Horatio Herbert (Lord) Kitchener

Horatio Herbert (Lord) Kitchener born 24 June 1850 (d. 1916)

He never married and appreciated porcelain, fine fabrics and interior decor, but it is disputed whether Horatio Kitchener was gay or was just more interested in empire than the opposite sex.

The hero of Sudan and the Boer war, whose portrait encouraged millions to enlist for the first world war, has been declared gay by several historians. Little was known about his sexual preferences, although a contemporary journalist remarked that Kitchener 'has the failing acquired by most of the Egyptian officers, a taste for buggery'. Source: The Guardian

Great moustache, great poster. His death in 1916 - the ship he was travelling on HMS Hampshire struck a mine near Scapa Flow on a diplomatic mission to Russia - was a momentous event to World War I Britain.

Naturally, conspiracy theories abound. His body was never recovered.