Most stories in our family histories can be found in the records that our ancestors left behind. I know how my 2x great grandparents met, because I found my 2x great grandmother living as a lodger, in the house next door to my 2x great grandfather's family home, in Accrington, in the 1861 Census. I know how close my great grandmother was to her aunt, when I found my great grandparents working as live in servants to a big house, and their first daughter, as an 11 month baby, living as a nurse child in the house next door to the aunt, in Brighton, in the 1901 census. I know how much my 2x great grandfather was respected by those he worked with at the Chorlton Union, due to the obituary found in newspaper archives. And I know so many other stories, by following my ancestor's paper trails into the past.
But there are some stories that will never be reflected in an ancient paper trail, and those are the stories relating to those in our history, whose lives went against the grain of what was considered the norm. Where no formal (regular, or irregular; see my last blog) marriage is performed, no census report asks the right questions, and no direct ancestors are left to inherit and pass on the tales of those lives, we must rely on an oral history to preserve what is known. One such story is that of my great uncle Kenyon Holding, and his partner, or 'friend' Walter Newby.
Some of Kenyon's life can be told by records. Kenyon was the youngest son of Kenyon and Sarah Anne Holding; my great grand parents. He had nine other siblings, and the only one younger than him was his sister Doris (known to family and friends as Tia). Kenyon was born on the 5th December, 1909 at 5 Gage Street, Lancaster. His father, Kenyon Holding (senior) was a window cleaner, and his mother Sarah Anne (nee Birkett) registered his birth after the busy-ness of the Holiday season, on the 6th January 1910.
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| Kenyon was the middle child in the front row. |
Two years later the 1911 census showed that he was living, as the baby of the house (Doris wasn't to arrive until 1914), a few doors up at 10 Gage Street, where his father ran his window cleaning business. By the time the 1921 Census was taken the family had moved to a new home, and a new family business; running the Farmers Arms public house, at 124 Penny Street, Lancaster. By this time Kenyon was 11 years old and attended school full time, along with his two youngest sisters, Olive and Doris. The Farmers Arms was later, to become the White Cross Hotel, and nowadays is known as The Toll House Inn.
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| The White Cross Hotel opened around 1902. |
Kenyon (junior) had just turned 18 years old when his father died, on 19th December 1927, at the age of 54. I'm not sure when his widow Sarah Anne and her remaining unmarried children, moved out of the White Cross Hotel, but certainly by 1934 the voting records for Lancaster placed Sarah Anne, Uncle Kenyon, and my grandfather Joseph Bell Holding at 48 Blades Street, which is not a public house, but a mid terraced house on a residential street.
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| In December '35 Kenyon was best man to his older brother Joseph, when he wed Edith Charlton, and his best mate Alfred married her sister Kathleen. A fabulous double wedding in the midst of the Holiday season! Kenyon can be seen in this wonderful picture, standing on the left. |
Walter was born in Kendal, Westmorland, in June 1901. His father, James Newby, was a rural postman, and his mother was Elizabeth Ann Groves. He was the second youngest of 7 children. They lived in the north east of the town, in a neighbourhood called Far Cross Bank West.
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| Far Cross Bank West, in Kendal, Westmorland |
I have not been able to locate any of his family in the 1921 census, but in the 1939 Register Walter was to be found in Far Cross Bank West, Kendal, working as a sole fitter for a boot and shoe manufacturer. I have been unable to find out what he did during the war years.
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| Walter Newby, date unknown |
Family members recall that during the war Kenyon was posted first to Daventry, where he worked as a radio operator. Later he was, apparently sent to the Orkneys, where he worked in the catering corps, serving meals in the officers' mess. Apparently one night, when Kenyon was posted on guard duty, and thus unable to serve in the kitchen, the officers were given mere sandwiches for dinner. A protest must have been made, because Kenyon, it is said, was never posted on night duty ever again. He must have made a good dinner for those officers! When WWII records become more available from next year, I hope to find out more about what Walter and Kenyon did during the war years.
After the war Kenyon returned to Lancaster, and shortly after joined his sister Lily, and her husband Arthur Gardner, in running the Cross Keys Hotel, on Market Street, in the heart of the city centre. Situated just down the road from the market square, and the town hall, and with the infamous Lancaster Castle further up the road, the Cross Keys Hotel was an ancient hostelry, with an impressive history.
The Cross Keys Hotel has since been demolished, but when it stood, the facade sported a stone bearing the date 1613. A later built section of the hotel bore the date 1629. The front door to the public house was made of an incredibly hard and solid oak wood. Story has it that the castle door had been damaged during the English Civil War, and was replaced. The burnt castle door was supposedly repurposed by becoming the front door to the Cross Keys Hotel. Tradesmen who later came to repaint the door would attest to the scorch marks found under the layers of paint. Beams running through the ceilings of the hotel were so hard that it was deemed impossible to hammer a nail into them.
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| Notice the date stone, on the white wall of the building. |
It is thought that a guild (an early form of professional association or trade union) would often meet at the Cross Keys, and in pre-reformation years guilds would meet after a form of religious service had been performed. As such, in places where guilds met often they might have a large, solid table to use as an altar. The Cross Keys Hotel had such a table in the kitchen which is well remembered by family members who visited and lived there.
It was at this 'altar' table that Kenyon would have worked in his years living and working at the Cross Keys Hotel. He used his catering skills, probably learned in his childhood and youth, living in a pub/ hotel, and honed during the war, to run the kitchens at the hotel.
The cellars at the Cross Keys Hotel were extensive. So much so that family members have remarked on the possibility that they could have been linked to the castle in some way. There is much regret that the building no longer stands and such a story cannot be put to the test. It was in these cellars that Walter worked after the war, as a cellar man. He also worked behind the bar in the evenings, and did odd jobs around the hotel. It sounds like he was very handy, and a useful kind of person to have about the place.
Family members have told me that it it likely that Walter and Kenyon first met, while working together at the Cross Keys Hotel, on Market Street. Sometime in the 1960s Kenyon and Walter moved out of the city, to live and work in the nearby seaside town of Morecambe. They opened and ran a cafe together in Morecambe, on Pedder Street, named 'Lezanne'.
Kenyon and Walter never lived openly as gay men; certainly not in public, and not in the presence of family either. It's entirely possible that they were just good friends, and found working and living together easy and cost effective. Family members who remember them well, however, have referred to Walter as Kenyon's 'friend', where the emphasis is felt by those inverted commas, or as his partner. Whilst we will never know the true nature of their relationship, it seems highly likely that they were a gay couple. Neither Kenyon, nor Walter were my direct ancestors, but I feel that their story is so important to preserve. They lived and worked together for over a decade, at a time when homosexuality was illegal, even in a private home, and where consent was given.
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| Morecambe Seafront, circa 1965 |
The basic history of gay rights, of lack thereof, can be told through some famous cases. Homosexuality in England was punishable by death until 1861 in the UK, although the last execution of men for a homosexual act was carried out in 1831. This podcast, called Lost Voices tells the story of the last men to be thus executed very well, and explains more about the history of the time. In 1895 Oscar Wilde was famously imprisoned for 'gross indecency' after his consensual relationship with Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas was discovered. After he had served his two years of hard labour Oscar Wilde left for France immediately. He never returned to the UK, and died in France 3 years later.
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| Oscar Wilde |
In the Second World War, genius mathematician Alan Turing led a team of experts in cracking the Enigma Code, which was instrumental to the Allied success in winning the war. After the war, in 1952 Alan and his consensual partner, Arnold Murray were burgled, and in the ensuing investigation Alan admitted to the police the sexual nature of their relationship. Both Alan and Arnold were brought to trial, and due to Alan pleading guilty, he was offered a choice of imprisonment or probation, the latter conditional on him agreeing to chemical castration. The result of the hormone treatment, the lack of freedom to continue his work (his security clearance was revoked due to his criminal record), and various other factors all related to his conviction, all impacted his mental health, and in 1954 Alan Turing was found dead in his home, by his housekeeper. An inquest found his death was suicide by cyanide poisoning.
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| Alan Turing, and the Turing Machine, 1936 |
The Wolfenden Report was published in 1957. It looked into the UK law relating to homosexual acts, and recommended that consensual acts of homosexuality, carried out in private, should no longer be criminalised. It was debated at length in parliament, in the media, in religious communities, and in the pubs of Lancaster, no doubt. But it wasn't until 1965 that the decriminalisation of male homosexual acts was proposed in the House of Lords. (Lesbian acts had never been illegal in the UK.) A year later, the same was proposed in the House of Commons, and finally the Sexual Offences Act was passed in 1967, which finally decriminalised consensual sex between two men, of or over the age of 21, in a private setting. There was still a long way to go for the winning of fair and equal rights of gay people, and those restrictions were over turned by the European Court of Human Rights in 2000.
Walter died in January 1966, at the age of 64. It was shortly after, that Kenyon sold up, and joined his younger sister Doris (aka Tia), and her family, in their move down south, to Goring Heath, Oxfordshire. The multi-generational family of Doris, her husband, and their 2 younger children, lived with her mother in law, and Kenyon. When Arthur Gardner died in the mid 60s, Lily, Kenyon's sister also joined the Goring gang; it must have been a fun home!
Kenyon passed away on the 1st February 1983, in Goring Heath. He was much loved by the family he left behind and those who knew him, and Walter remember them fondly.
It is my hope that in writing this we are able to honour the lives of Walter and Kenyon, and preserve their story, in a way in which the official written records cannot.
With thanks to my father, his cousin Liz, and others (namely members of the Old Lancaster Pubs Facebook group) without whom I would not have been able to complete this story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde#Imprisonment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14.0&lat=54.32891&lon=-2.74239&layers=117746211&b=1&o=100
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=13.0&lat=54.05026&lon=-2.79588&layers=117746211&b=1&o=100
https://www.orkney.com/things/history/wartime
Enjoyed your detailed story about Walter and Kenyon!
ReplyDeleteThank you Marian. I enjoyed writing it, and learning from my father and his cousin. It was lovely having the opportunity to hear their stories.
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