John Burnside

John Burnside born 2 November 1916 (d. 2008)

John Lyon Burnside III was the inventor of the teleidoscope, the darkfield kaleidoscope and the Symmetricon, and, because he rediscovered the maths behind kaleidoscope optics, for decades, every maker of optically correct kaleidoscopes sold in the US paid him royalties. He was the partner of Harry Hay for 40 years, from 1962 until Hay's death in 2002. He lived in San Francisco, California, until his death from complications of brain cancer on 14 September 2008.

Born in Seattle, as a child Burnside was sent to an orphanage because he was caught in sexual play with another boy.

He served briefly in the Navy, and settled in Los Angeles in the 1940s. Burnside married Edith Sinclair in Los Angeles, the pair had no children.

In 1962 Burnside met the pioneering gay activist Harry Hay at an event organised by ONE Inc., an early pioneering gay organisation. The pair fell in love and were to remain together for the rest of their lives. Hay and Burnside formed a group in the early 1960s called the Circle of Loving Companions that promoted gay rights and gay love. In 1966 they were major planners of one of the first gay parades, a protest against exclusion of homosexuals from the military, held in Los Angeles. In 1967, they appeared as a gay couple on the Joe Pyne television show - Pyne was a pioneering 'confrontational' talk show host.

In the late 1970s, they founded, along with Don Kilhefner and Mitch Walker, the Radical Faeries, a gay and lesbian spiritual movement founded on Native American and New Age philosophy.

Burnside died 14 September 2008 at the age of 91.

Photo of John Lyon Burnside by Rory Cecil