Feasting with panthers

[anteros_lmc]

William Bankes

Something for International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, though it's not my something, it's Catharine Arnold's something. Arnold is a journalist and historian and author of a number of social history books including Necropolis: London and its Dead, Bedlam and Underworld London. She also runs the @London_darkside twitter account which is one of the most fascinating and moving twitter feeds that I follow. Every morning she tweets a historical story, often about London, and frequently relating to "underground" aspects of the city's culture. She tweeted a brief summary of the raid on Mother Clap's molly house a couple of weeks ago, which actually had me in tears at my desk. Anyway, this is the story she tweeted today:

Does it really matter what these affectionate people do so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses?

1833: William Bankes MP discovered standing behind the screen of a place for making water against Westminster Abbey wall . . .

...with a soldier named Flowers and surprised with his breeches unbuttoned at ten at night his companion's dress being in similar disorder...

...'he was never yet known to be guilty of any expression bordering on profanity' and the jury acquitted him despite incriminating evidence.

William Bankes MP narrowly avoided sentence for gross indecency on the grounds that 'his character was not that associated with sodomites!'

But Bankes got caught out again in 1841 in a compromising position with a guardsman in Green Park and fled the country before his trial.

Gay in Westminster: George Canning, PM in 1827, was said to make advances to any pretty young man around the House of Commons.

Benjamin Disraeli if not gay was highly camp: 'at school friendship is a passion. It entrances the being: it tears the soul!'

Should everyone found guilty of Oscar Wilde's crime be imprisoned, there would be emigration from Eton Harrow and Winchester to Pentonville.

Gladstone was an exception: 'he did not stand aside from the harmless gaiety of boyish life but rigidly refused any part in indecorums!'

Gladstone's idea of harmless gaiety at Eton: playing cards and chess and taking a boat out on the river without authorization.

'Why I should love Prothero as I do I cannot tell, but I do love him and I believe that love ennobles me and purifies me.' O Browning, Eton.

Browning became a fellow of King's College Cambridge and became a member of the Apostles. Cambridge was a gay haven for students and tutors.

London 1855 the gay scene was tougher. 'Renters' described as 'monster who actually walk the street the same as whores looking for a chance!'

Fleet Street, Holborn and the Strand favoured cruising grounds. Signs in the pubs warned drinkers to 'Beware of the Sods.'

How to spot a sod? The signal consisted of placing their fingers in a peculiar manner underneath their coats and waggling them about.

'Backgammon': slang for gay sex which must have been confusing for any pubgoers who anticipated nothing more exciting than a board game.

The stakes were high for gay men with the ever present threat of blackmail. Wilde called consorting with rent boys 'feasting with panthers.'

William John Bankes was a lifelong friend of Byron, who he met at Trinity college and travelled with extensively. He was a passionate art collector and antiquarian who amassed a huge collection of artefacts and artworks which are still held at his ancestral home of Kingston Lacy. Bankes also served as aide de campe to Wellington during the Peninsular War and was protected by the Duke when he was later persecuted for his indiscretions. Bankes was eventually forced to flee the country but continued to send artefacts back to his collection at Kingston Lacy. Bankes' sister married Edward Boscawen, 1st Earl of Falmouth, and grandson of Admiral Boscawen. When she was widowed in 1841 she returned to Kingston Lacy and managed the house and her brother's collections in his absence. Bankes died in Venice in 1855 at the age of 69.

Comments

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

People tend to forget that the scene has always happened and always will.

I'd never heard of Bankes - thanks for educating me, yet again! *mwah*

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

People tend to forget that the scene has always happened and always will.
Indeed. I have a book here called Queer Cities: gay urban histories since 1600. I've only read bits of it but it's absolutely fascinating.

I'd never heard of Bankes
Me neither! He sounds like an interesting character. This biography of Bankes was published quite recently. I must try and get a hold of a copy sometime.