Queer Places:
Eton College, Windsor SL4 6DW, Regno Unito
University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 3PA
Madresfield Court, Madresfield, Malvern WR13 5AJ, Regno Unito
St Mary The Virgin, Madresfield Village, Madresfield, Worcestershire, WR13 5AA, UK
Hugh
Patrick Lygon (2 November 1904 – 19 August 1936 Rothenburg, Bavaria) was the
second son of
William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp, and is often believed to be the
inspiration for Lord Sebastian Flyte in
Evelyn Waugh's
Brideshead Revisited. He was a friend of Waugh's at Oxford (A.
L. Rowse believed the two to be lovers), where both were members of the
Hypocrites' Club,[1]
along with their contemporary Murray Andrew McLean and the Plunket Greene's
brothers, Richard and David.
David
Plunket Greene was a good friend of Hugh Lygon.[2]
He was a member of the Hypocrites'
Club. Hugh Lygon, the third love-interest of Waugh at Oxford, was as hard-drinking and self-destructive as Waugh and Graham. Lygon moved round Oxford like a lost boy. Terence Lucy Greenidge remembered him carrying a teddy bear. Greenidge, while admiring Hugh's classical good looks, charm and elegance, said he was "rather empty." Lygon, along with Robert Byron, Patrick Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross and Brian Howard, was one of the most sexually active of the Hypocrites. After Waugh published A Little Learning, Harold Acton wrote to him complaining he had revealed his homosexuality, while omitting Byron's, Balfour's, Howard's and Lygon's promiscuities. Tamara Talbot Rice, one of the few women undergraduates at Oxford, remembered how John Fothergill let Waugh have rooms in the Spreadeagle at Thame at a special midweek rate so that he and Lygon could meet in private.[11]
He was educated at Eton and Pembroke College, Oxford.
At Oxford Lygon was part of the Railway Club, which included:
Henry Yorke,
Roy Harrod,
Henry Thynne, 6th Marquess of Bath,
David Plunket Greene,
Edward
Henry Charles James Fox-Strangways, 7th Earl of Ilchester,
Brian Howard,
Michael Parsons, 6th Earl of Rosse,
John Sutro,
Hugh Lygon,
Harold Acton,
Bryan Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne,
Patrick Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross,
Mark
Ogilvie-Grant,
John Drury-Lowe.[3]
by William
Ranken
Railway Club at Oxford, conceived by John Sutro, dominated by Harold Acton. (Left to right) Back: Henry Yorke, Roy Harrod, Henry Weymouth, David Plunket Greene, Harry Stavordale, Brian Howard. Middle row: Michael Rosse, John Sutro, Hugh Lygon, Harold Acton, Bryan Guinness, Patrick Balfour, Mark Ogilvie-Grant, Johnny Drury-Lowe. Front: porters.
After leaving Oxford he worked in a bank in Paris before working in the
City.
Lygon died in Germany where he was on a motoring tour with his friend, the
artist Henry Wynn (a son of Lady Newborough). Lygon was standing in the road
to ask the way and fell backwards, hitting his head on a stone. He died later
due to a fractured skull, having spent four days in a hospital in Rothenburg
ob der Tauber. His body was later returned to England.[4][5]
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Lygon