Biographies

Charles Hazelwood Shannon (1863 – 1937) Charles Hazelwood Shannon was born on April 26, 1863 in Quarrington, Lincolnshire. He was the son of the Reverend Frederick William Shannon and his first wife, Catherine Emma Manthorpe. As a boy Shannon showed a talent for art and an interest in pursuing it as a career, and so when he was eighteen his father sent him to study wood-engraving at the City and Guilds Technical Art School in London, where he met , who became his partner. To support the household, Rickets worked as an illustrator for some time, allowing Shannon to be the family artist. Among others, he, sometimes assisted by Shannon, made illustrations the books of Oscar Wilde, except Salomé, which was illustrated, notoriously, by Aubrey Beardsley. Shannon, meanwhile, taught himself lithography and worked extensively in that medium. Although they spent their entire adult lives together, Ricketts and Shannon never publicly identified themselves as a homosexual couple. Commentators believe that Ricketts was certainly a homosexual, but Shannon seems at least occasionally to have been attracted to women. His relationship with Kathleen Bruce, of whom he painted several portraits, caused considerable anxiety to Ricketts, who recorded in his diary his fear that Shannon might marry. (Most of the above information comes from a piece done by Linda Rapp for the glbtq website.) Charles Ricketts