Legitimation League
The Legitimation League (German "Legitimierungs-Liga") was an English association in the 1890s that advocated the legitimation of illegitimate children and free love .
The association was founded in 1893 by a group of individualistic anarchists in Leeds , England, who were close to Benjamin Tucker and his magazine Liberty . Founding members included John Badcock, Joseph Hiam Levy, Joseph Greevz Fisher, Wordsworth Donisthorpe , and Gladys and Oswald Ernest Dawson. Prominent proponents of the cause were the poet and socialist Edward Carpenter and the sex researcher and social reformer Havelock Ellis .
In 1897 the anarchist and suffragette Lillian Harman became President of the British Association and published numerous articles in The Adult , a magazine published by the Legitimation League , which appeared from 1897 to 1899. Originally, it was mainly about the legitimation and equality of children from non-church or state sanctioned connections. Now sexual liberation became the main goal. At this time Donisthorpe (president since 1893) and Fisher (vice president) left the association.
In 1898, George Bedborough, editor of Adult , was arrested for publishing and selling obscene literature, which was considered to be Ellis' work Sexual Inversion . The police had hesitated to take action against the league because they did not want to face charges of restricting freedom of expression. But when Bedborough promoted the book and put it up for sale at a meeting attended by a police officer named John Sweeney as an undercover agent, the police saw a way to prosecute the league and its members. Bedborough pleaded guilty at the trial and received a mild sentence. Soon after, the league ceased to exist.
The publisher that published both Ellis' book and The Adult was University Press at Watford , which turned out to be a very dubious company, run by an absent-minded George Aston Singer who turned out to be pure fiction and a Dr. Roland De Villiers, alias Georg Friedrich Springmuhl von Weissenfeld, a German-born swindler, fraudster and porn publisher. He had been found in a roof hiding place and arrested during a search of his house in January 1902, which uncovered two tons of pornographic literature. Shortly after his arrest, he died of a heart attack, according to the coroner's report .
Fonts
- The rights of natural children verbatim report of the inaugural proceedings of the Legitimation League… Legitimation League, London & Leeds 1893
- Oswald Ernest Dawson: The bar sinister and licit love: the first biennial proceedings of the Legitimation League. W. Reeves, London 1895, digitized .
- The Legitimation League: its objects and principles. With a list of its officers & rules. In: The Adult. London 1897.
- Oswald Ernest Dawson: The outcome of legitimation: a lecture delivered at the Holborn Restaurant, London, 6th December, 1897 under the auspices of the Legitimation League etc .. London 1898 (?)
literature
- Havelock Ellis: A Note on the Bedborough Trial. University Press, Watford 1898.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Carl Watner: The English Individualists as They Appear in Liberty. In: The Journal of Libertarian Studies. Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter 1982), p. 76
- ^ Sheila Jeffreys: The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality, 1880-1930. Pandora, London 1985, ISBN 0-86358-050-5 , pp. 48f.
- ↑ The Adult . The subtitles were A journal for the advancement of freedom in sexual relationships and A crusade against Sex-enslavement . London, OCLC 643925958
- ^ Joanne Ellen Passet: Sex Radicals and the Quest for Women's Equality. University of Illinois Press, Urbana et al. a. 2003, ISBN 0-252-02804-X , p. 138
- ↑ Haia Shpayer-Makov: The Ascent of the Detective: Police Sleuths in Victorian and Edwardian England. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-957740-8 , p. 135.
- ↑ There was no university in Watford.
- ^ Jonathon Green: Encyclopedia of Censorship. Facts On File, New York 1990, ISBN 0-8160-1594-5 , p. 508
- ^ Charles Dudley: Misdirected Genius. No. VI. From Weissenfeld a German Rogue. Companies in Which He Played Many Roles. In: The Advertiser. Adelaide, January 26, 1929, online