User:Serial Number 54129/Wars of the Roses

Harry Daley was a policeman in London in the first half of the 20th century and for many years the lover of E. M. Forster.

Early life
Daley was born in Dorking in 1901.

Career
Daley joined the Metropolitan Police in 1925.

Daley began his career in Hammersmith, at the "busy" Broadway station.

He moved to Vine Street, which also him responsibility for both theatreland and Soho, where he found the local force on good terms wth the local prostitutes.

He later reflected on having to regularly arrest his friends and family members, which, he said, was "not so upsetting as it sounds. They were from families where such things are no disgrace".

He particularly enjoyed night shifts, especially in his early career, finding day patrols around Hammersmith Bridge to be "boring", but withthe opportunity for regular clandestine tea breaks.

Ended his career based in Wandsworth, among the "old-fashioned cockney districts, sprinkled with slums, on York road and Garratt Lane".

He retired in 1950.

Joined the merchant navy.

By the time World War II broke out, Daley was based at Beak Street section house.

Personal life
Lover of Duncan Grant In 1930 artist Duncan Grant painted Daley's portrait of him—"a craggy copper in uniform". Around this time he entered into a relationship with the novelist E. M. Forster. The relationship was "fleeting"; Forster was still closetted, and—considering Daley far too indiscreet for both their safety—Forster ended their relationship.

During his relationship with Forster, Daley occasionally introduced gangsters to the novelist, who later wrote how they, in his opinion, "spoke [his] language".

Michael Petry, of the Museum of Contemporary Art has described the painting as a "visual gem"

In the words of writer Stephen Bourne, "Daley happily continued to engage in unlawful acts while upholding the law".

In the 1930s Daley was "befriended" into the Bloomsbury group, where he met Forster.

A Small Cloud
Daley's autobiography, A Small Cloud, has been described by the Gay Times as one of the few descriptors of life for gay police officers before the foundation of the GPA.

Much of the book discusses his experiences of The blitz, and describes the antisemitism he found in the force.

It was published posthumously in 1986.

Reputation
Homosexuality was viewed with distrust within the police at the time, and Daley was one of the few to openly acknowledge his own.

In 2018, the Press Association reported that National Heritage had rejected a proposed blue plaque remembering Daley.

Cultural references
Cited by Bourne as the "human face" of London's police in the interwar period, he may also have provided the inspiration for Ted Willis's Constable George Dixon, eponymous character of the BBC's long-running postwar television series Dixon of Dock Green.