Molly houses, the gay clubs of 18th century's London
Left, Shoe Lane today (Lisa Nordbo Fiil) and illustration of Field Lane in 1830, which used to be located here (Wilson, J.T., from the Metropolitan Prints Collection)
If you’ve been watching Tom Hardy’s Taboo on BBC, you’ll probably be familiar with the expression “molly house”. This is where Godfrey the secretary lives his hidden life as a homosexual. Even though Taboo is set in 1814, the molly houses have been a part of London since the 18th century, with the most famous being Mother Clap’s establishment, raided and shut down in 1726. It was situated in Field Lane, which today is around where Shoe Lane meets Charterhouse Street.
Under Henry VIII, the Buggery Act was introduced in 1533 and was the first formal piece of legislation concerning homosexual acts. Forced to keep their sexual orientation under wraps, gay men in 18th century London had to chose their company and locations wisely. The molly houses could be alehouses or simply somebody’s private home, where homosexuality was not frowned upon. Around the same time, a group known as the Society for the Reformation of Manners were on the lookout for anything deemed indecent, and along with the police they frequently used informers to gain access to London’s molly houses.
The author Rictor Norton has written extensively on homosexual culture in the United Kingdom, and through old trial transcripts he was able to dig out the story of Mother Clap’s molly house. In February 1726, the police raided the premises of Mother Clap’s after teaming up with patrons forced to become informants. Forty men, called “mollies” or “sodomites” at that time, were arrested and taken to Newgate Prison. There aren’t records of all of their trials, but Rictor Norton did find evidence that three of them - Gabriel Lawrence, William Griffin, and Thomas Wright – were hanged on the 9th of May 1726. Mother Clap, or Margaret Clap, was sentenced to the pillory, a fine and two years of prison.
Homosexuality was somewhat decriminalized in 1967, but it wasn’t until 2003 that the limitations of the 1967 law were removed.
