Of particular interest to our examination of William Beckford's
life is the interest he maintained in the molly subculture. He
is forever gathering information sent by Franchi concerning the
gay areas in such places as York or even Cornwall (he hoped that
amongst the "brothers" or Methodists there he could find "one who
was a bit of a mameluke," i.e. catamite, 26 July 1810), or gossip
concerning a general and a batman in the barracks, nicknamed
"Mary Clarke" (22 October 1817). His immense library contained
not merely rare and valuable books, but also a few works of
homosexual interest, such as The Penitent Death of
. . . John Atherton (he and his tithe proctor were
hanged for buggery in 1640 in Dublin), the Trial of
Lord Audley (Mervyn Touchet, Earl of Castlehaven,
beheaded for rape and sodomy in 1631), and a specially bound copy
of the trial of Colonel Robert Passingham and John Edwards, who
had conspired to blackmail George Forrester by accusing him of
unnatural crimes in 1805.
In addition to these volumes, for many hours he poured over a
special scrapbook into which he pasted press reports of all the
homosexual scandals of the day, and he sometimes recorded his
reactions to such events in letters to Franchi. For example, here
are his comments on the arrest of the Vere Street Coterie, which
he read about in the Morning Chronicle
of Tuesday, 10 July 1810: "Poor sods — what a fine ordeal,
what a procession, what a pilgrimage, what a song and dance, what
a rosary [i.e., string of prisoners]! What a pity not to have a
balcony in Bow Street to see them pass, and worse still not to
have a magic wand to transform into a triumph the sorry sequence
of events" (11 July 1810). According to the newspaper, one of the
men arrested was Matthew Saunders of Duke Street, Aldgate, who
may be identical with Saunders the tightrope walker pursued by
Beckford. Beckford's anger at the persecution of the madge culls
never took a more active form than vexatious rage and vain
sighing, but at least he was not ashamed to be homosexual himself
and he clearly recognized the prejudice of his society. Beckford
was a friend of Lord Roden, nephew of the Bishop of Clogher, and
in 1822 he referred briefly to "the St Albans Street procession,"
that is, the arrest of the Bishop and the soldier Moverley who
were dragged through the street and beaten by the mob along the
way.
Some of the cuttings refer to scandals about notable gentlemen,
usually by means of innuendo. Beckford cut out a report
concerning one of his neighbours in Wiltshire, Mr Seymour. In
1828 he and his servant Mr Macklin were discovered having sexual
relations in the master's dressing room, and their trial was
attended by great numbers of the Wiltshire gentry. Mr Seymour
claimed that the servants were conspiring against him, and that
"he had been leaning over Macklin, with one hand upon his
shoulder, looking at a book of accounts." Both men were found
guilty after a trial lasting 41 hours, but Mr Seymour absconded
[Unrecognized newspaper, 17 March 1828, Bodleian
MS.Beckford c.75, fol. 58]. One cutting concerns "a
certain English Marquis" who left the country some years ago
amidst "strange circumstances connected with his early
propensities," whose case involving large estates was now
arriving at maturity in the Court of Chancery; this was probably
the Earl of Leicester, previously mentioned
[The Age, 31 August 1834,
MS.Beckford c.75, fol. 132]. Another cutting concerns Mr
Heber, brother of the Bishop of Calcutta, who sued the
John Bull newspaper in 1826 for
insinuating that he had left the country to avoid a homosexual
prosecution. The libel stated that "The backwardness of the
seasons renders the Continent more congenial to some
constitutions," and that he had "an over addiction to
Hartshorn," presumably the name of his lover. (Beckford
annotated this "H.H.H. Heber and Hartshorn.") This cutting is
particularly sad, because it notes the similar flight of
Beckford's boyfriend of many years previous: Heber "is supposed
(for after all it is but supposition) to have left England for
much the same reason that my Lord Courtenay — the
Bishop of Clogher, cum multis aliis [and many others],
have deemed it expedient to emigrate to foreign climes"
[Wrapper; News, 14 November
1826; John Bull, 7 May 1826;
MS.Beckford c.83, fols. 64, 72—73].
Soldiers are not altogether absent from these cuttings. In 1826
a well-dressed lad of sixteen, said to be the second son of an
Irish Peer, was charged with having made indecent proposals to
a sentry on duty at Knightsbridge Barracks
[Morning Chronicle, 14 February
1826, MS.Beckford c.83, fol. 131]. But usually the
soldiers were more willing, sometimes notoriously willing. In
1827 a sergeant of a distinguished cavalry was drummed out of the
barracks for having carried on a homosexual affair. The entire
regiment was drawn out, mounted and in full costume, for the
solemn ceremonies. The sergeant, a young and fine-looking man,
guarded by four soldiers with sabres drawn, slowly walked across
the yard, his neck encircled by a halter, while trumpets and
kettle drums played the Rogue's March. Then there was dead
silence for several agonizing minutes as he walked the last few
yards out of the barracks gate, alone, carrying only a small
bundle of clothes with him, the archetypal outcast
[News, 23 September 1827,
MS.Beckford c.83, fol. 139]. A "gang" of mollies who used
to pick up soldiers at the Horse Guards Parade regularly
frequented a room in the Bull public house in Bullen Court, the
Strand, where they were apprehended in April 1830. Some escaped,
but six were taken prisoner and conveyed to the police station
while a mob of five hundred people covered them and their guards
with mud and filth. One soldier was dealt with under military
law, and six civilians were ordered to find bail
[Morning Chronicle, 17 and 19
April 1830, MS.Beckford, c.67, fols 178 and 181].
A fair number of cuttings concern clergymen, who were deemed
newsworthy because of the presumed hypocrisy of their gay
affairs. One cutting refers to the Bishop of Clogher, and says
that "Other Clergymen of the Established Church, too, have of
late years figured occasionally in Police Offices, and not for
taking liberties with females"
[Examiner, 1 April 1827,
MS.Beckford c.75, fol. 23]. A typical headline is "Flight
and Disgraceful Conduct of Two Religious Hypocrites," accused of
assaulting boys in Manchester in 1832
[News, 29 April 1832,
MS.Beckford c.83, fol. 81]. In 1825 Rev William Hayes,
one of the Minor Canons of St Paul's, was "found in a disgusting
situation with a boy in a lane leading to a wharf in Upper
Thames-street." He was granted bail and absconded, but was
recaptured in Reading, found guilty by default, and sent to
Reading gaol for six months [Morning
Chronicle, 23 March 1825, and an unidentified
newspaper, 4 May 1825, MS.Beckford c.83, fols.
129—130]. In 1833 in Suffolk a rector and a curate
were charged with the capital crime of sodomy, but they did not
come forth to defend themselves, and lost their recognizances
[News, 22 March 1833,
MS.Beckford c.83, fol. 84].
Although gentlemen figure largely in these cuttings, many of them
are self-made middle-class gentlemen, rather than members of the
gentry or aristocracy, and their relations are with men in the
lower-middle classes. For example, in 1828 G. Harvey, proprietor
of a mustard manufactory in Blackfriars Road, and Robert
Nethercott, a footman belonging to Henry Seymour, Esq, of 39,
Upper Grosvenor Street, were charged with having sex together.
Mr Harvey's father stood bail for his son, and two tradesmen
stood bail for the footman
[News, 4 May 1828, MS.Beckford
c.74, fol. 273].
A very interesting case involved a dirty old gentleman named John
Grossett Muirhead of St George's, Hanover Square. In 1825
Muirhead met an apprentice outside a print shop in Sackville
Street, off Piccadilly, where he showed him some indecent prints
and books, and two "skins" which he bet he could not fit into.
One of these condoms was later produced in evidence in court, and
its use had to be explained. He took the young man to a coffee
house for a pint of cider and biscuits, where he showed him some
more dirty pictures, held his hand and fondled him, gave him a
crown, and arranged for another meeting to have sex. The lad
thought Muirhead was "a good-natured old gentleman" and was not
averse to his attentions, but two other boys to whom he told this
story said he had to be careful. The following Sunday Muirhead
took all three boys, one aged 14 and one aged 21, to an oyster
shop, where he showed them more pornography and fondled them and
gave them a crown apiece. Before he could proceed any further,
two officers, by previous arrangement, burst in and arrested him.
Muirhead's case was important for re-confirming that privacy and
consent were no defence in law for homosexuals. He did not deny
the events, but he argued that there were no legal grounds for
a prosecution: "first, that it was not an assault, because the
prisoner had the consent of the party; and secondly, it was not
an offence indictable in the present shape, because it was
committed in private." But the judge replied that "In crimes of
this atrocious description, consent or non-consent did not alter
the offence, and it was an offence against public morals, not
only because it was committed in a public coffee-room, but
because it was an attempt to destroy the morals of youthful
members of society." His crime was exacerbated by the fact that
he was a member of the Society for the Suppression of Vice and
a Director of the Auxiliary Bible Society of St George's in the
Fields. He was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment for the
first offence and six months for the second. He pleaded for
clemency on the grounds that he was 72 years old and infirm, and
not likely to survive prison. The judge said he would be treated
humanely. He certainly did survive prison, for three years and
nine months later Beckford took another newspaper cutting,
reporting that he had been arrested in Dover for a similar
offence [Morning Chronicle, 22
October 1825, 27 July 1829, MS.Beckford c.75, fols. 68—69;
The Age, September 1825, MS.Beckford
c.71, fol. 34]. Soon afterwards, according to Ashbee, he
fled to the Continent, though he had been a wealthy property
owner in Lanarkshire.
Beckford's newspaper cuttings provide a marvellous shortcut to
the gay history of this period. They may not reveal much
specifically about the organized gay subculture, but they do at
least reveal some of the gay cruising grounds, and they
illustrate the changing patterns of contact between men of
different social backgrounds. The cuttings are especially
valuable when read in conjunction with Beckford's reactions to
the reports, contained in his letters to Franchi. His most
scornful, and most despairing, comments were expressed upon the
hanging, in 1816, of John Attwood Eglerton, a waiter with wife
and children who was accused of sodomy by a stable boy. It took
the jury only ten minutes to return a verdict of guilty and a
sentence of death. Beckford wrote to Franchi on 22 September:
"Tomorrow (according to the papers) they are going to hang a poor
honest sodomite. I should like to know what kind of deity they
fancy they are placating with these shocking human sacrifices.
In a numerous list of thieves, assassins, housebreakers,
violators ("a man for a rape") etc, he was the only one to be
sent to the gallows; all the others were "respited during
pleasure." The danger must be great indeed and everyone in the
country must be running the risk of having his arse exposed to
fire and slaughter."
Beckford pasted into his scrapbook the report from the
News, Sunday 29 September, and wrote
to Franchi on 3 October concerning a document about the mollies
which Eglerton gave to the prison chaplain Rev Horace Salusbury
Cotton on the night before his execution: "You may or may not
know that this man of honour, before his end, put in the hands
of his Anglican confessor, the most Reverend Mister Cotton,
Grand-Almoner of Newgate, a tremendous list of the gentlemen
affiliated or associated with him! He wanted to inform the
populace viva voce, but Father Cotton said with
evangelical sweetness, "My dear Sir, better not, better not." The
stupid, hypocritical, bloodthirsty vermin! The day will come when
their infamous vices and stinking hypocrisies will be revealed
to the eyes of all Europe. . . . The Portuguese did well to set
sail in time before the Annals of Father Cotton"; this is a
reference to a Portuguese molly compatriot of Franchi who had
escaped arrest.
Beckford himself contemplated fleeing to Portugal as early as
1808, with Saunders and a troupe of artists: "If I were at my
last gasp I would rise for this one. Gloria in excelsis
(full organ) et in terra papale Pax, non Pox — I
hope" (30 June 1808). Apparently Beckford during his previous
travels to Portugal had had an affair with Jacintho Fernandes
Bandeira, elder brother of the First Count of Porto Covo da
Bandeira, and he believed the atmosphere of that country to be
much more tolerant. He also spent time in Paris, where society
and the law were even more tolerant; there he hoped to find
agreeable inexpensive lodgings where he could buy books in the
morning "and have boys in the evening" (22 July 1814).
Arrogant and petulant, Beckford was deeply embittered at being
snubbed by his social equals and inferiors; he was obsessed with
his pedigree, and his aspirations were devastated when King
George III refused to grant him a peerage. The remarkable thing
about William Beckford — aside from the unique records of
his letters and scrapbook — is that he braved out his
ostracism by society. Weaker men than he — such as
Courtenay, Leicester and the Earl of Findlater, and a host of
clergymen and aristocrats — would have permanently resided
abroad in order to escape notoriety. Ironically we have come full
circle, for Beckford's estate at Fonthill Gifford once belonged
to Mervyn Touchet, Earl of Castlehaven, the first homosexual to
be prosecuted in the English courts. The frieze of St Michael's
Gallery in Fonthill Abbey was lined by armorial shields
delineating Beckford's descent from the family of Mervyn.
Beckford collected newspaper cuttings about homosexual scandals
until the very year of his death, carefully wrapped in packets
of gilt-edged paper together with cuttings of obituaries,
coronations, sales of books and pictures, and curiosities. I
think he shuffled and reshuffled them as he grew older, and even
in March 1844, less than a month before his death at the age of
83, he was still labelling the contents of these packets in the
shaky hand of an old man. Dozens of these gay cuttings are now
scattered throughout the Beckford Papers at the Bodleian Library,
University of Oxford, no longer in any particular order. They have many
interesting things to tell us about gay life at a time of high
moral fervour.
CITATION: If you cite this Web page, please use the following form of citation:
Rictor Norton, "William Beckford's Gay Scrapbooks", Gay History and Literature, updated 16 Nov. 1999 <http://www.rictornorton.co.uk/beckfor2.htm>.