Andrew at Greater London Council meeting about London Lesbian & Gay Centre, County Hall, London, July 1982.
Photograph by Robert Workman
Robert Workman Archive. Bishopsgate Institute.
Writer. Artist. Activist. 1941 – 2023.
Andrew Lumsden
The first journalist to come out in mainstream media and a founder of Gay News, Andrew Lumsden’s writing turned activist and liberationist after attending meetings of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in November 1970.
‘As an adult homosexual of fixed abode, work and way of life, I have been attending meetings of the Gay Liberation Front in Britain, and watching its protracted birth into a movement that has hopes of catching public attention.’
– The Spectator, 2 January 1971
Andrew speaking at the Traverse Trials, Edinburgh, 20 June 1971.
Photograph by John Chesterman
Hall-Carpenter Archive, London School of Economics.
Gay News, Britain’s first LGBTQ+ newspaper, had been Andrew’s suggestion at a GLF meeting in early 1972, and was carried forward by Denis Lemon, Glenys Parry and others to produce a national newspaper for the emerging queer community. He joined the paper as News Editor in 1981 and was Editor when Gay News entered into administration during April 1983.
Andrews’ journalism was published in titles such as The Times, The Guardian, Capital Gay, Gay Times and Him Monthly. He became News Editor at The New Statesman in 1984, and oversaw the stories covered by the publication as Associate Editor through to the summer 1987. After being made redundant by a new Editor, Andrew left journalism.
Many of the articles Andrew wrote for The New Statesman between 1984 and 1987 were LGBTQ+ focused. With a wry wit and conversational tone that sugar coated his liberation politics, he covered subjects such as the raid by Customs & Excise on Gay’s the Word community bookshop, the politics of HIV/AIDS in Britain, sexism, racism and homophobia within UK media, police harassment and cruising culture.
Drawing was a constant throughout Andrew’s life, becoming a serious focus after selling his flat in London and moving to the Sierra Nevada, southern Spain and practising drawing in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, he returned to London and exhibited work with Adonis Gallery, First Out Cafe and Curzon in Soho. Since 2018, several retrospective exhibitions of Andrew’s art have taken place.
Andrew in GLF at 50: Art of Protest, Platform Southwark, London, 2020.
Photograph by Ray Malone
Courtesy of photographer.
While working as a seasonal tour guide on coach trips around England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales for the remainder of his working life Andrew would research and write several books, none of which would be published during his lifetime, they include; an investigation into the life, loves and queerness of King Edward II, a biography of his mother, Irene, who died while receiving treatment for post-natal depression in the early 1940s and multiple examinations of the life and politics of Henry Labouchère.
In his 70s, Andrew re-entered activism with the Sexual Avengers, Queer Tours of London and from 2018 until his death in 2023, against the transphobic LGB Alliance with a rejuvenated Gay Liberation Front. He was the driving force behind the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention at London’s Bishopsgate Institute in 2021, and the 2022 Revolutionary Roots of Pride march through Central London – marking the 50th anniversary of the first Pride march in London.
Andrew was a friend and inspiration to many, his voice in LGBTQ+ activist circles was one of consciousness raising, open conversation and consensus building – full of fun, challenge and charm.
He is missed.