Hugh Speaight

Born: Unknown.

Died: Unknown.

Hugh Speaight was the secretary of the Oxford Poetry Society. When Aleister Crowley was invited to give a lecture by the Oxford Poetry Society in 1930 the society was threatened by the school with disciplinary action if the talk took place either on or off university grounds. As a result Hugh Speaight wrote to Crowley:

I am writing to tell you that we have been unfortunately forced to cancel next Monday’s meeting of the Poetry Society. It has come to our knowledge that if your proposed paper is delivered disciplinary action will be taken involving not only myself but the rest of the members of the society. In these circumstances you will, I trust, understand why we have had to cancel the meeting.

Crowley, who had planned to give a lecture on Gilles de Rais gave a newspaper interview:

Mr. Crowley, when interviewed at his home in Kent, said he considered that there was “some underhand business” behind the prohibition. He said he thought the trouble was due to a report that he was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the death in Sicily of a young Oxford undergraduate, Mr. Raoul Loveday, who was his secretary. He also said: “Perhaps the refusal to let me lecture has come because Gilles de Rais is said to have killed 500 children in ritual murder and in some way this was connected with myself, since the accusation that I have not only killed but eaten children is one of the many false statements that have been circulated about me in the past.”

In typical Crowley fashion, and never one to turn down any form of free publicity, Crowley decided to have copies of the lecture he would have delivered printed up as a pamphlet and offered for sale on the streets of Oxford as The Banned Lecture.