Difference between revisions of "Allan Horsfall"
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==References== | ==References== | ||
| − | Much of the information in this | + | Much of the information in this article is from [[Peter Scott-Presland]], ''[[Amiable Warriors]]'', Chapter 2. |
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[[Category:Campaigners]] | [[Category:Campaigners]] | ||
Revision as of 14:53, 31 August 2012
Allan Horsfall, 1927–2012, was a gay campaigner, founder and life president of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE).
Allan Horsfall was born and brought up in the Emmott Arms pub in Laneshaw Bridge, Lancashire and attended Nelson Grammar School. Towards the end of World War II he was called up into the Royal Air Force and spent some time in Germany.
After the war he joined the local Royal Air Force Association and met Harold Pollard who moved into the pub. Harold and Allan shared a bed beause of the lack of space, but it took some time before each realised the other was gay. They became an item and took a house together in Nelson: Harold became a head teacher and Allan started working for the National Coal Board.
In 1956, Allan Horsfall joined the Labour Party, and was subsequently elected to Nelson council. He contacted the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS) and visited Peter Wildeblood in London.
From 1959 onwards he started campaigning for the local branch of the Labour Party to take up the issue of homosexual law reform following the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957, but with little success.
In 1963 the HLRS decided to set up local groups; as a result the North West Committee for Homosexual Law Reform (NWCHLR) was set up in 1964, with Allan Horsfall as one of the organisers. It issued a leaflet, and became headline news in the local paper. This had no adverse consequences, even though the article quoted Allan Horsfall's address and might have led to his being evicted from his Coal Board house.
By 1966 the NWCHLR was no longer describing itself as a subgroup of the HLRS. In 1969 it reformed itself as the Committee for Homosexual Equality, and in 1971 it renamed itself the Campaign for Homosexual Equality.
In the mid-1990s Allan Horsfall became involved with the campaign around the case of the Bolton Seven.
Harold Pollard, his partner for 48 years, died in 1996.
In March 2000 Allan Horsfall received The Pink Paper Award for his services to the gay community.
Allan Horsfall and other gay rights campaigners who lobbied for a change in the law for 40 years were honoured in a ceremony at Manchester Town Hall in October 2004.[1]
In latter years Allan Horsfall and Ray Gosling ran Gay Monitor seeking justice for men wrongly accused of sexual abuse.
Allan Horsfall died in hospital in Burnley in August 2012, aged 84.[2]
References
Much of the information in this article is from Peter Scott-Presland, Amiable Warriors, Chapter 2.
