Harold Gottliffe
(19?? – 1998[1])
Harold Gottliffe was a fan from Leeds active in the 1930s. He was a member of the Leeds branch of the Science Fiction League and attended the 1937 Leeds Convention. He was also a member of the Manchester Interplanetary Society and the Leeds Rocketry Society[2] and Thrilling Wonder Stories (August 1937) reported him as among 'new members foreign' of the Science Fiction League.
After the 1937 convention when Douglas W. F. Mayer proposed that UK clubs secede from the SFL and create a British Science-Fiction Association, Gottliffe was one of the opponents along with J. Michael Rosenblum, leading to a schism within the Leeds group. Gotliffe edited the Bulletin of the Leeds Science Fiction League for the SFL faction in early 1938, with Rosenblum's The Futurian replacing it as the group's official organ from June. Details of this feud are given in Then or the specialised article linked from the Leeds entry.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, Gottliffe, a qualified chemist (and possibly a pacifist), joined the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). Rosenblum later wrote:
… within one month there was no Leeds group. Of the four executives […] one joined the RAMC, being a qualified chemist, and three weeks later was the youngest sergeant at his depot by 12 years[3]
Gottliffe served on a hospital ship which was bombed in Norway[4] and on another that was sunk off Crete, and later attached to a prisoner-of-war camp in Palestine.[5] He returned to Leeds in December 1944 with an intention of resuming fanac once more, but this was not to be. He was noted as an attendee of the New Year's Eve's Norcon II in one account but not in the others so it's unclear if he was actually there. He married in March 1945 and quickly gafiated. He changed his name to 'Godfrey' and was last heard of in the late 1950s running a chemists shop in Westminster, London. He seemingly never returned to Leeds.
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- ↑ Provided to Rob Hansen by Gottliffe's daughter.
- ↑ See The Space Library
- ↑ 'Leeds Leads' in Orbit #1 (October 1953); it also says Holmes was 'called up early in 1940'.
Liverpudlian Ron Holmes (who joined RAMC later too) wrote in Science-Fantasy Review War Digest #9, September 1940: 'Les Johnson is now in uniform and looks great in it. I only hope I look as well, though after seeing Harry Gottliffe in his RAMC uniform – I guess I'll look like a member of the Salvation Army.' - ↑ See also Science-Fantasy Review's War Digest #7, July 1940: 'A week or two ago Harry Gottliffe, prominent Leeds fan, now senior Sergeant in the R.A.M.C arrived in Liverpool from Norway and his first thought was to call at the editorial address. He was duly shown round the Liverpool fans. Ted Carnell, of London, was also in this city at the same time and the two met for a while, first time in four years. Unfortunately next day HG sailed for the East.'
- ↑ Futurian War Digest #19, January 1942: 'More news from the middle East comes from ex-Leeds SFL director, Harold Gottliffe, RAMC sergeant. In his first letter for 11 months Harold says that he wants to be kept in touch with fandom and also manages to convey the information that he has left his Hospital Ship. Local rumour has it that he is in Palestine, on the staff of a P.O.W. camp.'
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