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williecross@aol.com
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The Abergavenny Witch Hunt
An account of the prosecution of over twenty homosexuals in a small Welsh town in 1942
By William Cross
In
1942, the Welsh town of Abergavenny was
scandalised by disclosures after the arrest of over twenty youths and men on
charges relating to homosexual activity and corrupting boys. George Rowe, the 40-year-old manager of
Abergavenny’s Coliseum cinema was at the centre of a Police enquiry after one
of the page-boys complained about being molested. The boy’s complaint turned
into a witch-hunt of ‘queers’ across Britain
revealing a oddball mix of
abused and abusers; a farmer, a clerk, two chefs, a fireman, several serving
soldiers, a hairdresser, an actor and others were arrested
and brought back to Abergavenny, where almost all the offences were committed. Before
the case reached a Judge at Monmouthshire Assizes, three men attempted suicide,
one young man succeeded in taking his own life. In the years that followed
rumours persisted that several people had got away scot-free, including one notable
public figure. Others went on the run to
escape capture and disgrace, since all homosexuality was illegal in Britain
until the changes started by the Sexual Offences Act, 1967. William Cross the biographer of Almina,
Countess of Carnarvon, and of salacious tales about the Morgans of Tredegar
House, Newport, South Wales, is no stranger to controversial histories. Cross
examines the facts in the Abergavenny case and sets out details from
contemporary newspapers including closed files at National Archives, now released under the
Freedom of Information Act. Here for the
first time is the unvarnished truth,
the background, the preliminary
proceedings, the trial and the aftermath of a grisly, but sad
tale from Abergavenny’s past that some would prefer to see buried forever.
ISBN 10 1-905914-22-9 and ISBN 13 978-1-905914-22-7
Published by William P. Cross through Book Midden Publishing
58 Sutton Road, Newport, Gwent, NP19 7JF
United Kingdom
£12.00 UK ONLY
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