1st Edition
Sexual and Gender Difference in the British Navy, 1690-1900
This volume is a collection of a variety of important records that will give readers insight into key themes into the history of what its criminal code called “the unnatural and detestable sin of buggery”- sex between males - in the Royal Navy. The richest sources are transcripts of trials, including ones that erupted into public scandals and ones that provide a vivid window into the sexual cultures of the navy. The book also provides lists of important records in the naval archive and will serve as a guide to finding and interpreting them. This important volume, accompanied by extensive editorial commentary, opens up this history and archive to researchers, teachers, and students studying queer history, the history of gender and sexuality, and naval and maritime history.
Introduction: The British Navy and the Queer Age of Sail
PART 1: Tolerance and Punishment
1 "The Unnatural and Detestable Sin": The Ban on Same-Sex Contact in the Articles of War (1661 and 1749)
2 "He was Pleased with all his other Attempts upon Him": Relationships between Three Sailors from HMS Expedition (1705)
3 Vigilante Violence: An Attack on a Member of the "Vile Clan" (1731)
4 Avoiding Trial: A Newspaper Reports Discretionary Punishments (1735)
5 Sex in the Foretop: The Trial of Hugh Ducaty and William Tofts (1738)
6 "A Very Extraordinary Kind of Sea Discipline": "Amazonian" Women Punish Buggery on HMS Princess Amelia (1742)
7 Punishing and Permitting Same-Sex Acts at Sea: Press Coverage (1747, 1757)
8 Executing a Boy for Buggery: The George Newton and Thomas Finley Trial (1761)
9 "I Did What I Had no Right to Do": Captain Graham Moore Chooses Summary Punishment (1788, 1793)
10 "Striking Examples": The Admiralty Attempts to Punish Marine James Parker (1811)
11 How to Prosecute Same-Sex Acts: Naval Jurist John McArthur on Buggery at Sea (1813)
12 "The Last Person in the Ship I Should Have Suspected": The Trial of Seaman Thomas Randall (1815)
13 "A Tragic Incident": Lieutenant John Towne’s Account of a Buggery Hanging (1833)
PART 2: Queer Tars
1 "It was much better to lay with one another": Quartermaster Thomas Pike Plans an Assignation on HMS York (1701)
2 "An Odd Affair which Lately Happened": A Cross-Dressing Cabin Boy (1739)
3 "A Correspondence . . . Not Fit to be Named": Tobias Smollett’s Captain Whiffle and Mr. Simper (1748)
4 "A Backdoor Man": Marine Officers Fight over Masculinity in a Plymouth Tavern (1755)
5 "Tender Expressions . . . Not Becoming Men": Intimacy Between Officers on HMS Raven (1775)
6 "The Little Female Tar": A Cross-Dressing Sailor Testifies in a Buggery Trial (1809)
7 "I am No Man to be Tried by a Court Martial": A Sailor Pleads "Neutrality of Gender" (1803)
8 "The Childish Vice of Boys": Adolescent Sexual Activity Aboard HMS Africaine (1816)
9 "A Thorn Has Been Given Him In the Flesh": Naval Officer James Woolls Describes His Same-Sex Desire (1818)
PART 3: In Print
1 Reports of Same-Sex Acts in Seventeenth-Century Newspapers (1650, 1654)
2 "Any Port in a Storm": A Sailor Risks Sodomy in Fanny Hill (1748)
3 The Lieutenant Thomas Wye Affair: A Buggery Case on Shore (1755–56)
4 "Indecent Familiarities with Mankind": William Benbow Recalls the Captain Charles Sawyer Scandal (1796, 1823)
5 "A Case of Unparalleled Hardship": Lieutenant Arthur W. Adair Appeals to the Nation for Justice (1807, 1809)
6 "A Full Acquittal": Captain Thomas G. Muston Insists on his Innocence in Print (1812)
7 "Familiarity with Gross Pollution": Captain Edward Hawker on Female Sex Workers and Same-Sex Intimacy in the Navy (1821)
PART 4: Naval Buggery Scandals
1 "Is It Not What Great Men Do?": The Edward Rigby Scandal (1698)
2 The HMS Stag Affair: Captain Henry Angel (1762, 1805)
3 "But for this Detestable Propensity": Lieutenant William Berry (1807)
4 "Guilty of an Abominable Offence": Naval Surgeon James Nehemiah Taylor (1809)
PART 5: "A Man F – g Ship"
1 Sworn Statements from the Officers’ Investigation on HMS Africaine (October–November 1815)
2 Sworn Statements from the Admiralty’s Investigation (December 1815)
3 Admiral Edward Thornbrough’s Report on the Africaine Punishments (1816)
4 Press Coverage of the Africaine Trials and Punishments
PART 6: The Victorian Navy
1 "Considered the Prisoner as a Father": The Lieutenant Richard Inman Scandal (1838)
2 "So Full an Acquittal": The Trials of Lieutenant Lionel R. Place (1842)
3 "To Throw Himself Upon the Protection of the Publick": Defending Lieutenant Henry Stokes (1844–1845)
4 "Revolting Charges Against a Naval Officer": Lieutenant George Armitage Brings a Perjury Accusation (1862–1864)
5 "Charged with Insobriety and Indecency": The Trial of Lieutenant Frederick W. Kuper (1871)
6 "Foul Offence and Exemplary Punishment": The Trial and Flight of Navigating Sub-Lieutenant William Renwick (1873)
7 "In the Water Closet of a Café at Gibraltar": The Trial of Seamen Robert Simpson and Henry Keenor (1874)
Appendix A: Surviving Records of British Navy Trials Related to Sex and Gender, 1690–1900
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Seth LeJacq is a Lecturing Fellow at Duke University, USA. He has published extensively on the Royal Navy’s efforts to suppress sex between males and undertakes public engagement related to this history.
