Robert Bernays (1902-1945)

Tall, slim, bespectacled, bisexual Robert Hamilton Bernays was of German-Jewish ancestry and Liberal MP for Bristol North constituency 1931-1945. He was one of a group of mainly gay MPs in the 1930s who were among the earliest to warn about the dangers of Hitler and the appeasement of Nazi Germany, and dubbed the Glamour Boys. Gay MP Chris Bryant in his book The Glamour Boys states “Without them we would never have gone to war with Hitler, Churchill would never have become prime minister and Nazism would never have been defeated”.

After time as a journalist Bernays became speech writer and personal assistant to William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp, political celebrity and leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords 1924-31. Although married with seven children, Lygon was gay with a “penchant for pretty footmen”, and had a relationship with Bernays who accompanied Lygon on a tour of Australia in 1930 where the pair frequented gay bars and “men only” Turkish baths. The following year Lygon was “outed” by his brother-in-law, the Duke of Westminster, resulting in the famous reputed quote from King George V “I thought men like that shot themselves”.

Bernays made visits to Berlin in the early 1930s and was fascinated by the gay clubs and bars, noting “middle aged men were dancing with boys not out of their teens, and young men with powdered faces and swaying hips sidled up and down in women’s evening dress”. Berlin was the most sexually liberated city in the world in the 1920s and 30s. Bernays enjoyed the attractions of the rough trade at Noster’s Restaurant zur Hütte which was adorned with photos of toned boxers and cyclists on the walls. Unemployed youths sat around looking for a pick-up with “their shirts unbuttoned to the navel and their sleeves rolled up to the armpits” because they knew it excited their clients. The Eldorado club was a haven for transvestites, transgender people, gay men and lesbians. This was the world immortalised in the musical Cabaret, based in part on the novels and experiences of gay writer Christopher Isherwood.

In December 1932 Bernays addressed a meeting of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) at 41 Park Street, Bristol, the Western Daily Press reporting “In Germany today there are all the elements of a resurgent militarism”. The following year he visited Breslau concentration camp and witnessed the growing Nazi persecution of Jews and homosexuals.

In 1937 Bernays became Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health under prime minister Neville Chamberlain who was responsible for the epithet “glamour boys” as a term of abuse, denoting something misleading, feminine and effeminate. The same year Bernays accompanied bisexual Labour MP and diplomat Harold Nicholson to East Africa as members of a governmental commission on colonial education. An intense friendship blossomed and Bernays wrote “I suppose that what I really want in a woman is that kind of mental affinity which I get from someone like HN”. Of Harold he wrote “he is very fond of me, as I am of him”. A Western Daily Press article in February 1938 was headlined “Bachelor Bernays Lives In Hope”.

Bernays had relationships with politician Katherine Tennant and actress Leonora Corbett, but ended both affairs. He met his future wife, Nancy Britton, in 1931 and they became a couple in 1939. Nancy was the daughter of George Bryant, former Bristol East Liberal MP 1918-22 and director of GB Britton & Sons, boot and shoe manufacturers of Kingswood, the business operating from 1880-2001. Bernays and Nancy (by then a Senior Commandant in the Auxiliary Territorial Service) were married at Bristol Cathedral in April 1942 with Harold Nicholson as one of the guests. The reception was held at the Royal Hotel (now the Bristol Marriot), College Green. They had two sons; Harold Nicholson was their godfather.

In February 1940 Bernays addressed a meeting in Clifton declaring “Britain is fighting a holy war against wickedness”. The Western Daily Press headline ran “Bristol MP Who Saw Nazi Evil Grow”. In December 1943 Bernays was appointed entertainment officer at No.3 Anti-Aircraft Group based at Horfield Barracks, Gloucester Road.

Bernays died in January 1945, aged 42, in a plane crash over the Adriatic Sea, near Brindisi whilst flying from Italy to Greece as part of a parliamentary delegation to British troops.

Nancy never remarried and died in 1980 aged 80 at The Brake, Tockington, near Bristol.

Jonathan Rowe 2024

 

Wikipedia: Robert Bernays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bernays
Spartacus Educational: Robert Bernays https://spartacus-educational.com/Robert_Bernays.htm

The Glamour Boys: The Secret Story of the Rebels who Fought for Britain to Defeat Hitler. Chris Bryant, Bloomsbury Publishing (2021) https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/glamour-boys-9781526601735/

Western Daily Press 17 December 1932
Western Daily Press 28 February 1938
Western Daily Press 3 February 1940
Western Daily Press 27 April 1942