Bob Mellors (1950 – 24 March 1996) was a British gay rights activist.
Biography
In 1970 Mellors went to New York and became involved with the
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK and Canada. The GLF provided a ...
(GLF) becoming friends with
Aubrey Walter during demos outside the Women's House of Correction in New York. Meeting up with the
Black Panthers
The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxism-Leninism, Marxist-Leninist and Black Power movement, black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. New ...
helped to crystallize their ideas on
gay liberation
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoffman, 2007, pp.xi-xiii. ...
and they decided to create a London version of the GLF.
As Mellors was working in the
London School of Economics
, mottoeng = To understand the causes of things
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £240.8 million (2021)
, budget = £391.1 millio ...
(LSE) he booked the room for the first meeting of the London GLF in the
Clare Market
Clare Market is a historic area in central London located within the parish of St Clement Danes to the west of Lincoln's Inn Fields, between the Strand and Drury Lane, with Vere Street adjoining its western side. It was named after the food mark ...
building owned by the LSE, on 13 October 1970. Also taking part in that meeting were David Fernbach] (author and Aubrey's partner), Richard Dipple (involved in the
Albany Trust
The Albany Trust was founded in the United Kingdom as a registered charity in May 1958 to complement the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS). It takes its name from The Albany, in Piccadilly, London, where J.B. Priestley and his wife Jacquetta Haw ...
), Bill Halstead (LSE student) and
Bev Jackson (later running for college office with the slogan "Bev the Lez for Prez"), Tom Gowling (language student at Central School London) & Fernley Thompson (architecture student at NE London Poly)
During the 1970s Mellors came to know
Charlotte Bach, a writer and teacher. Charlotte left Bob her library and Bob wrote her biography but never had it published.
When the British GLF faltered in 1974 Bob Mellors helped in the formation of more specialized lesbian and gay community groups.
Mellors never made any money from his writing and in London survived by art school modelling and working in the box office of the Electric and other cinemas.
In 1991 Mellors moved to Warsaw "for the company of Polish youth".
He taught English to Polish telecommunications staff. He was preparing an article on young Polish sexual identity for the gay journal Perversions just before his death.
Mellors was found stabbed to death at his home in Warsaw on 24 March 1996.
This was the result of a burglary at his flat. He is buried in
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...
.
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See also
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Hall-Carpenter archives
Footnotes
Bibliography
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References
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External links
Knittingcircle biography pageCatalogue of the Mellors papers held at LSE Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mellors, Bob
Gay Liberation Front members
British LGBT rights activists
English LGBT writers
British gay writers
1950 births
1996 deaths
Deaths by stabbing in Poland
20th-century LGBT people