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Gemma Romain's 'Race, Sexuality and Identity in Britain and Jamaica: The Biography of Patrick Nelson, 1916-1963' was published by Bloomsbury Academic in September 2017. Patrick
Nelson was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1916 and first migrated to Britain in
1937 to rural North Wales. In Jamaica he trained as a valet, working
at the Manor House Hotel in Kingston and in Wales he worked as a
'gentleman's valet'. He returned briefly to Jamaica and then remigrated to
Britain in 1938 where he studied law and worked as an artist model in London.
In 1938 he met Bloomsbury Group artist Duncan Grant, who became his boyfriend. They kept in touch with
one another for the rest of his life, writing to each other throughout the
forties and fifties until Patrick's death in 1963. In early 1940 Patrick joined
the military and went to France with the British Expeditionary Force, where he
was captured and was a Prisoner of War for over four years. Patrick was
repatriated to Britain in late 1944 and returned to Jamaica in 1945 before
re-migrating back to London in the early 1960s. Gemma's biography
explores themes such as Patrick's Queer Black identity and Queer Black London in the 1930s, Patrick's experiences in the
Second World War, his experiences of race, colonialism and imperialism in
Jamaica, and his experiences of the interwar London artworld through an examination of personal letters,
newspapers, artworks and other sources.
For more information, visit Bloomsbury Publishing's website
