Cumbria's first LGBT history exhibition opens in Carlisle

Cumbria’s first exhibition charting changes in the lives and experiences of the LGBT community, has opened at Tullie House in Carlisle.

The exhibition is the culmination of CELEBRATE: LGBT History in Cumbria, a two-year Heritage Lottery funded project by OutREACH Cumbria that explores the living history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the county.

The exhibition aims to shine a light on the hidden history of the LGBT community across Cumbria.

One notorious story from 1958 saw 13 men from Kendal arrested on charges of indecency and tried in Appleby Assizes Court in January 1959.

By the time of the trial, some of the men had spent over two months in police custody and been sacked by their employers.

Almost all were granted absolute discharges. As late as 1966 six men and a teenager faced prosecution in the Carlisle Indecency Trial.

At the same time, local people were becoming increasingly active in campaign groups that were ultimately successful in changing attitudes and laws and 1973 saw the foundation of The Cumbria and Borders joint Campaign for Homosexual Equality and Scottish Minorities Group.

Others remembered in the exhibition include the best-selling author Sir Hugh Walpole (1884-1941), who lived in Keswick. Further champions of gay rights included H Montgomery Hyde (1907-1989) who attended Sedburgh School in south Cumbria and eventually wrote a history of homosexuality called The Other Love and had a political career during which he championed legal reform.

The exhibition comes alongside the establishment of Cumbria Pride in 2010 and the first same sex marriage in Cumbria, which took place in Rydal Mount in 2014.