Arthur James Balfour, ( 25 July 1848 – 19 March 1930) an alleged hermaphrodite
The
Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government during
World War I
announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the
Jewish people" in
Palestine,
then an
Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population.
It read:
His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
The Times, 9November 1917
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Balfour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
Personal life[edit]
Balfour met his cousin May Lyttelton in 1870 when she was 19. After her two previous serious suitors had died, Balfour is said to have declared his love for her in December 1874. She died of
typhus on Palm Sunday, March 1875; Balfour arranged for an emerald ring to be buried in her coffin. Lavinia Talbot, May's older sister, believed that an engagement had been imminent, but her recollections of Balfour's distress (he was "staggered") were not written down until thirty years later. The historian
R. J. Q. Adams points out that May's letters discuss her love life in detail, but contain no evidence that she was in love with Balfour, nor that he had spoken to her of marriage. He visited her only once during her serious three month illness, and was soon accepting social invitations again within a month of her death. Adams suggests that, although he may simply have been too shy to express his feelings fully, Balfour may also have encouraged tales of his youthful tragedy as a convenient cover for his disinclination to marry; the matter cannot be conclusively proven.
[7] In later years mediums claimed to pass on messages from her – see the "
Palm Sunday Case".
[8][9]
Balfour remained a lifelong bachelor.
Margot Tennant (later Margot Asquith) wished to marry him, but Balfour said: "No, that is not so. I rather think of having a career of my own."
[5] His household was maintained by his unmarried sister, Alice. In middle age, Balfour had a 40-year friendship with
Mary Charteris (née Wyndham), Lady Elcho, later Countess of
Wemyss and March.
[10] Although one biographer writes that "it is difficult to say how far the relationship went", her letters suggest they may have become lovers in 1887 and may have engaged in
sado-masochism,
[11] a claim echoed by
A. N. Wilson.
[9] Another biographer believes they had "no direct physical relationship", although he dismisses as unlikely suggestions that Balfour was homosexual, or, in view of a time during the
Boer War when he replied to a message while drying himself after his bath,
Lord Beaverbrook's claim that he was "a hermaphrodite" whom no-one saw naked.
[12]