ABSTRACT
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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|68 pages
Tolerance and Punishment
chapter 1|2 pages
“The Unnatural and Detestable Sin”
chapter 2|3 pages
“He was Pleased with All his other Attempts upon him”
chapter 6|2 pages
“A Very Extraordinary Kind of Sea Discipline”
chapter 9|2 pages
“I did What I had No Right to do”
chapter 11|6 pages
How to Prosecute Same-Sex Acts
chapter 12|8 pages
“The Last Person in the Ship I should have Suspected”
part 2|59 pages
Queer Tars
chapter 1|4 pages
“It was Much Better to Lay with One Another”
chapter 3|8 pages
“A Correspondence … Not Fit to be Named”
chapter 4|9 pages
“A Backdoor Man”
chapter 5|14 pages
“Tender Expressions … Not Becoming Men”
chapter 6|3 pages
“The Little Female Tar”
chapter 7|8 pages
“I am No Man to be Tried by a Court Martial”
chapter 9|6 pages
“A Thorn has been Given him in the Flesh”
part 3|75 pages
In Print
chapter 4|2 pages
“Indecent Familiarities with Mankind”
chapter 5|35 pages
“A Case of Unparalleled Hardship”
chapter 6|25 pages
“A Full Acquittal”
chapter 7|3 pages
“Familiarity with Gross Pollution”
part 4|57 pages
Naval Buggery Scandals
part 5|54 pages
“A Man F – G Ship”
part 6|50 pages
The Victorian Navy