March 9th

03-09-1861 — 09-14-1916   Edith Ellis – Born in Manchester, England. She was an English writer and women’s rights activist. She married sexologist Havelock Elis in November 1891. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional. She was openly lesbian and at the end of the honeymoon, Havelock moved back to his bachelor quarters. She had several affairs with women, which her husband was aware of. Havelock’s autobiography, My Life (1939) focuses on their open marriage. During the late 1800’s, Edith began a relationship with Lily, an artist from Ireland. When Lily died in 1903 from Bright’s Disease, Edith was devastated. In March of 1916, Edith had a nervous breakdown and that September, she died of diabetes. 

03-09-1892 – 06-02-1962 Vita Sackville-West – Born in Knole House, United Kingdom. She was an English writer, poet, and gardener. Her long narrative poem, The Land, won the Hawthornden Prize in 1927. And in 1933, she won it again with her Collected Poems. She is the only writer to have won twice. She was known for her exuberant aristocratic life and her passionate affair with novelist Virginia Woolf. Sissinghurst Castle Garden, which she and her husband, Sir Harold Nicolson, created at their estate also became famous. Today the garden is owned and maintained by the National Trust. It is among the most famous gardens in England. The same-sex relationship that had the deepest and most lasting effect on Sackville-West’s personal life was with the novelist Violet Trefusis. They attended school together and the relationship began when they were both in their teens. Vita also had a passionate affair between 1929 and 1931 with Hilda Matheson, head of the BBC Talks Department.

03-09-1910 – 01-23-1981 Samuel Barber (Samuel Osmond Barber II) – Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. Most famous for his Adagio for Strings. He won the Pulitzer Prize twice: 1958 for his first opera Vanessa, and in 1963 for his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. He was lovers with the composer Menotti with whom he shared a house in Mount Kisco, New York for over 40 years.

03-09-1962 Richard Quest – Born in Liverpool, England. He is an English journalist and CNN International anchor and reporter. On June 26, 2014, he came out as gay on his CNN television program, Quest Means Business, where he described his past experience as a closeted gay man.

03-09-1963 Lord Ivar Mountbatten – Born in London, England. He is an English aristocrat and the third cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. He was married and has three daughters. In September 2016, Lord Ivar came out as gay and revealed that he was in a relationship with James Coyle, an airline cabin services director that he met while at a ski resort in Verbier. Although Lord Ivar is not a member of the British royal family, he is the first member of the extended family to come out as gay.