00:17Hello and welcome to Kent Chronicles live here on KMTV where we turn back time on all of Kent's
00:23history from the medieval era to the industrial revolution and everything in between. I'm Tia
00:29Chalice and join me as we turn back time and discuss all things history. But for this week we'll be
00:36looking into LGBTQ plus history in Kent from historical successes in the queer community
00:41and the mistreatment and struggles that they have been through. But first for this week's
00:46Periodic Profile I spoke with our reporter Ella González about William Lajon, a man who was
00:52forced to hide his sexuality in a time where it was criminalised. Here is this week's Periodic Profile.
01:08So first off can you tell me who was William Lajon and what was his position in society?
01:14Yeah so William Lajon was the 7th Earl of Buchamp and the leader of the Liberal Party in the House
01:19of Lords from 1924 to 1931. He also held a ceremonial title as the Lord Warden of the
01:26Sinkport which involved him welcoming visiting dignitaries in Dover on behalf of the King
01:30and this made his residence Warmer Castle in Kent and during his time at Warmer Castle he was said
01:36to have thrown several homosexual parties despite his public facade of being straight with his wife
01:43and his seven children. But queer history does often survive on gossip instead of that hard evidence
01:48due to its past criminalisation. But with that in mind can you delve a bit more into his history
01:54and then what triggered his consequent downfall from society?
01:58Yeah of course so as I previously mentioned Lajon had a lot of important political roles. He was very
02:04close with the royal family and a fallout of this was that his brother-in-law the Duke of Westminster
02:10was very jealous of this position and the Duke was also a member of the Tory party so they were
02:16naturally political rivals and this may have fuelled what was to come afterwards. And so when William
02:21was on tour in Australia in 1930 he was accompanied by his valet who was later revealed to be his
02:27lover
02:27and following on from this revelation his brother-in-law started hiring detectives to find out more
02:35and in 1931 publicly denounced him as a homosexual and insisted he be arrested by King George.
02:41So what happened after that after his you know arrest warrant did he go into exile what happened there?
02:49Yeah so he was forced into exile he moved to Germany where he contemplated taking his own life but
02:56was dissuaded by his son. His wife divorced him and in the divorce petition described him as a man of
03:03perverted sexual practices who has committed gross acts of indecency with male servants and other male
03:09persons and has been guilty of sodomy. The Duke of Westminster let it be known that anyone who was
03:14associated with William's family would be shunned from society as well but then in 1936 when George
03:19VI came to the throne the arrest warrant for William was lifted and he actually did return for a period
03:25in
03:251937 to his family home in Madrasfield and later died in New York in 1938.
03:33What would you say his legacy is today? Well politically he advocated for workmen's rights,
03:39an agricultural minimum wage, Irish home rule and minors rights and he's living proof that queer
03:45people have always been here holding prominent positions and trying to push liberal change.
03:57Now history has seen plenty of LGBTQ plus poetry lost however in Sissinghurst Castle survives a pivotal
04:04piece of writing starting in ancient Greece with Sappho and surviving through Kent.
04:09Our reporter Louis Stevens spoke with Sissinghurst curator Nicky Abolza.
04:22Today's Alluring Artifact is a book, a collection of poems by titular Greek love poet is Sappho.
04:30We spoke to Sissinghurst curator Nicky Abolza to find out more.
04:34She is now centred poetry, particularly erotic poetry. Certainly we can say that all her poetry
04:40was love poetry. So she was born on the island of Lesbos and that is where the word lesbian derives.
04:48A poet that was dedicated to female love. Vita was given this book by a schoolhood friend she went on
04:57holiday with in, to Florence in 1907 in the summer and it was clearly a sort of symbolic moment of
05:06their,
05:07I mean obviously this book was given when they were still children but,
05:12but nonetheless they were teenagers and you know it's that whole,
05:16you know hormones and all of that and um and a deepening friendship where they had so much in
05:24common and it and it and it made a very powerful impact on them. These relationships were accepted
05:30and seen as part of human nature and development and then during the Victorian period there was a
05:34clampdown making it illegal with the Le Bouchier Act. So little is written down um generally about
05:42queer history that um this kind of gift is vital for recording how people felt uh in different
05:51generations and you know and that it happened you know that it wasn't it's not a new thing it's not
05:56a it's it's been going on since the beginning of time but not a lot of it is recorded beautiful
06:03way of
06:03uh demonstrating same-sex love. Louis Stevens, KMTV
06:17And now it's time to put your thinking caps on for tonight's Tea Time Trivia with Nathan Hardy.
06:25This week I went to Rochester to see how much the public knew about their queer authors. The namesake of
06:30University of Kent's Wharf College, Virginia Wharf. He's one of the most famous bisexual women writers.
06:35Read several affairs with women. So for this week's question I asked which Kent-born author had a
06:40relationship with Virginia Wharf?
06:42A. Vita Sackville West
06:44B. Elise Cohen
06:45Or C. Carolyn Wells
06:47I'm just gonna say V for 100% of the time.
06:51Well did you say V?
06:52The answer? Vita Sackville West.
06:55Vita Sackville West first met Virginia Wharf in 1922 at a dinner party in London. Later on they became
07:01romantically involved. Sackville West was born at Knoll House in Sevenoaks which had belonged to her
07:06family for generations. Their relationship would later serve as inspiration for Wharf's novel Orlando.
07:14And now for this week's long-standing landmark we follow the institutions associated with queer novelist
07:21E. M. Forster with the school and theatre both located in Tunbridge holding a vast amount of
07:26LGBTQ plus history. Corey Miller joined me earlier to discuss this further.
07:38So hi Corey, first of all can you introduce this week's landmark and its links to Kent?
07:44Of course, so this week's landmark is kind of a double whammy. We've got both Tunbridge School
07:49and we also have the E. M. Fosters Theatre. So the school was founded in 1553 and that's where
07:58E. M. Fosters went to attend. So he actually attended the school from 1893 and although he was there he
08:06faced quite a lot of adversity. Of course him being a closeted gay man it was illegal for him to
08:12sort of
08:13outwardly be gay and he did find it sort of challenging to get through that. However,
08:18through sort of the art of expression and the literacy that he learnt at the school he would
08:23then later write many of his famous books hence what he's been renowned for. So one of them being
08:29The Passage to India which was released in 1924. Now quite a lot of his books weren't actually released
08:35until after his death. Speaking of after his death, the theatre was actually then built in his name to
08:42sort of like commemorate him and in his honour. So that's the E. M. Fosters Theatre, Edward Morgan Theatre.
08:49Can you tell me a little bit more detail about how this landmark ended up being a memorial or
08:55commemoration to him? This provides a platform for many people of the sort of queer community to help
09:02express themselves. As such, performance and the theatrical arts is always matched up quite well
09:11with people who are that inclined. You've got musical theatres, you've got pantomimes with a fairy godmother
09:16and this dates back even way back to the Shakespearean times with men dressing as women and then later sort
09:23of vice versa.
09:31And our reporter Crystal McPherson spoke to local author Bob Ogley about Crockham Hill, the home of
09:36prominent social reformer and co-founder of the National Trust, Octavia Hill. He spoke at length about
09:42the area around her home and the sapphic relationships she allegedly had. Let's take a look.
09:50Crockham Hill is a village in Kent where famed social reformer Octavia Hill lived and worked for
09:55many years. Octavia is documented to have had several sapphic relationships in her life,
09:59including having lived with and been involved romantically with one of the first female doctors,
10:03Sophia Jex Blake, in her twenties. Octavia later became one of the co-founders of the National Trust
10:08and even coined the term Greenbelt. She eventually moved to Crockham Hill with her long-time partner of
10:1330 years Harriet York. I spoke with author Bob Ogley about Octavia's impact on the area and about her
10:20relationship with Harriet. They were very, very close. Octavia could have lived with one of her sisters
10:28who bought houses nearby, but she chose to live with Harriet and those two women lived together and they
10:36had a very, very close relationship. I mean, together they created the National Trust with help from
10:44others. Harriet became the treasurer and Octavia, of course, was one of the leading lights.
10:52Crockham Hill now honours Octavia with two sanitary trails named after her. You can walk through the
10:57picturesque landscape of the Weald that Octavia loved so dearly and worked to protect.
11:01On one occasion when she was visiting Harriet that she went for a walk on her own and came across
11:08Toys Hill and she saw how the villagers there struggled to get water. There was a well nearby but it
11:19was some
11:19walk and she decided she would pay for the sinking of a well at Toys Hill and it was one
11:28of the first
11:28acquisitions for the National Trust. At the end of their lives, the two were buried together at the
11:34Holy Trinity Church in Crockham Hill. Crystal McPherson for KMTV.
11:41Thanks for watching. Goodbye.
11:43Bye.
11:44Bye.
11:45Bye.
11:47Bye.
11:49Bye.
11:50Bye.
11:50Bye.
11:53Bye.
Comments