband and posed for a sculpture of her nude torso by Gaudier Brzeska.

Her autobiography published in 1932 was named in reference to this sculpture: The Laughing Torso. The tale of her bohemian life was a bestseller in the US and UK, where her reputation was growing. In it she recounts growing up in Wales, unhappily - of her birth, she writes:

“Everybody was furious, especially my Father, who still is. As soon as I became conscious of anything I was furious too, at having been born a girl; I have since discovered it has certain advantages.”

In her adult life, she writes of her own becoming an artist, the people she met, from members of the Bloomsbury Group to other Welsh artists and writers (Dylan Thomas, Augustus John, Cedric Morris), and of her many love affairs. Though Nina and Norwegian artist Edgar de Bergen married in 1914, she was relieved when their relationship ended three years later- they never saw each other again but did not get a divorce. Nina continued to be prolific in Parisian society, dancing on a Montparnasse cafe table for the ‘hell of it.’

Her bohemian life, and infamous autobiography depicting it, would overshadow her art, however. Nina was an extremely talented artist, and successful too, as one of the most respected women artists of her period. Other artists saw her talent but Nina was more drawn to the bohemian life of Paris and London. Her life, however, went downhill after she was sued by Aleister Crowley for having written in Laughing Torso that he was involved in black magic.

Nina died on the 16th of December, 1956, after falling from her apartment window. Whether accidental or intentional is unclear - her last words are said to be ‘Who don’t they let me die?’ On the last page of The Laughing Torso, she had written, ‘I wish I could have jumped out of the window.’

Nina Hamnett was known as the 'Queen of the Fitzroy’ in her life and is now also known as the 'Queen of Bohemia.’

For #DyddMiwsigCymru - Welsh Language Music Day - here is one LGBT+ themed Welsh-language track.

In 2014, the band Clinigol released ‘Ymlaen’ (Forward) with this video to celebrate marriage equality.

Clinigol was made up of Aled and Geraint Pickard - Aled married his partner Robert in 2013, which he created this song for - before Aled left, to be replaced by sisters Carys Eleri and Nia Medi, who is also gay.

The video for ‘Ymlaen’ (#Forward was used to promote equal rights) follows a bride, played by Carys Eleri, before her wedding, to the other bride played by fellow Welsh actress Tara Bethan.

Kate Roberts (1891-1985) was born on this day, 13th February, 1891 in Rhosgadfan, Caernarfonshire.

Known as ‘Brenhines ein Llên’ (Queen of our Literature), Kate published novels such as Traed Mewn Cyffion (Feet in Chains) in 1936, which depicted poverty and the hardships of women in the slate quarries in North Wales. She was also known for short stories such as in the collection ‘Ffair Gaeaf a storïau eraill’ (’Winter Fair and other stories’), published in 1937.

Through her political activism with Plaid Cymru, she met Morris T. Williams, who she married in 1928. They bought the Gwasg Gee publishing house in Denbigh by 1935, which published books, pamphlets and Y Faner (The Banner). Kate and Morris both were close to the editor of Y Faner, E. Prosser Rhys, a poet who broke ground in 1924 by winning in the Eisteddfod with ‘Atgof’, which depicted heterosexual sex, masturbation and gay sex. Morris and Prosser’s relationship was particularly close, and they are thought to have had an affair.

Morris died in 1946 (Prosser Rhys in 1945) but Kate continued at the press for another decade. Her later short stories reflected her isolation and her autobiography was published in 1960. Kate is also known for her politics, carrying on a correspondence with the Welsh Nationalist Saunders Lewis for 40 years and herself contributing to Y Faner. Kate retired to Denbigh and died in 1985, at the age of 94.

The image of Kate Roberts is that of a powerhouse of a Welsh novelist, writer and political campaigner, but also of a lonely and childless widow later in life. This image is sadder if her husband was gay, had an affair, and died from his alcoholism in his 40s. The traditional images of Kate Roberts can be challenged, however. Morris’s sudden death was devastating - in an interview with Lewis Valentine, Kate told him how her world had fell to pieces, leading to write of ‘the struggle of a woman’s soul’ in Stryd y Glep (Gossip Row). The affair, however, she understood.

Kate’s own literature has more recently been analysed as itself having examples of homoerotic writing between women. Relationships between women can be intense, erotic, such as in the 1929 short story ‘Nadolig’ (’Christmas’), which explores a relationship between two teachers with coded queer subtext, and the 1972 short story ‘Y Trysor’ (’The Treasure’). Not only did lesbian relationships seem to appear in her short stories (similarly to the writer Margiad Evans, who is thought to be bisexual, who Kate also corresponded with) but in Alan Llwyd’s biography, he writes that her letters to Morris hint at her own feelings for women:

“Yr oedd gwraig y cigydd lle’r arhoswn yn un o’r merched harddaf y disgynnodd fy llygaid arni erioed. Dynes lled dal, heb fod yn rhy dew nac yn rhy denau, gwellt gwineu - real chestnut a thuedd at donnau ynddo. Croen fel alabaster a’r gwddf harddaf a welais erioed - llygaid heb fod yn rhy brydferth ond yn garedig. Yr oedd yn hynod gartrefol ei ffordd - Cymraes iawn. Bore trannoeth, hebryngai’r mab fi mewn cerbyd i Gastellnedd - cychwyn tua 7.15a.m. a hithau’n oer. Mynnodd y wraig roi clustog o’r ty odanaf, a lapiodd rug am fy nhraed, rug arall am fy nghorff, a rhoes glamp o gusan ar fy ngwefus. Nid oedd dim a roes fwy o bleser imi. Os byth ysgrifennaf fy atgofion, bydd y weithred hon yno, a’r noson ar lan afon Ddyfi.”

“The butcher’s wife where we stayed was one of the most beautiful girls I have ever laid eyes on. A broad, tall woman, not too fat or too thin, brown(?) hair - real chestnut, with a tendency to waves. Skin like alabaster and the most beautiful neck I’ve ever seen - eyes not too beautiful but kind. She was very homely - a real Welshwoman. The next morning, the son escorted me in a vehicle to Neath - starting at 7a.m. and it cold. The wife insisted on putting a cushion from the house under me, wrapped a rug around my feet, and another on my body, and put a clamp of a kiss on my lips. There was nothing that gave me more pleasure. If I ever write my memoir, this deed will be there, and that night on the banks of river Dyfi.”

The implication is she was aware of Morris’s homosexuality before they married and felt comfortable her own sexuality to him, and, as she was in love with Morris, was bisexual. This interpretation of her writing, both personal and published, was treated as controversial however - the ‘sensational’ ‘claim’ of the biography, rather just one part of Llwyd’s portrayal of Kate’s life. The queer readings of her writing already existed and certainly are not so far-fetched or shocking. Kate’s history does not generally include her queerness, so have these interpretations been entirely dismissed as unbelievable?

Through her writing and her personal life, if not through her own sexuality, Kate Roberts certainly is a part of the LGBT+ history of Wales - she already is a part of the LGBT+ literature of Wales. So what makes a historically queer view of Kate Roberts so far unacceptable? For some, it’s still to unbelievable that figures in Welsh history may be queer - for others, too disrespectful to repeat that ‘Brenhines Ein Llên’ was attracted to women. The image of her is respectable, does same-sex attraction not fit in with that? Or does same-sex attraction not fit in with her Welshness even?

It is however not a slur on her legacy to believe her to be queer. When it’s treated as such, by ignoring the queer interpretation, by not speaking of it (like we for so long did not speak about queer people in our society, through shame) - it sends the message to LGBT+ people in Welsh society today that a Welsh identity and LGBT+ identity are still mutually exclusive. This puts Welsh LGBT+ people in the position of needing to choose between the two identities, needing to compartmentalize these two parts of themselves. That Welsh historical figures, Welsh heroes even, could have been queer validates our identities  - when even the possibility is dismissed, Welsh LGBT+ people are dismissed. When LGBT+ people do exist in our history, when Kate Roberts (such a Welsh figure) is a part of a Welsh LGBT+ history, this needs to be recognised, to recognise that Welsh LGBT+ people are a permanent part of Wales, and even of Welsh-speaking Wales.