Groups, Support, Advice | History | Further Reading
Resources
Groups, Support and Advice
Local Groups
- OutREACH Cumbria – support, advice and engagement
- Lakes Queer Adventures – outdoor based social group
- LGBThq Cumbria – support based in Carlisle
- Queer Cumbria – Carlisle based arts and events group
- Kaleidoscope – support and social network based in Barrow (call 01229 812888 or email [email protected])
- Proud & Diverse Cumbria – promoting equality and diversity in Whitehaven
- Ulverston Pride Community Group – A safe space for LGBTQ+ to meet, learn and share
Support & Advice
- Switchboard (Helpline: 0800 011 9100) – support helpline, online chat and email
- MindOut – mental health resources
- LGBT Foundation (Helpline: 0345 330 3030) – mental health and wellbeing support, information and advice
- Stonewall – information, advice and campaigning
- Galop – support for LGBTQ+ people who have experienced abuse and violence
- FFLAG – support for family and friends of LGBTQ+ people
- Transactual – information and support for trans people
- Mermaids – supporting trans, non-binary and gender diverse children, young people, and families.
- National Trans 24hr Helpline (0330 043 4069)
Local Prides 2026
- 23 May – Furness Pride
- 12-14 June – Kendal Pride
- 4 July – Ulverston Pride
- 29-30 Aug – Pride by the Harbourside
- 26 Sept – Cumbria Pride
Other Resources
- Agrespect – the rural LGBTQ+ Network
- Queering the Map – LGBTQ+ experiences around Cumbria and the globe [not entirely sure this is work appropriate but it is an interesting resource]
History
Cumbria History
- LGBT+ Language & Archives Blog Cumbria queer heritage blog
- CELEBRATE: LGBT History in Cumbria oral history project recordings
- CELEBRATE: LGBT History in Cumbria background
- Queer Cumbria Mag has various articles about past queer Cumbrians
Queer History
Further Reading
Prehistory
‘Pederasty Amongst the Ancient Celts’ at https://www.greek-love.com/index.php/antiquity/anthologies/ancient-celts
‘Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes’ at https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/women-in-history/cartimandua/
Howarth, N. (2008). Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes, Stroud: The History Press.
The Romans
‘The Galli: Breaking Roman Gender Norms’ at https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/lgbtq-history/the-galli/
Ivleva, T. and R. Collins (eds) (2020). Un-Roman Sex: Gender, Sexuality and Lovemaking in the Roman Provinces and Frontiers, Abingdon: Routledge.
Middle Ages
Halsall, P. (2023). ‘The Experience of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages’ in People with a History: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans History Sourcebook at https://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/pwh/gaymidages.asp
Leyser, H. (1995). Medieval Women: A social history of women in England 450-1500, London: Weidenfield & Nicolson.
McNeill, J.T. & H.M. Gamer (1938). Medieval Handbooks of Penance, New York: Columbia University.
Wingard, T. (2025). ‘”In their reckless lust they forget their sex” – LGBT history in the Middle Ages’, Doing History in Public, at https://doinghistoryinpublic.org/2025/08/12/in-their-reckless-lust-they-forget-their-sex-lgbt-history-in-the-middle-ages/
Anglo Saxon Law Codes: https://www.theanglosaxons.com/law-codes/
‘Homosexuality in Viking Scandinavia’ at https://www.vikinganswerlady.com/gayvik.shtml
William II
Mason, E. (2008). King Rufus: The Life & Murder of William II of England, Stroud: The History Press Ltd.
Edward II
Warner, K. (2017). Edward II: The Unconventional King, Stroud: Amberley.
Early Modern
Dilley, R.S. (1997). ‘Rogues, Raskells and Turkie Faced Jades: Malediction in the Cumbrian Manorial Courts’, CWAAS Transactions, NS 97, 143-191.
Johnson, P. (2019). ‘Buggery and Parliament, 1533-2017′, Parliamentary History, 38.3, 325-341. [https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12463]
Sasso, B. (2022). Queer Elements in Renaissance English Poetry (thesis), available at https://thesis.unipd.it/retrieve/b67fa605-eac3-4d72-a5e5-0d87e6f83b86/SASSO_BEATRICE.pdf
Thompson, R. (1979), Unfit for Modest Ears: a study of pornographic, obscene, and bawdy works written or published in England in the second half of the seventeenth century, Totowa, US, 32
18th Century
Anon (1699). An Account for the Societies for the Reformation of Manners in England and Ireland, London.
Anon (1750). The Female Soldier, London. Available at Project Gutenberg
Cannon, T. (1749). Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify’d, London. Available at Wikisource
Hanham, A.A. (undated) ‘Societies for the Reformation of Manners in the 1690s’, The History of Parliament.
McGavran, J.H. (1996) ‘Defusing the discharged soldier: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and homosexual panic,’ Papers on Language & Literature, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 147+.
Norton, R. (1999) ‘William Beckford: the Fool of Fonthill’ at Gay History and Literature.
Malla, G. (1950). ‘Dorothy Wordsworth: The Perfect Sister’, The Atlantic, Dec. 1950. Available at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1950/12/dorothy-wordsworth-the-perfect-sister/376240/
Redding, C. (1858). Memoirs of William Beckford of Fonthill, Vol 1, London
Taylor, G.R. (1954). Sex in History, New York.
Wilson, F. (2009). ‘The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth’, NY Times.
19th Century
Cocks, H. (2006). ‘Safeguarding Civility: Sodomy, Class and Moral Reform in Nineteenth-Century England’, Past and Present, No. 190, OUP, 121-146.
Eliza Lynn Linton
Layard, G.S. (1901). Mrs Lynn Linton: Her Life, Letters and Opinions, London: Methuen & Co.
Lynn Linton, E. (1885). The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland, Vol. I-III, London: Richard Bentley and Son.
Saudo-Welby, N. (2019). ‘Queering Christopher Kirkland (188%): Eliza Lynn Linton’s “Autobiography-in-Drag”’, e-Rea, 16.2, [doi: https://doi.org/10.4000/erea.7606]
Herbert Charles Pollitt
Benson, E.F. (1897). The Babe, B.A.: Being the uneventful history of a young gentleman at Cambridge University, London & New York.
Crowley, A., J. Symonds and K. Grant (eds) (1989). The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: an autohagiography, London.
Mary Wakefield
Lee, V. (1937). Vernon Lee’s Letters, privately printed
Newmarch, R. (1912). Mary Wakefield: a memoir, Kendal: Atkinson & Pollitt.
White, M.V. (1914). Friends and Memories, London: Edward Arnold.
Warrington Case 1806
Graham, R. (1806). Remarkable Trials at the Lancashire Assizes, London: J. Day, 31-68.
20th Century
Lawson, J. (2025). ‘”Sapphic Sedition”: Lesbians and Law in the 1921 Criminal Law Amendment Act’ on The Law Bod Blog
Listen to interview clips from OutREACH Cumbria’s Celebrate project at https://northwestsoundheritage.org/2022/11/09/uap027-cumbria-outreach/.
Blacklock, S. (2024). I Knew I’d Done Nothing Wrong: Life as a Gay Christian in Cumbria, 1940s to 2020s, Ulverston: Pixel Tweaks.
Gavins, J. (2018). Is it About that Boy?: The shocking trauma of aversion therapy, York: JGSCR Publishing.
Thomas Baty / Irene Clyde
Clyde, I. (1909). Beatrice the Sixteenth, London: George Bell & Sons.
Keenleyside, H.L. (1981). Memoirs of Hugh L Keenleyside: Hammer of the Golden Day, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Copies of Urania (journal) are available at: https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/documents?filter_21=Urania&applyState=true
Dora Marsden
Garner, L. (2019). A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960, Portland OR.
All issues of The Freewoman are available at https://modjourn.org/journal/freewoman/.
Elsie Butler
Butler, E. (1959). Paper Boats: an autobiography, London: Colins.
Clifford Last
Jones, M. ‘Clifford Last: Game Shame’ (video) at http://mathewjones.com/GayShame_CliffordLast.html
Last, N., R. Broad & S, Fleming (eds) (2006). Nella Last’s War, London.
Last, N., P & R Malcolmson (eds) (2008). Nella Last’s Peace, London.
Dickie Buckle
Buckle, R. (1981). The Most Upsetting Woman: Autobiography 1, London: William Collins Sons & Co Ltd.
Percy/Roberta Kelly
‘Percy Kelly (1918-1993)’ in Cumbrian Lives: Towards a Dictionary of Cumbrian Biography at https://www.cumbrianlives.org.uk/lives/percy-kelly.html
Burkett, M.E. & Rickerby, V.M. (1997). A Cumbrian Artist, Cumbria: Skiddaw Press.
Wadsworth, C. (2004). The Painted Letters of Percy Kelly: Sent to Joan David, 1983-1993, London: Historical Publications Ltd.
Wadsworth, C. (2011). The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Drawing: The Extraordinary Life of Percy Kelly, Studio.
Maureen Colquhoun
Orr, C. & L. Robinson (2024), ‘It’s A Story of Love’, Queer Cumbria: Woman Up, Issue 3, April 2024.
Kris Kirk
Armstrong, S. (2026). ‘A Boy Called Mary’, Queer Cumbria available at https://www.queercumbria.com/a-boy-called-mary/.
Burton, P. (1993). ‘Obituary: Kris Kirk’, The Independent, 27 April 1993, available at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-kris-kirk-1458012.html
Watch A Boy Called Mary (1986), documentary about Kris Kirk’s life at https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-a-boy-called-mary-1986-online.
General
Greenberg, D.F. (1988). The Construction of Homosexuality, London: University of Chicago Press.
Grosclaude, J. (2014). ‘From Bugger to Homosexual: The English Sodomite as Criminally Deviant 1533-1967’, Revue française de civilisation britannique, XIX (1), 31-46.
Lemmey, H. and B. Miller (2022). Bad Gays: A Homosexual History, Verso.

