The Bloomsbury Group plays a prominent role in the

LGBT history LGBT history dates back to the first recorded instances of same-sex love and sexuality of ancient civilizations, involving the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) peoples and cultures around the world. What survives af ...

of its day.

Before the First World War

While still in the Bloomsbury area LGBT activity was all very much in a single group. For example,

Duncan Grant Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 – 8 May 1978) was a British painter and designer of textiles, pottery, theatre sets and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. His father was Bartle Grant, a "poverty-stricken" major i ...

, a homosexual with bisexual leanings, had affairs with

Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in ...

James Strachey James Beaumont Strachey (; 26 September 1887, London25 April 1967, High Wycombe) was a British psychoanalyst, and, with his wife Alix, a translator of Sigmund Freud into English. He is perhaps best known as the general editor of ''The Standar ...

Adrian Stephen Adrian Leslie Stephen (27 October 1883 – 3 May 1948) was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, an author and psychoanalyst, and the younger brother of Thoby Stephen, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. He and his wife Karin Stephen became interest ...

David Garnett David Garnett (9 March 1892 – 17 February 1981) was an English writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life. Early ...

and straight

Vanessa Bell Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Early life and education Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...

. Names of LGBT people outside the Bloomsbury Group strictly speaking include

Mary Garman Mary Margaret Garman Campbell (1898–1979) was the eldest of seven sisters known for their glamorous, bohemian lifestyles and their many love affairs with famous artists, writers, and musicians of interwar London. She was a member of the Bl ...

Nina Hamnett Nina Hamnett (14 February 1890 – 16 December 1956) was a Welsh artist and writer, and an expert on sailors' chanteys, who became known as the Queen of Bohemia. Early life Hamnett was born in Shirley House, Picton Road in the small c ...

Jane Ellen Harrison Jane Ellen Harrison (9 September 1850 – 15 April 1928) was a British classical scholar and linguist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Ancient Greek religion and mythology. She ...

, Rupert Brooke and

Arthur Hobhouse Sir Arthur Lawrence Hobhouse (15 February 1886 – 20 January 1965) was a long-serving English local government Liberal politician, who is best remembered as the architect of the system of national parks of England and Wales. Early life Hobh ...

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

had criticised the homosexual tendencies in the Bloomsbury Group, though close to the core members of the group

During and after the First World War

Later the groups differentiated. Keynes married

Lydia Lopokova Lydia Lopokova, Baroness Keynes (born Lidia Vasilyevna Lopukhova, russian: Лидия Васильевна Лопухова; 21 October 1891 – 8 June 1981) was a Russian ballerina famous during the early 20th century. Lopokova trained at the ...

, and gradually ceased having affairs with men. Other groups more or less split according to the location where they started to live. Most of LGBT men in and around the Bloomsbury Group were conscientious objector during the war: they had to leave London in order to do manual labour on the land.

Lady Ottoline Morrell's circle

Lady Ottoline Morrell Lady Ottoline Violet Anne Morrell (16 June 1873 – 21 April 1938) was an English aristocrat and society hostess. Her patronage was influential in artistic and intellectual circles, where she befriended writers including Aldous Huxley, Siegfr ...

's extravagant parties no longer brought the group together, but during the First World War she did provide housing for conscientious objector

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxle ...

at Garsington Manor, where he was married to Maria Nys after the war.

, another visitor of Garsington, befriended Huxley.

Charleston

Also

and

had to work on the land as conscientious objectors during World War I. They started living with

in Charleston Farmhouse.

Francis Birrell Francis Frederick Locker Birrell (17 February 1889 – 2 January 1935) was an English writer and bookseller. Birrell was the son of Augustine Birrell and Eleanor Tennyson (born Locker-Lampson). It was the second marriage for each of his parent ...

started a bookshop together with David Garnett later on.

Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington

Also during the First World War

Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of '' Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight ...

and

Dora Carrington Dora de Houghton Carrington (29 March 1893 – 11 March 1932), known generally as Carrington, was an English painter and decorative artist, remembered in part for her association with members of the Bloomsbury Group, especially the writer Lytton ...

moved to Tidmarsh Mill House. Later (in a ménage à trois with straight

Ralph Partridge Reginald Sherring Partridge, (1894 – 30 November 1960), generally known as Ralph Partridge, a member of the Bloomsbury Group, worked for Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf, married first Dora Carrington and then Frances Marshall, and was the ...

) they moved to Ham Spray House. Roger Senhouse, had been Strachey's last lover

E. M. Forster

E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...

spent his time as conscientious objector in Egypt, and remained there some time after the First World War. When returning to England his circle of LGBT friends and acquaintances included W. J. H. Sprott, J. R. Ackerley, Christopher Isherwood, Siegfried Sassoon, Forrest Reid and

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

and

Leonard Woolf Leonard Sidney Woolf (; – ) was a British political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant. He was married to author Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society, Woolf was an avid publisher of his own wo ...

first moved to Hogarth House in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, where they set up the

Hogarth Press The Hogarth Press is a book publishing imprint of Penguin Random House that was founded as an independent company in 1917 by British authors Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in Richmond (then in Surrey and n ...

. Later they moved to

Monk's House Monk's House is a 16th-century weatherboarded cottage in the village of Rodmell, three miles (4.8 km) south of Lewes, East Sussex, England. The writer Virginia Woolf and her husband, the political activist, journalist and editor Leonard ...

in East Sussex.

Hogarth Press

Katherine Mansfield Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer, essayist and journalist, widely considered one of the most influential and important authors of the modernist movement. Her works are celebra ...

and

John Lehmann Rudolf John Frederick Lehmann (2 June 1907 – 7 April 1987) was an English poet and man of letters. He founded the periodicals ''New Writing'' and '' The London Magazine'', and the publishing house of John Lehmann Limited. Biography Born i ...

were LGBT acquaintances linked to

, the publishing company

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

owned with her husband

''Orlando''

After

had moved to

, she would meet

Vita Sackville-West Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer. Sackville-West was a successful novelist, poet and journalist, as wel ...

, writing her Roman à clef Orlando: A Biography about her. Woolf also met the LGBT people around her, including Harold Nicolson, Sackville-West's husband, Benedict Nicolson, their LGBT son and

Violet Trefusis Violet Trefusis (''née'' Keppel; 6 June 1894 – 29 February 1972) was an English socialite and author. She is chiefly remembered for her lengthy affair with the writer Vita Sackville-West that both women continued after their respective marria ...

, her former lover.

Other

Composer and

suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

Ethel Smyth Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (; 22 April 18588 May 1944) was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas. Smyth tended t ...

was another later acquaintance of Virginia Woolf.Spalding 1991

References

Bibliography

* Todd Avery.
Radio Modernism: Literature, Ethics, and the BBC, 1922-1938
'. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.; 1 January 2006. . * Peter Clarke. ''Keynes.'' Bloomsbury Press, 2009. pp. 56, 57. . *

Angelica Garnett Angelica Vanessa Garnett (née Bell; 25 December 1918 – 4 May 2012), was a British writer, painter and artist. She was the author of the memoir ''Deceived with Kindness'' (1984), an account of her experience growing up at the heart of t ...

. ''Deceived with Kindness'' (1984) * Hermione Lee, ''Virginia Woolf'' London: Chatto & Windus, 1996. * Ian Ousby ed., ''The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English'' (Cambridge 1995) * *

Frances Spalding Frances Spalding (née Crabtree, born 16 July 1950) is a British art historian, writer and a former editor of ''The Burlington Magazine''. Life Frances Crabtree studied at the University of Nottingham and gained her PhD for a study of Roger Fr ...

. ''Virginia Woolf: Paper Darts: the Illustrated Letters'' (1991) {{LGBT history