Section 11 of theCriminal Law Amendment Act 1885, commonly known as theLabouchère Amendment, made "gross indecency" acrime in the United Kingdom. In practice, the law was used broadly to prosecute malehomosexuals where actualsodomy (meaning, in this context,anal intercourse) could not be proven. The penalty oflife imprisonment for sodomy (until 1861 it had been death) was also so harsh that successful prosecutions were rare. The new law was much more enforceable. In England and Wales, section 11 wasrepealed and re-enacted by section 13 of theSexual Offences Act 1956; this in turn was repealed by theSexual Offences Act 1967, which partially decriminalised male homosexual behaviour.
Most famously,Oscar Wilde was convicted under section 11 and sentenced to two years'hard labour, andAlan Turing was convicted under it and sentenced tooestrogen injections (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison.
TheBuggery Act 1533, during the time ofHenry VIII, codified sodomy into secular law as "the detestable and abominable vice ofbuggery".[1] TheOffences against the Person Act 1861 specifically lowered the capital punishment for sodomy to life imprisonment, which continued until 1967. However,fellatio,masturbation, and other acts of non-penetration remained lawful. Private homosexual activity, though stigmatised and demonised, was somewhat safer during this time; the prosecution had to prove penetration had actually occurred.
In April 1870,cross-dressersBoulton and Park were arrested for wearingdrag outside theStrand Theatre. They were charged with conspiracy to commit sodomy withLord Arthur Pelham-Clinton, who died (probably of suicide) later that year and who was the third son of theHenry Pelham-Clinton, 5th Duke of Newcastle. However, since there was no actual witness of any such act nor evidence of semen on their posterior regions, the charges were dropped.
Henry Labouchère,Liberal MP forNorthampton, had been a diplomat; he now was the founding editor ofTruth magazine, which had its selling point in exposing corruption anddegeneration. In 1882, Labouchère met Wilde in America; Wilde praised him as the "best writer in Europe",[2] though Labouchère criticised Wilde as an "effeminate phrase maker". SirHoward Vincent, director of criminal investigations atScotland Yard from 1878 to 1884, called homosexual acts a modern "scourge".
TheYokel's Preceptor, a contemporary magazine, said this:
Hysteria over homosexuality was at a peak during the time, though the contemporary morality was already beginning to question the ethics of homosexual activity.Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a German lawyer, in the 1860s produced literature in favour of love between men. Calling itUranian love, he even considered it to be a higher form of love than common heterosexual love. Similarly,John Addington Symonds, an English poet, publishedA problem in Greek Ethics in 1883. It was subtitled "An Inquiry into the Phenomenon of Sexual Inversion addressed especially to medical psychologists and jurists". He argued for the Grecianpederasty, and said that the modern era could rethink its values.
In 1881, 1884, and 1885,John Ramsay, 13th Earl of Dalhousie introduced criminal law amendment bills "for the Protection of Women and Girls [and] suppression of brothels" (as theirlong title stated). The bills passed in theHouse of Lords but the first two were rejected in theHouse of Commons bythe Gladstone ministry. It was held that the proposed increase in theage of consent would leave men open to blackmail. The 1885 bill passed the Lords on 1 May 1885,[3] and its future progress was uncertain. In July,Pall Mall Gazette editorW. T. Stead was imprisoned for "buying" a 13-year-old girl namedEliza Armstrong for the sum of £5. He used this as proof of the ease with which this could be done inThe Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, a series of articles which caused amoral panic. The caretakerSalisbury ministry accepted Dalhousie's bill, which completed itssecond reading in the Commons on 9 July 1885.[4] The government made amendments to the bill atcommittee stage. Stead wrote to Labouchère, telling of the rise inhomosexuality in London and other large cities.
Labouchère proposed his amendment at the last minute, onreport stage ("consideration").Frank Harris, a contemporary, wrote that Labouchère proposed it as awrecking amendment to make the law seem "ridiculous" and thus discredit it in its entirety; some historians agree,[which?] citing Labouchère’s habitual obstructionism and other attempts to sink this bill by the same means, while others write that his role in calling for more investigation into theCleveland Street [male brothel] scandal places into context a sincere attempt to change the law permanently, stipulating more robust controls against male homosexuality.[5][6][7] The amendment was rushed through and passed in the early hours of 7 August 1885,[8] becoming section 11 of the act. WhenCharles Warton questioned whether Labouchère’s amendment had anything to do with the original intent of the bill (as expressed in its long title), thespeaker,Arthur Peel, responded that under procedural rules any amendment was permitted byleave of the House.[8] (In 1888 standing orders were changed to restrict the type of amendment which could be made at a bill's report stage.[9])
Labouchère, inspired to action by the modern question over sexual norms, pushed in the four-minute debate for strong action against "deviants".[8] He originally wanted a seven-year minimum sentence of hard labour, but the home secretary and attorney general persuaded him to a reduction of the sentence to any term not exceeding one year with or without hard labour.[8] The formerattorney general,Sir Henry James, while supporting the amendment, objected to the leniency of the sentence, and wanted to increase the sentence to any term not exceeding two years with or without hard labour.[8] Labouchère agreed, and the amendment was passed.[8]
Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures, or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with an other male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof, shall be liable at the discretion of the Court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour.
No definition of "gross indecency" was provided.John Addington Symonds was disgusted by section 11, arguing, amongst other things, that it would only facilitate blackmail against homosexuals. He noted that reference to being "party to the commission of" gross indecency served essentially as aconspiracy charge, allowing for a broader pool of convictions. This amendment ignoredlesbian activity.
As a result of the vagueness of the term "gross indecency", this law allowed juries, judges, and lawyers to prosecute virtually any malehomosexual behaviour where it could not be proven that the defendant had specifically engaged in homosexualanal intercourse, also known as sodomy or "buggery". The sentence was relatively light compared to the penalty for that act, which remained a separate crime. Lawyers dubbed section 11 the "blackmailer's charter".[10]
The law led to many convictions against male homosexuals and alleged homosexuals. A number committed suicide.
Wilde had (against the advice of friends likeFrank Harris andGeorge Bernard Shaw) unsuccessfully privately prosecuted in libel theMarquess of Queensberry for writing on a calling card left at Wilde's club that he, Wilde, was "posing as a somdomite" (sodomite). The action was urged by Queensberry's sonLord Alfred Douglas, who reluctantly fled toFrance at the time to avoid possible arrest. Section 11 was quickly invoked to prosecute and convict Oscar Wilde in 1895. He was given the most severe sentence possible under the Act, which the judge described as "totally inadequate for a case such as this".[11]Wilde was found guilty of gross indecency with "at least" 12 young men between 1892 and 1894 and he was sentenced to two years' hard labour.[12] After prison, Wilde would condemn the Criminal Law Amendment Act, predicting that the battle against it would be a "road… long and red with monstrous martyrdoms." He asserted that so-called "Uranian" love was "noble—more noble than other forms".[13]
Mathematician,logician,cryptanalyst and an earlycomputer scientist,Alan Turing was investigated for alleged violations of the provision when the police discovered a male lover at his house after Turing reported a petty theft. Instead of prison, he opted for oestrogen injection hormone "therapy" for a year, slightly feminising the body and losing sexual urges. Psychologists attribute this as a cause of his suicide. He was pardoned posthumously by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013 at the request of justice ministerChris Grayling, following a petition campaign.[14]
InEngland and Wales, the section wasrepealed and re-enacted as section 13 of theSexual Offences Act 1956. It was later amended by theSexual Offences Act 1967, which decriminalised consensual homosexual acts in private by men over 21. After other amendments, the section was repealed by theSexual Offences Act 2003.
InScottish law, the section was repealed and re-enacted as section 7 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 1976. It was later amended by section 80 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980, which decriminalised consensual homosexual acts in private by men over 21. After other amendments, the section was repealed by the Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Act 1997.
InNorthern Ireland law, the section was amended by The Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982, which decriminalised consensual homosexual acts in private by men over 21. After other amendments, it was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
InRepublic of Ireland law, the section was repealed by the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993, which decriminalised consensual homosexual acts between males over 17.[15] Sections 4 and 5 of the 1993 act created new offences committable by males, respectively called "Gross indecency with males under 17 years of age" and "gross indecency with another male person who is mentally impaired",[15] which were repealed in 2006 and 2017, and subsumed under gender-neutral crimes of "Defilement of a child"[16] and "Sexual act with protected person".[17] In 2019, theSupreme Court of Ireland determined that prosecutions under the 1885 act could proceed where an incident occurred before the 1993 act came into force;[18] theDirector of Public Prosecutions committed not to prosecute unless the action would still have constituted an offence under the post-1993 laws.[19]
When the bill, as amended by the committee, is considered, the entire bill is open to consideration, and new clauses may be added, and amendments made. According to former usage, the amendments might be wholly irrelevant to the subject-matter of the bill. This vicious practice was, in 1888, rendered impossible by standing order No. 41, which prescribes that no amendment may be proposed to a bill on consideration, which could not have been proposed in committee without an instruction from the house.
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| Classes of crimes |  | |
| Inchoate offences | ||
| Defences | ||
| Offences against the person or state | ||
| Sexual offences | ||
| Criminal libel and kindred offences | ||
| Offences against property | ||
| Forgery, personation and cheating | ||
| Offences against justice | ||
| Death against family honour | ||
| Criminal behaviour |
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