Molly house

Rictor Norton, for example, argues that the regular customers could have been in fact mutual friends, at least at the beginning, since consistent evidence concerning male prostitution seems to be insufficient in Britain until the 1780s.

[22] As sodomy was a capital offence, the organisation of homosexual men and their activities had to be a crucial point, in order to keep the community as safe as possible from prosecution.

[23] An editorial in The London Journal singled out a number of areas:[23] The presence of pillories punishing sodomitical offences, ironically, identified the sites where such acts frequently took place.

But due to the difficulty of proving this actual penetration and ejaculation many men were prosecuted with the reduced charge of assault with sodomitical intent.From the late 1690s to the early 1710s, the Societies for the Reformation of Manners (organizations born after the Revolution in 1688, seeking to eliminate immorality and disrespect for religion from public life)[28] actively pursued prostitutes, Sabbath breakers and also homosexual men, through the means of spies and provocateurs to dismantle molly houses and prosecute individuals.

Some of the uses seemed to be: the Marshal was complimented by the Company with the Titles of Madam and Ladyship.From James Dalton's A Genuine Narrative of all the Street Robberies Committed since October last:[35]Their chief Names are as follows.

Again from Jonathan Wild:The men calling one another my Dear, and hugging, kissing, and tickling each other, as if they were a Mixture of wanton Males and Females, and assuming effeminate Voices and Airs[34]At the expected Time several of the sporting Youngsters were seized in Women's Apparel, and convey'd to the Compter.

It was located in Field Lane, near to another tavern The Bunch of Grapes in Holborn, a suburban parish of Middlesex a short distance from the City of London.

[37][38] This area came to be renowned as a rookery[39] in the next decades, and described as a sort of distinct town, or district calculated for the reception of the darkest and most dangerous enemies to society; in which when pursued for the commission of crimes they easily conceal themselves and readily escape.

[40] A literary example can be interpreted as a sort of confirmation of the reputation of this lane, since Charles Dickens placed here Fagin's den, an old Jewish man earning a living as a fence, in his 1837 novel Oliver Twist.

This peculiar homosexual meeting place, however, became well known to the public during the 1720s through the trial of its keeper, Margaret Clap, indicted for keeping a disorderly house and for encouraging her customers to commit sodomy;[41] and, particularly, through the account given by an agent provocateur, Samuel Stevens.

Three of her customers were hanged for sodomy: Gabriel Lawrence, a 43-year-old milkman; William Griffin, a 43-year-old furniture upholsterer; and Thomas Wright, who was a molly house keeper.

[37] In the eighteenth century according to the Old Bailey Proceedings, only two individuals were formally arrested for keeping a molly-house: Margaret Clap and Julius Cesar Taylor,[42] but several accused of sodomitical practices seems to be reported as brothel keepers as well (i.e. Thomas Wright).

On 9 May 1726, three men (Gabriel Lawrence, William Griffin, and Thomas Wright) were hanged at Tyburn for buggery following a raid of Margaret Clap's molly-house.