William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp
William Lygon’s story is fascinating example of the homophobia and treatment gay people have had endure.
Lygon was the 7th Earl Beauchamp and a British politician who held various important posts, including Governor of New South Wales (1899 and 1901), and leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords (1924 and 1931).
He married Lady Lettice Grosvenor in 1876 and had 7 children (3 sons and 4 daughters). He was also a homosexual (or more probably bisexual) which was a crime under Britain’s Gross Indecency act. This was the same law that doomed Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing.
While attending Oxford, Lygon met Evelyn Waugh. He would become Waugh’s inspiration for the ill-fated Sebastian Flyte in Waugh’s novel ‘Brideshead Revisited’
In the 1920s Lygon would throw “racy” parties at Walmer, a castle he had been given. Lady Christabel Aberconway wrote in her diary of open party she attended:
“We arrived and were shown into a garden… There was the actor Ernest Thesiger, a friend of mine, nude to the waist and covered with pearls.”
Thesinger is best known for his campy performance as Dr Pretorius in “The Bride of Frankenstein” (1935).
Apparently Lygon’s sexual activity was an open secret within Britain’s upper crust. He had sexual affairs with servants, common men and other socialites (often at Madresfield Court, the Lygon family home; and at Walmer Castle when he resided).
Lygon toured Australia in 1930 with a young valet, who lived with him. The Australian Star newspaper reported:
“The most striking feature of the vice-regal ménage is the youthfulness of its members … Rosy cheeked footmen. (Each wearing) many lanyards… festoons from their broad shoulders. Lord Beauchamp deserves great credit for his taste in footmen.”
This came to the attention of Hugh Grosvenor (Duke of Westminster). He was Lygon’s brother-in-law and political rival. He hired detectives to get evidence about Lygon’s trysts.
Grosvenor was a Tory, an opposing party, and he wanted to ruin both Lygon and the Liberals. Grosvenor provided his evidence to King George V that Lygon was a homosexual. The King reportedly said,
“I thought men like that shot themselves.”
In 1931, Lygon was given an ultimatum - he must divorce his wife, resign from all offices and leave the country. Otherwise he would face public humiliation, arrest and potentially time in prison. Lygon left England immediately, first heading to Germany where he contemplated suicide. But he was talked out of it by his eldest son.
Grosvenor also showed the evidence to Lettice, Lygon wife, and Grosvenor sister. When told her husband was a bugger, Lettice misunderstood and thought he was being accused of being a bugler.
The divorce petition described Lygon as:
“A man of perverted sexual practices, [who] has committed acts of gross indecency with male servants and other male persons and has been guilty of sodomy … throughout the married life …”
Ironically Lygon’s children sided with the father and visited him often when he was out of the country. They shunned they’d mother.
Afterwards Lygon traveled, making his way to Paris, Venice, Sydney and San Francisco. But he returned to England after King George V died in 1936. His successor King George IV lifted the arrest warrant.
Lygon returned to Madresfield, his family estate in 1937. Unfortunately he was diagnosed with cancer and died in 1938.
Before his death, Grosvenor wrote Lygon saying,
"Dear Bugger-in-law, you got what you deserved. Yours, Westminster."
(Grosvenor, by the way, was a Nazi sympathizer and hated Jews, he was known for His anti-Semitic rants.)
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