“One side of his life”: The Lygons’ lives and Walmer Castle

In 1891, on the day before his 19th birthday, William Lygon’s father died.

At the age of 18, the title of Earl Beauchamp passed to him. He began to work his way up the political ladder, becoming the mayor of Worcester when he was 23, and the governor of New South Wales in Australia at the age of 27. By 1910, aged 38, he became a senior cabinet minister for the Liberal Party and the First Commissioner of the Office of Works – which much later became English Heritage. Three years later, Beauchamp was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Walmer Castle become his official residence.

At this point in his life, Beauchamp had been married to Lady Lettice Grosvenor for 11 years and they had six children together. Walmer Castle became a family sea-side home, and photographs show the family enjoying the gardens and the nearby Walmer beach. On Christmas Day 1916, the seventh Lygon child was born.

Beauchamp’s apparent domestic bliss was soured by his brother-in-law, the 2nd Duke of Westminster. He was jealous of Beauchamp’s positions, and, as a committed Tory, was politically opposed to Beauchamp as he was the leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. Whilst sitting in the House of Lords, Earl Beauchamp had supported compensation for workmen, reducing miners’ working hours and improving rescues within mines.

Beauchamp was “quick-minded, original, [and] popular”, a pacifist and a leader. Westminster was “robust, obvious”, a soldier in the Great War and less politically influential than his brother-in-law.[1] Importantly, Westminster had been stripped of the title of Lord-Lieutenant after his divorce. Beauchamp continued to hold onto his titles “while his behaviour was more scandalous than being a divorcee.”[2] Westminster’s jealousy, fuelled by this hypocrisy, was brewing.

While the walls of Walmer Castle hosted this seemingly idyllic family life, they also hosted racy parties for Beauchamp’s high-class friends, local fishermen and young people. Walmer Castle’s gardens saw on one occasion a male actor “nude to the waist and covered with pearls”.[3] Throughout the 1920s Walmer Castle hosted the façade of a conventional family, contrasting with the fevered excitement of the roaring twenties.

Beauchamp’s life as he knew it, that balanced parenthood and parties, sea-side visits and possible scandal, came crashing down in 1930. In August, as part of a round-the-world tour, he spent two months in Sydney. His male lover, , was noticed by the Australian press and his wife’s brother – the 2nd Duke of Westminster – hired detectives to gather evidence of his homosexual activities. Westminster used this evidence to publicly ‘out’ Beauchamp to King George V in 1931. The King reportedly remarked that “Why, I thought people like that always shot themselves”[4]. The last death sentence for sodomy in England had been carried out in 1835, but homosexuality remained a crime and was punished with imprisonment and hard labour. Westminster demanded that Beauchamp should be arrested, so Beauchamp fled into exile – leaving behind his children and the safety of Walmer Castle. He would cling on to the title of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports until 1934, despite resigning from his other positions.

Westminster showed his sister, Lettice, the evidence his detectives had gathered on Beauchamp. Lettice had a nervous breakdown and confined herself on her brother’s estate in Cheshire. She divorced her husband of 29 years, claiming that he was “a man of perverted sexual practices, [who] has committed acts of gross indecency with male servants and other male persons and has been guilty of sodomy … throughout the married life”.[5] She also wrote to her children: “for many years, I had strongly suspected that (with Daddy) all was not as it should be — and that one side of his life and desires went contrary to everything that is right, normal and natural”.[6]

Lettice and Beauchamp’s seven children were ordered to testify against their father by their uncle Westminster. They refused and all except the youngest son turned their backs on their mother. They took turns visiting their father in exile, where he spent his time in Paris, Venice, Sydney and San Francisco. These cities were more tolerant of his homosexuality. Westminster cut them off from society, and used his power to make sure that the Lygon children were blacklisted from the world they had grown up in. Mary Lygon had been in a relationship with the King’s son, Prince George, Duke of Kent. This relationship was ended when her father was outed to the King. It is often stated that Westminster used the derogatory phrase “bugger-in-law” to refer to Beauchamp, but written evidence has yet to be found.[7]

Beauchamp returned to England, and the family home of Madresfield, in July 1937 after Sir John Simon annulled the warrant for his arrest. He painted out his wife Lettice from a fresco in their chapel, and he and his children threw her bust in the moat. She had died in 1936, estranged from six of her children and under the control of her brother. However, just over a year later, Beauchamp died of cancer and the title of Earl Beauchamp passed to his oldest son. He left a mansion in Sydney to his partner, David Smyth.

The Lygons’ family life at Walmer Castle had seemed idyllic to those in high society but Beauchamp kept a part of himself hidden from his wife. Behind the walls of Walmer, his racy parties were accepted as part of high society and his homosexual relationships could be kept secret. He pushed the boundaries of high society until it could no longer tolerate his homosexuality. While Beauchamp had an unbreakable bond with his children, when he was cruelly and deliberately ‘outed’ by his brother-in-law, he lost his wife, his place in high society, and the positions that had given him the keys to Walmer Castle. His children’s lives were also altered, but in a time when we would expect them to be homophobic and shun their father, they supported him until the day he died. The Lygon children, William, Hugh, Lettice, Sibell, Mary, Dorothy, and Richard, saw through their uncle’s cruelty and jealously. While  formal society used homophobia to bring down Beauchamp, his children chose to support and love their father. Beauchamp lived at a time when multiple, contradictory societies co-existed. In formal society, ruled by the King, homosexuality was illegal. Nevertheless, high society revelled in racy parties and overlooked the “homoerotic atmosphere” of public schools.[8] Walking the line between these societies was difficult and one push could tip you over the edge. For Beauchamp, more tolerant societies could be found in Paris, Venice, Sydney and San Francisco. In the end it was his wife, Lettice, who was painted out of the family picture.

Near the end of Sibell’s life, she reflected on her father: “He was a very nice man and he did care so very much about his children. Mother was his greatest mistake and maybe because he was homosexual he made the wrong choice in marriage.” When asked what Beauchamp had taught his children, she replied “Tolerance. Always tolerance.”[9]