Havelock Ellis - Biography

Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) was a social activist, physician and psychologist. Ellis best-known work concerns sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical text in English about homosexuality. Ellis also wrote on the subject of gender and transgender identity. His work was essential in developing the psychoanalytical concepts of autoeroticism and narcissism. Although Ellis’s work has had a lasting impact on the development of understanding of contemporary sexuality, Havelock Ellis was also a believer of the nineteenth century theories of eugenics. Like many early adopters of the theories of eugenics, Havelock Ellis was contemporary and progressive in his consideration of the subject. He was the president of the Galton Institute.

Havelock Ellis wrote many books, including The Criminal, The New Spirit, The Nationalisation of Health, Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics, Sexual Inversion, Affirmations, The Evolution of Modesty, The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity, Auto-Erotism, The Nineteenth Century, Analysis of the Sexual Impulse, Love and Pain, The Sexual Impulse in Women, A Study of British Genius, Sexual Selection in Man, Erotic Symbolism, The Mechanism of Detumescence, The Psychic State in Pregnancy and The Problem of Race-Regeneration.

In 1879, Havelock Ellis returned to England from Australia with a desire to investigate the nature of sex. Intellectually, Havelock Ellis felt he needed to have a physiological understanding of humanity before he turned his attention to the psychology. Havelock Ellis was determined the to become a physician. He enrolled at St. Thomas’s Hospital Medical School. Havelock Ellis supported himself with a small inheritance and by translating the forgotten works of lesser sixteenth century dramatists for the Mermaid Series. Despite his training, Havelock Ellis never made the practice of his medical training central to his professional life.

In 1883, The Fellowship of New Life allowed Havelock Ellis to join its membership. These members were devoted social reformers. During his involvement with the fellowship, Ellis became acquainted with George Bernard Shaw and Edward Carpenter. This organization helped facilitate Havelock Ellis’s progressive outlook.

In 1896, Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds wrote Sexual Inversion. The first printing of this book appeared in German. The reason the book was originally written in German was because German was seen as the language of science. By writing the book in German, the two authors gave their thoughts in increased perception of authenticity and gravitas. A year later, Ellis and Symond’s book was translated into English. In this text, intra- and intergenerational homosexual relationships were explored. However, the majority of the cases studied (fourteen out of twenty-one) were comprised of members of the same age group. The authors refused to criminalize or pathologize the acts and emotions that emerged in these relationships. Instead, Ellis argued that same-sex love rose above the mundane restrictions of society. The subject was so controversial and so offensive to the arch-conservative Victorian English that at least one bookseller was brought up on criminal charges for carrying copies of the book. The term ”homosexual” is closely associated with Havelock Ellis and his work. However, Ellis despised the word. He felt that it was monstrous in its etymology since it conflated Latin and Greek roots.

In addition to the developments in sexual inversion, Havelock Ellis began the psychoanalytical study of narcissism and autoeroticism. Sigmund Freud would also adopt these concepts and expand them. Freud often gets credit with these concepts. However, Havelock Ellis has left a clear impact and influence on the greater world of psychoanalysis—even if his contributions are not always attributed to Ellis. Most famously Havelock Ellis influenced many literary artists. Radclyff Hall would embrace Havelock Ellis’s ideas of inversion. Hall would call herself a female sexual invert. Hall would use these concept of identification as a central crux for her novels The Well of Loneliness and Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself.

Havelock Ellis like Magnus Hirschfeld was innovative in his studies of what has been more recently called transgender identity. Ellis was one of the first to classify this as a distinct construction from sexual inversion and homosexuality. Havelock Ellis argued that Hirschfeld’s term transvestism was limiting and inaccurate. Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion in an attempt to more accurately describe the occurrence. Later, Havelock Ellis would suggest that the term eonsim would be better. The origin of the this word was from the historical figure of Chevalier d’Eon. He considered this to be a common “sexual anomaly.”

Havelock Ellis like many forward-looking intellectuals found promise and hope for the future in the fields of eugenics. Although this concept has been discredited, it was not an unusual position for someone of Ellis’s era to embrace. At one time, he held the office of the vice-presidency of the Eugenics Education Society. It was hoped that by examining biological and psychological histories of the majority of breeding humans that the wellbeing of races of people could be improved.

On February 2, 1859, Havelock Ellis was born in Croydon England. His parents, Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, had four other children—all daughters. Edward Ellis (as well as his maternal grandfather) was employed as a sea captain. He accompanied his father on a couple of voyages to Australia. After returning from the first trip, Ellis enrolled at the French and German College close to Wimbledon. After his enrollment, Havelock Ellis enrolled at a school in Mitcham.

In 1875, Havelock Ellis accompanied his father to Australia again. In Sydney, Ellis was employed as a master for a privately funded school. Havelock Ellis did not have the training for this position, a fact that he could not hide from his employers. He was, thereafter, employed as a tutor. The family that had hired Havelock Ellis lived a short distance from Carcoar. For a year, he studied while performing the duties of this job. A grammar school in Grafton hired him as a master. During the time period of his employment at the grammar school, the headmaster passed away. Havelock Ellis took over the responsibilities of this position; however, again due to his lack of experience, he was unsuccessful. Havelock Ellis returned to England in 1879.

In the fall of 1891, Havelock Ellis married Edith Lees. Havelock Ellis, the sexologist, and Edith Lee were a very nonconformist couple. Lees was an English author who advocated for women’s liberation. Even though Havelock Ellis had made a career of studying sex and sexuality, he had remained a virgin for his entire life. Havelock Ellis was stricken with impotence and could possibly not consummate the marriage even if either party had wanted it. Luckily, neither Ellis nor Lees were entirely sexually invested in their relationship. In contrast to the timidity of most people of the time declaring their sexual identifications, Edith Lees was an avowed Lesbian. The two spent their honeymoon together, but once their honeymoon ended they retired to separate residences. Ellis lived in his in Paddington, and Lees took up residence in Fellowship House. When Havelock Ellis penned his autobiography, My Life, his open relationship with Lees was the main focus of interest.

Havelock Ellis did not live his life without sexual satisfaction. At the age of sixty, Havelock Ellis was able to overcome his impotence by watching a woman make water. Always one to coin terms, Havelock Ellis called his fetish undinsim. This paraphilia is more commonly referred to as urolagnia, today.