discovery of + reaction to homosexuality/"inversion" in 1920s english aristocracy

[medicate]

All right, this is going to take quite a bit of explaining, so please bear with me, here, because I really need some help.

Comments

[fjm]

Try E. M. Forster's Maurice and also Brideshead revisited

[medicate]

Ah, yeah, I've read both Maurice and Brideshead (as well as the rest by Waugh and Forster).

Ohh, it's helpful that you mentioned that he isn't automatically going to inherit anything from his father. I had known that there would be an allowance situation, but had initially envisioned it more like something that could be revoked on account of bad behavior--good to know that it's different.

Thank you so much for your help.

[fjm]

Allowances did get revoked, but usually to control a son running into debt. Actually I was wrong about the disgrace issue: the things that lead to disgrace (and allowances being revoked) are:

cheating at cards
cowardice (I think he is slightly too young for the war tho)
getting well born girls pregnant (maidservants are ok, but not too many or nice hostesseses won't invite you to house parties)

Even then the most likely outcome in this period for a younger son was being packed off to the colonies with an allowance. In Canada they were called remittance men.

[mamamiau]

Not too young for the war. He would have been 20 in 1914. I don't know what the conscription situation would have been, though. I would think the disapproving family's attitude might have been, "Send him off to fight and that will make a man of him!"

[fjm]

Thank you for a great question.

[custardpringle]

Sorry to be the opposite of helpful, but what have you been reading about interwar working-class homosexuals? I could really use a couple sources about that--especially if they deal with British women.

[medicate]

Hmmm, my focus hasn't been on women, so I can't be particularly helpful, but A History of Homosexuality in Europe by Florence Tamagne might be of interest to you (you'll have to hunt through a lot about male homosexuals, though, as the information about women is presented alongside the info about men, rather than in specific chapters devoted to women). Tamagne does try to give as much information as possible on lesbians, though she acknowledges that there's quite a lack of original sources. I'm assuming you already know of The Well of Loneliness? That's about as far as my knowledge of British women goes.

If you want sources on male interwar working-class homosexuals in general, Queer London by Matt Houlbrook and Gay New York by George Chauncey are great--though that may all be rather off the mark, for your purposes... Sorry I can't be of any more help!

[custardpringle]

Thanks! I will definitely be on the lookout for these.

[moon_custafer]

I'm a few weeks late, but I just came across a link that might be relevant: A Class Apart: the Photos of Monty Glover