The Albany Trust is a British organisation which describes itself as a "specialist counselling and psychotherapy charity, focusing on a positive approach to sexuality and relationships". It was founded as a registered charity [1] in May 1958 to complement the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS). [2]
The goal of the Trust is to "promote psychological health in men by collecting data and conducting research: to publish the results thereof by writing, films, lectures and other media: to take suitable steps based thereon for the public benefit to improve the social and general conditions necessary for such healthy psychological development." [3]
The Albany Trust developed into a pioneering counselling organisation for gay men, lesbians and sexual minorities.
It takes its name from The Albany, in Piccadilly, London, where J.B. Priestley and his wife Jacquetta Hawkes had an apartment, and at which the trust's earliest meetings were held. [4] The founding Trustees were A.E. Dyson, Jacquetta Hawkes, Kenneth Walker, Andrew Hallidie Smith, and Ambrose Appelbe
The funds raised and donated for the work of the Albany Trust allowed it to open offices in October 1958. These facilities, at 32 Shaftesbury Avenue, were then also available for the campaigning work of the HLRS. The longtime "public face" of these activities was Antony Grey, from 1962 Secretary of both the Albany Trust and the HLRS (the latter later being renamed the Sexual Law Reform Society).
After the Sexual Offences Act 1967 partially decriminalised homosexual relationships between adult men, the Albany Trust became an educational and counselling organisation. From 1967 the Trust was also involved the development of sex education. For example, this included support and advice for the Dorian Society of New Zealand.
The Albany Trust, with help from the Paedophile Information Exchange and the Paedophile Action for Liberation, published a booklet on paedophilia. The book was controversial, and campaigners such as Mary Whitehouse claimed that this showed that public funds were being used to subsidise pro-paedophile groups; [5] [6] however, PIE and PAL did not receive public funding directly. [7]
The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution was published in the United Kingdom on 4 September 1957 after a succession of well-known men, including Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Michael Pitt-Rivers, John Gielgud, and Peter Wildeblood were convicted of homosexual offences.
Jacquetta Hawkes was an English archaeologist and writer. She was the first woman to study the Archaeology & Anthropology degree course at the University of Cambridge. A specialist in prehistoric archaeology, she excavated Neanderthal remains at the Palaeolithic site of Mount Carmel with Yusra and Dorothy Garrod. She was a representative for the UK at UNESCO, and was curator of the "People of Britain" pavilion at the Festival of Britain.
Outright Scotland is an LGBT rights organisation based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded as the Scottish Minorities Group in 1969, it was the country's first LGBT rights organisation.
The Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) was a membership organisation in the United Kingdom with a stated aim from 1969 to promote legal and social equality for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals in England and Wales. Active throughout the 1970s – and becoming a mass-membership organisation during this time – CHE's membership declined in the 1980s.
The Homosexual Law Reform Society was an organisation that campaigned in the United Kingdom for changes to the set of laws which criminalised homosexuality at the time.
Gay News was a fortnightly newspaper in the United Kingdom founded in June 1972 in a collaboration between former members of the Gay Liberation Front and members of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE). At the newspaper's height, circulation was 18,000 to 19,000 copies.
Thomas Victor O'Carroll is a British writer and pro-paedophile advocate. O'Carroll is a former chairman of the now disbanded Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) and was at one time a prominent member of the International Paedophile and Child Emancipation.
Albany, sometimes referred to as the Albany, is an English apartment complex in Piccadilly, London. The three-storey mansion was built in the 1770s and divided into apartments in 1802.
The Spartacus International Gay Guide is an international gay travel application and formerly an annually-published guide. It was founded by John D. Stamford in 1970 as a printed guide, before being bought by Bruno Gmünder in 1987 following investigations into Stamford's tax violations and promotion of paedophilia. It was sold to current owners GayGuide UG in 2017, whereupon the guide became digital only, with the printed version ceasing publication.
Anthony Edward Dyson, aka Tony Dyson was a British literary critic, university lecturer, educational activist and gay rights campaigner.
Restrictions on sexual activity involving minors in the United Kingdom and its predecessors have existed since medieval times. During the 1970s, there was some political advocacy in favour of significantly reducing the age of consent, supported by various 'youth liberation' organizations and mostly by members of the Paedophile Information Exchange. Meanwhile, over a similar time period, the unequal age of consent for straight and gay young people was campaigned against by the LGBT rights movement. More recently arguments have occasionally been made in favour of reducing the age of consent, generally to an earlier point in adolescence.
The Hall–Carpenter Archives (HCA), founded in 1982, are the largest source for the study of gay activism in Britain, following the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957. The archives are named after the authors Marguerite Radclyffe Hall (1880–1943) and Edward Carpenter (1844–1929). They are housed at the London School of Economics, at Bishopsgate Library –, and in the British Library.
The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was a British pro-paedophile activist group, founded in October 1974 and officially disbanded in 1984. The group campaigned for the abolition of the age of consent. It was described by the BBC in 2007 as "an international organisation of people who trade obscene material".
The Sensible Sentencing Trust was a political advocacy group based in Napier, New Zealand. The Trust's stated goal is "to educate both the public and victims of serious violent and/or sexual crime and homicide" It focuses on advocating for the rights of victims and tougher penalties against offenders. In late 2018, founder Garth McVicar stepped down as leader of the Trust. In January 2021, former New Zealand First Member of Parliament Darroch Ball became the Trust's leader. In late June 2024, the Sensible Sentencing Trust reactivated to lobby for a tougher three strikes law.
Anthony Edgar Gartside Wright, better known by his pseudonym Antony Grey, was an English LGBT rights activist. Grey was credited by Lord Arran to have "done more than any single man to bring this social problem to the notice of the public".
The Core Issues Trust is a British Christian fundamentalist organisation that provides conversion therapy for LGBT people.
Michael George Schofield was a pioneer of social research into homosexuality in the 1950s and 1960s, and a campaigner for the Homosexual Law Reform Society at a time before the Sexual Offences Act 1967 partially decriminalised homosexual activity in the UK. He played a prominent role in the law reform lobbies of the 1960s and 1970s. He is the author of many books including Sociological Aspects of Homosexuality (1965) and The Sexual Behaviour of Young People (1965).
Allan Horsfall was a British gay rights campaigner and founder of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality. Horsfall was also the co-founder and leader of the North-Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee (NWHLRC), a regional and provincial branch of the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS) in Manchester.
Pedophile advocacy groups are organizations that advocate for the abolishment or lowering of the age of consent and the normalization of adult sexual relations with children. Such groups have existed dating back to 1962 in multiple countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands.
Ian Campbell Dunn was a Scottish gay rights and pro-paedophilia campaigner. He was founder of The Scottish Minorities Group, one of the first British gay rights organisations, and helped establish Britain's first gay newspaper, Gay News. Dunn also worked as the editor of Gay Scotland magazine and co-founded the Paedophile Information Exchange.
