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Prosecutions for Sodomy in England at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. D. Harvey
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Extract

During the first thirty-five years of the nineteenth century more than fifty men were hanged for sodomy in England. This was less than a seventh of the number of people executed for murder in the same period, though in one year, 1806, there were more executions for sodomy than for murder. Nevertheless, it was the case that in the first third of the nineteenth century trials and executions for sodomy were much commoner than they had been in any earlier period.

Type
Communications
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 939 - 948
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 See Appendix I. For the various difficulties of interpretation involved in official criminal statistics see Gatrell, V. A. C. and Hadden, T. B., ‘Criminal statistics and their interpretation’, in Wrigley, E. A. (ed.), Nineteenth-century society (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 336–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Public Record Office, H.O. 42/79.

3 See Appendix II.

4 Parl. Papers, 1819, XVII, pp. 308–11.

5 P.R.O., Adm. 12/26.

6 P.R.O., Adm. 12/27F, pp. 214, 217. Gilbert, A. N., ‘Buggery and the British navy, 1700–1861’, Journal of Social History, X (1376–1377), pp. 72–98Google Scholar, claims that, besides the four men executed in 1816 for sodomy on the Africaine, sixteen others were hanged as a result of naval courts-martial for sodomy between 1810 and 1815. He cites (in note 68, p. 82) P.R.O., Adm. 12/22–28 as his source. I have not been able to discover which document he is referring to. Adm. 12/21–26 are digests covering the period 1755–1806. Adm. 12/27A, 12/27D and 12/27F deal only with officers and Adm. 12/27B and 12/27C cover the period 1741–1807. Adm. 12/27F commences only from 1812 and does not confirm Gilbert's figure of eight courts-martial for sodomy 1813–15. Gilbert's contention (pp. 88–90) that the Freudian link between anality and death explains the increase of prosecutions for sodomy in the wartime Royal Navy is, to say the least, rather unconvincing. See also the same author's article, ‘Social deviance and disaster during the Napoleonic Wars’, Albion, IX (1977), 98–113, which claims that homosexuals served as scapegoats during periods of national crisis.

7 P.R.O., Adm. 51/1298.

8 Annual Register, 1806, chronicle, p. 438.

9 Hyde, H. Montgomery, The other love (London, 1970), pp. 75–7, 79.Google Scholar

10 Alexander, Boyd, England's wealthiest son (London, 1962), pp. 107 f.Google Scholar

11 Hyde, , The other love, pp. 73–4.Google Scholar

12 Cf. Strachey, Lytton and Fulford, Roger (eds.), The Greville memoirs (8 vols., London, 1938), 1, 125–6 (30 July 1822)Google Scholar: ‘The affair of the Bishop has made a great noise. The people of the public house have made a good deal of money by showing the place. Lord Sefton went to see the soldier in prison. He says he is a fine soldierlike man and has not the air which these wretches usually have. The Bishop took no precautions, and it was next to impossible he should not have been caught. He made a desperate resistance when taken, and if his breeches had not been down they think he would have got away.’

13 Lord Fortescue, John, Reports of select cases in all the courts of Westminster-Hall (London, 1748), pp. 91–3.Google Scholar

14 See Appendix III.

15 [Holloway, ], The Phoenix of Sodom, or the Vere Street coterie (London, 1813), p. 27.Google Scholar

16 The Morning Chronicle, 10 July 1810.

17 Cowdroy, 's Manchester Gazette, And Weekly Advertisers, 23 08 1806.Google Scholar

18 The whole trial of Col. Rob. Passingham and John Edwards, for a conspiracy against George Townshend Forrester, Esq. (London, 1805), p. 13.

19 P.R.O., H.O. 79/1/66: Hawkesbury, Lord to Sydney, Lord, 8 11 1808.Google Scholar

20 The Morning Chronicle, 6 April 1815. Cf. Sibly, Job. Whole Proceedings… Oyer and Terminer And Gaol Delivery for the City of London…in the Old Bailey (London, 1810–1811)Google Scholar, which does not print evidence in the case of the two members of the Vere St. gang who were sentenced to death.

21 Annual Register, 1806, chronicle, p. 438.

22 P.R.O., H.C.A. 1/61/395, 26 June 1807.

23 P.R.O., Adm. 1/5339, 22 April 1797.

24 Holloway, , Phoenix of Sodom, pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

25 Dal ton, James, A genuine narrative of all the street robberies committed since October last (London, 1728), p. 32.Google Scholar

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27 P.R.O., H.O. 42/22/218a.

28 Hints to the public and the legislature on the prevalence of vice, and on the dangerous effects of seduction (London, 1811), p. 101.

29 Satan's Harvest Home: or the present state of whorecraft, adultery, fornication, procuring, pimping, sodomy and the game of flatts (London, 1749), p. 52.

30 Hell upon earth: or the town in an uproar (London, 1729), p. 43.

31 Holloway, , Phoenix of Sodom, p. 14.Google Scholar

32 Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W. B. and Martin, C. E., Sexual behaviour in the human male (Philadelphia and London, 1948) pp. 357–62, 382–4.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., pp. 455–7.

34 Kinsey, A. C. et al. , Sexual behaviour, p. 460, cf. p. 447 n1.Google Scholar

35 Cf. Henriques, F., Prostitution and society (3 vols, London, 1962–1968), 11, 143–87; 111, 49–87.Google Scholar

36 Cf. Harvey, A. D., ‘Clarissa and the puritan tradition’, Essays in Criticism, XXVIII (1978), 38–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Cf. Devereux, G., ‘Institutionalised homosexuality of the Mohave Indians’Google Scholar, in Ruitenbeek, Hendrik (ed.), The problem of homosexuality in modern society (1963)Google Scholar, and Karlen, A., Sexuality and homosexuality (London, 1971), pp. 463–80.Google Scholar

38 See Harvey, A. D., ‘Clarissa and the puritan tradition’Google Scholar, and Thomas, K., ‘The double standard’, Journal of the History of Ideas', XX (1959), 195–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 For an example of the kind of manly, role-reinforcing conversation which took place over the port at upper-class dinner parties, after the women had retired, see e.g. Bickley, F. (ed.), The diaries of Sylvester Douglas, Lord Glenbervie (2 vols., London 1928), 1, 4–6 (7 12 1793)Google Scholar: ‘Storer says that Selwyn professed never to have had connection with a woman but seven times in the whole of his life, and that the last time was with a maid at the Inn at Andover, when he was 29…When at Eton, Eden would lock Conway up for hours with Polly Jones but nothing ever happened between them. In all the familiar and libertine parties and conversations in which he used to be engaged in their younger days, living with some of the cleverest but most profligate persons of his time, Conway was never known to mention his having any connection with a woman…Storer says that all Thomas Grenville's acquaintance have the same belief concerning him’.

40 Holloway, , Phoenix of Sodom, p. 44.Google Scholar

41 Dalton, , Genuine narrative, pp. 37–40Google Scholar; Holloway, , Phoenix of Sodom, pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

42 Holloway, , Phoenix of Sodom, p. 10.Google Scholar

43 Ibid. p. 28, and Dalton, Genuine narrative, p. 40.

44 Satan's Harvest Home, p. 54.

45 Hints to the public…on the prevalence of vice, p. 101.

46 The Public Ledger, 15 July 1816.

47 The Morning Chronicle, 10 July 1810.

48 Cf. P.R.O., H.O. 42/45: Thompson, T. to Graham, A., 14 02 1800.Google Scholar

49 Parl Papers, 1819, VIII, p. 63.

50 Cf. Gilbert, A. N., ‘Social deviance and disaster during the Napoleonic War’Google Scholar

51 Cf. Karlen, , Sexuality and homosexuality, p. 88.Google Scholar