Events tagged with "Wolfenden"
Campaign for Homosexual Equality
The Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) grew out of the North Western branch of the Homosexual Law Reform Society and became a network of local branches nationally, with the aim of law reforms recommended in the Wolfenden report. After decriminali...
Laurie Williams
Laurie Williams was the godfather of the early gay scene in Birmingham, he regularly held parties and promoted club nights pre 1967. He was instrumental in setting up the Nightingale Club in premises at Camp Hill and later opened the Jug. He was know...
Legislation impacting on gay men and lesbians
A summary of the legislation impacting on gay men and lesbians follows. More detail can be found in related events and memories.1900At the turn of the century, the 1885 Act which included the offence of ‘gross indecency’ was being used to arrest and...
Wolfenden Report
In August 1954 the Conservative Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, appointed a committee under Sir John Wolfenden "to consider the law and practice relating to homosexual offences and the treatment of persons convicted of such offences by the co...
Memories tagged with "Wolfenden"
Birmingham Post reports Wolfenden 1957
The following article reports on the publication of the Wolfenden ReportBirmingham Post & Birmingham Gazette Thursday September 5th 1957VICE REPORT MAY BRING COMMONS CLASHNew Law Suggested on HomosexualityBy our Parliamentary Correspondent PETER ...
Building up to Wolfenden
“We knew we had to fight, we did indeed. Lots of the men were politically aware, but I think only the slightly older ones, the ones who had been through the war and lived all that bloody nonsense and put up with all that because it was more or ...
Laurie was unique
Laurie Williams was unique; an interesting and complex figure. He was an openly gay man from the 1940s, a pioneer. He was involved in gay life in World War II in Birmingham. He survived the 1950s because he was so out. That gave him a degree of...
Meeting John
“I was working at the Royal George down in Digbeth, it was then a really superb restaurant and bar and I was in charge of the cocktail bar downstairs and John used to come in as a customer and stand there for an hour watching me and I was aware of hi...
Training the registrar's team 2005
“When they were introducing the Civil Partnership Act (2005) the registration service came to talk to us (the LGB staff group at Staffordshire County Council) about how they should advertise, what sort of leaflets they should prepare and so on. We ha...
Wolfenden Report didn't really change things
“When the Wolfenden Report came out (in 1957) – that seemed to ease things, although things didn’t change really.”...