September 25, 2010

The White Swan: The Gay Brothel in Vere Street

Researching the homosexual culture of Georgian London is a bit like unpicking a fine and very knotted chain with pins: it's difficult to see how it got so tangled in the first place and just when you think you've got it sorted, the knot is tighter than ever. The White Swan in Vere Street was by no means the first gay brothel in London, but it is one of the first and most accurately recorded establishments that had been set up with the aim of making money. Perhaps the most famous of all 'molly-houses' was Mother Margaret Clapp's (more another time), but that was more of a coffee-house primarily for homosexual clientele, rather than a place where gay sex was traded for money (although there was probably an aspect of that too).

On the 8th of July, 1810 the Bow Street Police raided The White Swan, a tumbledown pub of Tudor origin near Drury Lane. Twenty-seven men were arrested on suspicion of sodomy and attempted sodomy. The Swan had been going for less than six months, established by two men, Cook and Yardley, but already had a considerable following. Cook, whose wife ran an ordinary pub nearby called the White Horse, was proud of his amenities, and his clientele:

Cook states that a person in a respectable house in the city, frequently came to his pub, and stayed several days and nights together; during which time he generally amused himself with eight, ten, and sometimes a dozen different boys and men!

Cook and Yardley had furnished their establishment for its purpose, admirably:

Four beds were provided in one room - another was fitted up for the ladies' dressing-room, with a toilette, and every appendage of rouge, &c. &c....The uper part of the house was appropriated to youths who were constantly in waiting for casual customers; who practised all the allurements that are found in a brothel, by the more natural description of prostitutes. Men of rank, and respectable situations in life, might be seen wallowing either in or on beds with wretches of the lowest description.

The account of The White Swan raid and the subsequent trials was told in 1813 by Robert Holloway, later Cook's lawyer, who sold many copies of his account. In it there are some excellent observations of the behaviour within the house, where faux marriages were sometimes conducted to 'bless' the coming union. Of course, someone had to play the girl.

It seems the greater part of these quickly assumed feigned names, though not very appropriate to their calling in life: for instance, Kitty Cambric is a Coal Merchant; Miss Selina a Runner at a Police Office; Blackeyed Leonora, a Drummer; Pretty Harriet, a Butcher; Lady Godiva, a Waiter; the Duchess of Gloucester, a gentleman's servant; Duchess of Devonshire, a Blacksmith; and Miss Sweet Lips, a Country Grocer. It is a generally received opinion, and a very natural one, that the prevalency of this passion has for its object effeminate delicate beings only: but this seems to be, by Cook's account, a mistaken notion; and the reverse is so palpable in many instances, that Fanny Murry, Lucy Cooper, and Kitty Fisher, are now personified by an athletic bargeman, an Herculean Coal-heaver (my bold), and a deaf Tyre-Smith:

It is Blackeyed Leonora, the drummer who stands out amongst this motley crowd, for Leonora was in fact most likely Thomas White, a 16 year old drummer in the Guards. Thomas was one of the 'youths' who stood and waited in the upper part of the house. He was a great favourite amongst the 'more exalted' visitors to the house, according to Holloway. It is interesting to note that almost every single one of the people at The White Swan had an occupation. Of course, some were visitors, but White worked there. No doubt it was his youth, and probably his looks that drew attention from the richer customers.

White, being an universal favourite, was very deep in the secrets of the fashionable part of the coterie;

Poor Thomas, who wasn't even at The Swan on the night of the raid, was too quick to confess, and was executed for his 'crime' after almost a year in prison, although there was no doubt he was guilty of the charge. With him died a man called John Hepburn, aged 46, who had procured White's services with the help of a witness who testified against him. White was prosecuted as the giver, rather than the receiver which made it almost impossible for the court to avoid the death sentence when the jury convicted him of 'buggery'. At White's execution, various people of note were recorded:

A vast concourse of people attended to witness the awful scene. The Duke of Cumberland, Lord Sefton, Lord Yarmouth, and several other noblemen were in the press-yard;

The Duke of Cumberland had avoided a homosexual scandal by a razor thin margin in June 1810 when his servant was found with a cut throat after threatening to out his master after catching the Duke and his valet 'in an improper and unnatural situation'. Perhaps Cumberland was one of White's 'fashionable' guests. We will never know. Of the other 25 or so, only six were found guilty and they were pilloried and imprisoned, including Cook the landlord. Yardley seems to have got away with the whole thing. The White Swan affair raised the public ire, and the convicted men suffered at the hands of a mob.

The disgust felt by all ranks in Society at the detestable conduct of these wretches occasioned many thousands to become spectators of their punishment. At an early hour the Old Bailey was completely blockaded, and the increase of the mob about 12 o'clock, put a stop to the business of the sessions. The shops from Ludgate Hill to the Haymarket were shut up, and the streets lined with people, waiting to see the offenders pass....A number of fishwomen attended with stinking flounders and entrails of other fish which had been in preparation for several days.

Cook refused to implicate any more clients, but on his release he began to blackmail two members of the clergy who had escaped prosecution during the raid and investigation. In what was probably a set-up, he ended up in prison for assault and debt and his whole family were systematically ruined in a series of evictions and persecutions that Holloway attributed to 'influential persons'. Just how influential, we will never know.

February 1, 2010

Princess Serafina: London's First Recorded Drag Artist

This post is the first in a short series on the history of homosexuality and transgender people in 18thC London to celebrate LGBT History month. I like to think the blog constantly celebrates every individual who contributed to making London one of the greatest European cities of the 1700s but this is my small addition to an excellent cause.

On the 5th of July 1732 Thomas Gordon was indicted for robbing one John Cooper, of Number 11, Eagle-court, the Strand. The two men had taken a walk together in Chelsea Fields 'to a secret place', and Gordon had threatened Cooper with a knife unless he gave up all his clothing and his jewellery and changed it with Gordon's. At first, it appeared to be one of those robberies that happens late at night on Clapham Common, between two previously unacquainted gentlemen. The vast majority of such crimes are never even reported let alone prosecuted even in these 'enlightened' times, so the fact that John Cooper brought this to trial in 1732 is quite astonishing. The trial that followed was to be even more incredible.

Gordon had left Cooper with the words that if he 'charged him with Robbery, by and by', he would in turn tell the authorities Cooper had given him the 'Cloathes' as payment for 'Buggery'. (Cooper's clothes are closely detailed as fine masculine apparel, and this fact was to become central later on.) Bizarrely, the two men walked back to Piccadilly together, where Cooper shouted for two passing men (it must have been about dawn by this point) to restrain Gordon. Bundling him into yet another all-night pub, they had a shouting match in which Cooper accused Gordon of theft, and Gordon made good on his threat to announce to his detainers that he had been paid for services rendered.

Modern readings of this minutely-documented trial are based around Cooper's outrageous alter-ego, but there are valuable insights to be gleaned from the reception the news of male prostitution garnered in the Piccadilly pub: the two men who had detained Gordon were unfazed, but told Cooper that if he were proved a liar and if it was simply a sex transaction gone wrong, then he would be liable for their time. Cooper agreed to reimburse them if he was not successful in prosecuting Gordon. From the quality of his clothing, and his confident demeanor, Cooper was neither poor nor ignorant, and was certainly not fazed by the threat of being outed, even if he was aware that his temporary employees were not quite on his side, as they would later trip him when Gordon escaped.

The case came to trial, and both stuck to their stories. Such tales were not uncommon in the 18thC, but it was a rare for them to have their day in court, and those present watched avidly as an odd tale unfolded. The keeper of the Piccadilly alehouse testified that the men arrived in his establishment and argued about the loose change that had been in the pockets of the clothes they had exchanged, and drunk at least four pints of beer together. Edward Pocock, who had stumbled upon the pair at their 'secret place' in Chelsea Fields testified that the two were putting on their clothing when he chanced across them, and behaved very 'loving'. He also begged some forgiveness for his accuracy as he had been drinking and was so drunk upon returning home that he fell asleep in his clothes. Well, it had been a public holiday after all.

Tom Gordon was widely acknowledged by the witnesses as a bad lot, and this is probably why he ended up at trial. John Cooper was a fixer for the richer members of Gay London when they desired an assignation: when they fancied a drummer boy, or a market labourer, Cooper was the man to 'smooth the way', with fine words and the soft clink of a guinea or two. I think there is little doubt he was homosexual, although his gender-specific behaviour is more interesting in context. Jane Jones the laundress came to the witness box, and casually referred to Cooper, the prosecutor, as 'Princess Serafina'. The adoption of female names was not unusual in the gay subculture of Georgian London. Jones agreed with the general opinion of Gordon as a bad lot, but was sad that a simple case of 'Sodomity, what ever that is' had to come to court.

On a different note, Mary Holder was the proprietress of the alehouse where the two men drank together, and Mary Poplet was the landlady of the Two Sugar-loaves in Drury Lane where they finally ended up after their quarrel. Poplet, who was a neighbour to John Cooper and his official employers, the Tulls, gave this account of his character:

I have known her Highness a pretty while, she us'd to come to my House from Mr. Tull, to enquire after some Gentlemen of no very good Character; I have seen her several times in Women's Cloaths, she commonly us'd to wear a white Gown, and a scarlet Cloak, with her Hair frizzled and curl'd all round her Forehead; and then she would so flutter her Fan, and make such fine Curt'sies, that you would not have known her from a Woman: She takes great Delight in Balls and Masquerades, and always chuses to appear at them in a Female Dress, that she may have the Satisfation of dancing with fine Gentlemen. Her Highness lives with Mr. Tull in Eagle-Court in the Strand, and calls him her Master, because she was Nurse to him and his Wife when they were both in a Salivation (salivation was a mercurial cure for syphilis); but the Princess is rather Mr. Tull's Friend, than his domestick Servant. I never heard that she had any other Name than the Princess Seraphina.

Three more women of the neighbourhood were to give evidence, and all knew John Cooper as Princess Seraphina, and all knew he had fallen out with Tom Gordon. It seems little more than an argument about sex that got out of hand, so to speak. Tom Gordon was known to turn a trick or two, and the Princess was known to enjoy the company of a gentleman, or two. The case is quite unique in terms of the 18thC, and one can only imagine the sniggering upon the sidelines. There are however, some facts that stand out in this case, and are worth serious consideration in terms of 18thC attitudes towards transgender individuals. The female witnesses uniformly refer to the Princess as 'she'. John Cooper earned his official living as a nurse, an exclusively (as far as history is concerned) female occupation. He regularly wore women's clothes, and was clearly tolerated, if not wholly accepted within his home community. He was certainly sufficiently at ease in female clothing to sally forth in such to balls and social events, where he hoped to meet the 'fine gentlemen'.

Tom Gordon was acquitted, but I think this is more to do with the fact that it was almost certainly a sexual engagement that had ended in a quarrel. That John Cooper felt secure enough within his own environment, and the justice system, to pursue a conviction is telling. He may well have felt forced into a corner, but I think it unlikely he would have taken the case to court over a suit of clothes if he had felt his life were at risk. After the trial, John Cooper drops out of sight, something for which I think he was probably very grateful. Apparently he was fond of the masked balls in Vauxhall Gardens, where it was the rage for the men to dress as women and vice versa, and that's where I like to think of him, with her curls and her fan, taking a break from his day job of nursing London's sick.

p.s. I would advise anyone interested in the primary texts of 18thC LGBT history and its scholarship to visit http://rictornorton.co.uk/ as a valuable and free online resource for the study of history and sexuality. More details on the things going on this month to raise awareness can be found at www.lgbthistorymonth.org

January 12, 2010

A Molly's Map of Georgian London

Click the Gay London and Lewd London tags to see the stories related to this map.

November 12, 2009

A detestable crime-

Before the Great Fire there were many complaints over the centuries about how Old St Paul's cathedral had become overtaken by the populace as a place to stand and gossip (as you can see from the gallery), and even do business due to the close proximity of the City merchants. The commerce was of every nature, and increasingly, complaints were made about the prostitutes who plied their trade in the many shadows of the church. By the Great Fire, it had become commonplace for suitably inclined apprentices to spend their Sunday afternoons there, where they might be propositioned by an interested gentleman, and make a little money to add to their wages. Needless to say, the authorities were less than happy with the situation, but it was so well-established there wasn't that much they could do about it, besides moan. When the new cathedral was built, the traders were banished to the Royal Exchange and the prostitutes chased out by wardens. However, it remained a place to make new friends, paid or unpaid.

On the 4th of December, 1730 the Old Bailey trial records contain the following case:

William Hollywell and William Huggins, were indicted, the former for an Assault, with an Intent to commit the detestable Crime of Buggery upon the latter, and he for consenting and submitting to the same.

John Rowden depos'd, That it had been for many Years his Business to show the upper part of the Cathedral of St. Paul's; that the 19th of November , betwixt 12 and 1 o'Clock, he was going to Dinner, and having heard the old Man's Door shut, he afterwards heard some Persons that seem'd to be coming up softly, he hearken'd, but heard no Voices, that suspecting something more than usual, he look'd through the Light of the Newel Stairs, he being about 30 or 40 Steps from the Prisoners, and did discover the Prisoners in very indecent Postures, whereupon he made haste to them, and surpriz'd them in the following Posture; Huggins's Breeches were down, he stooping very low, so that he could not see his Head, his Shirt was turn'd up on his Back, and his Back-side was bare; Hollywell was standing close by, with his fore Parts to the other's Posteriors, and his Body in Motion, but his fore Parts he could not then see, his Back being towards him, this Evidence: That having thus surpriz'd them, Huggins was busy'd in putting up his Breeches, and Hollywell struggled with him to have got from him, and to have gone off, and tore his Turnover, but he having disengag'd himself, Hollywell got to the Church Door, but could not get out, it being Lock'd, and he having the Key in his Pocket, so he Lock'd them into the Side-Isle , and went to get the Clerk of the Works to go with him to acquaint the Dean with the Matter; that when he came again, Hollywell was got out of the Place where he left him, and could not be found for a considerable time, but at last was found hidden in a Gallery adjoining to the Organ-Loft ; and when they were before the Justice, Hollywell's Shirt was examin'd , and there appear'd plain Tokens of Emission.

The Prisoner Huggins call'd a great many of his Neighbours, who gave him the Character of an industrious Man in his Calling (which was that of a Waterman) of a loving Husband to his Wife, of a tender Father to his Children, of an honest Man in his Dealings , and of a religious Man that kept to his Church constantly on Sundays, and one of the last Men they should have suspected as to such Practices, and should more readily have credited his Familiarity with Women, he commonly associating himself with Women more than Men, but this Character did not avail him against positive and credible Evidence; and Hollywell not calling one single Evidence to his Character, and the Fact being plainly prov'd, the Jury found them both Guilty of the Indictment.

Gay subculture in Georgian London has been explored very thoroughly (no pun intended) by various writers, although often their reading is from a 20thC point of view and too keen to see both homosexuality and homophobia lurking in every shady corner. There are plenty of records that lend themselves to the study of what appears to be a flourishing and diverse set of people, from the cross-dressing, effeminate 'mollys', to the 'rough trade' cruising Moorfields (the term 'rough trade' comes from the fact that many of these men were from the rougher trades, such as blacksmithing, the watermen, etc). Apprentices occasionally complained to their guilds about being used in a fashion not mentioned in their contracts, but the matter was always sorted out privately. There are records of homosexuals, particularly aristocrats living openly. Exclusive homosexuality seems to have been relatively rare, and many men who had long term male lovers were also married and had children. At the end of the 17thC, the Society for the Reformation of Manners (as in morals) got underway to root out sodomitical practices. Quite why they thought this was necessary is a bit bizarre, and they used attractive young men to entrap the 'sodomites', which is unfair to say the least. In rare cases, the punishment was hanging. The delight court recorders took in detailing the minutiae of the clothing and 'fore Parts' and so on is extraordinary for a crime so 'detestable'.

This case is exceptional, not just for the location: they were clearly guilty and had entrapped themselves. Furthermore it is indicative of a culture of casual sex between consenting male adults, rather than the exploitative relationships between younger boys and older men made so much of in the recent studies of the subject. Huggins attempted to have his punishment lessened by demonstrating good character (or rank hypocrisy), but Hollywell didn't bother. It is also worth noting that Huggins got a worse punishment that Hollywell, as he was the receiver, rather than the giver, which carried a greater stigma. Both men were pilloried, then imprisoned. Being pilloried was no joke. I have included an image in the gallery of the Charing Cross pillory to give an idea. It was typical to stand for no more than an hour, but an account of your crimes was posted up next to you and St Pauls was a well-known place for sodomites to be exhibited. During the hour, whatever happened to you was bad luck, although in theory, no one was allowed on the raised platform along with you. Kickings and beatings are recorded, but more usual was to be pelted with refuse, excrement and even dead cats and dogs. No doubt the unfortunate Mrs Huggins was at the very front of the crowd for this one, with a big handful of something truly disgusting.