Gay Men in Regency England
Men who wanted to have casual sex with other men had many opportunities to do so in Regency London, either by picking up male prostitutes (who were reputedly often soldiers in the Guards, earning extra money) at recognised venues such as the city’s parks, or at ‘molly houses’, which catered specifically to their tastes. Such molly houses had been a discreet feature of the capital throughout the eighteenth century, and their patrons ranged across the social classes, while their activities included organising mock weddings. There were fewer opportunities outside London, although we know of a group of men from across the north west of England who met regularly at the village of Great Sankey, near Warrington in Cheshire, and who copied many of the forms of the Freemasons in an endeavour to ensure their secrecy. Probably there were many other, similar groups, while the larger towns and cities probably had established places of rendezvous, although the surviving evidence is thin and patchy.
It seems likely that it was much harder for a gay man to have a serious long-term relationship with another man than to have casual sex. Unrelated women could choose to live together without raising an eyebrow, but it was more difficult for two gentlemen to form a household together. It was a little easier if one was, or appeared to be, the domestic chaplain, secretary or servant of the other, but even in this case the household would usually have female servants to cook, clean and make the beds, and they would certainly notice what was going on and would probably disapprove. This was also relevant to officers, let alone ordinary soldiers and sailors in the army and navy, who seldom had much privacy; and social historians of the navy in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century have found little evidence that sodomy was widespread or tolerated, let alone an established tradition.
Male homosexuality of any kind, and particularly sodomy, was viewed with repugnance by society as a whole and was illegal. Prosecutions, which had been rare at the beginning of the eighteenth century, increased markedly from the 1780s, while between 1806 and 1861 no fewer than 404 men were sentenced to death for sodomy of whom 56 were executed (all before 1836). In 1810 a molly house in Clerkenwell, the White Swan, was raided and a group of men were arrested. Two were hanged and six sentenced to stand in the pillory, where a large crowd pelted them with rotten eggs and vegetables, stones, dead cats and buckets filled with blood, offal, dung and other filth, treatment which left them with significant injuries. A few years later Percy Jocelyn, the Anglican Bishop of Clogher, was arrested after being caught in a compromising position in the back room of a tavern in St James with a soldier named Moverley. The case attracted a great deal of publicity, including a number of satirical prints and pamphlets which sold in large numbers. Jocelyn was released on bail and disappeared, but was then stripped of his see, and is reported to have lived for the remainder of his life (another twenty years) under a false name in Scotland, working as a butler. He was buried in Edinburgh, but it appears that his body was re-interred in the family vault in Ireland, suggesting either that his family did not totally disown him or at least reclaimed him in death.
Not everyone accepted the prevailing view without question. A Yorkshire farmer, Matthew Tomlinson, wondered in his diary in 1810 whether it was right to punish men for urges and desires that were innate, although he was uncertain of the answer; and the radical philosopher Jeremy Bentham believed that homosexuality should be decriminalised, although he never dared to publish these views in his lifetime. Some occupations, such as trades connected with women’s hair and clothes, attracted effeminate men whose presence did nothing to harm the business, even if some writers felt obliged to deplore them as ‘delicate, contemptible beings’ unworthy of ‘the masculine character’. And for everyone who went along to jeer and pelt the men in the pillory there were many more who stayed at home or went about their business, feeling either indifference or even pity for the ‘criminals’.
Nonetheless there was little if any open disagreement with the public condemnation and abhorrence of sodomy, which was buttressed by biblical prohibitions. This made it a powerful accusation in the hurly-burly of political debate on the hustings. For example, in 1801, Sir Thomas Turton, Member of Parliament for Southwark, was attacked in a squib with the claim that he did not love women. The charge resurfaced as late as 1820 when, The Times reported, he defended himself by entering into an account of his youthful adventures with the opposite sex ‘a little more explicitly than we can decently report’. Given that Turton was not only married with seven children but had also gained notoriety by his affair with Mrs Dunnage, the wife of a City merchant, which is reported to have cost him £5,000 in ‘criminal conversation’ (crim. con.) damages, it is clear that such attacks were not restricted to bachelors or other obvious targets.
These attitudes created a tempting opportunity for blackmail, whether or not the victim was actually homosexual. In one case, in the 1790s, a soldier alleged that Sir John Riddle had tried to pick him up, while Riddle countered by accusing the soldier of attempting to blackmail him. As the evidence was ambiguous the law sided with the man in the more powerful position, and the soldier was tried, convicted and sentenced to death as a warning to others. But cases where the blackmail succeeded leave fewer traces. The most famous, but also ambiguous, example is that of Castlereagh, by then Lord Londonderry, who, in 1822, told the King that he was being blackmailed for committing the same crime as the Bishop of Clogher, having been lured into a house of ill repute by a man dressed as a woman. However, Londonderry was suffering from mental illness at the time and committed suicide soon after, and we do not know whether this was precipitated by something that actually happened or if the whole story was a delusion.
Some gay men felt obliged to live abroad in order to escape the expectations of British society. Lord Deskford, the son of Earl Findlater, was an early suitor of Lady Anne Lindsay. Tall, stiff, resembling ‘a young Van Dyke lord with a Roman nose’, he was considered a good match, but before the courtship progressed to a conclusion he left Scotland for the Continent, officially to recover from an illness in a warmer climate, but in fact to escape a scandal caused by his homosexual activities. Henry Grey Bennet, the fourth son of Lord Tankerville, resigned his seat in parliament and retired to the Continent, where he remained for the rest of his life, following accusations that he had ‘mistaken a boy for a girl at Brussels’. For men from a humbler background it was often sufficient to move to London or another part of the country, just as a young woman who had ‘lost her reputation’ might do. On the other hand, Lord George Germain (previously Lord George Sackville) rose to high office in Lord North’s Cabinet, despite the widespread belief that he was a sodomite and that he had behaved in a cowardly fashion at the Battle of Minden in 1759. However, it is possible that attitudes had hardened in the aftermath of the loss of America, and that he might not have been so successful a generation later.
— Rory Muir, Love and Marriage in the Age of Jane Austen (2024)
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