older daughter, Dorothy, was a painter and member of the Bloomsbury Group. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Arts and spent years in New Mexico. Their younger daughter, Sylvia, became the last Ranee of Sarawak on 24 May 1917, following the proclamation of her husband Charles Vyner Brooke as Rajah. Sexuality Although married with children, Esher had homosexual inclinations; but his flirtations with young men were regarded with tolerant amusement in polite society. The years before his marriage had been marked by a series of what Esher described as "rapturous" love affairs with various young men. His subsequent marriage in no way stopped or curtailed these activities. Indeed, he could not, he told a friend, remember a single day when he was not in love with one young man or another. He later published anonymously a white-covered book of verse called Foam, in which he glorified "golden lads". According to his biographer, Esher "never deliberately concealed his infatuations" but explicitly confided them to only a few. Those few included Esher's son Maurice, to whom Maurice wrote prurient and even romantic letters during the boy's time at Eton. One of his most significant male companions was his private secretary Lawrence Burgis, who met Esher when he was attending King's School, Worcester. Although the relationship likely went physically unconsummated due to Burgis's heterosexuality, they remained closely acquainted until Esher's death in 1930. After the British entry into World War I, Esher personally intervened to have Burgis appointed as an aide-de-camp to the British Expeditionary Force Commander of Intelligence John Charteris so that he could avoid front-line service on the Western Front. Esher also had him appointed as a secretary to the Cabinet Office. Burgis later used his position to keep verbatim records of Prime Minister Winston Churchill's War Cabinet meetings in defiance of the Official Secrets Act 1911, providing one of the most important records of World War II. References Bibliography External links The Papers of Lord and Lady Esher held at Churchill Archives Centre 1852 births 1930 deaths 19th-century LGBT people Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Bisexual men Bisexual politicians Deputy Lieutenants of Berkshire Deputy Lieutenants of the County of London Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order LGBT members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom LGBT peers English LGBT politicians Brett, Reginald Members of the Privy Council of