CROWLEY AND STOCKHOLM

 ALEISTER CROWLEY

AND THE

STOCKHOLM REVELATION

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law

 

 

The significance of the years 1896-1898 in Aleister Crowley’s life often get overlooked for the more sensational aspects of his magical career, yet they are important years that help shape and develop the young romantic poet in search of himself and his spirituality. Important factors during the years 1896-98 can be seen as pivotal in setting Crowley upon the path he chose to tread for there is so much nonsense written about Crowley being wicked when in fact he was nothing of the sort, he did not commit murder or rape or abuse children, things which of course are really wicked and should be punished; in fact, the only breaking of the law he seems to commit is the act of passive sodomy in homosexual encounters during a time when it was repressed by hypocrites; thankfully the expression of physical love towards one’s own sex is no longer a criminal offence and in observing the past from our own point in time we can see how foolish and damaging the legal classification was. I should say it is to his great strength of character, mind and will that he did not become a deranged murderer under the oppressive, soul-destroying Christian atmosphere of the Plymouth Brethren to which his family belonged and it would have been a decidedly weak, dim-witted and characterless individual who did not revolt against such extreme and dangerous beliefs. Crowley was an enlightened individual who questioned everything in a time of dogged acceptance and it seems to me he would fit in rather nicely with the morality and behaviour of the present climate.

Since the death of his father, Edward Crowley on 5^th March 1887 the young ‘Alick’ seems to have become obsessed with the pursuit and committing of sins as his mother increased her sense of bigoted religious mania – ‘for a year or two after my father’s death my mother did not seem to settle down; and during the holidays we either stayed with Bishop or wandered in hotels and hydros. I think she was afraid of bringing me up in London; but when my uncle moved to Streatham she compromised by taking a house in Polworth Road. I hated it, because there were bigger houses in the neighbourhood.’ (1) ‘Bishop’ is Crowley’s uncle, Tom Bond Bishop, a ‘ruthless, petty tyrant’ and Emily’s brother who lived at Thistle Grove (later Drayton Gardens) in South Kensington. The house is a detestable place of hypocritical Christian morality morning, noon and night, and filled with pious pretence of the worst sort by the Bishop family members – Grandmother Elizabeth Bishop nee Cole (1808-1896), (she and her son John came to live with Aleister and his mother Emily later in Streatham), Aunt Ada, a teacher whom Crowley doesn’t seem to mind; John Bishop (1821-1900) and Annie Bishop (1824-1890), siblings from Grandma Bishop’s first marriage and prevalent among this wreckage is Tom Bond Bishop himself. Uncle Tom moved to ‘Glenorme’, a house in Polworth Road, Streatham and Emily also found a house there at number 7, Polworth Road (I have found here there in 1891 on the electoral roll); the young Crowley furnished a ‘laboratory’ here and made experiments, mixing chemicals like some apprentice alchemist and it was here of course that he experimented on removing the nine lives that a cat is supposed to possess by various methods of its destruction; and it is undoubtedly here that the young Crowley enjoyed one of his sweetest sins of all and made his ‘magical affirmation’ with the new parlour maid on his mother’s bed one memorable Sunday!

On Thursday 18^th June 1896 Crowley’s Aunt Ada Jane Bishop died in Wandsworth, she was fifty-four years old and Crowley’s mother’s favourite sister. Her death notice appeared in The Standard (Saturday 20^th June 1896. London. p. 1) which states her death occurring at ‘Glenorme, Polworth Road, Streatham’, the house where she lived with her brother Tom Bond Bishop (1839-1920). She was buried on Tuesday 23^rd June 1896 in Lambeth. Aleister attended the funeral and says that his mother ‘refused to enter the church during the service and waited outside in the rain, only rejoining the procession when the corpse repassed those accursed portals on its way to the cemetery. She stood by the grave while the parson read the service. It was apparently the architectural diabolism to which she most objected.’ (2) Crowley writes the poem ‘In Memoriam A. J. B.’ to his Aunt and the poem contains deep Christian sentiments and Crowley still has his faith in Christ – ‘as when the conqueror Christ burst forth of prison, / and triumph woke the thunder of the spheres, / so brake the soul, as newly re-arisen / beyond the years.’ (3) He goes on to invoke the ‘world immutable of sleep’ where ‘we see our loved one, and vain eyes desire / in vain to weep’ before tailing-off in familiar Christian symbolism –

 
‘Woeful our gaze, if on lone Earth descendent,
To view the absence of yon flame afar –
Yet in the Heavens, anew, divine, resplendent,
Behold a star!
 
One light the less, that steady flamed and even
Amid the dusk of Earth’s uncertain shore;
One light the less, but in Jehova’s Heaven
One star the more!’

 

Not long after the passing of Aunt Ada death again visits the Bishops to collect Crowley’s maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Bishop nee Cole (born 1809), who died on 4^th August 1896 in Wandsworth; she is buried three days later on the 7^th August in Lambeth. I believe this double tragedy occurring so close together instilled in Aleister, who still clung to Christian doctrines, the seeds of doubt which would germinate a year later through the various momentous steps upon the path to reality, such as in the following June 1897 when he realises in Berlin that he is not manifested upon the earth to play chess and perhaps some other ‘destiny’ is assigned to him and his illness of October 1897 when he experiences the Vision of Universal Sorrow; and again in December of that year when he visits his friend Professor Lamb and a tremendous outpouring occurs which in turn culminates days later in Amsterdam with the conflict of the spirit where the weakness of Christian belief ends and a new ‘law of the strong’ is born in the form of some idealised romantic Satan, the Satan of Milton, the bisexual Baphomet.

Since entering Trinity College, Cambridge on 1^st October 1895 for the Michaelmas term, Crowley has felt a sense of freedom which has been gathering apace since his father’s death in 1887; the old constraints and restrictions of the Plymouth Brethren have been cast to the wayside and a Herculean sense of self importance has grown in strength as he goes in search of sensual experiences, cleansing himself of the ‘mire of Christianity by deliberate acts of sin and worldliness’ as he says in his Confessions (p. 123)

After the Easter term ended on Wednesday 24^th June 1896 Crowley travelled to the Bernese Oberland; on the 14^th July 1896 he is climbing the Monch in Switzerland, the first guideless traverse of the mountain [see Crowley’s poem ‘A Descent of the Moench’ in Mysteries: Lyrical and Dramatic. 1898. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume I] He returns to Cambridge for the Michaelmas term which began on Thursday 1^st October 1896 and ended on Saturday 19^th December 1896; Crowley, who turned twenty-one on the 12^th October, travelled to Stockholm and he stayed at the Grand Hotel. It is in Stockholm that he says that he was ‘awakened to the knowledge that I possessed a magical means of becoming conscious of and satisfying a part of my nature which had up to that moment concealed itself from me. It was an experience of horror and pain, combined with a certain ghostly terror, yet at the same time it was the key to the purest and holiest spiritual ecstasy that exists.’ (4) John Symonds is incorrect in his ‘The Great Beast’ (chapter II: Father and Son) in assuming that Crowley’s ‘awakening’ is literally his waking from sleep in his hotel room in Stockholm to some significant spiritual realisation, such blatant nonsense gets repeated until it is taken as fact and so the truth, which oftentimes is in plain view, is all but ignored for the more ‘convenient’, lazy and wrongly accepted viewpoint. Crowley informs us himself what occurred, all be it in Crowley’s own indefatigable manner, in chapter twenty-one of his ‘Not the Life and Adventures of Sir Roger Bloxam’ written between 1916-17 – in the winter of 1896 Crowley is in Stockholm, he doesn’t know anyone (except the British Minister and his wife) and he is feeling a little lonely; on Tuesday 29^th December, he had been ice-skating for some three hours and felt tired, cold and hungry and quite frankly a little bored of skating. He attempts a skating manoeuvre, quite badly and falls down on the ice. A man steps forward amongst the skaters to his rescue and Crowley is glad to hear the English tongue. The man introduces himself as James L. Dickson – Crowley assumes he is Scottish due to his middle name, which ‘stood for something Scottish, Laurie, or Leslie, or Levy, I think’ he suggests, but James Dickson is a married man, a family man and Crowley with some sense of honour probably knows the name but does not want to bring shame upon him, for there was a definite attraction between the young Crowley, who was ‘comely and graceful, lissome’ and ‘playful as a kitten’ and the older man, James; and ‘the new friends talked of England, home and beauty’. Dickson dined with Crowley that night and the following night, Wednesday 30^th December, Crowley dined with Dickson, and the next day, New Year’s Eve, Dickson dined with Crowley once more and on the stroke of midnight when the old year dies away to become the new, Dickson seduced Crowley who was more than happy to fall into a new, strong sinful experience. Crowley tells us in the next chapter of ‘Roger Bloxam’ that he was a ‘trifle sore at the rudeness of the Scotsman [Dickson] for it was Crowley’s, the ‘sensitive maiden’s’ first time with a man; Dickson, he continues, had no ‘savoir faire’ and ‘he was restless, he fidgeted, he said nothing wise, or witty, or even graceful; and he withdrew finally with abruptness’. Crowley says in his Confessions (p.124) that it was an ‘isolated experience, not repeated until exactly twelve months later, to the minute.’ Crowley writes about the experience in his poem, ‘At Stockholm’ which he probably wrote soon after in January 1897 and was published in his ‘White Stains’ in 1898:

 
At Stockholm
 
We could not speak, although the sudden glow
Of passion mantling to the crimson cheek
 
Of either, told our tale of love, although
We could not speak.
 
What need of language, barren and false and bleak,
While our white arms could link each other so,
And found red lips their partner’s mutely seek?
 
What time for language, when our kisses flow
Eloquent, warm, as words are cold and weak? –
 
Or now – Ah! sweetheart, even were it so
We could not speak.

 

Tobias Churton in his ‘Aleister Crowley: The Biography’ published in 2011 gives Dickson’s full name in chapter three on page 29 as James Lachlan Dickson (also see his note 7 on page 432 which gives Dickson’s profession as  ‘Cotton Spinner’s Agent’, attributed to William Breeze). Along with ‘At Stockholm’, a romanticised poetic version of the encounter which may have actually meant little to Dickson in Crowley’s ‘White Stains’ is another curious poem written as a tribute to the first man to become sexually intimate with Crowley at this time:

 
To J.L.D. *
 
At last, so long desired, so long delayed,
The step is taken, and the threshold past;
I am within the palace I have prayed
At last.
 
Like scudding winds, when skies are overcast,
Came the soft breath of Love, that might not fade.
O Love, whose magic whispers bind me fast,
 
O Love, who hast the kiss of Love betrayed,
Hide my poor blush beneath thy pinions vast,
Since thou hast come, nor left me more a maid,
At last.

 

If James Lachlan Dickson is indeed the man concerned, and there is no reason to believe he isn’t, he has the ‘Scottish-sounding’ middle name and his work would have given him the opportunity of travel; but what can be found of this James Lachlan Dickson? well, he was born on 1^st January 1855 at Portsea Island in Hampshire [the night of his seduction of the 21 year old Crowley was the eve of his 42^nd birthday], the son of David Dickson, a draper who employed three men, born in 1820 in Scotland (he died on 1^st February 1865 in Portsea) and Isabella Ann McMillan, born 1820, who were married in Medway, Kent in 1848 (5). James L Dickson was employed as an agent for a cotton spinners and manufacturers and he married Birmingham born, Mary Ann Cattell (1863-1923) on Thursday 16^th February 1888 in Camberwell. The wedding took place at St Paul’s Church, Herne Hill in Camberwell and Miss Annie Cattell is the neice of Mr. William Bennett, the respected proprietor of the Half Moon in Dulwich. The bride’s father gave her away and of the four bridesmaids, two were James Dickson’s sisters, Charlotte and Maria; his brother David was best man (6). In 1891 they are living in Portland Place, Beckenham, Kent and ten years later they are in Lambeth. James and Mary had the following children: James Thomas Dickson, born 1889, William Arthur Dickson, born 1890, Sidney Edgar Dickson, born 1893 and Constance Irene Dickson, born 1897.

The ‘so long desired, so long delayed’ sexual encounter with James L. Dickson is not the first account of a man attempting to seduce Crowley for he tells us in his Confessions that the ‘brother of the Dean of Westminster (he subsequently became a missionary and died at Lokoja) had been taught that if he couldn’t be good he should be careful. While he was actually in charge of me his conduct was irreproachable, but after giving me up he invited me over to his mother’s house at Maze Hill [Greenwich] to spend the night, and did his best to live up to the reputation of his cloth. I did not allow him to succeed, not because I could see no sin in it, but because I thought it was a trap to betray me to my family. Just before he left for Africa he invited me again, prayed with me, confessed to his offence, excusing himself on the ground that his elder brother Jack, also a missionary, had led him astray, and asked my pardon.’ (7) He is a little more explicit in his ‘The World’s Tragedy’ (1910) under the chapter ‘Adolescence’ and delights in his intention to send a copy of the volume to the ‘Very Reverend Armitage Robinson Esq., M.A.D.D., Dean of Westminster (8) for though I suppose he knows how his missionary brother Jack seduced to sodomy his missionary brother Fred, he may still be ignorant of how that brother Fred (one of my tutors) attempted to seduce me in his own mother’s house at Maze Hill. This came a little later; and I knew exactly what he was doing, as it happened. I let him go as far as he did, with the deliberate intention of making sure on that point.’ This occurred in the early 1890’s when Crowley was in his teens and at the hands of various tutors chosen by his Uncle, Tom Bond Bishop; it shows his early inclinations towards bisexuality and his acceptance of his feminine side. ‘Jack’ is the Reverend John Alfred Robinson M.A. (1859-1891) (9) and ‘Fred’, Crowley’s tutor, is Dr. Frederick Augustine Robinson (1870-1906) (10), both became missionaries in Africa. Frederick, of Guy’s Hospital, went to Likoma Island Mission, South Africa in 1891 when Aleister was around sixteen years old.

Before the Lent term began on Friday 8^th January 1897 Crowley was in Copenhagen, and he wrote the poem ‘Astray in her paths’; it is only days since he left the arms of James L Dickson, whose ‘gaze is still on me’, in Stockholm and the poem reaches new heights of passion, mingled with a spiritual inner light, far beyond ordinary mortal conceptions – ‘because we love, / are not of earth, but, as the immortals, stand / with eyes immutable; our souls are fed / on a strange new nepenthe from the cup / of the vast firmament. Nor do we dream, / nor think we aught of the transient world, / but are absorbed in our own deity’.  The poem continues until he reaches some great understanding:

 
‘But now I turn to thee, whose eyes
Blaze on me with such look as flesh and blood
May never see and live; for so it burns
Into the innest being of the spirit
And stains its vital essence with a brand
Of fire that shall not change; and shuddering I
Gaze back, spirit to spirit, with the like
Insatiable desire, that never quenched,
Nor lessened by sublime satiety,
But rather crescent, hotter with the flame
Of its own burning, that consumes it not,
Because it is the pure white flame of God.
I shudder, holding thee to me; thy gaze
Is still on me; a thousand years have passed,
And yet a thousand thousand; years they are
As men count years, and yet we stand and gaze
With touching hands and lips immutable
As mortals stand a moment;…
The universe is One: One Soul, One Spirit,
One Flame, One infinite God, One infinite Love. (11)

 

Following the end of the Easter term on Thursday 24^th June 1897 Crowley went to St Petersburg to learn Russian for the Diplomatic Service which he had chosen as his career and on his return he broke his journey at Berlin to attend a chess conference and upon entering, Crowley, who was a prolific chess player, was ‘seized with what may justly be described as a mystical experience. I seemed to be looking on at the tournament from outside myself. I saw the masters – one, shabby, snuffy and blear-eyed; another, in badly fitting would-be respectable shoddy; a third, a mere parody of humanity, and so on for the rest. These were the people to whose ranks I was seeking admission. “There, but for the grace of God, goes Aleister Crowley,” I exclaimed to myself with disgust, and there and then I registered a vow never to play another serious game of chess. I perceived with praetor-natural lucidity that I had not alighted on this planet with the object of playing chess.’ (12)

In October during the Michaelmas term of 1897 Crowley fell ill and he was ‘forced to meditate upon the fact of mortality’ consumed by the ‘futility of all human endeavour’. What is the purpose of life and the continuity of the individual spirit? A successful career does not automatically impose greatness upon a person and eternal respect and devotion – ‘I did not go into a definite trance in this meditation; but a spiritual consciousness was born in me corresponding to that which characterizes the Vision of the Universal Sorrow.’ He goes on to say that he was ‘not content to be annihilated. Spiritual facts were the only things worth while. Brain and body were valueless except as instruments of the soul.’ (13) He had been restricted by the demands of Christianity in his youth and since entering Trinity the freedom became meaningless without substance – ‘I had never given myself wholly to chess, mountaineering or even to poetry. Now, for the first time, I felt myself prepared to expend my resources of every kind to attain my purpose.’ (14)

Late in the October term of 1897 he also became acquainted with Herbert Charles Jerome Pollitt who was to become his lover.

On Tuesday 7^th December 1897 Crowley called at the house of his friend Dr. Charles George Lamb (1867-1941), the Cambridge lecturer and engineer who entered the university in 1891. It must have been a strange and extraordinary meeting that wild, windy night in December and Crowley must have been in great distress at his spiritual dilemma which had increased since his Vision of Universal Sorrow in October and in need of a friendly ear and advice from someone he respected and trusted. He writes rather perplexingly as an introductory to his poem ‘Aceldama, a Place to Bury Strangers’ of 1898, that it ‘was a windy night, that memorable seventh night of December, when this philosophy was born in me. How the grave old Professor wondered at my ravings! I had called at his house, for he was a valued friend of mine, and I felt strange thoughts and emotions shake within me. Ah! how I raved! I called to him to trample me, he would not. We passed together into the stormy night. I was on horseback, how I galloped round him in my phrenzy, till he became the prey of a real physical fear! How I shrieked out I know not what strange words! And the poor good old man tried all he could to calm me; he thought I was mad! The fool! I was in the death struggle with self: God and Satan fought for my soul those three long hours. God conquered – now I have only one doubt left – which of the twain was God? Howbeit, I aspire!’ (15) What transpired that night had a lasting effect upon Crowley and it would be interesting to know more about the part Charles Lamb played in his momentous conversion from Christianity to the occult!

After the Michaelmas term ended on Sunday 19^th December 1897 Crowley travelled to Amsterdam, and he purchases a small, red notebook in which he writes eight sonnets and several rondells and songs in pencil; The sonnets are: ‘Love me or leave me’, ‘Your love is light’, ‘To pass through the pale streets’, ‘I, who am dying for thy kiss’, ‘He, who seduced me first’, ‘A sailor’s kiss is branded’, ‘Did you speak truly?’ and ‘The old, dark evening’. The sonnet ‘He, who seduced me first’ undoubtedly refers to James L Dickson whom Crowley encountered almost a year ago to the day –

 
He who seduced me first I could not forget.
I hardly loved him but desired to taste
A new strong sin. My sorrow does not fret
That sore. But thou, whose sudden arms embraced
My shrinking body, and who brought a blush
Into my cheeks, and turned my veins to fire,
Thou, who didst whelm me with the eager rush
Of the enormous floods of thy desire,
Thine are the kisses that devour me yet,
Thine the high heaven whose loss is death to me,
Thine all the barbed arrows of regret,
Thine on whose arms I yearn to be
In my deep heart thy name is writ alone,
Men shall decipher – when they split the stone.

From the rondells and songs (six in total) is a strange poem, ‘The Red Lips of the Octopus’:

 
The red lips of the octopus
Are more than myriad stars of night.
The great beast writhes in fiercer form than thirsty stallions amorous
I would they clung to me and stung. I would they quenched me with delight.
 
The red lips of the octopus.
They reek with poison of the sea
Scarlet and hot and languorous
My skin drinks in their slaver warm, my sweats his wrapt embrace excite
The heavy sea rolls languishly o’er the ensanguined kiss of us.
We strain and strive, we die for love. We linger in the lusty fight
We agonize; our club becomes more cruel and more murderous.
My passion splashes out at last. Ah! with what ecstasy I bite
The red lips of the octopus.

 

 

On Thursday 23^rd December 1897, while Crowley is in Amsterdam, he is on the threshold of one of the greatest spiritual conflicts of his life, for he has been walking the streets all day and watching the sun pass overhead and ‘fade away / to other streets, and other passengers, / see him take pleasure where the heathen pray,’; he is tired and weary and his mind is in torment. The day has been long and there is frost sparkling along the streets as he wound his way towards the docks; from the darkness of his inner sorrow he holds his silver crucifix in his fingers and contemplates ‘the wound / stabbed in the flanks of my dear silver Christ.’ Christ is alone and Crowley is also alone – he puts the crucifix to his mouth and kisses the ‘silver lips’ as if in farewell. He puts the crucifix away and his ‘feet must go / some journey of despair.’ He has come through the dark night of his soul which probably began at the home of Professor Lamb and found that which he had known all along and he must walk and ‘know never more the day and night apart, / know not where frost has laid his iron hand / save only that it fastens on my heart; / save only that it grips with icy fire / these veins no fire of hell could satiate; / save only that it quenches this desire. / Let me pass out beyond the city gate.’ (16) Two days later on Saturday 25^th December 1897, still in Amsterdam, he writes the poem The Nativity (also contained in the Amsterdam notebook under the title ‘Xmas’). In the poem we find the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem, in labour, where ‘each spasm is a holocaust’, and thrice she has ‘cursed the name of God’ and thrice she has ‘prayed that she may die’ until ‘she is delivered of the Christ’. (17)

While in Amsterdam Crowley had been writing furiously to his new friend with whom he fell deeply in love – Herbert Charles Jerome Pollitt, and on Crowley’s return to England, he met Pollitt at the Queen’s Hotel in Birmingham on Friday 31^st December 1897, exactly a year to the day on which he had spent the night in the arms of James Lachlan Dickson – the seduction repeated itself almost to the minute when Pollitt and Crowley became lovers and Jerome seduced him at the beginning of the New Year.

Back at Cambridge for the Lent term in January, Crowley moves from his rooms at 35 Sidney Street to 14 Trinity Street and he and Jerome are almost inseparable, Crowley taking on the role it seems as the dutiful wife; the relationship, which was one of the most profound in Crowley’s life, lasts just six months when Crowley terminated the friendship at the Bear Hotel in Maidenhead where the poet had gone seeking solace to write his poem ‘Jezebel’. Pollitt followed him there and no doubt some scene played out and so Crowley called an end to the greatest and noblest friendship he had ever encountered.

The pursuit of spiritual attainments still drove Crowley onwards and in November 1898 it took him to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Abramelin and a new chapter in the life of Aleister Crowley, which would ultimately lead to the fulfilment of his destiny as the prophet of the new Aeon of Thelema.

 

Love is the Law, Love under Will

 

 

NOTES:

 

*Cabbalists among you may care to note that the initials J.L.D. – Yod, Lamed, Daleth: The Hermit, Virgo, Hand, the Secret Seed, 10 – Justice, Libra, Ox-Goad, 30 – Empress, Venus, Door, 4 = 10+30+4 = 44 Blood, the multiplication of 11, the number of Magick, by 4.

 

1. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. John Symonds and Kenneth Grant. 1969. p. 59.
2. ibid. p. 58.
3. In Memoriam A. J. B. Songs of the Spirit. 1898. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume I.
4. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. p. 123-124.
5. David and Isabella Dickson had the following children: Isabella Ann Dickson (1850-1902), James Lachlan Dickson (1^st January 1855- 16^th August 1927), Sarah Dickson, born 1853, David Robert Dickson (1857-1927), Charlotte Agnes Dickson, born 1859 and Margaret L Dickson, born 1863. Interestingly, there is an article in The South Eastern Gazette on Tuesday 15thy November 1853 (p. 5) under ‘Coroner’s Inquest’ which states that on Tuesday 8^th November 1853, there is an Inquest at the Running Horse Inn, Sandling, before J N Dadlow Esq. coroner, concerning the death of a 17 year old woman named Emma Collins whose body was found in Spratt’s Mill pond, Boxley, on Monday 7^th November. She was found by Richard Waterman who with assistance retrieved the body. Isabella Ann Dickson, the wife of David Dickson, draper of Maidstone, said the deceased was in her service for six months and last saw her alive at 10.45 Sunday night in the kitchen; Emma was due back at 8 but didn’t get back till 10 and Isabella told her to go to bed (she slept in the kitchen due to Isabella having friends staying at the house). Miss Collins was a disruly girl and Isabella threatened to tell her father of her behaviour and the girl replied that she would not be a trouble to anyone much longer. She had been depressed due to a failed romance and two letters were found in her pocket from a soldier in the Hussars named Langford.
6. The South London Press. Saturday 25^th February 1888. p. 6.
7. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. p. 72.
8. Reverend Joseph Armitage Robinson (1858-1933), Dean of Westminster (1902-1911).
9. Reverend John Alfred Robinson (1859-1891), born Keynsham, Somerset. Educated at Rossall School and Christ’s Church, Cambridge, matriculating 1877. B.A. 1881. M.A. 1884. Became a missionary, Hausa Mission. Died 25^th June 1891 at Lakoja, Nigeria, aged 32.
10. Dr. Frederick Augustine Robinson (1870-1906) – born 14^th June 1870 in Liverpool, Christened 11^th September 1870 at St. Augustine’s, Everton, Lancashire, where his father, Reverend George Robinson (1819-1881) was vicar. Entered Christ’s Church, Cambridge, 18^th April 1893; Guy’s Hospital, M.R.C.S. (Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London), L.R.C.P. (Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, London) 1892. Medical Missionary, Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, at Lake Nyassa. Medical Officer M.D.S.F., Labrador. District Surgeon at Nqutu, Zululand. Married Dr. Lillian Agnes Rogers Jenkins, L.R.C.P. Edinburgh, and late Indian Medical Officer (born in Tenby, South Wales, the only daughter of Rev. J. Rogers Jenkins) at St. Augustine’s in Durban, Natal 10^th May 1898. Served in the suppression of the Natal Rebellion, 1906. Died on 1^st October 1906 at Natal aged 36. Frederick’s father, George, married Henrietta Cecilia Forbes (1826-1919) in 1854 and they had thirteen children, eight boys, six of which entered the priesthood, and five girls. Frederick was also assistant surgeon at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and on Thursday 16^th February 1893 he attended the Leicester Town Hall trial of Richard James Glynn, 45 on a case of ‘unlawful wounding’ of Jim Smith on 4^th February, whose knife wound Frederick had examined; Glynn was pronounced not guilty and discharged. [The Leicester Chronicle and Leicestershire Mercury. Saturday 18^th February 1893. p. 6]
11. Mysteries: Lyrical and Dramatic. 1898. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume I.
12. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. p. 140.
13. ibid. p. 124-125.
14. ibid. p. 125.
15. Aceldama. 1898. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume I.
16. The Goad. Songs of the Spirit. 1898. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume I.
17. Oracles. 1905. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume II.

ALEISTER CROWLEY IN MAIDENHEAD

ALEISTER CROWLEY IN MAIDENHEAD

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

During the Easter vacation of 1898 when Crowley was an undergraduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, he travelled alone to The Bear Hotel, Maidenhead, to complete his poem 'Jezebel'. 

The Bear Hotel, High Street, Maidenhead

Crowley was reaching a spiritual crisis; he had become romantically involved with a man named Herbert Charles Jerome Pollitt (1872-1942) whom he met at Cambridge towards the end of the October term 1897 when Pollitt, a female impersonator was performing with the Footlights Dramatic Club. The two men seemed to hit it off from the start and saw each other a couple of times over the remaining months of 1897. Crowley is in Amsterdam during December (his poem 'The Goad' is written there on Thursday 23rd December 1897) and a chain of romantic letters flow between Crowley and Pollitt. Not long after this explosion of romantic desire, they meet on New Year's Eve, Friday 31st December 1897, at of all places, The Queen's Hotel, Stephenson Street, Birmingham (the hotel is no longer there and was attached to New Street Station). On their first meeting in the reception lobby Crowley feels a little disappointed at Pollitt's less than romantic greeting and after dinner they retire to their rooms; Crowley sits in Pollitt's room talking endlessly around eleven p.m. and no doubt share a New Year greeting until Crowley feeling tired retires to his room just before midnight; just before that accursed hour that signals the death of the old year and the beginning of the new, Pollitt enters Crowley's room and seduces him for the first time.

During the Easter term of 1898, (Crowley had moved into new rooms at Cambridge, 14 Trinity Street in January), Pollitt was in residence at Cambridge and they saw each other almost every day. Crowley spent the Easter vacation with Pollitt in Wastdale, walking the fells, but it was becoming clear to Crowley that there was very little they had in common between them! They stayed at The Wastdale Head Inn from 14th March-18th April 1898.

A later image of The Bear Hotel

Crowley spent much of his time reading, especially 'The Cloud Upon the Sanctuary' by Karl von Eckartshausen, published in 1896 and no matter how much he tried he could not persuade Pollitt, with whom Crowley had his 'first intimate friendship', to attempt any climbing, something as dear to Crowley's heart as poetry, in fact, Pollitt must have been thoroughly bored by the experience, he had no interest in Crowley's spiritual aspirations, which were indeed hostile to Pollitt or his poetry and must also have realised that the relationship was unlikely to go much further. 'Pollitt was perhaps the first man who enabled Crowley to indulge his feminine feelings in a straight forward sexual sense'. ('The Great Beast'. The High Magick Art. John Symonds.) Perhaps Crowley's sado-masochistic desires were beginning to bloom as Pollitt introduced him to the artists and authors of the Decadent movement - 'I lived with Pollitt as his wife for some six months and he made a poet out of me.' 

The Bear Hotel today

'I had gone down to the Bear at Maidenhead, on the quiet, to write 'Jezebel'. I only told one person - in strict confidence - where I was going; but Pollitt found out that person and forced him to tell my secret. He walked into the room shortly after dinner, to my surprise and rage - for when I am writing a poem I would show Azrael himself the door!

I told him firmly that I had given my life to religion and that he did not fit into the scheme.'

The famous Bear frontage

'He understood that I was not to be turned from my purpose and we parted, never to meet again. I repented of my decision, my eyes having been enlightened, only a little later, but the reconciliation was not written! My letter miscarried; and in the autumn, when he passed me in Bond Street, I happened not to see him; he thought I meant to cut him and our destinies drew apart.' (The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. Chapter 17)

Where it all began! The Queen's Hotel, Birmingham

In chapter 29 of 'Not the Life of Sir Roger Bloxam', written by Crowley, he says that he wrote and posted the letter from the Gare de Lyon; with some romantic notion Crowley chose not to take his degree from Cambridge and in the summer of 1898 went climbing in Zermat, Switzerland.

'It has been my life long regret, for a nobler and purer comradeship never existed on this earth, and his influence might have done much to temper my subsequent trials.' (The Confessions).

Aleister Crowley also travelled to the Thames Valley during late summer 1909 when he was in the midst of divorce proceeding from his wife Rose. Again he was in Maidenhead - 'On August 22nd [1909] the spirit suddenly sprang up in my soul like a serpent and bade me testify to the truth that was in me in poetry. I knew London would stifle me and rushed down to Maidenhead. I spent three days in a canoe, chiefly in the reach under the weir by Boulter's Lock.' (The Confessions. Chapter 65)

The Weir at Boulter's Lock

It was here in his canoe that Crowley composed his poem 'Aha' in a white-hot marathon of 60 hours!

The poem is a dialogue between a teacher named Marsyas (Crowley) and a pupil named Olympas.

The poem encompasses many diverse spiritual states and principles of initiation and shows Crowley's forced concentration at a time in his life which was personally difficult (the loss of his child and his separation and divorce from Rose) and his spiritual growth (his magical attainments and the re-discovery of the manuscript Liber Al vel Legis at his home, Boleskine House, Scotland, which was 'given' to him in April 1904 and he thought had been lost forever! But perhaps Maidenhead would remain in Crowley's heart as the place where the 'first intimate friend' of his whole life was lost!

ROBERT BUCHANAN

 

THE DEAD SOLDIER

ROBERT BUCHANAN (1893-1912)

 

By

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

‘How shall I know if my love lose his youth,

Who never for a day hath left my sight?

He, who but yesterday was my delight.

I needs must love to-day if love be truth,

And if I love to-day, to-morrow’s light

Against our love will e’en forbear to fight.’

[‘Love’s Immortality’. Strato. Translated by Sydney Lomer.*]

 

 

 

A MOST CURIOUS DEATH

I have been looking into the death of the young bandsman, Robert Buchanan of the 2^nd Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps. and found several inconsistencies with the manner in which the evidence was presented. Robert, born 9^th May 1893 in Carlow, Ireland was the 6^th child of Sgt. Major Thomas George Buchanan (1850-1925) who had served more than 31 years in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. and Mary Susannah Dicks (1864-1959) who had been a teacher in the regimental school – the Buchanan’s had seven sons in the KRRC, six of which served in the First World War. (1) Robert was on short leave in June 1912 which he spent at the home of Captain Sydney Frederick Mcillree Lomer (1880-1926) in Chesterfield (2); on Wednesday 12^th June, 19 year old Robert was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in Captain Lomer’s bedroom.

 

CAPTAIN SYDNEY F. M. LOMER

Sydney lomer’s father, Cecil Wilson Lomer (January 1842-1912) married Frances (Fanny) Margaret Sydney Mcillree, (born the daughter of Robert Henry Mcillree (1803-1886) and Catherine Sidney Jennings (1824-1864) on 13^th March 1849 in Oughaval, County Mayo, Ireland) in 1873 in Dublin. The first child born to Cecil and Frances was Robert Edward Mcillree Lomer, born 24^th August 1874 in Southampton; Robert served in the army during the Boer War (1899-1902) and attained the rank of Major. He married Mary Rouse in 1899 and died on 21^st March 1955 in Cork, Ireland. Tragically, Frances died 18^th September 1874 in Southampton, aged 25, perhaps due to complications during childbirth. Cecil re-married in 1876, in Dublin, to Ella Mcillree, the daughter of Dr. Surgeon-Major John Drope Mcillree (1812-1894) and Anne Wilson (1828-1875); Ella, a Cousin of Frances Margaret Sydney Mcillree’s, was born on 9^th July 1853 in Newcastle, Jamaica, West Indies (she died 23^rd January 1943 aged 89).  The next child to arrive was Cecil John Mcillree Lomer, born 1897 in Southampton, (he attained the rank of Captain in the 8^th Hussars) and married Maude Antoinette Messum in Kensington on 16^th November 1904 (they had one child: Elizabeth Antoinette Lomer, born 1911, Ruthin, Denbigshire; she married Arthur Barrett in Kensington in 1935). Cecil died on 24^th August 1915 in Denbigshire, Wales, aged 37. The next child, and third son to enter the military is Sydney Frederick Mcillree Lomer born 21^st May 1880 in Southampton before a daughter is born – Annie Margaret Mcillree Lomer, born 1882 in Southampton; she married Charles Henry Leveson (1868-1953) in 1915 (Charles was a Major in the Hussars and attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel; he was awarded the DSO in 1912) and Annie re-married in 1958 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, to John Thompson. She died in 1964 in West Hartlepool, Durham, aged 81. In 1911 Ella Lomer, 54, married of ‘private means’ is at the family home in Badgeworth, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire with her daughter Annie Margaret. Mcillree, 28 and they have and army of domestics: Butler, Cook, two Housemaids, Kitchen Maid, Footman, Lady’s Maid and a Groom.

Sydney Frederick Mcillree Lomer was educated at Rugby School (September 1894-1896) before he entered the army: served with First Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, First Battalion Sherwood Forrester’s and King’s Royal Rifle Corps.; Commission in August 1899-2^nd Lieutenant; 12^th August 1899-15^th May 1900, Lieutenant 16^th May 1900-July 1904, Captain 4^th Battalion KRRC 15^th July 1904-1^st September 1915 and Adjutant in 1905. Captain Lomer served in France during the First World War from 26^th February 1915 (he was sent home in March with pneumonia); September 1915 attained the rank of Major. In March 1916 he was attached to the Egyptian Army till 1917 and attained the rank of temp. Lieutenant-Colonel and discharged and awarded the OBE in 1919. Captain Lomer wrote poetry and translated Greek verse which may be termed homo-erotic or ‘uranian’ (3) and he was on familiar terms with many other uranian writers and artists including the poet Edmund John (1883-1917), poet and author E F Benson (1867-1940), artist’s model, Leo Marshall (4) and the painters Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929), known for his depictions of nude boys (Lomer commissioned him to paint a nude portrait of his ‘batman’, Leo Marshall) and Captain James Philip Sydney Streatfield (1879-1915) who may have studied under Tuke, and the young playwright and intimate friend of Streatfield, Noel Coward (1899-1973). In fact, Streatfeild, Coward and Lomer went on a two-week motoring holiday through Devon and Cornwall in Lomer’s car in May 1914 and the fifteen year old Noel became a sort of ‘regimental mascot’ when Lomer and Streatfeild took him to the army training camp. Lomer and his friend, Captain Charlton, an ‘aristocratic, Catholic, homosexual’ (5) also took Coward to the theatre on occasion. And so a picture is drawn of Captain Lomer as a man who enjoyed the finer things in life and was also fond of the company of young men, of which, Robert Buchanan was surely a youthful soldier probably flattered by Lomer’s attention and acts of kindness. But let us look at the case.

THE INQUEST

The Inquest was held on the afternoon of Thursday 13^th June 1912 in the Board-room at Chesterfield Mortuary, in attendance was the District Coroner, Dr. A. Green, Police Inspector Lee, Detective Sergeant Parkin, the deceased’s father, Thomas Buchanan of Carlow, Ireland and a brother of the deceased along with Captain Sydney Lomer, his chauffeur, John Frankland and valet, Philip McLennan along with members of the jury; the inquest took over four hours to reach a verdict. At the inquest Robert who had been a bandsman since the age of 15, was described by his father, Thomas Buchanan, a retired Sgt.-Major and painter as ‘most cheerful and quite contented’, a young man who was ‘always joking, laughing and making fun wherever he went’, in fact, a ‘jolly and contented lad’. Thomas had not seen his son since Christmas 1910 but he received frequent letters from him, the last on Friday 7^th June informing his father that he would be staying in Chesterfield at the home of Captain Lomer from 7^th – 11^th June, and there was nothing to indicate there was any cause for concern as to Robert’s condition. Thomas did add that Robert had suffered from somnambulism as a child and was sometimes found sleep-walking but was always unaware of his actions on waking; he did not know if Robert still suffered from somnambulism since becoming a soldier.

 

JOHN FRANKLAND – CHAUFFEUR

Captain Lomer’s chauffeur, John Frankland, (6) said that Robert arrived in Friday 7^th June and seemed in good spirits and cheerful. He went on to say that he last saw Robert before Robert went to bed between 12 and 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning (12^th June); asked why Robert went to bed so late Frankland replied that the deceased was ‘going away the morning after’. Relating the events which led up to Robert’s death Frankland said he met Robert just after 10 p.m. on Monday night at The Angel Hotel, Frankland had gone there with the valet, Philip McLennan and the groom (unnamed) – Robert entered around ten minutes after them, alone and they all stayed only five minutes before going across the road to The Peacock where they stayed until closing time at 11 p.m. Frankland stated that Robert drank beer at The Angel and at The Peacock but was not the worse for it and after closing they returned to Spital Lodge, Captain Lomer’s home where the chauffeur, valet and groom worked and slept and where Robert was staying, for supper and a glass of beer.

 

PHILIP MCLENNAN – VALET

Philip McLennan, a ‘civilian’ of Hornsey, London entered Captain Lomer’s service just three days before Robert’s death. Robert helped Philip look after Captain Lomer’s clothes. On the morning of Tuesday 11^th June Robert and McLennan were in town together and then spent the afternoon at Spital Lodge. At 9 p.m. McLennan, Frankland and the ‘unnamed’ groom went out and arrived at The Angel Hotel at 10 p.m. Robert entered approximately ten minutes later, alone, and after five minutes, all four of them went to The Peacock. At The Peacock, Robert, who drank three or four glasses of beer, said ‘have a drink with me, you won’t see Robin again!’ This was said in a cheerful manner and McLennan took it to mean that Robert was leaving Chesterfield tomorrow to return to Shorncliffe Camp. McLennan added that Robert had two glasses of beer during supper before he [McLennan] and the groom retired to bed, leaving Robert and Frankland in the servant’s hall.

 

CAPTAIN LOMER’S EVIDENCE

Captain Sydney Frederick Mcillree Lomer (1880-1926) of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, said that Robert had written to him requesting to stay from 7^th-11^th June as he was on a short leave from Shorncliffe Camp in Kent. Lomer had known Robert since February 1909 when Robert was drafted to India for a period of about twelve months until February 1910, serving under Captain Lomer, so it was not unusual for the deceased to ask to stay as he (and Robert’s brothers) had stayed on several occasions – Robert’s father lived in Ireland and time did not permit travelling there so staying at Spital Lodge, Chesterfield was agreeable to Robert and Captain Lomer. On the morning of Tuesday 11^th June Robert asked Captain Lomer to extend his leave which expired at 6 a.m. on Wednesday 12^th June, this was granted by the Bandsman at Shorncliffe Camp (the Captain received a letter from the Bandsman on Wednesday morning and a ‘telegram’ at 2 p.m. Tuesday confirming it which he gave Robert that evening – this telegram was found in the drawer of the bedroom of the deceased. Captain Lomer said he last saw Robert at 7.45 p.m. on Tuesday night when hearing that Robert was going out, asked Robert to get him some cigarettes and tobacco; if this was the last time the Captain saw Robert presumably he never received the cigarettes or tobacco – where was Robert from around 8 – 10.10 p.m. when it was stated he entered The Angel Hotel alone?

 

THE MYSTERIOUS MIRROR MESSAGE

Captain Lomer did not sleep in his room that night, in fact he states that he was a ‘bad sleeper’ since the death of his father and often read himself to sleep in the sitting-room. It is a fact that the Captain’s father had recently died, a few weeks previously on 21^st May 1912. The Captain says he woke around 5.30 a.m. on the morning of Wednesday 12^th June and went upstairs to sleep in his own room; he noticed that Robert’s bedroom door which was adjacent to Captain Lomer’s bedroom, was open and that his bed had been slept in but was unoccupied. The Captain then noticed his own bedroom door was open and on looking inside could see Robert’s lifeless body lying on his back, wearing a pyjama suit upon the Captain’s bed. In Robert’s left hand was the Captain’s Colt revolver and Robert’s face, the bed and the floor was covered in blood. There was a wound on Robert’s forehead. The Captain noticed something written upon one of the oblong mirrors in soap (the mirror was presented as evidence at the inquest) – ‘Dear …. (the name was missing and Captain Lomer explained that it read ‘Dear Sir’ but that he had rubbed-out the ‘Sir’ and said the message seemed to be ‘something about a woman’ and he started to rub it out before deciding to leave the message); the message went on to say: ‘Goodbye and good luck. Please tell all especially Miss E. Cross, 3 Trinity Square, Folkestone, Kent’. In the left hand corner of the mirror were the words: ‘I was not fit to live’. Why had Captain Lomer wilfully destroyed evidence? Why would Robert write upon the mirror with soap when there were two pencils and a notebook in his bedroom? It is my belief that the missing word did not read ‘Sir’ but something perhaps more intimate and incriminating and Robert’s request to ‘tell all’ seems to me to mean more than ‘tell all’ meaning ‘everyone’ but ‘tell all’ meaning ‘confess’ to some secret that Robert and the Captain both shared; and who is Miss E. Cross? It is stated that Robert posted a letter to her and posted it the night before – Folkestone Police investigated the claim and the letter was presented at the inquest and shown to be a ‘simple sweetheart’s message’ informing her that he was enjoying his holiday in Chesterfield and there was no indication in the letter that he was suffering from depression or not his usual cheerful self. But there are just too many inconsistencies! Captain Lomer says that he woke the groom and chauffeur, Mr. Frankland just before 6 a.m. saying ‘come, I think Robin has committed suicide’ and then the Captain asked the groom and Mr. Frankland to call Dr. Shea (7) and the police; Police Sergeant Francis Pain answered the phone just after 6 a.m. Captain Lomer then woke the valet, Mr. MacLennan who was asleep in the room next door to the tragedy. Why was there a delay of between ten to fifteen minutes before informing the authorities? Why had no-one been awoken by the sound of the gunshot?

 

THE REVOLVER

Captain Lomer’s Colt revolver, which he had owned for 13 years and not fired in 8 years, was kept unloaded in an unlocked wardrobe (a clothes cupboard) in his bedroom. When Captain Lomer entered the scene of the tragedy, the door to the cupboard was found open. He says it had not been fired in eight years except when he recently found someone in his employment fooling around with it and firing – the member of staff was dismissed. Strangely, during the night, nobody heard the revolver fired; the Captain, Mr. McLennan who was in the room next to Captain Lomer’s bedroom where the tragedy occurred; Mr. Frankland and the unnamed groom denied hearing a gunshot. There were apparently two cartridges for the revolver kept in a drawer in the sitting-room where Captain Lomer slept, according to the housekeeper who found the drawer open and its contents ‘ruffled’, at midday on Tuesday – would Robert have been aware of these cartridges and did he load the revolver? It is also stated that the revolver was found in Robert’s left hand (Robert was right-handed); only the valet, Philip MacLennan said that when he came upon the scene, the deceased ‘had the barrel of the revolver gripped in his left hand and the butt just out of the grasp of the right hand’; MacLennan was re-called due to the discrepancy in the position of the weapon but remained convinced of his description given in the evidence. Police Sergeant Francis Pain who arrived at the house following the call found the revolver in the left hand.

 

ARTHUR WILSON SHEA – PHYSICIAN

Dr. Arthur Wilson Shea (1866-1947) arrived at the house about 6.45 a.m. and explained to the jury at the inquest that the wound had a ‘certain amount of brain substance in the extrudation. The skin around the wound was blackened.’ On turning the head round, he found a ‘smaller exit wound just at the back of the head.’ Dr. Shea said it was a case of ‘impulsive suicide’ and the Jury returned a verdict of ‘suicide whilst of unsound mind’.

 

FULL MILITARY HONOURS

‘Several thousand people witnessed the funeral at Chesterfield, on Saturday [15^th June, at 3 p.m.], of Bandsman Robert Buchanan of the 2^nd Battalion King’s Royal Rifles, whose death occurred in such tragic circumstances while he was a guest at Captain S. F. Mcillree Lomer at Spital Lodge. Full Military Honours, firing party by 6^th Battalion Notts & Derby Regt. and battalion band (muffled drums). Coffin draped with Union Jack, surmounted by large cross of white flowers from Capt. Lomer was borne on a gun carriage from the Sheffield Barracks of the Royal Field Artillery – mourners Robert’s father, and four soldier brothers, all King’s Royal Rifles and Capt. Charlton.’ (8) The Vicar and Venerable Archdeacon of Chesterfield, Edmond Francis Crosse (1858-1941) conducted the Last Rites at the cemetery and three shots were fired over the grave by the firing party before closing with the ‘Last Post’. Floral tributes were from Captain Lomer and his sister, Miss Lomer, Captain Charlton and the Servants at Spital Lodge (‘His Friends’). (9)

 

CONCLUSION

After looking at the evidence and reading the statements there are many things which seemed to be overlooked, such as why was the groom not named and why was he not present at the inquest to deliver his evidence? this is not explained. Dr. She mentioned that there was an exit wound but he does not mention the final resting place of the cartridge which would determine the position the weapon was fired and he seems to suggest that ‘somnambulism’ may play a part in Robert’s death but cannot be substantiated, this of course is a flimsy deduction as Robert had no history of actually handling objects while sleep-walking as a child and there is no evidence to support he walked in his sleep as an adult; Dr. Shea was a close friend of Captain Lomer and of course would wish a ‘happy outcome’ for all involved; he also suggested that it was a case of ‘impulsive suicide’ which if the housekeeper is to be believed, and there is no reason why she should not be, the cartridge was taken sometime before midday on Tuesday 11^th June so some deliberate intention to fire the weapon is the only conclusion, whether in an act of murder or suicide is the only plausible reason. But despite the inconsistencies during the inquest my own opinion is that it was suicide and the only criminal offence was committed by Captain Lomer in destroying vital evidence which would have surely shown the actual nature of the relationship between Lomer and Buchanan to be a homosexual relationship, a criminal offence at the time; perhaps Robert deliberately wrote upon the mirror in soap knowing it was easily removable? As to the cause of the suicide I believe it was Robert’s sense of Catholic shame and guilt which drove him to such extremes – ‘I was not fit to live’ and his attempt to eradicate his true homosexual feelings by entering a romantic relationship with Miss E. Cross of Folkestone, not far from Shorncliffe Camp. I should add that perhaps the fear of discovery and dishonour upon the family name was a driving force behind the suicide and it would be unwise to rule out a ‘forced exposure’ through an attempt at blackmail which of course would almost certainly set Robert’s mind towards suicide, being still very young with a sense of family duty and honour, to silence such suggestions. This is only my conclusion from the evidence and others may see something different but perhaps time will never reveal the true cause of Robert’s death, and perhaps it is not meant to!   

Two years after the death of Robert, Lomer published his translation of the Greek Anthology (1914) under the pseudonym ‘Sydney Oswald’ and a preface to the verse hints at a depth of love which shall remain secret – ‘To…. Here in this book I will not write thy name, / for this sad world shall never know the might / of our grand love; so let it hidden stay, / graved in my heart; and though men deem it shame / that thou and I should love, the very sight / of thy dear face shall charm their scorn away.’ Was Lomer perhaps also thinking of Robert when he wrote his poem ‘The Dead Soldier’ published in ‘Soldier Poets’ in 1916:

 

Thy dear brown eyes which were as depths where truth

Lay bowered with frolic joy, but yesterday

Shone with the fire of thy so guileless youth,

Now ruthless death has dimmed and closed for aye.

 

Those sweet red lips, that never knew the stain

Of angry words or harsh, or thoughts unclean,

Have sung their last gay song. Never again

Shall I the harvest of their laughter glean.

 

The goodly harvest of thy laughing mouth

Is garnered in; and lo! the golden grain

Of all thy generous thoughts, which knew no drouth

Of meanness, and thy tender words remain

 

Stored in my heart; and though I may not see

Thy peerless form nor hear thy voice again,

The memory lives of what thou wast to me.

We knew great love…. We have not lived in vain.

 

 

SOURCES:

 

The Derbyshire Courier. Saturday 15^th June 1912.

Sheffield Daily Telegraph. Friday 14^th June 1912.

Sheffield Daily Telegraph. Monday 17^th June 1912.

Dundee Evening Telegraph. Thursday 13^th June 1912.

The Evening Telegraph and Post. Thursday 13^th June 1912.

The Gloucestershire Echo. Tuesday 29^th June 1926.

 

NOTES:

 

1. Thomas George Buchanan (1850-1925) fought in the Boer War (Ladysmith, Mafeking), was at the taking of Afganistan in 1879 and spent a few years in India and aged 30 he married sixteen year old Mary Susannah Dicks on 27^th December 1880 in Meerut, Bengal, India. They had the following children: Thomas Buchanan (probably born 1880-83, Bengal, India), Sgt. Thomas Buchanan served with the KRRC; he was taken prisoner in September 1914 and liberated in 1918; William Buchanan, born 1883, Carlow, Ireland. Sgt. Major William Buchanan D.C.M. M.M. (Somme, 1916) served with KRRC; Alfred Edwin Buchanan, born 20^th May 1885, Army Barracks, Carlow, Ireland. Daisy Buchanan, born 3^rd May 1887, Carlow Barracks; Archibald Buchanan, born 7^th May 1889, Carlow Barracks, served with KRRC; Robert Buchanan, born 9^th May 1893, Carlow Barracks; Charles Leslie Buchanan, born 13^th March 1895, Haymarket, Carlow; Mary Victoria Buchanan, born 5^th June 1897, Haymarket, Carlow; Sydney Claude Buchanan, born 23^rd September 1899, Haymarket, Carlow; Donald Christian Buchanan, born 27^th December 1902, Carlow Barracks, died 27^th January 1905, aged 2 of acute bronchitis at Carlow Barracks; Eileen Violet Hope Buchanan, born 22^nd July 1906, Carlow Barracks (married John Ward, 4^th February 1924, Carlow, Ireland); George Buchanan, born 18^th April 1891, Lance-Corporal George Buchanan served in 2^nd Battalion KRRC and was killed in action at the Battle of Mons in August 1914, aged 23. In the 1911 census he is at Shorncliffe Camp, Cheriton, Kent, aged 19, single and a ‘musician’; his younger brother Rober is also there, aged 17, also a ‘musician’ as they were both bandsmen. Their father, Thomas George Buchanan died on 10^th March 1925 in Carlow, Ireland.
2. Sydney Frederick Mcillree Lomer (1880-1926). Lomer died on 26^th June 1926 in Gloucestershire (he is buried at Southampton’s Old Cemetery) and his obituary appeared in ‘The Gloucestershire Echo’. Tuesday 29^th June 1926. p. 3: ‘Lieutenant-Colonel S. F. Mcl. Lomer. Death Saturday at Perrott’s Brook, North Cerney, residence of his mother (Mrs Cecil Wilson Lomer) Lt.-Col. Sydney Frederick Mcillree Lomer, OBE in 47^th year. Joined Lancashire Fusiliers in 1899 and reached Captain’s rank in 1904. 3 years he was adjutant of his battalion and later transferred to the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, from which he retired with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 1919. During the Great War he was for a long time employed with the army in Egypt and awarded the OBE.’
3. see ‘The Greek Anthology: Epigrams from Anthologia Palatina XII, translated into English verse’* by Lomer under the name ‘Sydney Oswald’, privately issued (1914) and several of his poems published in ‘Soldier Poets: Songs of the Fighting Men’. Erskine Macdonald. London. 1916. as ‘Sydney Oswald, Major King’s Royal Rifle Corps’.
4. Leo Philip Marshall (12^th October 1899-1972), born in Crediton, Devon, Leo posed nude for the artist Henry Scott Tuke in pictures such as ‘The Diving Place’ (1907) and ‘After the Bathe’ (1921) in Falmouth, Cornwall. Leo enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1915-1916, served in the army in the KRRC 1918 where he served as Captain Lomer’s batman (and possibly served him in the same roll in civilian life too) before entering the Air Force in 1918; he married Madeline W Briggs in 1927.
5. Noel Coward: A Biography. Philip Hoare. Simon & Schuster. 1995. p. 36. Also see note 8.
6. John Frankland. In the 1911 census John Frankland, born 1888 in Bradford, is a boarder living in Taptan, Chesterfield; he is 23 years old, single and a ‘chauffeur domestic’. In 1908, John Frankland, chauffeur of Bradford, was ‘summoned for obstructing highway at Esholt, left large stone there.’ On 21^st September 1908, he was seen driving up Hollings Hill. The car came to a stop and Frankland got out and placed a ‘large stone from the roadside under the back wheel of the car.’ He started the car again and drove off, leaving the stone in the middle of the road. The police stopped him and he said he forgot about the stone and admitted leaving it and that it was dangerous. He was fined one shilling and costs. [‘A Careless Chauffeur’. The Wharfedale & Airdale Observer. Friday 9^th October 1908. p. 3]
7. Dr. Arthur Wilson Shea D.S.O. (1866-1947), born 27^th March 1866, Dublin, Ireland. He studied medicine at the University of London and served with the Derbyshire Territorials, 2^nd Lieutenant 1^st Battalion Nottinghamshire ‘Sherwood Forresters’ (where he probably met and became acquainted with Sydney Lomer who was also in the Regiment); Surgeon Captain (April 1908) and Surgeon Major (5^th August 1914); he was in France from February 1915-December 1918 and awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal on 3^rd June 1918. He married Annie Florence Craig in Dublin in October 1903 and died in Chesterfield on 7^th January 1847, aged 81. [During the 1891 and 1901 census Shea was at the home of his adopted brother, John Goodwin Shea, also a physician, in Chesterfield; he is in Chesterfield during the 1911 census with his wife Annie and one servant]. Shea was in command of the 6^th Battalion Notts & Derby Regiment till 1908 (Chesterfield camp) and then became regimental surgeon.
8. Captain Lionel Evelyn Oswald Charlton (1879-1958). Charlton was a fellow uranian and friend of Captain Sydney Lomer; rank of Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers (where he probably knew and befriended Lomer); Captain in 1901 and later achieved the rank of Air Commadore. He was an author of many books such as: ‘A Hausa Reading Book’ (1908), ‘Charlton’ an autobiography (1931), ‘Near East Adventure’ (1934), ‘War from the Air, Past, Present and Future’ (1935), ‘War over England’ (1936), ‘The Flying Photographers’ (1936), ‘The Secret of Lake Tana’ (1936), ‘The Military Situation in Spain after Teruel’ (1938), ‘The Air Defence of Britain’ (1938), ‘The Royal Air Force from September 1939 to December 1940’ (1941), ‘The Taking of Quebec’ (1941), ‘Deeds that Held the Empire: by Air’ (1941), ‘The Recollections of a Northumbrian Lady, being the Memoirs of Barbara Charlton’ (Barbara & Leo Charlton. 1949) and ‘Squint Hollow’ (1951).
9. Chesterfield Tragedy. Military Funeral for the Victim. Sheffield Daily Telegraph. Monday 17^th June 1912. p. 5.