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George Cecil Ives
(October 1, 1867 - June 4, 1950) U.K.

George Ives

Writer, criminologist

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The illegitimate son of aristocratic parents, born in Germany, Ives was rised in priviledged circumstances by his grandmother, and seems to have recognised and understood his sexual nature from boyhood. A good-looking young man, he early mixed in homosexual circles, had a brief affair with Lord Alfred Douglas in 1893, and established a homosexual ménage at the Albany in Picadilly which Wilde took as the model for Algernon's domestic arrangements in The Importance of Being Earnest.

He was devoted to the cause of homosexual emancipation, and around 1893 was one of the founders of a secret homosexual brotherhood, the Order of Chaerronea, which with rituals and secret insinias was intended to provide mutual support for its members and work for the cause. The Order was the first organised effort in Britain to further the cause of homosexuals, even if it did little of a public nature to this end.

Later he became interested in criminology, dealing with the injustice of society's treatement of the homosexual and arguing for homosexual law reform. He was also a Fellow of the Zoological Society, and a member of the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology (BSSP), and developed a library for the use of BSSP members.

Like many other homosexuals, Ives was appalled by the ostentatius folly of Wilde's behaviour in 1895, which set back the homosexual cause in England by a generation; notwithstanding, in the end he forgave Wilde and came to admire his courage in adversity.

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Source: excerpts from: Aldrich R. & Wotherspoon G., Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History, from Antiquity to WWII, Routledge, London, 2001 - et alii

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