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Poet Edo Tastic / Richard Stabbert

Poet Edo / Richard Stabbert

Photographer: Igor Mattio

"Frank may be seen, but not Hird"....

Oscar Wilde. Frank Hird met Lord Ronald Gower in 1893. Smitten by Hird, in 1894, the painter of male beauty, Henry Scott Tuke was specifically commissioned by Lord Ronald Gower the capture his lover's loveliness. By April 1895, the couple were together in Venice and in 1898, Hird became the Rome correspondent for the Morning Post, a position he had obtained through a friend of Lord Ronald. He was known by the Anglo-Americans in Rome as "the post-boy", due to his youthful appearance. Hird had once engaged to a woman, but he accepted Gower's offer to live with him and broke the engagement. The couple would remain together until Gower's death and when Hird died in 1937 his ashes were interred alongside Gower's.

Born into immense privilege, a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) and was a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, Lord Ronald Gower (1845–1916) was a prominent Victorian aristocrat, politician, and sculptor and gay. He never married and homosexuality was an open secret in high society. He famously inspired the hedonistic Lord Henry Wotton in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. He lived his life in elite queer circles and amongst his friends was Oscar Wilde but due to his immense wealth and royal connections, he was able to avoid the criminal prosecutions that destroyed the lives other gay men of his era. In 1889 Lord Gower was implicated in the Cleveland Street scandal, which exposed a male brothel operating in London that employed telegraph boys and catered to wealthy aristocrats. Because his sexuality was already an open secret, Gower was immediately suspect in the scandal and because he did not flee abroad, Gower faced the immediate brunt of the Victorian social backlash. He suffered severe social isolation and was famously "cut" (shunned) by former friends and colleagues at his elite London clubs. After the scandal Gower withdrew into a more private domestic life, centering his world around his relationship with journalist and author Frank Hird and in 1898, to legally camouflage the true nature of their partnership and justify living together in Victorian society, Gower legally adopted Hird as his son. In 1911 the couple was bankrupted forcing Gower to sell their beloved country estate along with his valuable art collections, to cover the debts. Moving the a smaller residence, the couple remained steadfast though Gower’s final years were lived in greatly reduced financial circumstances as Hird would care for him through declining health. Gower passed away at the home they shared in 1916 at the age of 70. Frank Hird’s death would come in 1937 with his ashes interred alongside Lord Ronald Gower.

Mathew Modine in Birdy, 1984

AI Lautrec

Rodin’s “The Age of Bronze”

Around 1953, while working in a factory, English actor on stage, film and television Alfred Lynch was attending theatre acting evening classes, would meet his life partner, James Culliford. Both actors lived and worked in London during a time in which their relationship was illegal and punishable and yet they remained together. When Culliford suffered a debilitating stroke in 1972, Lynch would slow down his career in order to take care him. The stroke ended Culliford's acting career and the couple moved to Brighton to find a place to heal. Despite a fleeting affair with Rudolf Nureyev Lynch would return to the love of his life, Culliford. They remained together for nearly half a century until Culliford passed away in 2002. Lynch would only last a year longer, dying of cancer the following year.

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Richard Stabbert