LGBT History and Lancashire

Lancashire County Council embraces a range of initiatives designed to support and encourage LGBT individuals in Lancashire. Lancashire museums is a part of this and as an organisation we do our best to foster a safe and welcoming environment for LGBT people. In 2012 the Museum of Lancashire was recognised for its work with the county’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, with a Navajo award. This work was for participation in projects coordinated across Libraries, Museums, and Archives in Lancashire County Council.

The Navajo award, which is now called the LGBT Quality Mark, is a project covering Lancashire and Sefton. It was set up in 1999 with the aim of promoting equality and parity for LGBT people, and healing cultural divides. The award is given to public, private, and third sector organisations that take positive steps to encourage LGBT equality in their organisation and services. At the time the Museum of Lancashire was the first museum to receive this award.

^{One of the many LGBT community projects in LCC Libraries, Museums, and Archives.}

Lancashire has been host to some of the more severe oppression of LGBT people in the UK. Lancaster Castle is an 11^th century castle, an active Crown Court, and until 2011 it was a functioning prison.

In May 1806, twenty four Lancashire men were arrested in Warrington for ‘homosexual offences’. These men were from a range of backgrounds, from waiters to landowners. Nine of the men were tried at the assize court at Lancaster castle. Six of these men were eventually hung on the scaffold outside Lancaster castle, beginning on 13^th September 1806 with the three Warrington men: Samuel Stockton, John Powell, and Joseph Holland. The events that led these men to be arrested were recorded and described at the time, especially in the shorthand notes taken of the trials. These trials for homosexuality were listed alongside and considered equivalent to contemporary trials for violent rape and murder, in what became known as the ‘Remarkable Trials’ at Lancaster.

^{Lancaster Castle.}

Lancashire also has a long and proud history of LGBT defiance, campaigning, and protest.

In the 1970s, various spots in Lancashire became hubs for the LGBT community in Lancashire. The Morecambe Central Pier was host to the first national conference of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in 1973. This conference took place only six years after the Sexual Offences Act passed, in 1967. This law was a significant move forward for gay rights, and the first major legislative step towards decriminalising homosexual acts in England and Wales. In 1973, although a lot of bigger cities had taken these new freedoms on board, it might have been imagined that a smaller, Northern town would not have been a progressive enough environment to host such an event.

^{LANMS.1974.74.4, a decorative mug with a picture of Morecambe Central pier.}

In fact, it was during this time, in the 1970s, that Lancaster University became known as the ‘Queer University’, with an active LGBT staff and student base.

This proactive and progressive tradition in Lancashire continues today. It is well exemplified by the recent promotion of transgender acceptance in the Anglican Church by the Reverend Chris Newlands, Vicar of Lancaster and local champion of LGBT rights. Reverend Newlands has been instrumental in pushing for church reform on acceptance of homosexuality and trans rights.

In 2014 Reverend Newlands created the first UK liturgy for an affirmation service to renew the baptismal vows of an individual who transitioned from female to male, with his new name and identity. Since his appointment to the Anglican Church’s General Synod in 2015, Reverend Newlands has led the push to make his transgender affirmation service available throughout the Anglican Church.

^{The Priory at Lancaster.}

The Priory is a most appropriate setting for this move forward in LGBT rights; positioned as it is, across the road from the castle that hosted the trials and hangings of the ‘remarkable’ men.

Lancashire has always had a tumultuous relationship with LGBT rights and it is important that we recognise both the negative and positive aspects of this history, recognising the struggles that LGBT groups and individuals in Lancashire have overcome, and those that remain.