J. R. Ackerley Plaque

In that role, Ackerley commissioned and published many writers now closely associated with queer literary history, including E. M. Forster (author of Maurice, a novel about love between men), Christopher Isherwood (whose Berlin stories later became Cabaret), and Virginia Woolf, whose long and intense relationship with Vita Sackville-West has become central to how her life and work are now understood. By bringing such voices into a mainstream national magazine, Ackerley helped make writing shaped by queer lives part of everyday cultural reading, even while homosexuality itself remained criminalised.
Ackerley was also unusually candid in his own autobiographical writing. In Hindoo Holiday he wrote openly about sexual desire and encounters during his travels in India, and in My Father and Myself he explored family conflict, secrecy and emotional distance with striking directness. Such personal honesty was rare in mid-20th-century Britain, particularly from a man holding a senior position within national cultural institutions.
Another central relationship in Ackerley’s life was with his German shepherd dog, Queenie, the subject of his memoir My Dog Tulip. He wrote of valuing her “unalterable devotion” and described their years together as the happiest of his life. Critics have often read this intense bond as reflecting the steadiness and loyalty he longed for, but struggled to find, in his human relationships.
Placing Ackerley’s story here in Putney reminds us that queer cultural history is rooted not only in theatres, publishing houses and public institutions, but also in ordinary homes, where writing, longing and companionship unfolded behind familiar front doors.