Last week, the organisers of Brighton and Hove Pride announced that they had “made the difficult decision to postpone the landmark 30th anniversary celebrations that were due to take place on 1st and 2nd August 2020,” due to the Covid-19 pandemic.Â
The event, which is the largest Pride festival in the UK, attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world every year. This year’s festival was due to be headlined by Mariah Carey, and the news of its cancellation is likely to hit members of the LGBTQ+ community very hard.
Pride and protest
Pride celebrations have their roots in protest and political activism, with the first recorded parade taking place in New York in 1970 to commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The story in Brighton is no different. A protest organised by the Sussex Gay Liberation Front in 1972 provided the starting point for the festival in our city, with the first full march taking place in 1973. Pride did not return to Brighton until 1991, when a march was organised in response to the government passing laws to ban the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality.Â
However, we need to go back much further that 1972 to discover the origins of Brighton’s LGBTQ+ community.
‘Unmentionable crimes’
Today’s community can claim a tradition that goes all the way back to Brighton’s emergence as a pleasure resort in the early 1800s. Thanks to huge numbers of holiday-makers beginning to make use of new transport links to the coast, the city quickly started to gain a reputation as a place with a relaxed atmosphere, where people could come to let their hair down. The brilliant local history website, Brighton Our Story, refers to a newspaper report from the early 1800s which condemns the ‘unmentionable crimes’ practised by the ‘improper characters in the habit of coming to Brighton’. Back then, engaging in homosexual acts was treated as a serious crime, punishable by execution.Â
Brighton Our Story mentions that one of the first attractions of Brighton to gay men might well have been the huge numbers of soldiers and sailors garrisoned here during the Napoleonic Wars (1803 -15). The website details many stories of scandals involving residents and soldiers on the beach, most of which did not have happy endings.
On a more uplifting note, though, there is evidence of homosexual relationships secretly flourishing in Brighton during the 19th-century, such as a twenty-five year relationship between the 6th Duke of Devonshire and his butler, who lived together in his Kemptown home, and the lifelong romance of renowned philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts and Hannah Brown, who spent part of the year living together at the Royal Albion Hotel.
Roaring 20s and men in uniform
Fast forward to the 1920s, and Brighton had become firmly established on the queer social map, with famous names like Radclyffe Hall coming to party. Many pubs are bars with a lesbian and gay clientele had begun to flourish, such as the Star of Brunswick and the St.James Tavern. Underground all-men and all-women dances were held in various venues across the city, attracting people from all over the country.
During World War Two, Brighton was once again full of soldiers and sailors, this time from Australia and Canada. BrightonOurStory notes that the Star of Brunswick became so popular with navy cadets stationed at HMS King Alfred that naval authorities were moved to make the pub out of bounds, and that gay Brighton residents practically ‘used to camp outside the gates’ of Rodean Girls’ School where the soldiers were stationed.Â
Following the war, stories of Brighton’s underground gay scene began to spread by word of mouth across the country. Many members of the LGBTQ+ community decided to move here, helping to expand Brighton’s already vibrant queer culture, and continue the fight for equality.
So there you have it! A brief history of the origins of Brighton’s wonderful LGBTQ+ community. Unfortunately, though, we’ll have to wait until next year to celebrate at Brighton and Hove Pride.
Featured image: Wikimedia Commons.Â
