200 For My 500th

THIS IS MY 500TH POSTING!

As November began I couldn’t think of a suitable celebratory subject. None of the articles I’d already planned seem to be “special” enough. Then, on 11th November I found my subject.

Regular readers will know of my specialist interest in lgbt participation at the Olympic Games. Through 2012 I wrote a history of lgbt Olympians to celebrate the London games (I’m working of a revised and updated version for publication in time for the 2016 Rio games). Over the past 4 years I’ve also been trying to compile the most comprehensive list of lgbt Olympians.

And so, in the very early hours of 11th November I reached my target of being able to list 200 LGBT OLYMPIANS.

Since that November night I’ve carried on researching and several more Olympians have come out, so I’m pleased to say the list has 204 names! Previous lists have included Paralympians, but I started a separate Paralympic list and they are not included in the 204. In addition there is a list of some of the reserve/alternate team members, and add the Paralympians, it makes the published list below actually 218 names long.

You may question some of the names on my list. It depends on your definition of an Olympian. First and foremost, all the listed names are those who have been named as a playing member of the official national teams. Most people regard Olympians as athletes, but one name on the list – the first openly lgbt Olympian and first lgbt medallist – wasn’t an athlete at all, she was a sculptor.

A hundred years ago the Olympic Games included contests for art, music, literature, architecture, and even town planning. They had equal status with the sport. The only criteria for submission was that the entry must have a sporting theme. Even today the medallists of these contests are included in official statistics.

The first lgbt Olympian was Renée Sintenis (1888-1965). I intend to write about her next year so will concentrate briefly on her Olympic involvement for now. Renée specialised in sculpture of human figures and animals. One of her pre-Olympic works was a sculpture of the legendary Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi. This eventually (1932) won her the Olympia Prize. The piece she submitted for the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics was a bronze statue of a footballer called, not surprisingly, “Footballeur”. For this she won a bronze medal.

Also at the Amsterdam games was the first lgbt Olympic athlete, Otto Peltzer (1900-1970). You can read more about him here and here.

Another lgbt connection in the 1928 art competition is the silver medallist in architecture Ejnar Mindedal Rasmussen (1892-1975). He designed the swimming pool, Denmark’s first indoor pool, at the Ollerup Gymnastic School. This school was set up by Niels Bukh, a gay gymnast who was de-selected from the Danish team for the 1908 London Olympics because he was too muscular and looked out of place! He later became a pioneer of modern gymnastics (and, unfortunately, one of Hitler’s heroes), and he coached Denmark’s men’s gymnastics team to a gold medal at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

Some of you may think that the art competitions shouldn’t be counted. So for those who don’t it’s a good job I’ve got extra names on the list to ensure there’s 200.

One other name may be questioned – Caster Semenya.

Caster Semenya is a South African runner who became the centre of controversy when she emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, to begin winning international races. Much speculation emerged in the media, all of it revolving around two words – drugs, gender.

Having been tested and cleared of all drugs charges Caster underwent gender testing. The media were more interested in this gender angle than the drugs and subjected Caster to public discussion on her private life, all through the gender verification process. Once completed the results were kept secret, even though Australian media reported that someone had leaked to them results which state that Caster was born intersex. Whatever the accuracy of these reports Caster was cleared to return to international female competition in 2011.

Even if we disregard the intersexual rumours one question remains – if Caster Semenya’s gender is 100% female, why keep it a secret? There’s still a question mark over the results as far as I’m concerned. And it is the non-disclosure of Caster’s full results and non-confirmation of her gender which persuades me to add her to my lgbt list. Even if you don’t think Caster Semenya should be included, the list remains at the 200 mark.

There’s one anonymous athlete on the list. A member of the Greek track and field team at the Athens 2004 Olympics has not come out but has spoken about his experiences of homophobia in Greek sport.

Next week I’ll continue my celebration by giving a few facts and figures. In the mean time here’s the full list.

NOTE : Since this list was first published on 9th December an error has been spotted. This has now been corrected and this list is the revised list as of 12th December 2014. There are now 203 names. Sorry to have cause any confusion.

[This list is now out of date. For the newest list go here.]

The Twelve Noels of Christmas : 2

Today’s three Noels have this name in different places. The first one has it as his first name, the second as his middle name and the third as his surname.

The 4^th Noel – NOEL CURRER-BRIGGS (1919-2004)

Noel Currer-Briggs was a man with many “hats”, in that throughout his life he could be different things at different times – war-time code-breaker, gays-in-the-military advocate, husband, genealogist, and historian of the Turin Shroud and Holy Grail. I’ve written about Currer-Briggs a couple of times before – here and here.

Even though I’ve mentioned his code-breaking role I haven’t really covered the others, so I’ll do that now. During his military service Noel was always aware of his sexuality. He married Barbara in 1947 after meeting at Cambridge University. They got on like a house on fire and Noel loved her very much – but he was not sexually attracted to her. “I regarded it to some extent as a duty,” he said in a Channel 4 documentary on UK television in 2002.

Noel’s work as a professional genealogist and historian dates from the early 1960s until his death. He was a consultant on Debrett’s Peerage for a number of years and published many articles and books. One specialist area of research was into Huguenot refugee families of the 16^th century. But the subject which earned him the greatest attention was his work on the genealogy of the owners of the Shroud of Turin. This was the legendary shroud in which Christ was wrapped after his crucifixion. By researching the earliest recorded references to the Shroud Noel proved its existence and ownership through several influential families from the 11^th to 13^th centuries – ownership which predated the now discredited scientifically-derived date of origin in the 14^th century. Unfortunately for Noel, genealogical proof has no scientific meaning to scientists.

Of all Noel’s books only one was fiction – “Young Men at War”, published in 1970. This novel is a love story between two soldiers, one English and the other German. Noel used personal experience to call upon, and in his later years supported the campaign for more acceptance of lgbt military personnel. He was invited to speak at the first lgbt Remembrance Day event at the Cenotaph in 1999, but was unable to attend.

The 5^th Noel – DAVID NOEL BOSLEY (b.1974)

There isn’t a lot of available information on David Noel Bosley, despite his high profile in the lgbt community in the Philippines. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, into a mixed race family, and studied at the St. Louis Anne Academy in San Pedro in the Philippines, and at the Philippine Christian University in Manila.

He started working as a visual merchandiser in Makati, a job which encompasses many aspects of promoting and displaying products in retail outlets. In the “old days” David would have been called a window dresser, but visual merchandising has advanced so much since the 1960s that the two jobs can hardly be considered the same. A lot more technology and design goes into merchandising these days, and more money to fund it. At this time of year, in the run up to Christmas, the role of a visual merchandiser is more important than it probably is at any other time of the year. Just take a walk down your nearest high street and look at how stores have displayed their merchandise and you’ll see what I mean.

David rose to prominence in 2009 when he entered and won the Mr Gay Philippine contest. This gave him a place in the Mr Gay World finals in early 2010 in Oslo. David made it to the final round, but the eventual winner was Mr Gay South Africa, Charl van den Berg.

David currently lives in Quezon City in the Philippines and still works in marketing, this time for an international online gay dating website. He is also a “poster boy” for the Philippine National AIDS Council’s AWARE campaign.

The 6^th Noel - RODEN NOEL (1834-1894)

Lord Byron (himself a Noel, as we’ll see next time) is not the only vain, aristocratic lgbt poet to come from the UK. In the generation after Byron comes the Honourable Roden Noel, a younger son of the 1^st Earl of Gainsborough. Roden (named after the title in his mother’s family) never denied his bisexuality and he contributed to Havelock Ellis’s book “Sexual Inversion” (1897). He said that “sexual inversion” was “hereditary and inborn” in his family, recounting that his great-uncle, the Bishop of Clogher, was arrested after being caught in an intimate embrace with a soldier.

What Roden and Byron have most in common is their vanity. Both were always fussing over their appearance, and Roden in particular often remarked on how gorgeous he was!

Despite being known more as a poet these days Roden’s life followed that traditional path on an aristocrat. His father was an influential landowner. Though it is his mother, Lady Frances Jocelyn, daughter of the Earl of Roden (the elder brother of the Bishop of Clogher mentioned earlier), that Roden Noel has a royal connection. Lady Frances was one of Queen Victoria’s Ladies of the Bedchamber. This connection led to Queen Victoria becoming Roden’s godmother, a sort of real fairy godmother in effect who personally appointed him as a courtier himself in 1867 as Groom of the Privy Chamber.

Roden wasn’t really cut out for royal duty so he resigned in 1871 to pursue his poetic career. He also became one of those forgotten Victorian philanthropists who championed the poor.

You can read about Roden’s poetry and his sexual leanings in this article by Dr. Rictor Norton on his website.

Out Of Their Trees : Diving Into Daley's DNA

Tom's most recent Facebook profile photo.

Next week I reach another milestone on my blog – I post my 500^th article. I’ve got a special article for that, but I think I’m entitled to celebrate with 2 special articles! And this is the first.

Last month I completed preliminary research into the ancestry of Olympic diver Tom Daley. The original idea was to write about it on his 21^st birthday next May, but I just couldn’t wait that long and decided to do an intensive 2 week verification process so I can bring it to you today – 2 days after the anniversary of Tom Daley coming out last year. And I would feel really bad if someone else had done their own research and posted it somewhere online before I did!

Actually, somebody already has done. Seamus Rush posted some of Tom Daley’s ancestry online last year. You can read Seamus’s article here. I can’t write a better article, as there’s not a lot that I can say that will be new, so I won’t bother.

Being a perfectionist I verified all the information in Seamus’s article for myself. What it doesn’t have, however, is any of Tom’s ancestry before official registration and census returns began. That set me off on my own original research to find Tom’s more distant ancestry.

At first I was worried that there’d be nothing of interest and no lines of descent to follow, as most of Tom’s ancestors were not as geographically dispersed as they have been in some of my previous “Out Of Their Trees” articles. This, in itself, proved to be a blessing. I had the same experience when researching my ex-partner’s ancestry. All of his recent ancestors were firmly based in one county and it was only when I found a bloodline from a “gateway” family that ancestors came flooding out of history.

A “gateway” family or ancestor is one who comes from a higher social background with direct links into the landed gentry, aristocracy or royalty. In my ancestry that gateway family are the Appleyards, for my ex-partner the Gells, and for Tom Daley it is the Yeos.

Once I’d established a member of the Yeo family as Tom’s ancestor it was relatively easy to go further back because the Yeos are a big, well-established family in Devon, and they help to give Tom an unbroken Devon descent through his grandmother Winifred Eastlake back to at least 1338.

The earliest recorded Yeo is Willliam atte Yeo who was Sheriff of Devon in 1359 (he must have been aged 21 or over to be appointed a sheriff). There is a website of the Yeo Society here which gives a detailed history of the family. There are a couple of errors on the website, but it is still an excellent genealogical resource.

Being a distinctive name makes it highly likely that any member of the Yeo family worldwide (several Yeos emigrated to Canada and Australia) is related to Tom Daley, including several in the lgbt community. I haven’t done the proper research yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Tom is related to Liz Yeo of Sydney, a Gay Games gold medallist in tennis in 2010, or to Paul Yeo, a Gay Games gold medallist in squash in 1990. Other proven descendants of the Yeos include the Princes William, Harry and George (through Princess Diana).

That’s enough of Tom’s general Yeo ancestry, let’s get more personal. I’ll move up Tom’s line of descent to one William Yeo (d.1481) of Heanton Satchville, Devon. Through the marriage of HIS ancestors into other Devon families William was related to all of the major political and royal officials in the county. His wife was Ellen Grenville. Unfortunately there’s a lot of conflicting information about HER ancestry. I’ve spent many hours studying as many references and sources as possible and have come up with an ancestry which I believe fits all the conflicting facts.

Basically (I won’t bore you with the detail), Ellen’s mother Philippa, generally thought to be a daughter of the 1^st Baron Bonville is (I believe) his sister. And Ellen’s father and grandfather, as generally accepted, are (I believe) the same man. The dates of birth for all of them only match if my theory is correct. It remains to be seen if other genealogists agree. So, the couples previously regarded as Ellen’s great-grandparents are all now her grandparents.

One of these couples are Sir Theobald Grenville and his wife Margaret Courtenay. Margaret’s parentage has also been questioned in recent years, but there’s no question of her descent from the Earls of Devon, and also from King Edward I.

Tom joins an ever-increasing number of lgbt people and Olympians (including my newly discovered descent from King Edward I for Oscar Pistorius) who can be connected by blood, however distant.

Songs For AIDS

To mark today’s World AIDS Day I’m looking at how music has been used to raise awareness of the disease.

Less than a month ago a newly completed song performed by Freddie Mercury and Queen was released. Freddie died of AIDS-related causes in 1991 and became one of the first international music stars to reveal he had the disease.

The new song, “Let Me In Your Heart Again”, was recorded in the 1980s and was never completed or released, though it was later recorded and released as an album track in 1988 by Anita Dobson, the wife of Queen’s guitarist Brian May. It has been included in Queen’s new compilation album “Forever”.

The song forms part of a campaign organised by Coca Cola and (RED) charity called “Share the Sound of an AIDS-Free Generation”. Other artists and songs are included in the campaign but this is by no means the first musical fundraiser for AIDS awareness. The first concert to have any specific mention of AIDS in its content was back in 1992 with the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt Songbook.

The brainchild behind this Songbook concert was William Parker (1943-1993), He was a professional baritone singer who had been diagnosed with HIV in 1986. During the early years following the initial shock caused by the outbreak of AIDS many lgbt communities across America began fundraising events to help the many victims and surviving partners.

William Parker felt that, although well intended, many of these fundraising concerts and recitals did not contain any works by openly lgbt composers or addressed the issue of AIDS awareness. Concerts included works already known by composers and writers also already known, in attempts, perhaps, to appeal to the widest possible audience.  Parker sang at several AIDS fundraisers himself where the very word itself was never mentioned out loud. Parker felt that with so many in the music industry affected by HIV and AIDS there would be enough support within the community to organise a fundraiser by lgbt composers and performers.

William approached a lot of composers and writers, most of whom he had worked with and knew, and he was pleasantly surprised at how many agreed to participate.

Very early on in the planning stage William envisaged the project as a companion to the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt, the ever-growing patchwork of fabric squares, each one dedicated to loved ones who had died of AIDS. Like the quilt the Quilt Songbook was intended as an ever-growing project with new works being submitted for future performance.

The Songbook concert was premiered on 4^th June (not July, as Wikipedia claims) 1992 at the Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York. Most of the contributing composers and writers were present, and some of them performed their own pieces. William Parker was joined by three other baritones – Kurt Ollman, William Sharp and Sanford Sylvan. They sang solo and together.

The following day the songs were recorded, except for William Parker’s three solo pieces. He had been feeling unwell on the day of the concert and the effort of performing and organising the event had exhausted him. He was too unwell to record his pieces.

After the AIDS Quilt Songbook’s premiere William Parker’s health deteriorated. Although wheelchair-bound towards the end, he managed to sing at several recitals, standing out of his wheelchair for the fist of these.

William’s last public performance was on 1^st December 1992, which is another reason why I chose to feature him on this World AIDS Day.

William died in his New York apartment, having been cared for by his sister Amy, on 29^th March 1993. The previous day he had received friends from the Songbook project and they listened to the first mastered recording of “Fury”, one of the tracks William was well enough to record after the premiere. This track is the first one on the official AIDS Quilt Songbook album.

William Parker’s legacy was a realisation that sufferers, partners, family and friends affected by HIV/AIDS can find a channel through which this can be channelled through music and poetry. Since the first album release in 1993 more songs have been added to the Songbook, growing, like the AIDS Quilt itself, into a multi-coloured patchwork, reflecting the varied lives and loves of people who have died. The most recent AIDS Quilt Songbook concert took place in New York on 14^th November to mark its 22^nd anniversary.

The Twelve Noëls of Christmas : 1

My Christmas theme this year follows the format of previous ones where I take “The Twelve Days of Christmas” as my inspiration. This year I’m creating a semi-French flavour by introducing the idea of “Joyeux Noël”. I’m also thinking of one of my favourite carols, “The First Noël the Angels Did Say” and have come up with my 2014 theme of “The Twelve Noëls of Christmas”.

Over this and the next three Sundays in Advent I’ll be looking at 12 lgbt people called Noel. Here are the first three, and there’s no more obvious person to start with than …

The 1^st Noël - SIR NOËL COWARD (1899-1973)

I’ve featured Sir Noël several times in my blog in the past – his ancestry, and his friendship with a war hero. Sir Noël is so well known that there’s very little I can say that is new, so I won’t bother. Instead I’ll concentrate on two lesser known Noels.

The 2^nd Noël – NOEL TOVEY (b.1934)

Noel Tovey’s life can be divided into three periods. The first begins in Melbourne, Australia, with Tovey’s birth on Christmas Day (hence Noel). He came from a mixed-heritage family – his father was half African-Creole and Scottish, and his mother was half Aboriginal and New Zealander. The family were poor and Noel’s childhood was far from ideal – his father was abusive and was imprisoned, and his mother was an alcoholic. Added to this was the racial stigma of being part Aboriginal. Before he was 13 Noel had been living on the streets working as a rent-boy. It was no surprise that he wanted to get as far away from this place as soon as possible.

In 1951 Noel was arrested with others who attended a private party hosted by a well-known drag performer named Max du Barry. The authorities seemed determined to have them all prosecuted for “the abominable crime of buggery”. Noel was forced into making a confession, which wasn’t true, and he spent 3 weeks in prison. During this time he considered suicide.

The rest of the 1950s were full of denial – denial of his racial heritage, and denial of his sexuality. As a lot of gay men did in the 1950s Noel got married and fathered a child. The marriage didn’t last and Noel discovered a new avenue to escape from the stress of his life – theatre. This was the start of the 2^nd period in his life.

In 1960 Noel arrived in the UK. He found work as a singer and dancer, and within a year was a principal dancer with Sadlers Wells. As his career grew he found himself working with stars such as Judy Garland, Dame Vera Lynn and Kenneth Branagh. He was also involved in the world premieres of “Oh! Calcutta!” and “The Boyfriend”. Researching 1920s dance for the latter earned him the job as consultant on the film “Murder on the Orient Express”.

By now Noel had accepted his sexuality and had a partner who, sadly, died of AIDS in 1986. Even though open about his sexuality Noel kept his racial background hidden. His partner’ death made him realise he could not hide everything forever, and this eventually led to the 3^rd and present period of his life.

Sitting on a beach in Sydney while on holiday Noel said he heard ancestral voices calling him back to live in his homeland. Noel had gained sufficient confidence in facing his heritage to make him move back. His reputation as a dancer and choreographer was high. He was in demand from many Australian theatres and dance groups. He even became part of the Olympic family in 2000 when he became Artistic Director of the Indigenous welcome ceremonies that greeted athletes and delegates to Sydney.

Noel also became an advocate of lgbt and Aboriginal rights, and more recently for older people’s rights. He was awarded a lifetime achievement award in 2010 from the {also}Foundation, and received an Indigenous Fellowship which enabled him to write his autobiography.

In September this year Noel was headline news again when the state government of Victoria overturned all historical convictions for gay sex, including Noel’s time in prison. So on top of his successes through the 2^nd and 3^rd periods of his life he won’t end his days as a convicted criminal because of the first.

The 3^rd Noel – NOEL CHEN

Noel Chen is a leading figure in the fight against Communist-led homophobia in Hong Kong. With it’s no-that-distant past as a British colony and it’s present protected special economic status Hong Kong saw many lgbt youngsters moving here to escape Chinese oppression. A vibrant lgbt culture was building up at the turn of the century but Chinese authorities still did their best to suppress any personal freedoms.

Noel Chen founded Rainbow Hong Kong in 1999, an lgbt support and campaigning group which provided advice and support. Rainbow also organised small conventions where activists from other parts of China came to speak. Chen also travels to the mainland to speak at events there.

The first major campaign organised by Chen came in 2001 after he was turned away from a blood donor centre because of his sexuality. This is a situation gay men have had to suffer in other countries since the HIV/AIDS epidemic began. Chen led a group of fellow activists and stormed a Red Cross event in Hong Kong in protest.

Later that year the Hong Kong police raided a local shop which sold S&M fetish gear. Chen led a protest against the police by having his fellow activists tie him to the iron fence outside the police station in pseudo-S&M manner. As the police removed him Chen gave a deliberately exaggerated show of pain, knowing that there was a lot of media present. The protest was broadcast across southern China.

Noel Chen isn’t well known outside Hong Kong and China, but his activism places him at the forefront of lgbt rights in southeast Asia.

Next Sunday I’ll tell you about the next three Noels of Christmas, when we learn about Victorian poetry, male beauty pageants and the Shroud of Turin.

Out Of Their Trees : Michael Dillon

Caribbean pirates, Imperial barons, Canadian senators, Irish bishops, Australian settlers, and Sir Christopher Wren. There can’t be many ancestries as varied as this! We come across all of these in the ancestry of today’s subject, the first transgender person to have female to male reassignment surgery. He is Michael Dillon (1915-1962).

There’s no better place to start than with Michael’s paternal family, the Dillons. The Dillons are an archetypical Anglo-Irish family who settled in Ireland as a result of the “Irish troubles”. That’s the “Irish troubles” of the 12^th century, when bad Prince John was sent across to conquer Ireland for the English.

Even though several branches of the family acquired British hereditary titles they weren’t originally British. Or were they? Michael’s earliest male-line ancestors came from Brittany and today we’d call them Breton. Brittany and Cornwall share a lot of heritage and language and regard each other as parts of the same Celtic nation.

Henri de Leon, a British/Breton knight, accompanied Prince John to Ireland in 1185 and was given vast estates there, founding the dynasty that has lived in Ireland ever since. The name de Leon eventually became, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, Dillon.

As well as British titles the Dillons acquired titles from other European countries. A distant cousin was created a French count, and Michael’s own great-great-grandfather was created a baron of the Holy Roman Empire in 1783. This first Baron Dillon, Joseph, was grandson of Ralph Lambert (d.1732), Bishop of Meath. Lambert was a rival of Jonathan Swift (author of “Gulliver’s Travels”) for various Irish ecclesiastical appointments. Several times Swift was recommended for deaneries and bishoprics, and lost out to Lambert every time.

I’ll jump to Michael’s mother’s family before I continue with the Dillons. Michael’s mother Laura was Australian. She died of sepsis ten days after Michael was born, and in remembrance of her Michael’s original baptismal name was Laura. The family, the Reeses, arrived in Australia in the mid-1800s, with Laura Reese’s grandfather emigrating there from Germany. Her father married the daughter of an Irish immigrant, so Michael Dillon has Irish blood on both sides of his ancestry.

Returning to the Dillons we encounter British colonial settlers from another part of the world – Canada. Michael’s grandfather, Baron Robert Dillon, married Minerva, the daughter of Hon. Samuel Silvester Mills (d.1874), Senator of the Canadian Upper House.

Senator Mills’ parents were born in the USA and settled in Hamilton, Ontario in 1800, though Samuel’s maternal grandfather, Michael Hess (1740-1804) was actually from there originally. Michael Hess married an American girl of Dutch ancestry called Gertruidt. No-one has proved it, but lots of websites claim she was a daughter of Johan van Cortlandt. If so, then Michael Dillon is descended from Stephan van Cortlandt, the first American-born Mayor of New York City.

We’ll return to Joseph Dillon, the first Baron Dillon. His mother-in-law was Mrs. Jane Drake (née Long). She came from another British colonial family – one which brings the dark shadow of slavery into Michael’s ancestry.

The Long family’s association with Jamaica began in 1655 when Samuel Long accompanied the expedition to secure the island for the British (as Michaels’ Dillon ancestors did in Ireland several hundred years beforehand). Like the Dillons the Longs were given large estates. The main residence was called Seven Plantations, and that means there were many African slaves working for the Longs.

Through his influence with the Governor (or Lieutenant-Governor) of Jamaica, Samuel Long acquired the position of Chief Justice. They soon found themselves at odds with each other. The Governor wanted the Jamaican constitution to follow a form that would allow the Governor’s Council to decide the laws and not the elected Assembly. Naturally, the Assembly refused to accept this, as did Chief Justice Long and he was briefly imprisoned for his opposition. The Governor dissolved the Assembly and sent Long and the Speaker of the Assembly, William Beeston, to England to answer for their actions. The king, however, supported Long and Beeston and sacked the Governor.

Chief Justice Long’s only surviving son Charles married (as his second wife) Jane, Speaker Beeston’s daughter, who had by this time been recently deprived of the Governorship of Jamaica himself over financial matters. Charles Long’s first wife was also the daughter of another Governor. There’s quite a web of family connections at this time which links the Longs with yet two more Governors of Jamaica. Like today, marrying into your own social class and political circle was common.

Before I move on to William Beeston again I must tell you of a personal link to Chief Justice Long. His mother Jane was the sister of Rev. Henry Brunsell, Vicar of Clayworth. Clayworth is a village just 3 miles from where I was raised and my father has ancestry there – they were baptised by Rev. Brunsell! Another religious link comes in the person of Rev. Brunsell’s wife Anne. Her brother was Sir Christopher Wren, designer of St. Paul’s cathedral.

Back to William Beeston. Before he was Speaker he was a judge. Several times he was appointed to lead negotiations with Spanish privateers and pirates who were threatening the security of various settlements around the Caribbean. He seemed to have been successful each time, and he secured the release of a few prisoners the pirates had captured. In 1675 Beeston was appointed a Commissioner of the Admiralty with the former English pirate Sir Henry Morgan.

Michael Dillon’s ancestors travelled the world and became leaders in their communities. Michael could easily have become part of the Establishment by being married off to a politician or diplomat. Instead he chose to disregard the expectations of his class, first by escaping the high life to work in a garage, and then by successfully transitioning to male. His route in life was to escape, leading him in his last years to a remote Buddhist temple and finally to India where he died in 1962.

Philip Brett Awards : Part 2

Happy St. Cecilia’s Day all you music-lovers. Today is the feast day of the patron saint of music, and I’m celebrating by concluding my look at the recipients of the Philip Brett Award. Philip Brett was a musicologist and pioneered the study of queer music – the way in which gender and sexuality influences music.

In June I listed the recipients of the award from its origin to 2006. With the announcement last week of the 2014 award the following list completes the recipients. It reveals a wide variety of research into queer music, and covers everything from opera to “Oh! Calcutta!”, and from jazz to Tchaikovsky.

2006    (joint award) Sherry Lee, for “A Florentine Tragedy, or Woman as Mirror” published in “Cambridge Operatic Journal”. Sherry is Associate Professor at the History and Culture Department, University of Toronto. She specialises in music of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. “A Florentine Tragedy” (or “Eine florentinische Trajödie”) is an opera by Alexander von Zemlinsky written in 1916, based on an unfinished play of the same English title by Oscar Wilde.

2007    Suzanne G. Cusick, for her paper “Music as Torture, Music as a Weapon”, presented to the American Musicological Society, and for her paper “Queer Performativity and the Gender Order in the Global War on Terror”, presented at the Queer Vibrations Conference. Dr. Cusick is Professor of Music at the Faculty of Arts and Science, New York University. The award recognises her work and research into the use of music, noise, acoustemology and “gender coercion” in the detention and interrogation of prisoners held during the global war on terror.

2008    (joint award) George Haggerty, Jenny Doctor, and Susan McClary, for “Music and Sexuality in Britten: Selected Essays”. George Haggerty is now Distinguished Professor at the University of California Riverside where Philip Brett himself was professor. Dr. Haggerty edited this series of essays by Brett which were the catalyst for the study of queer music. Susan McClary (Professor of Musicology, Case Western Reserve University) wrote the introduction, and Jenny Doctor (Research Fellow, University of York) wrote the Afterword.

2008    (joint award) Martin Pénet, for his article ““L’expression homosexuelle dans les chansons françaises de l’entre-deux-guerre: entre derision et ambiguïté” in “Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine”. Martin’s in the only non-English work to win this ward so far. Martin is a journalist, broadcaster and historian who specialises in popular French songs of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. He broadcasts regularly on French songs, performers and their histories on radio, and has written many books and articles.

2009    (joint award) Philip Ross Bullock, for his article “Ambiguous Speech and Eloquent Silence: The Queerness of Tchaikovsky’s Songs”, in “19^th Century Music”. He his Professor of Russian Literature and Music at Oxford University and has published many articles in both western and Russian periodicals and has contributed to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Contemporary Russian Culture (2006).

2009    (joint award) Annie Janeiro Randall, for “Dusty! Queen of the Postmods”, a biography of Dusty Springfield. This biography focuses particularly on the early years of Dusty’s fame (1964-8) and Annie looks at how the singer’s performance style, distinctive look and recognisable voice helped to make this UK star a big name in the USA, earning her the name “White Queen of Soul”.

2010    Roger Freitas, for “Portrait of a Castrato: Politics, Patronage, and Music in the Life of Atto Melani”. Roger is Associate Professor of Musicology and Chair of the Music Department at the Eastman School of Music (University of Rochester, New York). Atto Melani (1626-1714) as one of the most famous Italian castrati - singers who chose castration to improve their singing voice. He is also a diplomat and a spy.

2011    (joint award) Emily Wilbourne, for her article “Amor nello specchio (1622): Mirroring, Masturbation, and Same-Sex Love”, in “Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture”. Emily is Assistant Professor at Queen’s College, City University of New York. Her specialist area of research is in the music and sound of opera and commedia dell arte in 17^th century Italy.

2011    (joint award) William Cheng, for his article “Acoustemolgies of the Closet” in “The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality”. William is Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. He is one of the pioneers of research into the musicology and technology of computer games. His first book on the subject, “Sound Play: Video Games and the Musical Imagination”, is published by Oxford University Press.

2012    (joint award) Mitchell Morris, for his syllabus at the University of California Los Angeles “LBGTQ Perspectives in Popular Music” (course M137). This is the first of these awards to go to an academic course. Mitchell is Associate Professor in the musicology department of the university and has taught on a wide range of musical subject and themes. Mitchell has also published several books on popular music.

2012    (joint award) Christopher Moore, for his article “Camp in Francis Poulenc’s Early Ballets” in “The Musical Quarterly”. Christopher is Associate Professor at the School of Music at the University of Ottawa. French music of the 19^th and 20^th century is his specialist area, and he won a gold medal in performance (piano) from the Conservatiore National de Versailles.

2013    Elizabeth L. Wollmann, for her book “Hard Times: The Adult Musical in 1970s New York City”, a study of the brief rise of musicals with adult sexual themes following the success of “Hair”, the most famous of which was “Oh! Calcutta!”

2014    Lisa Barg, for her article “Queer Encounters in the Music of Billy Strayhorn”, published in the Journal of the American Musicological Society.  Lisa is Assistant Professor in the Department of Music Research at McGill University.