Queer Places:
Académie Julian, Passage des Panoramas, 75002 Paris
20 Yeoman's Row, London SW3 2AH, UK
Brighton and Preston Cemetery, Bear Rd, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN2 4DZ, United Kingdom
George Charles Beresford (July 10, 1864 - February 21, 1938) was born on July 10, 1864, in Drumlease, Dromahair, County Leitrim, Ireland. He came from an
aristocratic and distinguished Anglo-Irish lineage as a member of the Beresford family headed by the Marquess of Waterford. He was the third of five
children born to Major Henry Marcus Beresford and Julia Ellen Maunsell. His paternal grandfather was the Most Reverend Marcus Beresford, Archbishop of
Armagh, and his ancestry traced directly through a line of prominent clergymen and peers, including the Bishop of Kilmore and the 1st Earl of Tyrone.
Sent to Westward Ho! in 1877, Beresford attended the United Services College in North Devon. There, he formed an inseparable triad with his lifelong
friends Lionel Charles Dunsterville and the future author
Rudyard Kipling. Beresford famously served as the real-life inspiration for the eccentric, artistic, and
sharp-witted character "M'Turk" in Kipling’s semi-autobiographical collection of school stories, Stalky & Co. He later recorded his own recollections of
those formative years in his 1936 memoir, Schooldays with Kipling.
Upon leaving school in 1882, Beresford enrolled at the Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper's Hill and subsequently traveled to India as a civil
engineer in the Public Works Department. After four years of service, he contracted malaria, prompting his return to England. Shifting careers entirely,
he turned to art, studied painting in Paris at the Académie Julian, and eventually exhibited his works at the Royal Academy.
Between 1902 and 1932, Beresford established a highly successful career as a studio photographer, operating from 20 Yeoman's Row, Brompton Road, in
Knightsbridge, London. Working predominantly in platinotype, he captured striking portraits of the leading literary, artistic, and political celebrities
of the Edwardian and Georgian eras. His artistic portraits were widely published in prominent periodicals such as The World's Work, The Sketch, The
Tatler, and The Illustrated London News. A close friend of fellow Irish artists Augustus John and Sir William Orpen, Beresford frequently exchanged
photographic and painted portraits with them. During the First World War, he made substantial donations to the Red Cross.
In his later years, Beresford transitioned into working as an antique dealer. He passed away on February 21, 1938, at the age of 73, and was laid to
rest at the Brighton and Preston Cemetery in Brighton, East Sussex, England. Several years after his death, in 1943, the National Portrait Gallery
acquired a large collection of his negatives and prints from his former secretary, preserving his photographic legacy.
While Beresford married Rosa Elizabeth Robinson in 1904 and lived a conventional public life with no historical documentation of personal LGBTQ+
identification, his life and work intersect with queer history through cultural networks, avant-garde artistic circles, and institutional archiving.
His foundational years at the United Services College and his lifelong bond with Kipling and Dunsterville remain a focal point for literary analyses
exploring late-Victorian male homosociality, homosocial desire, and homoerotic subtexts in public school literature. Furthermore, as an elite portraitist
in early 20th-century London, Beresford’s studio captured a vast roster of prominent artists, writers, and cultural figures—including many individuals
associated with the broader Bloomsbury Group and artistic avant-garde who lived fluid, unconventional, or queer lives. His inclusion in specialized museum
and gallery trails focusing on queer history stems from these intersecting networks of fin-de-siècle aestheticism, portraiture, and homosocial
biography.
References:
- Schooldays with Kipling by George Charles Beresford (London: Victor Gollancz, 1936) — Beresford's personal memoir detailing his formative years at the United Services College in Westward Ho! alongside Rudyard Kipling and Lionel Charles Dunsterville.
- Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling (London: Macmillan and Co., 1899) — The classic collection of school stories in which Beresford served as the primary real-life inspiration for the character "M'Turk."
- The Letters of Rudyard Kipling (Edited by Thomas Pinney; multiple volumes, University of Iowa Press) — Extensive collections of Kipling's correspondence featuring numerous references to Beresford, Dunsterville, and their shared youth.
- National Portrait Gallery (NPG) London — Archival holdings comprising hundreds of platinotype portrait negatives and prints captured by Beresford at his Knightsbridge studio, as well as photographic portraits of Beresford himself by contemporaries such as Sir William Orpen and Augustus John.
- The London Gazette and genealogical records documenting the Beresford family lineage (tracing through Major Henry Marcus Beresford, the Most Reverend Marcus Beresford, Archbishop of Armagh, and the descendants of the Earl of Tyrone).
- Contemporary Periodicals (1902–1932) — Historical issues of The World's Work, The Sketch, The Tatler, and The Illustrated London News featuring Beresford's published photographic portraits of Edwardian and Georgian literary, artistic, and political figures.
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