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Sexual Deviance and Disaster During the Napoleonic Wars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Arthur N. Gilbert
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Extract

In the West, sexuality has always been viewed with suspicion and sexual acts which, on the surface, seem harmless have represented attacks of a most profound sort on society. At least until the nineteenth century, when masturbation moved to center stage, sodomy was probably the major taboo. The reasons for this fear are complex. On the symbolic level, sodomy was linked with death and evil. The sodomite was wedded to the bowels and thus to the bowels of the earth where men rotted and decayed. Further, because of the enormous power of the Sodom and Gommorah story in the Old Testament, few doubted that sexual acts had social repercussions. The sodomite was dangerous. Once before in history, sodomites had caused the destruction of two cities by defying the moral code of the Lord. While fear of fire and brimstone may have faded, there were innumerable other catastrophes which the Lord might visit on those who sinned. In the pre-nineteenth century world, where the idea of mastering nature was tempered by respect for its power, sodomy was a cause of grave concern. Sodomites were often executed because to allow them to live was to court disaster.

When disaster did strike, it was common for clergymen and other societal spokesmen to blame licentiousness and specifically homosexuality. After the relatively mild earthquakes that shook London in 1750, the Bishop of London stressed that “Blasphemous language was used openly in the streets. Lewd pictures illustrated all the abominations of the public stews, and were tolerated. There was much homosexuality.” A poet compared the London quakes with a similar disaster in Jamaica.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , Spring 1977 , pp. 98 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1977

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References

1 The literature on nineteenth century attitudes towards masturbation is quite large. See, for example, Spitz, R. A. “Authority and Masturbation,” Yearbook of Psychoanalysis 9 (1953): 113–145Google Scholar, Hare, E. H. “Masturbational Insanity: The History of an Idea,” Journal of Mental Science, 108 (1962): 2–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Neuman, R. P., “Masturbation, Madness, and the Modern Concept of Adolescence,” Journal of Social History (Spring, 1975): 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Gilbert, Arthur N. “Doctor, Patient, and Onanist Diseases in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 30 (July, 1976): 217–234.Google Scholar

2 See Gilbert, Arthur N. “Buggery and the British Navy, 1700-1861,” Journal of Social History (Fall, 1976): 72–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 On the significance of the Sodom and Gommorah story, see Bailey, DerekHomosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (London, 1955).Google Scholar

4 Kendrick, T. D., The Lisbon Earthquake (London, 1956), p. 6.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 10.

6 Ibid., p. 160

7 British Museum, Cup. 363 (newspaper clipping) July, 1773.

8 Sodoms Catastrophe (London, 1748), p. 61.Google Scholar

9 On the interactionist perspective see Bell, Robert, Social Deviance: A Substantive Analysis (Homewood, Ill., 1971)Google Scholar, Matza, DavidBecoming Deviant (New Jersey, 1969)Google Scholar, and Becker, Howard “Labelling Theory Reconsidered” in Rock, Paul and McIntosh, Mary, eds. Deviance and Social Control (London, 1974).Google Scholar

10 Plummer, Kenneth, Sexual Stigma: An Interactionist Account (London, 1975), p. 102.Google Scholar

11 Plummer mentions that there may be other causes of the fear of homosexuality but does not suggest what they might be.

12 See Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (N. Y., 1963).Google Scholar

13 Soloway, Richard Allen, “The Onslaught of Respectability: A Study of English Moral Thought During the French Revolution, 1789-1802,” Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1960 Phd.Google Scholar

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15 Ibid., p. 258.

16 Ibid., p. 39.

17 Garrett, Clarke, Respectable Folly: Millenarians and the French Revolution in France and England (Baltimore, 1975) p. 202.Google Scholar

18 Ashton, John, English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I (London, 1888), p. 7.Google Scholar

19 The London Evening Post, 8-11 August 1772.

20 A Compleat Collection of Remarkable Tryals of the Most Norotious Malefactors at the Sessions-House in the Old Bailey (London, 1718).Google Scholar

21 Report from the Select Committee on Criminal Laws ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 8 July, 1819 (Shannon, Ireland, 1968), Appendix II.Google Scholar

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid., Appendix I.

24 Corporation of London Public Records [hereafter CLPR], London, Sessions of the Peace, SMP 5, 6, 7.

25 CLPR, SMP 6.

26 Middlesex County Records [hereafter MR], Sessions Rolls MJ/SR 3792-3850. There is only one bestiality case. On May 16, 1809 Michael Hale was indicted for an attempt on a cow. He was convicted and given two years in Cler ken well. (MJ/SR 3800).

27 For an example, see Micklewright, Amphlett, “The Bishop of Clogher's Case,” Notes and Queries, 215 (November, 1969): 375–81.Google Scholar

28 MR, MJ/SR 3818 The Gardiner Indictment was the longest of the year. It contained six closely related charges spelled out in great detail and it was 64 inches long. (Most Middlesex indictments were printed on forms about the size of a post card.) It was unusual for indictments to be drawn up by hand and in such great detail.

Gardiner was literate, but clearly not of the same class as Verney. The case may be an example of how “gentlemen” could use their position in society to gain sexual favors from the less fortunate. Here are portions of the Gardiner letter:

Sir—I sent a letter to your footman about you and I am goin … to send one to your wife and I will tell her what you did to me so you will have to take your tirale … when you get will … and if you like to rite … a letter to me and tel … me what you will do for me I wile not sprade your canity [sic. -character] … no ferder … I asked you that is to send me a hundred pounds. I shole go to Suffolk ctirackly … I am in grate … distress … and it wod … be chartey [sic. charity] of you to lend me the money for the dockers and nerces … cost … me so much that I have not cot … one pound … For I am so bad with the smole … pox.

(The indictment reprints this letter and corrects all misspellings. I have used elipses where the meaning is dear.)

29 For other cases, see MR MJ/SR 3820 and 3825.

30 MR MJ/SR 3792-3850.

31 An interesting pamphlet on the Coterie, Vere Street is Holloway's, RobertThe Phoenix of Sodom or the Vere Street Coterie being the exhibition of the Gambols Practiced by the Ancient Lechers of Sodom and Gommorah Embelished and improved with the Modern Refinements of Sodomitical Practices by the Members of the Vere Street Coterie of Detestable Memory (London, 1813).Google Scholar

32 Select Trials (London, 1735), Vol. 2Google Scholar, and The Daily Journal, 23 April, 6 May, and 10 May 1726.

There seems to have been an unusual number of sodomy trials in the 1720's. The Old Bailey select trial books list eight—several connected with the Mother Clap affair. In his study of crime in Surrey, J. M. Beattie has shown that there was a “sharp increase in both common assault and riotous actions in Surrey in the 1720's and 1730's …” in particular in the areas near the city of London. The same pattern occurs in the City itself. There is a modest increase in sex crimes in the early 1720's as well. Beattie suggests a (lightened concern with public order in the period partly because the government was concerned about Jacobite plots after the South Sea Bubble disaster, the collapse of the ministry, and evidence of plotting. See Beattie, J. M. “The Pattern of Crime in England, 1660-1800” Past and Present, 62 (Feb. 1974): 47–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 The Morning Herald, 10 July. 1810.

34 Ibid., MR MJ/SR 3823.

35 Ibid.

36 MP. MJ/SR 2823.

37 The Morning Herald, 10 July 1810.

38 The Morning Advertiser, 28 September 1810.

39 Ibid.

40 The British Journal, 31 July 1726.

41 British Museum, Cup. 363.

42 The Morning Herald, 28 September 1810.

43 The Morning Advertiser, 28 September 1810.

44 Ibid.

45 CLPR, SMP 3, 17 September 1810; The Morning Herald, 26 September 1810; The Morning Advertiser, September 1810.

46 The Morning Herald.

47 CLPR, SMP 3, 24 October 1796.

48 Ibid.. SMP 5, February 1805.

49 Ibid., SMP 6, 16 July 1810.

50 The Times, 17 July 1810.

51 Ibid., and CLPR, SMP 6, 16 July 1810.

52 CLPR, SMP 6.

53 Ibid.

54 The Morning Advertiser, 28 September 1810.

55 Gilbert, “Buggery and the British Navy,” and ADM. 12/27F.

56 ADM. 1/5283, 12 September 1807.

57 Satan's Harvest Home: or The Present State of Whorecraft, Adultery, Fornication, Procurring, Pimping, Sodomy … and other Satanic Works Daily Propagated in this good Protestant Kingdom. (London, 1749), p. 51.Google Scholar

58 Russell, Jeffrey Burton, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1972).Google Scholar

59 Cohn, Norman, Europe's Inner Demons: An Inquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-Hunt (New York, 1975), pp. 11 and 91.Google Scholar

60 ADM. 1/5339, ADM. 12/26, and British Museum, Add. Ms. 31.176.

61 Darvall, Frank, Popular Disturbances and Public Order in Regency England (New York, 1961), p. 18.Google Scholar

62 Ibid.

63 In Marcus, G. J., The Age of Nelson: The Royal Navy 1793-1815 (New York, 1971), p. 412.Google Scholar

64 Cole, G. D. H., The Life of William Cobbett (London, 1947), p. 152.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., p. 159.

66 On the search for scapegoats in times of disaster see, in particular, Drabeck, Thomas E. and Quarantelli, Enrico L., “Scapegoats, Villains, and Disasters,” Transaction, (March, 1967): 12–17Google Scholar, Bucher, Rue “Blame and Hostility in Disaster,” The American Journal of Sociology, 62 (March, 1957): 467–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Velfort, Helene Rank and Lee, George F. “The Coconut Grove Fire: A Study in Scapegoating,” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 38 (April, 1943): 138–154CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mileti, Dennis S., Drabeck, Thomas E. and Haas, J. Eugene, Human Systems in Extreme Environments: A Sociological Perspective (Boulder, Colo., 1975)Google Scholar. Most work on scapegoats deals with how blame is placed on leaders in the community.

The literature on response to disaster is very large but there is virtually nothing on the relationship between disaster and sexual deviance. Sales, Stephen M. in “Threat as a Factor in Authoritarianism: An Analysis of Archival Data” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28 (October, 1973): 44–57CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, argues that during the Great Depression the average sentence for rape increased from what it had been in the 1920's Sales work, however, is based on the records of one Pennsylvania county and he provides no data on the treatment of homosexual offenders.