1800 - 1849
1800 In Brussels & the surrounding areas there were no convictions for sodomy in the previous
century.
A sailor made a habit of cornering boys, groping them and forcing them to emit semen in to his
hand. He was given 200 lashes and forced to leave the Navy with the maximum
disgrace.
1802 Rapports du physique et du moral de l’homme by George Cabanis contains one of the earliest
modern descriptions of what would latter be termed a homosexual.
Alexander von Humboldt takes up with Francisco José de Caldas in Ecuador.
1803 Last execution for sodomy in continental Europe takes place in Holland.
1803-4 Byron (13) at Harrow enjoys a very close friendship with Lord Clare.
1804 8 November. Coleridge denied to his diary that Shakespeare could have given physical
expression to his ‘pederastic sonnets.’
Mathusalah Spalding was hanged at the old Bailey for having a venereal affair with James
Hankinson.
1805 Heinrich von Kleist writes a love letter to a man. [more details].
Winckelmann and his Century by Goethe – included Johann Winckelmann’s love letters to men.
Goethe portrayed Winckelmann as “a complete man.”
A Year in Arcadia by August, Duke of Saxe-Gotha. It is a rococo homoerotic novel.
Autumn. Byron (17) meets John Edelston, originally attracted by his voice as a chorister. Then
by his face, and his manners.
A thriving same-sex community is uncovered in Chartres. Napoleon: “Nature has seen to it that
[these offences] are not frequent. The scandal of legal proceedings would only tend to
multiply them.”
1806 John Edelston (15) gives Lord Byron a cornelian ring, which the poet was wearing when he
died. He seems to have been the love of Byron’s life. Byron disguises Edelston as
‘Thyrza’ in his poetry.
Fugitive Pieces is published privately by Byron. He expresses feelings for younger boys.
Albert Gallatin in the N.American colonies said that the “Grecian vice” was common among
the Indians as well as among the back Woodsmen.
Patrick Coloquuhoun, stipendary magistrate, wrote to other London magistrates to watch James
Samuel Oliver Massey, or Miller or Millwood who “had long been in the habit of
seducing drum boys belonging to the King’s Guards.” Boys who succumbed to his
advances were known as “butterflies.”
At this date more sodomites were executed each year, than murderers.
1806-35 During this period more than 80 men were executed for sodomy. Where?
1807Poems on Various Occasions is published privately by Byron. He again expresses feelings for
younger boys.
Death of Henry Stuart with his companion of 40 years, Angelo Cesarini, by his side.
26 June. Testimony from a sodomy trial: “Peace unbutt’d my Breeches and put up my Shirt I
asked him wt he was going to do he said I was to be quiet and lie still; I told him he
ought to be quiet & lie still because I wanted to go to sleep he took his Yard and put [it]
to my Fundament. I told him it was worth his Life to do any such thing…he did not say
a word but proceeded on he went to put his Yard into my Fundament it went in a little
way not far.”
June. John Edelston, Byron’s ‘Cornelian’, leaves Cambridge.
5 July. Byron mentions the Ladies of Llangollen in a letter when referring to other same-sex
couples.
Sept-Oct. William Beckford characterises himself as Barzaba – boy-fancier. He employs his
general factotum, Gregorio Franchi to pimp some boys for him. He was especially
attracted to Saunders (18), the celebrated equestrian Infant-Phenomenon”. Saunders
was a tight-rope walker “and the certain captivator of every bugger’s soul.”
June. John Edelston, Byron’s ‘Cornelian’, leaves Cambridge.
William Berry, 1st Lt of the Hazard, was convicted for sodomy after a court martial. His execution
was bodged and he took 15 minutes to die.
1808 8 March. John Church writes a love letter to his friend Ned.
August. Rumours begin circulating in Banbury that Rev. John Church had been sodomitically
assaulting young male members of his congregation. Church initially flees to
Birmingham.
Richard Neighbour was arrested for buggery with Joshua Archer and sentenced to be hanged.
Lord Liverpool, Home Secretary, wrote to the rangers of Hyde Park & St James’s Park asking
that the parks be locked at night: “we must prevent these scandalous practices in such a
way that the public is kept ignorant of the disgrace of them.”
1809 Charles Slatter (19) accuses Rev. Charles Shipley of indecently assaulting him when he tried to
deliver some books. The case was dismissed but Shipley was deprived of his fellow-
ship.
Byron describes his Greek companion, Eustathius, who has: “ambrosial curls hanging down his
amiable back…we travelled very much enamoured…our parting was vastly pathetic, as
many kisses as would have sufficed for a boarding school, and embraces enough to
have ruined the character of a county in England.”
James Barry in the guise of a man obtains a medical degree at Edinburgh University.
Portrait Claiming to be of Dr James Barry
The Comte de Blacas (38) from Provençal, becomes the new favourite of Louis XVIII.
James Taylor, ship surgeon on the Jamaica, was sentenced to hang for consensual sex with a
cabin-boy.
The Life and Surprising Adventures of Mary Anne Talbot. This purports to describe her career
in the male guise of John Taylor on a variety of ships and in skirmishes with the French.
3 March. John Church enjoys a 4-month affair with Edward B (Ned), a chapel attendant, and at
least 2 surviving letters date from this month.
26 March. German police wrote about the celebrated actor, playwright, director and producer:
“[August Wilhelm] Iffland is a member of secret societies and harbours an immoral
tendency towards his own sex.”
31 March. A police inspector reported: “I was assured he [Iffland] was devoted to sodomy.
8 July. The White Swan, a Molly House, is raided. Thomas White (16), a drummer-boy and
Ensign John Hepburn (42) are found in bed together and then executed. In attendance
were some who may have enjoyed the favours of White: the Duke of Cumberland, Lord
Sefton & Lord Yarmouth.
16 November. Richard Oakden, a bank clerk, is hanged at Tyburn for sodomy. Rev. John
Church officiates at his funeral.
Georges Ferrers Townshend (aka the earl of Leicester) prosecuted the publishers of the Morning
Herald for libel. The paragraph they published included: “articles have been exhibited
against a Noble Lord by his Lady, similar to the articles by Lady Audley against her
Lord, upon which he was convicted and deservedly executed.” (see 1631). Townshend
had asked for £20,000 damages, but was only awarded £1,000. Before the judgement,
Townshend had fled to Paris.
18107 March. John Church ordered never to return to Banbury. (see 1808)
30 May. The Duke of Cumberland is found covered in blood and one of his valets was dead.
There is a theory that Cumberland and Neale (a valet) were lovers, and caught by the
valet Sellis who was then murdered.
6 June. Hobhouse recorded in his diary that John Edelston has been accused of indecency.
Byron is likely to have had a sexual relationship with ‘Nicolo’ Giraud (15).
Summer. James Cook and Yardley set up a male brothel at the White Swan in Vere Street. John
Church performed several marriage services for male same-sex couples.
8 July. A police raid on the White Swan took place. At least 23 men were arrested.
27 September. 6 of the White Swan men were found guilty of attempted sodomy and exhibited in
the pillory for an hour. The mob pelted them with mud, rotten eggs & filth. After an
hour it was scarcely possible to distinguish the human shapes.
2 newspapers blamed ‘the evil’ discovered in raids on molly houses on the Napoleonic Wars.
Anne Lister (19) begins an affair with Isabella Norcliffe (25).
In Maryland, a Mr Davis was accused of attempting to perform buggery on WC (19).
December. Thomas White (16), drummer of the Guards and John Hepburn (42), an ensign were
convicted of buggery after being tricked into a meeting by James Mann, another drummer,
who had been arrested in the White Swan case.
Few of the gentlemen of Torquay would visit William Courtenay because of his notoriety, and his
servants were reviled.
The print ‘Fashionable Ties’ hints that the dandy is just a short step away from a criminal
conviction.
Chevalier D’Eon dies [1777,1785], and on her death is found to have male genitals, but with some
female characteristics. Society was shocked that a man would live almost his whole life
as a woman.
1811 February. An Essex magistrate gathered evidence against William Courtenay, and issues a warrant.
Courtenay flees to France.
13 January. Charles Matthews writes to Byron: “At no place or time, I suppose, since the creation
of the world, has sodomy been so rife…what you get for five pounds we must risk our
necks for.”
7 March Hepburn & White see (1810) were hanged outside Newgate witnessed by a large mob.
September. The Monthly Magazine includes a reference to the episode of the catamite in the
garden of Gethsemane.
John Edleston (20), Byron’s former choirboy-lover dies from tuberculosis. Byron is more upset
than after the recent death of his mother. He was inspired to write at least 7 moving
‘Thyrza’ elegies. Pronouns were changed to female for publication.
Marianne Woods & Jane Pirie ran a small Scottish boarding school for girls. A student accused
them of “improper & criminal” conduct with each other. They sued the child’s
grandmother for libel. The judges at the trial couldn’t believe two hard-working middle-
class women could possibly have had sex with each other, and they were vindicated.
A servant accuses the Bishop of Clogher [Percy Jocelyn] of attempting to have sex with him. The
Bishop claimed criminal libel, and won the case.
1812August von Platen, future poet and page at the court of the King of Bavaria, realises he is attracted
to men.
March. John Church is accused of attempting to sodomise William Clark of Ipswich.
Byron almost meets William Beckford and notes that Lord Courtenay was only one stage of the
journey on the same road behind Beckford.
Isabella Norcliffe introduces Anne Lister to the future love of her life, Marianne Belcombe. Their
relationship continues despite the latter’s marriage.
1813April. John Church is smeared by The Weekly Dispatch for his part in the Vere Street scandal of
1810. Church is charged with sodomising William Webster 10 years earlier with his
consent – he is not convicted.
18 September. Beckford writes that “he’d like to run away with some great Jock.”
A more sensational version of Henry Fielding’s The Female Husband. (see 1746).
The pamphlet The Phoenix of Sodom, or, The Vere Street Coterie by Robert Holloway appears
anonymously. It emphasized the secrecy & ubiquity of sodomy.
François Fodéré’s Treatise on Medicine. He includes a section on sodomy, which he prefaces with
“Oh, that I could avoid sullying my quill with the foul obscenity of pederasts!”
Homosexuality was no longer punishable by death in Bavaria.
1814Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Mary Crawford: “my home at my uncle’s brought me acquainted
with a circle of admirals. Of Rears, and Vices, I saw enough. Now, do not be suspecting
me of a pun, I entreat.”
Goethe begins writing West-eastern Divan; inspired by the work of the Persian poet Hafez. Some
poems have homoerotic content.
Lara by Byron has in the first canto 2 males apparently in love, but one turns out to be female.
Anne Lister breaks off her relationship with Isabella Norcliffe.
After Napoleon’s fall, Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambacérès is portrayed in royalist caricatures as a
cowardly ‘auntie’, and a pursuer of handsome young men.
Christian Schiøtt, army cadet (16), confesses he has committed pederasty with c.12 men. The
pederastic group had been organised by Franciscus Dumont, milliner.
1814-6Jeremy Bentham writes but doesn’t publish ‘Offences Against Taste.’
1815Anne Lister goes to live with her godparents at Shibden Hall, near Halifax
6 April. Morning Chronicle: “a hoary miscreant, a workhouse pauper [was executed for] a crime
at which nature shudders, not a syllable of the evidence on which we can state.”
The Edinburgh Annual register relates the story of a black woman (20) who successfully posed as
the captain of a ship. She came to London as a prizefighter, and gained great plaudits.
It has been alleged that the Copenhagen same-sex subculture consisted of a Parisian milliner and
10 of his friends.
A sailor court-martialled for buggery on HMS Africaine, in an attempt to clear his name, spoke
“of a crime which would to God t’were never more seen on earth.”
Louis XVIII officially becomes king after Napoleon’s defeat, but is forced to give up his favourite
The Comte de Blacas. He was replaced by Elie Decazes (31), a handsome prefect of
police.
181617 August. John Church is sentenced to 2 years in prison for attempted buggery of Adam
Foreman (19), a servant. In prison he writes letters, sermons & his memoirs.
1 February. The Times reports that James Cooper and 3 shipmates on HMS Africaine were
executed for buggery. Two other shipmates John Parsons & Jack Hubbard were whipped
for “uncleanness.”
John Eglerton, waiter, married with children is accused of sodomy by a stable-boy and sentenced
to death.
Autumn. A sodomite about to be hung wants to make a full confession of names & dates of his
sins, but is dissuaded by the presiding clergyman.
Sir Eyre Coote was removed from the Army List & stripped of the Order of the Bath after he was
found guilty of flogging boys of Christ’s Hospital, and paying them to flog him.
The pillory was no longer to be used for punishment for sodomy.
1817 Franz Desgouttes (32), Swiss lawyer, is executed in Bern for killing his male lover, Daniel
Hemmeler (22) in a fit of jealousy. The cruelty of the punishment inspired Hössli, who
had a sodomitical son to research the subject. [1836].
Jeremy Bentham asks William Beckford to help him with advocating for the abolition of the death
penalty for sodomy.
The Infamous Life of John Church is published anonymously.
August von Platen writes in his diary: “My whole life long I shall carry this unstilled yearning for
an intimate, inseparable Friend in whom I would be able to forget myself.”
21 January. Vincenzo Monti, poet, reports in a letter that the improvisational poet Tommaso
Sgricci’s reputation has been ruined because he wears make-up & he makes no attempt to
hide his ‘Greek love’ for his young servant Tognino.
22 February. Monti is amused when he enters Sgricci’s room unannounced and finds him in bed
with a youth.
1818Shelley reads Plato’s Phaedrus and writes ‘A Discourse on the Manners of the Ancient Greeks
Relative to the Subject of Love.’ He tentatively suggests that sodomy could be an
expression of love. The complete text could not be published until 1931.
December. 17 men, most dressed in the most exquisite style of dandyism were arrested in the
house of William Wasley, a Methodist Preacher in Marlborough St. They were indicted for
conspiring together to commit an abominable crime. One defendant was released without
charge. Wasley & Hower were imprisoned in Newgate for 12 months, and the remainder
for 6 months. Between the Sessions-House and Newgate they were conveyed in a cart, but
were covered in ordure poured from buildings on the route. Some of the men were almost suffocated.
By this time Jeremy Bentham had written a 500-page treatise on why same-sex lovers shouldn’t
be punished for an activity in which they do no harm to anyone.
Astolphe de Custine, a French aristocrat with same-sex inclinations, is seen as a potential son-in-
law by the Duchesse de Duras. He initially shows interest, but mysteriously withdraws,
causing Duras to suspect he was impotent.
A German visitor to London warned that in England: “the kiss of friendship between men is
strictly avoided as inclining towards the sin regarded in England as more abominable than
any other.”
Louis XVIII makes Elie Decazes his Minister of the Interior.
1819Goethe’s West-eastern Divan: including versions of Hafez’s homoerotic poems.
‘To Schmidtlein’ by August von Platen, a homoerotic poem is written. August von Platen is very
intimate with Schmidtlein, a student, until the latter realises Platen “was a monster,” that
he had a “disgusting lust,” which he “despised.”
17 April. Tommaso Sgricci went to Rome to be crowned poet on the Capitoline Hill, but was
expelled from the Papal State before this could take place. The official reason was that
he had criticized the pope, but it was believed his openly expressed same-sex desires
were problematical.
12 October. William Beckford is attracted to a soldier in Bath, and would love to “take some
lessons in drilling from him.”
Robert Cruikshank produces the print A Dandy Fainting, or, An Exquisite in Fits: Scene a Private
Box Opera. Signor Nonballenas, a castrato, sings, but this causes a dandy to faint. The
print contains phallic innuendo.
Count Giuseppe Gorani dies. His posthumously-published memoirs contain detailed descriptions
of his own sexual desires & some of his contemporaries.
1819-20 Fanny Hill was the subject of the first obscene literature prosecutions in the US.
1819-24 Don Juan by Lord Byron appears episodically.
1820 Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer published.
Byron notes in a letter that Tommaso Sgricci, the brilliant Italian improviser, is “also a celebrated
sodomite” with a passion for his servant Tognino.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (17) at Harvard begins to fall in romantic love with a fellow student,
Martin Gay, but they hardly exchange words with each other.
The secret society the Cambridge Apostles are formed. Close male friendships are a feature.
The Duc de Berry is assassinated & Louis XVIII is forced to give up Elie Decazes.
1821 21 January. Kenilworth by Walter Scott published. A character calls the astrologer “the infractor
of the Lex Julia”. This law of 149 BC imposed a fine on same-sex male sexual
intercourse.
Ghaselen by August von Platen. An imitator of the homoerotic poetry of Hafiz. The poems
were inspired by von Platen’s love for von Bülow, an officer of dragoons.
Anne Lister contracts a STI from Marianna Belcombe, who caught it from her husband. She
confides to her diary: “I love and only love the fairer sex and thus, beloved by them in
turn my heart revolts from any love but theirs.”
Franz Schubert lives at times with Franz von Schober known to be “an unprincipled and
dangerous seducer.”
Eros oder über die Liebe by Heinrich Zschokke – a volume of same-sex ‘apologetics’. Heinrich
Hössli, who had provided all the research felt betrayed by the conclusion, that ancient
Greek legislation on homoeroticism, should not be regarded as an ideal, started work on
his version [1836].
Byron passes Lord Clare on a road in Italy and the feelings of 1803-4 are rekindled.
182219 July. Percy Jocelyn, the Bishop of Clogher is caught with his breeches down by his ankles with
a young guardsman, John Moverley, at the White Lion in the Haymarket area. He
jumps bail and flees abroad. He became known as the “Arse-Bishop.”
12 August. Castlereagh, the British foreign Minister, slashes his throat after threats of blackmail
after being accused of the same crime as the Bishop of Clogher.
Astolphe, Marquis de Custine installs a young Englishman Edward Sainte-Barbe in a wing of his
apartments as a lifelong companion. They cohabit for over 30 years.
Byron spends a day in the company of Lord Clare. On returning to Greece he falls in love with
Lukas, a youth.
Thackeray enters his school dormitory, and the first words he hears are: “come and frig me.”
Anne Lister visits the Ladies of Llangollen.
1823 The Foundling, or, The Child of Providence by Rev. John Church.
Byron while in Greece falls in love with Lukas, a 15-year-old boy, who doesn’t return his love, but
takes his money.
Astolphe de Custine marries an innocent orphan foisted on him by his mother. A ménage à trois
is formed.
Byron in Cephalonia meets and falls in love with Loukas Chalandroutsanos (15), who was his
travelling companion for the remainder of his life.
Marianna Belcombe begins to distance herself from Anne Lister, because of her masculine
appearance, and worried she would be discovered in a lesbian relationship.
1823-36 The anonymous poem Don Leon catalogues a list of male lovers, and makes dark hints at
Byron’s same-sex love-life.
1824A ‘Miss Nancy-boy’ is defined as an effeminate man in William Carr’s Dialects of Craven in West
Yorkshire.
28 October. Astolphe, Marquis de Custine is found stripped and unconscious in a street outside
Paris. It was alleged he had a sexual tryst and his reputation was ruined for a short
time. His assignation was with a soldier. The soldier’s comrades shaved Custine’s
head, ripped his clothes off, smashed his hand with a stone to take his wedding-ring
& forced him to walk back to Paris in the rain.
Anne Lister visits Paris, where she meets and has an affair with Maria Barlow.
In a report on the conditions of French prisons, Louis-René Villermé, thought active pederasts
were born with that proclivity, and that it had been inherited.
Ralph Waldo Emerson reads about James I’s propensity for favourites and wonders in his diary if
private relationships have been contaminated by Public suspicions.
Wordsworth meets the Ladies of Llangollen, and later writes a sonnet about them.
Charles Metcalfe (future India Governor-General) wrote to his sister extolling the pure love,
which exists between men, surpassing the love between men & women.
1825John Muirhead, 72, (member of the Socy for the Suppression of Vice) picked up an apprentice,
showed him indecent prints and fondled him outside a print shop off Piccadilly. He
gave him two ‘skins’ [condoms], and asked if he could fill them. He was arrested for
doing the same with 3 young men in the back room of an oyster shop. He received a
sentence of 15 months for both offences.
Anne Lister and Marianna Belcombe participate in a private partnership ceremony.
August. Maria Barlow writes a love letter to Anne Lister.
c.1825Nikolai Gogol in his teens becomes sentimentally attached to Gerasim Vysotsky.
1826The Last of the Mohicans by Fenimore Cooper. This includes the homoerotic relationship between
Chingachgook and Natty Bumppo.
Joseph Fiévée (civil servant) and Théodore Leclercq’s (budding playwright) living arrangements
are the subject of comment.
Richard Heber (48), bibliophile and friend of Walter Scott is caught in compromising
circumstances with Charles Hartshorne, 19, (future curate). He is advised to flee
abroad before his trial.
Tommaso Sgricci retires to Florence, where he cruises the streets in tight-fitting lower garments,
looking for grenadiers from a nearby barracks.
Thomas Jefferson Withers (22) future lawyer & Judge sends sexually explicit letters to his school-
friend James Henry Hammond (19), a future governor, asking: “Whether you yet
have the extravagant delight of poking and punching a writhing Bedfellow with your
long fleshen pole – the exquisite touches of which I have often had the hono[u]r of
feeling.”
In Massachusetts and Georgia a prison visitor, Louis Dwight sent in his findings: “Boys are
prostituted to the lust of old convicts…I am aware that the mere suggestion of this
subject is so revolting, that we should gladly omit the further consideration of it.”
Tiberius’ Blue Grotto on Capri is rediscovered, and the island becomes a magnet for same-sex
activity.
1827 Expanded version of Goethe’s West-eastern Divan: including versions of Hafez’s homoerotic
poems.
Mary Shelley assisted Mary Diana Dods to elope to Paris with Isabella Robinson. Dods later took
of the name of Walter Sholto Douglas, which was the actual name of Isabella’s husband.
Summer. Von Platen falls for a young poet, August Kopisch.
Standahl’s Armance includes Octave, a frigid aristocrat “with the most beautiful blond curls in the
world”, throws his servant out of the window, then adopts the man, becomes his
‘servant’ and eventually sends him away with money to pay for his silence. Servant
beating seems to have been a metaphor for same-sex acts.
Giàcomo Leopardi (29), Italian poet, meets Antonio Ranieri (21) – love letters exist from
Leopardi to Ranieri.
A cavalry sergeant was drummed out of his barracks for having carried out a same-sex affair.
1828Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries by Leigh Hunt. Hunt described Byron as handsome
but “tending to fat and effeminacy.”
Nikolai Gogol meets Gerasim Vysotsky again in St Petersburg and tries to renew their intimacy,
but Gogol is rebuffed.
Tennyson
1829 April. Arthur Hallam & Tennyson meet and soon become close friends. They join the Cambridge
Apostles, which includes a great number of members who formed intimate male
friendships. These include: Hallam, Tennyson, William Butler, Richard Monckton
Milnes, Henry Lushington, George Venables & James Spedding. In this year Hallam
& Milnes seemed especially close for a few months. Hallam wrote to Milnes that
“though the basest passions have roused themselves in the deep caverns of my nature
…I will struggle yet, and have faith in God.” Milnes went to Greece, Egypt & the
Orient, collecting stories about pederasty.
The Baths of Lucca by Heinrich Heine. He makes an attack on August von Platen and his
homoerotic poetry.
Astolphe de Custine publishes Aloys anonymously. It gives one of the first psychological analyses
of life in the closet.
John Muirhead (see 1825) was arrested in Dover for a similar offence as 4 years’ earlier. He fled
abroad.
Eleanor Butler one of the celebrated ‘Ladies of Llangollen’ dies putting an end to their 50-year
union.
James Allen was killed in an industrial accident. He had earned his living as a carpenter for 21
years. At the coroner’s inquest he was found to be female.
1830Heinrich Heine’s Reisebilder dritter Teil publicised August von Platen’s interest in same-sex love.
Others would now be able to find veiled references in von Platen’s work.
Sarrasine by Honoré de Blazac. A novella about a castrato.
1831Sarah Ponsonby, the last surviving of the ‘Ladies of Llangollen’ dies.
Arthur Hallam wins a prize for his essay ‘on Cicero.’ He mentions Greek love as “the noblest
kind of love.”
1831-2Giàcomo Leopardi and Antonio Ranieri spend 5 months together in Rome.
1832Edward Dyce in relation to Shakespeare’s Sonnets concluded that a faithful friendship was a mere
convention.
September. Anne Lister confides to her aunt about her sexuality.
Anne Lister begins an affair with Anne Walker, a neighbouring heiress. Walker is uneasy about
sexual intimacy.
Anne Lister
John Henry Newman has a very close friendship with Richard Hurrell Froude, as they tour the
Mediterranean together.
Edward Fitzgerald (23) spends the first of 12 summers with William Kenworthy Browne (16).
Humphry Woolrych, barrister, points out that adultery and cursing of mother and father were
denounced strongly in Leviticus, but not punished to anything like same extent as sodomy.
1832-4 Hans Christian Andersen is infatuated with Ludwig Müller, a divinity student.
1833 Léila by George Sand includes lesbianism, but it is associated with misanthropy & incest. There
is a brave love scene between Léila and her sister, Pulchérie, the world’s most famous
courtesan, but it is followed by guilt & wickedness.
January. Eliza Edwards (24), tragic actress, dies of a lung infection. At her autopsy, she is
found to be male. “The state of the rectum left no doubt of the abominable practices to
which this individual had been addicted.”
William John Bankes MP is arrested for sexual misconduct with Flower, a guardsman, in an
urinal, close to the Houses of Parliament, but Wellington among others testifies for him at
his trial and he is acquitted. (see 1841).
A textbook by Adolf Henke stated that sodomy was an “abominable vice”, and described the
medical results, so practitioners could be identified in court.
Captain Henry Nicholls (50) was hanged for sodomy and was completely ignored by his well-
respected family.
Hans Andersen writes to Edvard Collin that his own “softness & half womanliness” makes him
cling to Edvard.
Hans Christian Andersen
“The Rummy Cove’s Delight” was a popular verse about people posing as a different sex as to
that assigned at birth.
Charles Baring Wall (38) was arrested for making sexual overtures to a policeman, John Palmer
(23). His friends closed ranks and spoken for Baring’s character. Palmer had to resign
from the police.
5 January. Giàcomo Leopardi writes another love-letter to Antonio Ranieri referring to the
derision Ranieri has been receiving because of Leopardi’s attentions to him.
15 September. Arthur Hallam dies from ague in Vienna. Tennyson is bereft and mourns for the
next 20 years.
1834 Le Père Goriot by Balzac. This includes the queer character Vautrin (Jacques Collin).
Séraphîta by Balzac is published in the Revue de Paris. Séraphîta-Séraphîtus is loved by
Minna, who believes she is a man; but she is also loved by Wilfrid, who thinks she is a
woman. However, Séraphîta-Séraphîtus is a perfect androgyne, the perfect example of
humanity.
An English ‘sodomite’ was convicted for having sex with a sheep.
1834-5 La Fille aux yeux d’or by Balzac is a melodramatic story about a lesbian.
1834-6 Stendahl’s unfinished novel Lucien Leuwen appears. His notes betray that Lord Link was con-
ceived as type of Bishop of Clogher, but he was not to make that too obvious in the text.
1834-6 Historiettes by Gédéon Tallemant is finally published, written before 1690. The same-sex
peccadilloes of Louis XIII are included.
1835 The Sinks of London. It purports to be a journalist’s account of a cheap lodging house in Seven
Dials. It includes an example of a woman in man’s attire.
Easter. Anne Lister & Ann Walker solemnize their union in York.
Mademoiselle de Maupin by Théophile Gautier published. Based loosely on the life of Julie
D’Aubigny (1673-1707). The titular character employs multiple disguises to seduce a
young man and his mistress. D’Albert muses on ideal beauty which includes the skin of
Antinous and the muscles of Hercules. A homoerotic relationship between a master and
his pageboy is also depicted.
August. John Spershott (19) from a good family is hanged for forcing himself on George
Howard (8).
Taras Bulba by Gogol. Chapter 9 on comradeship deals strongly with male-bonding.
Hans Andersen drafts a letter to Edvard Collin that is love for him was “a pure, noble feeling.”
November. John Smith & John Pratt, 2 poor men in a derelict boarding house on the Thames,
are the last men to be hanged for sodomy in England.
Christmas. Hans Christian Andersen publishes ‘The Naughty Boy’. During a storm, a
beautiful, naked boy carrying a cross-boy knocks at an old poet’s door. The poet sits
the boy on his lap, dries him off & the drooping bow-string becomes taut again. Then
the boy then shoots off an arrow through the old man’s heart. A wicked little cupid!
New laws were enacted against sodomy in Russia. There are very few prosecutions.
c.1835 Several German doctors thought that pederasty led to tuberculosis, dropsy & typhoid.
1835-6 Mademoiselle de Maupin, double amour by Theophile Gautier. The first volume includes one
of the first realisations of a same-sex character coming out to themselves. Mme de
Maupin dresses as a man to hear what men say about women.
Das Lebeb Jesu by Friedrich Strauss, began to find a more androgynous Jesus.
1835-6 Hans Christian Andersen writes letters to a young friend Edvard Collin, including the passage:
“I long for you as though you were a beautiful Calabrian girl.”
Hippolyte Flandrin paints Nude Young Man Seated on a Rock.
1836 The first volume of Eros: Die Männerliebe der Griechen: Ihre Beziehunger zur Geschichte,
Erziehung, Literatur und Gesetzgebung aller Zeiten by Heinrich Hössli is published.
(English title: Eros: The Male Love of the Greeks: Its relationship to the History,
Education, Literature & Legislation of All Ages). A serious study of Greek love
written by a self-educated milliner, and is chaotic, but was an inspiration for later
projects. [see 1821].
The Beggar’s Benison Society is dissolved. (1732)
A quarter of Parisian prostitutes are said to be lesbian.
John Henry Newman’s close personal friend Richard Hurrell Froude dies.
Albert Dodd, while at Washington College, Hartford, records in his diary his unrequited love
for John Heath: “How completely I loved him, how I doated on him…and then how
to sleep with him, to hold his beloved form in my embrace, to have his arms around
my neck, to imprint upon his face sweet kisses!”
6 August. The Lancet on ‘Adhesiveness’: “I know 2 gentlemen whose attachment to each other
was so excessive, as to amount to a disease…they slept in the same bed, sat constant-
ly alongside each other at table, spoke in affectionate whispers, and were…miserable
when separated.”
1836-7Illusions perdues [Lost Illusions] by Balzac includes a luscious description of a young queer
poet, Lucien de Rubempré. Oscar Wilde and Marcel Proust later identified the
character as homosexual.
1837 Albert Dodd records his love for Anthony Halsey, which seems to be returned. At Yale he
falls for Jabez Smith.
Abraham Lincoln (28) moves in and shares a bed with Joshua Speed (21) a furniture store
proprietor. They were bedmates for 4 years.
21 March. Thomas Munson & Alex McArthur were expelled from the New Lebanon Shaker
community for living together like a married couple.
Herman Melville (17) is a cabin boy from New York to Liverpool. It is believed he may
have witnessed same-sex activity.
The Little Mermaid by Hans Andersen – an existential & poetic reflection of his love for
Edvard Collin.
In Spitalfields William Sheen & David Romaine were arrested for running a brothel special-
ising in very young pubescent boys.
Moritz H. E. Meier published 40 pages on Greek ‘Päderastie’, love of boys, in a large
Encyclopedia. He wrote scientifically, with no attempt to either criticise the Greeks
or extol their practices. Some think this is the benchmark of writing on Greek Love.
1838 Second volume of Heinrich Hoessli’s pioneering work is published see 1836.
In the Physiognomy of Mental Diseases one case was J.T.D. (40), a day labourer, who was
“addicted to this unnatural vice” [fellatio]; on one occasion the mouth of an idiot
boy was the receipient.”
Gogol falls in love with Count Iosif Vielhorsky in Rome and nurses him for 5 months as he
dies from tuberculosis. It was the happiest & most fulfilling time of his life.
1839 The Sydney Herald reveals that sodomites were “obtaining companions” at the intermissions
and during the performances at the Victoria Theatre and then “drinking & supping
with them at the hostelry across the way.”
‘Sympathy’, an elegy by Thoreau, inspired by Edmund Sewall (11).
William Porter travels from Belfast to South Africa to be Attorney General with his lifetime
Companion, Hugh Lynar. [1873]
1839-47 A Harlot High and Low by Balzac is public. Includes the character Herrera and Jacques
Collin.
1840 Anne Lister dies of a fever on a climbing holiday in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. Anne
Walker returns with Lister’s embalmed body.
c.1840 Nikolai Gogol has an open affair in Rome for a year with Iosif Veilhorsky, until the latter dies
from consumption.
1841 Thoreau lives with Emerson as his handyman, and in 1843 and 1847.
William John Bankes is arrested again for sexual misconduct (see 1833) – this time for having
sex with a soldier on a bench in Green Park. He signs over Kingston Lacy to his
brother. He flees Britain for France initially, and then on to Venice to avoid
sodomy charges. For the remainder of his life his enriches Kingston Lacy with
treasures purchased in exile.
‘The Child’s Champion’, a short story by Walt Whitman – first work with homoerotic content.
Whitman is accused of bad behaviour with children by Rev. Ralph Smith.
Hubert Lauvergne discovered a ‘third sex’ in Toulon’s prison hulks, notable for having: wispy
beard, moist eye, indolence etc.
The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe. The relationship between the narrator and
Dupin has homoerotic undertones. “I felt that the society of such a man would
be to me a treasure beyond price.” “I quietly fell; giving myself up to his wild
whims with a perfect abandon. They lock themselves away burning perfumed
tapers, and emerge at night arm-in-arm.
A parodist portrays Hans Christian Andersen as the ‘Grand Eunuch.’
1841-2 Herman Melville jumps ship with his friend Richard Greene in the Marquesas Islands. He later
uses this experience to inform his novel Typee.
1842 Gogol’s Dead Souls.
‘Morte d’Arthur’ & ‘Sir Galahad’ by Tennyson – homoerotic elements.
William Bankes MP is arrested again (see 1833), for having sex with a soldier in St. James’s
Park. He fled to the continent and never returned to England.
A New York journal, The Whip, noted the increase in sodomites: “we find no Americans as yet
– they are all Englishmen or French-.”
1842-3 ‘The Ugly Duckling’ by Hans Christian Andersen has a gender crisis.
1843 John Henry Newman meets Ambrose St. John, and they live together for 32 years.
The Gamblers by Nikolai Gogol depicts an all-male criminal sub-culture.
1844 The second volume of Die Welt als Willie und Vorstellung by Schopenhauer contains a depress-
ing explanation of pederasty. He argued that children should not be begot when
the parent was too young or too old. A diversion into pederasty could ensure
poor breeders are given a relatively harmless outlet.
Hans Christian Andersen spends an idyllic 3-week holiday in Ettersburg with Karl Alexander,
Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. He is infatuated with him for
the next 4 years.
Before this date Oxford college fellows were not permitted to marry.
1844-5 The Count of Monte-Cristo by Alexandre Dumas contains an episode in which Beppo, a
disguised servant-boy is found attractive by Albert de Morcerf.
On Dandyism & George Brummell by Jules-Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly.
It refers to dandies as “hermaphrodites of history.”
1845 Edward Lear (33) meets Chichester Fortescue (22) with whom he forms a very close friendship.
They remain friends for the remainder of Lear’s life.
Richard Burton was sent to investigate brothels in Sind, India. He sent precise information
about male brothels in Karachi.
c.1845 Edward Fitzgerald (36) meets Edward Cowell (18) and encourages him with no formal
education to go to Oxford.
1846 Herman Melville publishes his first novel Typee, which features some apparently homosexual
undertones. Native islanders are described in terms of beauty.
Edward McCosker, N.York Police officer, was accused of touching a man’s genitals. A
colleague defended him by saying he had slept with him for 3 months, but no
improprieties took place.
St Giovanni Bosco founds an oratory for youths – 300 attend his first.
Winter. Schopenhauer meets Julius Frauenstädt, and they become very close friends. He
became Schopenhauer’s literary executor and interpreter of his work.
1847 Omoo by Melville. This contains an allusion to the unnatural crimes of the Tahaitan Prince
Pomaree II. Native islanders are lovingly described.
The Princess by Tennyson – homoerotic elements.
A book bringing together contemporary accounts and illustrations of The ‘Ladies of
Llangollen’ is published.
Le Cousin Pons by Balzac contains a scene in which Schmucke apparently tells a young helper
that he would like to have a bath with him as his passive pederast.
Edward Protheroe, MP, is accused of luring boys to his home.
1848 Walt Whitman visits New Orleans where he may have had a brief affair with a man. The poem
‘Once I pass’d Through a Populous City’ alludes to this event.
James Brooke, British soldier and adventurer, in Sarawak is alleged to have started an affair
with Charles T.C. Grant (grandson of the earl of Elgin), which lasted 20
years.
Vanity Fair by Thackeray contains Jos [‘Waterloo’] Sedley, who declares: “I am a dressy man.”
“He blushed and turned away alarmed at their [women’s] glances, it was
chiefly from dread lest they should make love to him.” Later, in Calcutta he
gave the best bachelor dinners.”
Edward Lear meets Franklin Lushington, barrister, for whom he forms a non-reciprocated deep
attachment.
12 April. Dombey & Son published in book form. Some modern critics have seen the character
of Major Bagstock who is uninterested in being married, and who never
pursues a romance, as being a possible homosexual character. Earlier in life he
was Flower, which was the name of the soldier caught with the MP, William
Bankes.
In Riom prison, Auvergne, France, a young man is separated from his same-sex lover, leading
to a prison riot.
1849 Redburn by Herman Melville. Notable for the passages describing Carlo, and the characters of
Jackson and Bolton. Harry Bolton, especially is described in homoerotic terms.
Chapter 46 is set in a male brothel. Male prostitutes were “standing in sentimental
attitudes in front of Palmo’s in Broadway.”
Mardi by Melville. A celebration of two men and their intimate friendship.
City Crimes by George Thompson (‘Greenhorn’). One crime is sodomy.
New York rent boys are mentioned are having sold themselves near Central Park to “genteel
foreign vagabonds.”
La Petite Fadette by George Sand includes an emotional male character, Sylvinet.
Edward Lear (37) meets Franklin Lushington (26), a young barrister, in Malta. Lear is infatua-
ted, which is not reciprocated, but they remain lifelong friends.
Hans Christian Andersen’s long, intimate friendship with the young Karl Alexander ends when
war breaks out between their 2 nations.
A medical dictionary perpetuates the fallacy that lesbians have an enlarged clitoris.
1849-50 Edward Leeves, diarist, gave guardsmen lovers presents & paid for seaside jaunts
Bibliography
Ackroyd, Peter, Queer City: Gay London From the Romans to the Present Day, London: Chatto & Windus, 2017.
Aldrich, Robert, Gay Life Stories, London: Thames & Hudson, 2023.
Aldrich, Robert & Garry Wotherspoon (eds.), Who’s Who in Gay & Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II: London,
Routledge, 2001.
Bray, Alan, The Friend, University of Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Griffin, Gabriele, (ed.), Who’s Who in Lesbian & Gay Writing, Routledge: London, 2002.
Norton, Rictor, My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries, San Francisco: Leyland Publications: 1998.
Rowse, A.L., Homosexuals in History, London: Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, 1977.
Spencer, Colin, Homosexuality, a History, London: Fourth Estate, 1995.
Woods, Gregory, Homosexuality in Literature, London: Yale University Press, 1998.
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