Major Michael Augustus Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers (27 May 1917 – December 1999) was a British military officer and landowner who gained notoriety in Britain in the 1950s when he was put on trial charged with buggery. This trial was instrumental in bringing public attention – and opposition – to the stringent laws against homosexual acts as they then stood.

Early life

Pitt-Rivers was the son of Captain

George Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers George Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers (22 May 1890 – 17 June 1966) was a British anthropologist and eugenicist who was a wealthy landowner in England in the interwar period. He embraced anti-Bolshevism and anti-Semitism and became a supporter o ...

and the actress Mary Hinton, who died in 1979. A West Country landowner and conservationist of colourful antecedents, his great-grandfather was Lt-Gen A.H. Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers, whose

ethnographic Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

collection, donated to

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

in 1883, formed the basis of the

Pitt Rivers Museum Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed ...

named after him. Michael Pitt-Rivers served in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, gaining the

substantive In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.Example ...

rank of

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

in 1946.

Prosecution

In the summer of 1953,

Lord Montagu of Beaulieu Baron Montagu of Beaulieu (, Engl. pronunciation: "bewley", from French ''beau'', "beautiful" and ''lieu'', "place"), in the County of Hampshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1885 for the Conservative polit ...

offered his friend

Peter Wildeblood Peter Wildeblood (19 May 1923 – 14 November 1999) was a British-Canadian journalist, novelist, playwright and gay rights campaigner. He was one of the first men in the UK to publicly declare his homosexuality. Early life Peter Wildeblood wa ...

the use of a

beach hut A beach hut (also known as a beach cabin, beach box or bathing box) is a small, usually wooden and often brightly coloured, box above the high tide mark on popular bathing beaches. They are generally used as a shelter from the sun or wind, c ...

near his country estate. Wildeblood brought with him two young RAF servicemen, Edward McNally and John Reynolds. The four were joined by Montagu's cousin Michael Pitt-Rivers. At the subsequent trial, the two airmen turned

Queen's Evidence A criminal turns state's evidence by admitting guilt and testifying as a witness for the state against their associate(s) or accomplice(s), often in exchange for leniency in sentencing or immunity from prosecution.Howard Abadinsky, ''Organized ...

and claimed there had been dancing and "abandoned behaviour" at the gathering. Wildeblood said that it had in fact been "extremely dull". Montagu claimed that it was all remarkably innocent, saying: "We had some drinks, we danced, we kissed, that's all." Arrested on 9 January 1954, in March of that year Pitt-Rivers was brought before the British courts, charged with "conspiracy to incite certain male persons to commit serious offences with male persons" or " buggery". Pitt-Rivers, Montagu, and Wildeblood were charged. Pitt-Rivers and Lord Montagu denied the charges and also denied that they were homosexual. After an eight-day trial at the Winchester Assizes, on 24 March 1954, Pitt-Rivers and Wildeblood were sentenced to 18 months and Lord Montagu to 12 months in prison as a result of these and other charges. Their case eventually led to the Wolfenden Report, which in 1957 recommended the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the United Kingdom. It took ten years for this to happen, with the

Sexual Offences Act 1967 The Sexual Offences Act 1967 (c. 60) is an act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It legalised homosexual acts in England and Wales, on the condition that they were consensual, in private and between two men who had attained the age of 21. ...

Later life

Michael Pitt-Rivers married

Sonia Brownell Sonia Mary Brownell (25 August 1918 – 11 December 1980), better known as Sonia Orwell, was the second wife of writer George Orwell. Sonia is believed to be the model for Julia, the heroine of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. Sonia worked with the I ...

, the widow of

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

, in 1958. The couple divorced in 1965. He spent most of his adult life with his partner, William Gronow-Davis, who inherited his estate on his death.. Pitt-Rivers spent much of his wealth on a lifetime of travel, financed by selling the most productive land from the Rushmore estate he inherited in

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

. In 1991, he began to restore the

Larmer Tree Gardens The Larmer Tree Gardens near Tollard Royal in south Wiltshire, England, were created by landowner Augustus Pitt Rivers in 1880 as pleasure gardens, pleasure grounds for "public enlightenment and entertainment". They were the first private garde ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

, which had been neglected since his grandfather died in 1900. The gardens reopened to the public in 1995. He and Gronow-Davis collected many works of art, including sculptures by their friend

Elisabeth Frink Dame Elisabeth Jean Frink (14 November 1930 – 18 April 1993) was an English sculptor and printmaker. Her ''Times'' obituary noted the three essential themes in her work as "the nature of Man; the 'horseness' of horses; and the divine in ...

. Michael Pitt-Rivers died in December 1999, aged 82. The role of Pitt-Rivers in the 1967 decriminalisation of homosexuality was explored in the 2007

Channel Four Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded entirely by its commer ...

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television show, television and feature film, film, which features Drama (film and television), dramatized Historical reenactment, re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of docu ...

''A Very British Sex Scandal'', and the 2017 BBC film ''Against The Law''.

Publications

* .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pitt-Rivers, Michael 1917 births 1999 deaths 20th-century English LGBTQ people British Army personnel of World War II People prosecuted under anti-homosexuality laws Forster family Pitt-Rivers family