Sad news has reached us from the UK about the death of one of London’s leading queer activists. Martyn Butler OBE was one of the co-founders of the celebrated TERRENCE HIGGINS TRUST, which became one of the world’s most successful and effective campaigns that provided services relating to HIV and sexual health. Established in 1982, Terrence Higgins Trust was the first charity in the UK to be set up in response to HIV and AIDS. It was initially named Terry Higgins Trust, after Terry Higgins, who died aged 37 on 4 July 1982 at St Thomas’ Hospital, London. He was among the first people in the UK known to have died from the AIDS virus, which was only identified the previous year. 

As one of Higgins close friends, Martyn worked with another friend Tony Calvert and Terry’s partner Rupert Whitaker, and they started the Trust to raise funds for research as a way of preventing suffering due to AIDS. Shortly, with the generation of a groundswell of support for the organisation at a meeting at Red Lion Square, Tony Whitehead and others joined the group and formally founded the organisation and saw it through registration as a charity to provide direct services to those affected by HIV,  The trust was named after Terry to personalise and humanise the issue of AIDS. It was formalised in August 1983 when it adopted a constitution and opened a bank account, and the name of the trust was changed (Terrence rather than Terry) to sound more formal.  Alongside Rupert Whitaker,  Martyn went on to build what would become one of the country’s leading HIV and sexual health organisations.

Princess Margaret was an early prominent patron, becoming the first member of the royal family to publicly associate themselves with a charity focusing on AIDS and sexual health.

Of all the tributes being paid today, we are particularly struck by the words of Martyn’s brother Guy Hewett, who said: “We are heartbroken to lose him so suddenly but full of pride for all he achieved. He saw it as a duty to inform the country, and in particular the gay community, of what little information there was on HIV and Aids in the early 1980s. “He took great joy in seeing what Terrence Higgins Trust has become and stayed involved to the very end. Grief is the terrible price of love, but we know his legacy lives on.”

Martyn helped make the (queer) world a much better place to live in.  He will be sorely missed!