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They were trailblazers and legends and, now, 20 of Wales’ LGBT role models will be celebrated in a new exhibition.

The Icons and Allies exhibition contains 20 people who have all contributed significantly to the history and visibility of LGBT+ people.

They include 19th century sea captain Sarah Jane Rees, suffragette Viscountess Rhondda and bisexual Second World War hero Micky Burn.

The exhibition has been created by Pride Cymru as part of LGBT History Month and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

People were asked to pick their nominations and a panel chose the final 20 featured in the exhibition.

It will be formally launched in the Senedd on Wednesday by Hannah Blythyn AM.

It will then go on a tour around Wales over the following month.

1. Hugh Despenser (1286-1326)

A King’s favourite and Lord of Glamorgan

Nominated by Eve Limbrick, Pride Cymru Youth Council

Hugh Despenser the Younger married Eleanor de Clare in 1306 and through her became Lord of Glamorgan and owner of Cardiff Castle.

It is widely accepted that he and Edward II were lovers. Despenser’s influence over the king was described as “tyranny” and when the King was deposed, Hugh was also arrested and charged with treason and interfering in the royal marriage. He was hanged, castrated, drawn, and quartered.

He left nine children and among his famous descendants are Catherine Parr, wife of Henry VIII, and former U.S. President George W. Bush.

2. Katherine Philips (1632-1664)

Playwright, lesbian poet and Royalist

Nominated by Cath Harrison, Pride Cymru

One of the first British women to acquire fame as a writer, Katherine moved from London to Pembrokeshire at 14. On marrying James Philips she moved to Cardigan Priory. Katherine is now regarded as the first significant female British poet as well as the first woman to have a commercial play staged.

Her poetry often concerned her love for her female friends and they are the first British poems which express same-sex love between women. She had two great loves in her life, Mary Aubrey and Anne Owen. She died in the arms of Mary, aged just 32 years old.

3. Eleanor Butler (1739-1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1832)

The famous Ladies of Llangollen who fled marriages to be together

Nominated by Hannah Blythyn AM

Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby were runaways from arranged marriages in Ireland. Despite attempts by their families to prevent them, they set up home together.

Known as the Ladies of Llangollen, they became 18th century celebrities for their devotion to each other. Their reputation was famous and influential people such as the Duke of Wellington and William Wordsworth travelled to visit them.

They lived together for over fifty years and their house is now a museum. Gillian Clarke, National Poet of Wales, was inspired by the Ladies to dedicate the first poem in the world to a country’s LGBT community.

4. Mary Charlotte Lloyd (1819-1896)

Painter, sculptor, animal lover and social campaigner

Nominated by Lu Thomas, Pride Cymru

Mary was a painter and sculptor from Rhagett Hall, Corwen. She travelled to Rome to study with fellow Welsh sculptor John Gibson, where she met social activist and writer Frances Power Cobbe.

Both were non-conformists with feminist ideals. They set up home in London where they fought for the rights of women and animals. They even mortgaged their home to help Battersea Dogs Home in a financial crisis.

Retiring back to Wales to live together at Dolgellau, Mary died in 1896 and Frances, ‘lonely beyond words’ without her, died eight years later.

5. Sarah Jane Rees (1839-1916)

(Image: Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru)

Sailor, bard and writer, above

Nominated by Norena Shopland, Historian

Sarah, whose bardic name was Cranogwen, was born at Llangrannog on the West Wales coast. Rejecting a career as a dressmaker and demanding an education when it was unusual for girls, she joined her father on his local merchant ship. Whilst other women also went to sea, what set Cranogwen apart was that she then officially trained to be a captain.

She returned to Llangrannog and set up a navigation school. She became the first female editor of a woman’s magazine in Wales and a very successful poet and writer. She was supported by her partner Jane Thomas with whom she lived openly.

6. Viscountess Rhondda (1883-1958)

Suffragette, editor and businesswoman

Nominated by Chris Bryant MP

Margaret Mackworth was the Newport-raised daughter of a wealthy coal baron ennobled by Lloyd George. Following a brief marriage, she became a suffragette and was imprisoned after attempting to burn the contents of a postbox in Risca Road, Newport.

She campaigned for the right for women to sit in the House of Lords, founded the highly influential leftwing Time and Tide magazine, ran over 30 companies inherited from her father and became the first woman president of the Institute of Directors, all while living openly in lesbian relationships with Helen Archdale and subsequently Theodora Bosanquet.

7. Ivor Novello (1893-1951)

(Image: Media Wales.)

Composer, singer and actor

Nominated by Peggy Palmer

Born David Ivor Davies in Cardiff, this composer, singer and actor was one of the most popular British entertainers of the early 20th century. He wrote the popular wartime song Keep the Home Fires Burning and starred in his own musicals throughout the 1930s and 40s, including Glamorous Night, King’s Rhapsody, and Gay’s the Word. He also starred in Hitchcock’s The Lodger, an early hit for the director.

His partner of over 30 years was actor Bobbie Andrews. Called “The Last Great Romantic”, the prestigious Ivor Novello Awards for British songwriting still commemorate him.

8. Angus McBean (1904-1990)

Celebrated portrait photographer, above

Nominated by Jon Pountney, Photographer

Angus McBean, of Newbridge, became one of the most significant portrait photographers of the 20th century. He was known for his surrealist compositions and celebrity shots. In 1942 his career was temporarily ruined when he was arrested in Bath for “criminal acts of homosexuality”. Sentenced to four years in prison, he was released in the autumn of 1944.

After the Second World War McBean resumed his successful career and became internationally famous. He was the official photographer for several major theatres and opera houses and later photographed album covers for people such as The Beatles.

9. Micky Burn (1912-2010)

World War II hero, writer and poet, above

Nominated by Andrew Davies, Unity Group Wales

Burn was a British aristocrat, commando, writer and poet. Part of the famous Second World War raid on St. Nazaire, he was captured and imprisoned in Colditz. He later received the Military Cross for distinguished service.

On being blackmailed for (illegal) gay sex in the 1950s, he went to the police who jailed the extortionists instead. He was married to Mary Brooker for 23 years and they lived in Portmeirion, where he briefly ran a mussel-farming co-operative. His book, Turned Towards the Sun, discusses his bisexuality and his affair with gay spy Guy Burgess.

10. Goronwy Rees (1909-1979)

Key member of the Wolfenden Report Committee

Nominated by Lisa Power

Beginning as a journalist, Rees worked for a while for MI6. He was closely involved with the 1950s spy scandals. As principal of Aberystwyth University, he joined the Government’s Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution in 1954.

The resulting (and highly controversial) “Wolfenden Report” laid the foundations for the later 1967 Sexual Offences Act. This partially decriminalised male homosexuality for the first time in England and Wales. Goronwy was described as “by far the most lateral thinking and perceptive member of the committee”. He argued successfully that they should take evidence directly from homosexual men.

11. Leo Abse MP (1917-2008)

Parliamentarian who drove the first UK Gay Law Reform

Nominated by Stephen Doughty MP

Leo Abse was a successful Cardiff solicitor and a Labour Member of Parliament for nearly 30 years. A flamboyant character, he was known for tackling controversial issues in marriage, family and disability law.

Having seen the injustice and pain caused by blackmail of gay men, Leo championed the legislative changes that liberalised attitudes to male homosexuality in England & Wales. Inspired by the recommendations of the earlier Wolfenden Report, he became the prime architect of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. This partially decriminalised sex between men (those over 21 and in private).

12. John Randell (1918-1982)

Founder of the first UK Gender Identity Clinic

Nominated by Alex Drummond, counsellor

The Penarth-born John qualified as a doctor in 1941 and in 1950 was appointed Senior Psychiatrist at Charing Cross Hospital. He studied human sexuality and in 1966 set up the first Gender Identity Clinic in Britain.

He also helped organise the First International Symposium on Gender Identity. John became the most famous person in British transsexual surgery and for over 40 years every British transsexual person seeking reassignment had to go to his Charing Cross Clinic in London. This situation is still true for Welsh people today, although moves are now being made to set up a clinic in Wales.

13. Illtyd Harrington (1931-2015)

“The best mayor London never had”

Nominated by Professor Helen Graham, Royal Holloway University of London

A bear-like man and highly charismatic speaker from Merthyr Tydfil, Illtyd came from a radical, anti-fascist family with strong politics. After teacher training, he left for London like many young gay men of that time. He rose through Labour Party politics to become Deputy Leader and Chairman of the Greater London Council during its 1980s confrontations with the Thatcher Government.

He was a primary mover in their creative arts policies and responsible for creating free travel for the elderly and the Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park. Even before decriminalisation, he lived openly with his partner of 30 years, Chris Downes.

14. John Davies (1938-2015)

Celebrated Welsh historian and award-winning writer

Nominated by Berwyn Rowlands, Iris Prize

Responsible for the greatest book of Welsh history ever written (Hanes Cymru, 1990; A History of Wales, 1993, Penguin), John Davies was a lifelong Plaid supporter and Welsh language campaigner. Happily married with four children, in later life he came out as bisexual as a challenge to what he saw as homophobia in Welsh public life.

After teaching Welsh history at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, he retired to Cardiff and appeared frequently as a presenter and contributor to history programmes on television and radio. In 2005, Davies received the Glyndwr Award for his Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales.

15. Terrence Higgins (1945-1982)

The accidental icon

Nominated by Joshua Hall, Terrence Higgins Trust

Terry Higgins from Haverfordwest left his hometown for London in the 1970s. A lively character with many friends, he was a Hansard reporter, a barman and a DJ. After periods of undiagnosed illness in 1982 he became one of the first people in the UK known to have died with AIDS.

The charity set up by his close friends in his name went on to become Europe’s largest HIV non-governmental organisation. A Welshman is thus the symbol of the community activism that, while governments did nothing, began the transformation of HIV from the tabloids’ ‘gay plague’ to today’s treatable condition.

16. Griff Vaughan Williams (1940-2010)

Gay rights campaigner and journalist

Nominated by Kathryn Jarrett, Visible SMT, Safer Merthyr Tydfil

Born in Bangor, Griff worked as a journalist but was a campaigner for gay rights all his life. Starting as an office volunteer with the Homosexual Law Reform Society, he was on the Executive of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) for over 35 years in one role or another.

He led a successful campaign for unions to boycott Scarborough as a conference destination after the town refused repeatedly to host gay ones. He later did groundbreaking work with London’s Metropolitan Police to improve relations with the gay community.

17. Jan Morris (b. 1926)

Welsh republican, travel writer and essayist

Nominated by Grant Vidgen, Iris Prize

Born to a Welsh family in Somerset, England, Jan grew to be a passionate Welsh Republican, member of the Gorsedd of Bards, writer, historian and essayist. She underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1972 and her book about it, Conundrum, brought far greater public understanding of trans issues.

Legislation at that time meant that Jan and her partner had to divorce and later gain a civil partnership but they never separated. Internationally acclaimed for her travel writing and reporting, Jan also ensured that the news of the British-led conquest of Everest reached the Queen the day before her coronation.

18. Dai Donovan (b. 1947)

Miner and liaison to Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners

Nominated by Andrew White, Stonewall Cymru

In 1984 Dai represented the Neath, Swansea and Dulais Valley Miners Support Group. He met members of Lesbians & Gays Support the Miners, a fundraising campaign from London who adopted the Support Group and often visited, staying with families of the miners. Despite tabloid ridicule and the threat of homophobia the two groups accepted and learnt from each other.

After the strike ended in defeat for the miners the National Union of Mineworkers remembered this support. They were instrumental in ensuring that LGBT rights were included in the Labour Party manifesto and became part of mainstream political and working life.

19. Wena Parry (b. 1939)

(Image: Wales News Service Ltd)

Christian Minister and trans law reform campaigner

Nominated by Madeleine Rees

In 2005 Wena Parry, an evangelical minister from Port Talbot who had transitioned, challenged the Gender Recognition Act in the European Court of Human Rights. Under the Act, she could not get her gender recognition certificate without divorcing her wife Anita - equal marriage did not yet exist.

Ms Parry and her wife were clear that they were married in the sight of the Almighty and that divorce would delegitimise their children. Although they lost the case then, it highlighted the unfairness of current laws on people who transitioned but wanted to stay in their existing marriage.

20. Gloria Jenkins (b. 1937)

Founder of Fflag and Stonewall in Wales

Nominated by Derek Walker, Wales Co-operative Centre

In 2001 Gloria founded the Welsh chapter of Fflag (Families and Friends of LGBT people) and later became one of the first co-chairs of Stonewall Cymru. Gloria ensured that Stonewall put down firm foundations, becoming a cornerstone of Welsh LGBT life and rights.

Supported by her family and their Cardiff MP Rhodri Morgan, Gloria campaigned for her daughter Sian’s Canadian partner to be able to stay with her in the UK. In August 2000 Tammy was one of the first lesbians from overseas to be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK because of ‘a meaningful same-sex relationship’.