Doubts on book about Victorian gay executions

AN AUTHOR realised during a live radio interview that a key argument in her new book could be based on a misunderstanding of an archaic British legal term.

Naomi Wolf, the American feminist writer, appeared on BBC Radio 3 to promote her book, Outrages, which explores how gay men were criminalised in Victorian Britain.

The book’s cover claims it unearths a “dramatic buried story of gay history”, centred on “a single English law in 1857”.

The legislation in question, the Matrimonial Causes Act, allowed – for the first time – women to divorce men, but only if they were guilty of certain offences, including “rape, sodomy and bestiality”.

This, Ms Wolf told presenter Matthew Sweet, helped to create a “moral panic” around sodomy that led to “mass arrests” and even “several dozen” executions. However, Mr Sweet revealed he had examined the records from the Old Bailey referenced in the book, only to find the supposedly executed men had “death recorded” next to their names.

He told the author: “It was a category that was created in 1823 that allowed judges to abstain from pronouncing a sentence of death on any

‘I don’t think any of the executions you have identified here actually happened’

capital convict whom they considered to be a fit subject for pardon.

“I don’t think any of the executions you have identified here actually happened.”

An apparently surprised Ms Wolf replied: “Well, that’s a really important thing to investigate.”

Mr Sweet pointed out that several of the cases related to indecent assault against children and bestiality, rather than consensual relationships between adults.