Fabian Strachan Woodley (1888-1957)
Fabian at school
In 1924 Men and Boys, the very first anthology of homosexual poetry in the USA was published. Only 150 copies were printed and few survive today. The book includes poems by two Bristolians: the writer, historian and gay rights advocate John Addington Symonds, and Fabian Strachan Woodley, journalist, poet, teacher and hero of the First World War who was also gay and a Christian.
Fabian Strachan Woodley was born in 1888 in Waverley Road, Redland, but soon after the family moved to 3 Worcester Terrace, Clifton, which became the family home for 36 years. Fabian’s father, William Augustus Woodley, was a solicitor and newspaper proprietor who owned three West country papers.
Fabian was an athletic boy, educated at Cheltenham College where he played rugby and was in the school rowing team. He also played rugby for Clifton Rugby Football Club where his maternal grandfather was a founder and his maternal uncle was the first club captain in 1872.
Fabian graduated from Oxford University in 1911 and began work on the literary staff of the Bristol Times and Mirror. He joined the army after the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 and was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 8th Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers who were sent to Loos on the Western Front in December 1915.
In June 1916, 20 year old Country Cork born Lieutenant Myles O’Donovan, who was the love of Fabian’s life, was killed by a shell. Dashing and handsome, Myles was seven years younger than Fabian and came from an ancient Irish family who had been Gaelic chiefs in the 10th century. It is possible their love inspired Fabian to convert to Roman Catholicism. Fabian wrote the poem To Lieut O’D (1916) as a memorial to Myles.
During the Battle of Guillemont on the Somme in September 1916, 265 of Fabian’s comrades were killed. In October Fabian was awarded the Military Cross for “conspicuous gallantry”. Fabian was wounded twice, in October 1916 and May 1918.
His early wartime poetry was patriotic and positive but after the death of Myles it became more sombre, but still with a sense of his Christian faith. In October 1917 at the Roman Catholic Pro Cathedral, Park Place, Clifton, Fabian married 25 year old Ida Leonora Lees, daughter of Dr Edwin Leonard Lees. (Personal note: my great grandfather Charles Henry Dike was Dr Lees’s chauffeur for about 30 years.) It is not known how Fabian met Ida or whether she knew about his sexuality but the marriage only lasted four years. In 1922 Ida was granted a decree of nullity on the grounds of the “inability of her husband to consummate the marriage”. Two years later Ida married a fellow officer of Fabian’s who tragically died in 1928 leaving Ida a widow with no children from either husband. She died in 1974 aged 81.
After the war Fabian returned to journalism and worked for a time with his father on the Somerset County Gazette in Taunton. In 1921 Fabian’s first and only book of verse A Crown of Friendship was published. Because of its homosexual element Fabian’s poetry has been described as “Uranian”. The Uranian writers (from the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite Urania) were a group of late Victorian and Edwardian gay men who wrote about homosexual love.
Fabian later became a teacher and taught for many years at the Peter Symonds School, Winchester, Hampshire. In 1939 he was 51 and living with a 22 year old “manservant” Albert Pearson.
Fabian died in 1957 aged 69 and is buried in Magdalen Hill Cemetery, Winchester. Much of his later life remains unknown but Bristol can now claim him as a gay, Christian, Great War poet, born in the city, whose work deserves more recognition today.
Jonathan Rowe 2024
With thanks to Douglas Ralph, Eoin Murphy and Jill Smith for help with research.
To Lieut. O’D (1916)
See him standing at the corner,
Cynosure of friendly eyes,
Challenging their kindly sallies,
Combatting with swift replies.Eyes alight with Life and Laughter,
Brown eyes full of mirth and fun;
Fresh face tanned by months of warfare,
Lithe limbs browned by summer sun.Suddenly a shell comes screaming,
Through the blue vault overheard,
Strikes – His laughing lips are silent,
All his splendid youth lies dead.Death! whose arrow countless thousands
And unerring aim have proved,
Could you not have aimed untruly,
Spared for me the boy I loved?
Forgotten Poets of the First World War – Fabian S Woodley
The Queerstory Files – Armistice 100: Poems From the Trenches
Poetry and wartime bravery eclipses mystery of later life. Jonathan Rowe, Bristol Times (Bristol Post), November 7th 2023
Review of A Crown of Friendship, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, September 3rd 1921
Text of A Crown of Friendship: Fabian Strachan Woodley. Talk to Brislington Conservation and History Society, 26 October 2023. Bristol Central Library Reference Department Local pamphlets collections (Ref Dub local pb 1801952672)