A press release from the University of London reveals that a grant of nearly £250,000 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund will open access to an expansive collection of LGBTQ+ literature at Senate House Library.
The Haud Nominandum Collection (a Latin phrase that broadly translates as ‘that which cannot be named’) was gifted to the Senate House Library at the University of London by Jonathan Cutbill, on his death in 2019. Cutbill was bookseller, gay rights campaigner and founder of the renowned Gay’s the Word bookshop, which is still running in London to this day. As a result, the library’s collection is one of the largest and most significant collections of printed queer literature in the UK, and the largest known personal collection of English-language LGBTQ+ materials in the world.
The collection comprises approximately 30,000 items of LGBTQ+ relevance, dating from the 1760s to the 2010s. It includes literature, social science and history, alongside letters, notes, pamphlets and newspaper cuttings, all amassed by Cutbill over decades of collecting.
A Senate House Library spokesperson explained that “Spanning genres and registers, the collection ranges from canonical literary texts and mainstream gay romance to community newspapers like Mancunian Gay and Gay Midlands, which acted as vital resources for connecting isolated gay individuals during the 1970s and ‘80s.”
Gay’s the Word Manager, Uli Lenart FRSA said: “The creation of LGBTQ+ literature, especially the earlier pioneering publications, were acts of articulation, defiance and self-realisation during a time of institutionalised socio-political hostility, persecution and homophobia. These books are the roadmaps of a profoundly negated minority community on the long and rocky road to equality. These books need to be made accessible to new generations of LGBTQ+ and non-queer identifying writers, researchers, creators and historians.”
Jonathan Cutbill in Hay-on-Wye taken by Steve Keay (mid 1980s)
As part of the grant, Senate House Library will host an exhibition on the collection alongside an extensive programme of public events, some of which will be run in collaboration with the Manchester-based charity LGBT Foundation. What’s more, the project will also support two cataloguers and one intern who will catalogue all 30,000 items in the collection, and digitise highlights for an online archive, providing access for people worldwide.
Catriona Cannon, Librarian and Programme Director for the Library Transformation Programme, said: “This generous award will make this nationally significant collection discoverable to scholars, students and the public, uncovering a unique part of the UK’s LGBTQ+ history. It will enable us to share the radical stories of how these materials were created, circulated and collected, and work with communities and individuals to pool our knowledge and increase our understanding of these treasures and their role in our society.”
Stuart McLeod, Director of England – London & South at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, added: “The Haud Nominandum collection is an extraordinary record of LGBTQ+ lives, voices and heritage. Thanks to National Lottery players, this project will secure the future of Jonathan Cutbill’s remarkable legacy, opening up this globally significant collection so that people can explore, learn from and be inspired by the stories it contains. We are proud to support Senate House Library in making this important heritage accessible now and for generations to come.”
