Uncovering Our History: Flamingo Club, Wolverhampton

After the LGBTQ+ community lost Aunty's in Walsall during the 1960s, another Black Country venue came along to cater for LGBTQ+ people across the region. Flamingo Club, Wolverhampton was opened in 1965 by George Smith, and it soon became a popular haunt for the LGBTQ+ community not just in Wolverhampton but also further afield, much as Aunty’s had been before it.

Flamingo Club Raid Birmingham Evening Mail 21 Feb 1967

Smith – who was born in 1901 in Nottinghamshire – purchased the Cresta Social and Sports Club (which was described as an “asbestos-roofed tin hut”) on Cross Street North with £1,500 of his life savings. His lack of experience in running clubs did not stop the venue from becoming a hit.

Trevor Hall, who was interviewed by Gay Birmingham Remembered talked about the parties he remembers in the 1960s: “It was drinking and dancing, you’d go and have a drink and take a bottle back or some beer and there’d be music playing on the record player and you’d dance, or go into a corner and cuddle up, or talk, it was a very friendly atmosphere, none of this jazzing about dancing, it was holding each other, which there isn’t today... I always remember at the clubs when they first started there was a very nice one started in Wolverhampton, on the Cannock Road, called the Flamingo, two ladies started it off, it used to be lovely on a Saturday night, all smoochy dances, you know the seventies records were all smoochy dances and nice, everyone used to dance.”

In July 1967, the Sexual Offences Act became law, decriminalising male homosexuality, albeit with tight rules including the need to be in the privacy of your own home and for the age of consent to be 21, compared to 16 for heterosexual couples. Despite this change in the law, LGBTQ+ venues were still routinely raided by the police, and Flamingo Club did not escape the scrutiny.

The Flamingo Club was raided on multiple occasions including in February 1967 when an anonymous tip led West Midlands Police to seal off the street and search the bar’s customers; many of whom complained of police aggression. One such person was Peter Bentley – a bus conductor and former town councillor – who reportedly even threatened to raise the issue with the Home Secretary.

In response to the raid, the club’s owner, George Smith remained unflustered and defended his male-dominated clientele, saying: “I don’t think for a moment this was one of our chaps.”

An article from the Birmingham Evening Mail (Tuesday 21st February 1967) revealed that an enquiry was launched at West Midlands Police headquarters following the raid, with allegations of “trickery” and “Nazi methods” in what was said to be a search for drugs that included searches of persons and cars.

George Smith, the club’s proprietor said that he believed that the drug tip-off had been made maliciously. He was not aware of the searches outside until police knocked on the door, and they “gave the premises only a cursory examination and then left.”

On 12th April 1968, the Flamingo was again raided by police who observed: “about 250 people there, including five women. Men were dancing with men and behaving with excessive familiarity. Some men were dressed as women.”

Following these police observations, George Smith was prosecuted for running a disorderly house following Wolverhampton Quarter sessions in July where evidence was presented and the prosecutor claimed that the Flamingo was “an orgy of disgusting revelries comparable to what must have existed in Sodom and Gomorrah.” Smith was fined £500 (roughly £10,000 in today’s money), most of which was actually for serving drinks outside of the allowed hours.

Those who gave support and evidence in defence of the Flamingo noted that it was only the police, not the public, who seemed concerned with the venue. There had been no public complaints, and it is thought that an article in the Express & Star newspaper may have prompted the raid by drawing more attention to the Flamingo.

In January 1968, the Express & Star newspaper interviewed John Holland (who at the time only used his first name) about a new organisation he had just co-founded in the town with his lesbian colleague Liz Cooke: the Male and Female Homosexual Association of Britain, or MANDFHAB.

Holland (who was 19-years-old at the time) said: “There was a time when you never dared admit you were homosexual, now we need not be so ashamed.” 

He also spoke of the Flamingo Bar, saying that it was “the best social club in Europe with 550 members drawn from all over the country.”

The Flamingo Bar closed in late 1968, and its premises taken over by the Emerald Irish Club.

Newspaper clippings are from Newspapers.com and are used under 'fair dealings'