Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day

258 Pages·2018·10.71 MB·English

by  Peter Ackroyd

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NONFICTION
London: The Biography
Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination
The Collection: Journalism, Reviews, Essays,
Short Stories, Lectures, edited by Thomas Wright
Thames: Sacred River
Venice: Pure City
The English Ghost
London Under FICTION
The Great Fire of London
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
Hawksmoor
Chatterton
First Light
English Music
The House of Doctor Dee
Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem
Milton in America
The Plato Papers
The Clerkenwell Tales
The Lambs of London
The Fall of Troy
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
Three Brothers BIOGRAPHY
Ezra Pound and his World
T. S. Eliot
Dickens
Blake
The Life of Thomas More
Shakespeare: The Biography BRIEF LIVES
Chaucer
J. M. W. Turner
Newton
Poe: A Life Cut Short
Wilkie Collins
Charlie Chaplin
Alfred Hitchcock

Copyright © 2018 Peter Ackroyd
Jacket design by John Gall
Cover art by John Atkinson Grimshaw courtesy of Getty Images
Author photograph by Charles Hopkinson Published in 2018 by Abrams Press,
an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949745
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3099-3
eISBN: 978-1-68335301-0
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List of Illustrations
1 Sappho, from Les Vrais Pourtraits et vies des Hommes Illustres, Andre
Thevet, 1584. Image: Glasshouse Images / Alamy Stock Photo 2 Radish,
English school, c. 19th century. Image: Private Collection / © Look and
Learn / Bridgeman Images 3 Early mounted Knights Templar in battle dress,
Italian school, 1783. Image: Bibliotheque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris /
Archives Charmet / Bridgeman Images 4 ‘Piers Gaveston and the Barons’,
1872. Image: 19th era / Alamy Stock Photo
5 The Pardoner, from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Image:
University Library, Cambridge (Photo by Culture Club / Getty Images)
6 Ganymede, 1878. Image: ZU_09, iStock images
7 George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, after Cornelius Johnson, c. 1623.
Image: Hulton Archive / Getty Images 8 Frontispiece for T. Dekker and T.
Middleton’s The Roaring Girle, 1611. Image: Culture Club / Getty Images
9 Aphra Behn, after John Riley, c. 18th century. Image: Chronicle / Alamy
Stock Photo 10 Captain Edward Rigby, after Thomas Murray, 1702
11 A male brothel, La prostitution contemporaine, 1884. Image: Wellcome
Library, London (CC BY 4.0) 12 View of Newgate prison, c. 1760. Image:
Guildhall Library & Art Gallery Heritage Images Getty Images 13 Hannah
Snell, c. 1745. Image: MPI / Getty Images
14 A macaroni, from Social Caricature in the Eighteenth Century, Emily Morse
Symonds, 1905. Image: The Print Collector / Print Collector / Getty Images
15 ‘Trying & Pillorying of the Vere Street Club’, c. 1810
16 Frontispiece for Jack Saul’s The Sins of the Cities of the Plains, 1881
17 ‘A Night in the Cave of the Golden Calf’, The Daily Mirror, 1912
18 Gay Liberation Front Manifesto, 1971
First Plate Section
1 Greek red figure pottery, c. 500 BC. Image: Ancient Art and Architecture /
Alamy Stock Photo 2 ‘Costume of a Saxon Chief’, Charles Hamilton Smith,
1815. Image: The Protected Art Archive / Alamy Stock Photo 3 Statue of
the Emperor Trajan, London, 1959. Image: View Pictures / UIG via Getty
Images 4 Seventeenth-century map of London, C. J. Visscher, c. 1650.
Image: British Library, London (CC Public Domain Mark 1.0) 5 William
Rufus, Historia Anglorum, c. 1259. Image: British Library, London © British
Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images 6 ‘Death of Piers
Gaveston’, c. 1850. Image: The Print Collector / Print Collector / Getty
Images 7 ‘Knights, Templars’, English School, c. 19th century. Image:
Private Collection © Look and Learn / Bridgeman Images 8 ‘Chaucer’s
Canterbury Pilgrims’, William Blake, c. 1810
9 Sixteenth-century map of London, Frans Hogenburg, c. 1570. Image:
National Library of Israel, Jerusalem 10 The Droeshout portrait of William
Shakespeare, 1623. Image: The Bodleian First Folio (CC BY 3.0)
11 Christopher Marlowe, c. 1585. Image: Parker Library, Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge 12 King James I of England and VI of Scotland, Daniel
Mytens, 1621. Photo © National Portrait Gallery, London 13 Ann Mills, c.
1740. Image: Rischgitz / Getty Images
14 Christina Davies, aka Christopher Welsh, c. 1706
15 Mary Ann Talbot, c. 1800. Image: Three Lions / Getty Images 16 Ann
Bonny and Mary Read, c. 18th century. Image: Stefano Bianchetti / Corbis
via Getty Images 17 ‘A Morning Frolic, or the Transmutation of the Sexes’,
after John Collet, c. 1780. Image: Yale Center for British Art 18 ‘This is not
the thing: or, Molly exalted’, 1762. Photo © The Trustees of the British
Museum 19 Edward Kynaston, Richard Cooper and R.B. Parkes, c. 19th
century
20 King William III, studio of Sir Peter Lely, 1677. Photo © National Portrait
Gallery, London
Second Plate Section
1 A ‘molly house’ interior, 1874. Image: Interim Archives / Getty Images
2 The Bishop of Clogher arrested for a homosexual act with a soldier, George
Cruikshank, 1822
3 Charles Bannister as Polly Peachum, James Sayers, c. 19th century
4 ‘The St James’s Macaroni’, James Bretherton, 1772. Image: Guildhall
Library & Art Gallery Heritage Images Getty Images 5 The Chevalier
d’Eon, c. 18th century. Image: Photo12 / UIG via Getty Images 6 Frederick
Park and Ernest Boulton, aka Fanny and Stella, Fred Spalding, c. 1870.
Image: Essex Record Office, Chelmsford 7 Oscar Wilde, Napoleon Sarony,
c. 1800. Image: Universal History Archive / Getty Images 8 16 Tite Street,
London, c. 1910. Image: Hulton Archive / Getty Images
9 E. M. Forster, c. 1920. Photo © Hulton-Deutsch Collection / CORBIS /
Corbis via Getty Images 10 Radclyffe Hall, 1928. Image: Planet News
Archive / SSPL / Getty Images
11 Map of London’s public urinals, from Paul Pry’s For Your Convenience,
Philip Gough, 1937
12 A policeman silhouetted against the lights of Piccadilly, Ernst Haas, c. 1955.
Image: Ernst Haas / Ernst Haas / Getty Images 13 Sir John Wolfenden,
1957. Photo © Illustrated London News Ltd / Mary Evans
14 Quentin Crisp, 1948. Image: Popperfoto / Getty Images
15 Joe Orton, c. 1965. Image: Bentley Archive / Popperfoto / Getty Images
16 John Gielgud in a stage production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of
Being Earnest, 1947. Image: Bettmann / Getty Images 17 Biograph Cinema,
Victoria, London to Hell and Back, c. 1950. Photo © Ronald Grant Archive /
Mary Evans 18 Women dancing together at the Gateways club or ‘The
Gates’ in Chelsea, 1953. Photo © Alan Vines / reportdigital.co.uk
19 OutRage! protest, Steve Mayes, c. 1994. Photo: Steve Mayes, OutRage!
20 Protest against the Blasphemy Law, Mick Gold, 1978. Image: Mick Gold /
Redferns
21 Protesters ride a pink tank past Trafalgar Square, Richard Smith, 1995.
Image: Richard Smith / Sygma via Getty Images 22 A couple celebrate at
Pride, Tom Stoddart, 2007. Image: Tom Stoddart / Getty Images
23 Madame JoJo’s, Ben Pruchnie, 2016. Image: Ben Pruchnie / Getty Images
24 Equal Love campaign for marriage equality, Paul Hackett, 2011. Image: Paul
Hackett / In Pictures via Getty Images 25 Soho vigil for victims of the
Orlando shooting, Tolga Akmen, 2016. Image: Tolga Akmen / Anadolu
Agency / Getty Images Every effort has been made to trace or contact
copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any
omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention, at the earliest
opportunity.

1
What’s in a name?
The love that dares not speak its name has never stopped talking. If it was once
‘peccatum illud horribile, inter christianos non nominandum’ – that horrible
crime not to be named among Christians – it has since been endlessly discussed.
‘Queer’ was once a term signifying disgust, but now it is pronounced with a
difference. It has become the academic word of choice, and ‘queer studies’ are
part of the university curriculum.
‘Gay’ comes from who knows where. It can be construed as a derivation from
‘gai’ in Old Provençal, meaning merry or vivacious, or from ‘gaheis’ in Gothic,
meaning impetuous, or from ‘gahi’ in Frankish, meaning fast. Whatever the
language, it used to connote frantic fun and high spirits. In English, ‘gay’ was
originally attached to female prostitutes and the men who chased them. All the
gay ladies were on the market. Its twentieth-century same-sex sense seems to
have been invented by Americans in the 1940s. There was a long period of
incubation before it made its way to England; even in the late 1960s, there were
still many who did not understand the phrase ‘gay bar’.
Sodomy was, from the eleventh century, a catch-all term that could mean
anything or everything. It was applied to heretics and adulterers, blasphemers
and idolaters and rebels – anyone, in other words, who disturbed the sacred order
of the world. It was also associated with luxury and with pride, and was
regularly connected with excessive wealth. It was of course also employed for
those who had different ideas about the nature of sexual desire, and was
sometimes thrown in as a further accusation with other crimes including
buggery.
The ‘bugger’ was originally a heretic, specifically one of the Albigensian
creed which had come from Bulgaria; but since part of that creed condemned
matrimonial intercourse, and indeed any kind of natural coupling, the
connotations of the word spread beyond the grounds of religion. It is derived
from the French bougre, as in pauvre bougre or poor sod.
The ‘ingle’, or depraved boy, was well known by the end of the sixteenth
century. Is there a phrase – every nook should have an ingle? Ingal Road still