Gay and Lesbian History at The National Archives: An Introduction

Domestic Records Information 116

1. Introduction

Compared to other historical fields, gay and lesbian history is still in its infancy. It is only in the past thirty years that historians have begun to see the experiences of gay men and women as a subject for serious historical research. Only within the past decade have they begun to explore the possibilities offered by the documents held by The National Archives. Using sources at The National Archives to research gay and lesbian history is still a time consuming and difficult task, presenting considerable problems for anyone working in the field.

This research guide offers an introduction to the historical and institutional contexts in which documentary evidence of gay and lesbian experiences, and official responses and attitudes to those experiences, have entered specific areas of collections at The National Archives. As a guide to independent research it offers a series of suggestions as to potentially productive series of documents, in order to allow this field to continue to develop. We would welcome further feedback from researchers as to their experiences working in this area.

2. Problems in Researching Gay and Lesbian History in The National Archives

The starting point for any research is the Catalogue, (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue). Yet for researchers working on gay and lesbian history, searching the catalogue is of limited use. Using the catalogue, files containing gay and lesbian material are not identified under the existing index to the collection. The second common form of searching the catalogue - for keywords contained within file titles or descriptions - presents further problems. Searching under the term "homosexual" identifies fifty-five files; "lesbian" only two.

These results do not represent the full extent of relevant material held at The National Archives, and their limitations highlight the major obstacle facing researchers. It is often impossible to know whether or not files contain evidence of gay and lesbian experiences from their catalogue titles and descriptions. Searching for this material within files that give no precise indication of content can be a time consuming and tortuous exercise, and is often unproductive. Sections three and four of this research guide suggest how these searches can be made more productive, and how a more flexible, focused and tangential approach can allow researchers to use the the Catalogue (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue) effectively.

Although identifying potential sources is the major obstacle to researching gay and lesbian history, a second problem rests in whether or not files are open for public access. In order to protect the confidentiality of individuals identified in official records, documents held in The National Archives are closed for thirty, fifty, seventy-five or one hundred years.

Though the long-term closure of files is understandable, and often unavoidable, given the sensitivity surrounding issues of sexuality, this presents a particular difficulty for gay and lesbian historians working on the past century. At the same time many government departments may be prepared to consider opening files on request by researchers, unless to do so would be in breach of the Data Protection Act. If researchers wish to view a file that is closed at present they should consult the departmental records officer of the department concerned, whose address can be obtained from staff at The National Archives.

3. Ways Forward

Records at The National Archives bring together and preserve the records of central government and the courts of law from the 11th century to the present day. Throughout much of this period love, sex and bonding between men, and between women, have been seen as potent threats to the "natural" order of heterosexual marriage and the family, the "natural" differences between men and women, and the stability of the state itself. It is only comparatively recently that attitudes have begun to change.

In order to discourage such practices, the state has played a major role in repressing, controlling and censoring the lives of gay men and women. Alternative sexualities have persistently caused official anxieties and have become subject to state intervention within specific areas of policy making and management. These anxieties, and the responses of particular branches of government, are reflected in the documents held by The National Archives. Paradoxically, attempts at suppression have generated potentially rich evidence of gay and lesbian experiences and official attitudes towards homosexuality. This section thus outlines those areas of government policy that have focused upon the activities of gay men and women in order to suggest which series may be of potential use to researchers working on gay and lesbian history.

3.1. Legislation and the Law

a. Criminal Law

Sexual relations between men have been a focus for legal intervention for centuries. By prohibiting them under the criminal law the state has sought to discourage such practices through the threat of arrest, imprisonment, execution or corporal punishment.

Although already proscribed under Canon Law, "buggery" was first made a criminal offence in 1553. The 1861 Offences Against the Person Act consolidated this provision, together with the further offence of "indecent assault", which had emerged within common law during the 18th century. Under the infamous 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act (under which Oscar Wilde was prosecuted), any act of "gross indecency" between men became a criminal offence, whether it occurred in public or in private. These provisions were further enshrined in the "indecency" clauses of many local bylaws. "Cruising" streets, parks or urinals was criminalised as the offence of "importuning" through the Vagrancy Act (1898) and the Criminal Law Amendment Act (1912). Moreover, the taverns, cafes and clubs frequented by gay men and lesbians have been targeted under "disorderly house" and liquor licensing legislation since the eighteenth century. More detailed discussions of the laws regulating homosexuality can be found in the list of further reading below.

The legal situation means that the public records contain enormously rich files documenting both aspects of gay male history, and official attitudes towards homosexuality. Court records contain material relating to individual prosecutions (ASSI , CRIM , J ), ranging from indictments that simply list an individual's name and offence to written depositions of the evidence taken by the court, or (more rarely) transcripts of the trial proceedings. From the 19th century responsibility for the enactment and enforcement of the criminal law lay with the Home Office, Director of Public Prosecutions and (in London) the Metropolitan Police. Their records include discussions of individual cases, considerations of appeals, and debates around the operations of the law (HO 17 , HO 18 , HO 19 , HO 45 , HO 144 , HO 345 , DPP , MEPO 2 , MEPO 3 ). Finally, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, the criminal law could become subject to discussion in cabinet or Parliament (see below) (CAB , PREM , HO ).

In contrast to the position of gay men, sex between women has never been a criminal offence. In 1921, the House of Lords rejected a proposed new offence of acts of gross indecency between women under the Criminal Law Amendment Bill. As a result, the records of legal institutions generate far fewer specific sources for lesbian history than they do for men, and those that do exist are difficult to identify. Despite not being controlled directly by the law, like the experiences of gay men, lesbianism has entered the legislature and courts in a number of other ways.

b. Censorship

The public representation of gay men and lesbians in literature, art, theatre, cinema, television and radio has frequently generated considerable official anxiety, attracting the hostile attention of the censors or prosecution under the obscenity laws. Such incidents, including the notable prosecution of Radclffye Hall's the Well of Loneliness (1928) are reflected in the papers of the Home Office (HO ), the Lord Chamberlain's Office (LCO ), or legal institutions (CRIM , MEPO , DPP ). [For the Well of Loneliness see CUST 49/1057 and HO 144/22547 ].

c. Marriage and Divorce

Gay men and lesbians have frequently been seen as a threat to the institution of heterosexual marriage. The homosexuality of one partner may have been cited in individual divorce proceedings in the courts. Moreover, debates over divorce law reform in the early twentieth century repeatedly raised the question of whether lesbianism should be grounds for divorce.

d. Fraud, Defamation, Slander and Libel

The question of an individual's sexual practices has been openly aired in the courts in the form of prosecutions for defamation, slander and libel. Imputations of lesbianism are documented in the libel case brought by the actress Maud Allan in 1918, Radclffye Hall's successful slander case in 1920, and in the official intimidation of the Women's Police Service in the 1920s (HO , CRIM 1 , MEPO , MEPO 3 ). Moreover, cases of blackmail - brought under the legal offence of demanding money with menaces - often revolved around allegations of sexual immorality. Further searches of such cases may be productive.

3.2. Gay and Lesbian Politics

In the past century gay men and lesbians have increasingly challenged their social marginalisation. For much of this period political organisations such as the Homosexual Law Reform Society focused upon the legal position of gay men. In response to this pressure, civil servants, politicians and legal officials thus regularly discussed the operations of the criminal law, particularly after the appointment of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (the Wolfenden Committee) in 1954 (HO , CAB , DPP ). In 1957 the Committee recommended that private homosexual acts between consenting adults should no longer be a criminal offence. The files of the committee (HO 345 ) are a rich source of evidence about gay male life, and medical, legal and official understandings of homosexuality in the mid-twentieth century.

In the following decade, gay political organisations campaigned intensively for the enactment of the Wolfenden recommendations into law (eventually achieved in 1967). The activities of these organisations, and the political debates they generated are reflected in the records of the Home Office (HO ), the Cabinet (CAB ) and the Prime Minister's Office (PREM ). Home Office papers contain a further series of files on the activities of various branches of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in the late 1970s (HO 265 , BS ).

3.3. Single Sex Organisations

The sexual and emotional relationships between men and women living, working or confined within single-sex institutions and organisations were a constant source of anxiety for those in authority. Where there are large groups of men, or women, there will be material about homosexuality, or anxieties about it.

a. Prisons, Borstals and Reform Schools

External evidence suggests the prevalence of homosexual relationships and anxieties surrounding them in prisons, borstals and reform schools. The disciplinary records of these institutions may contain relevant material on homosexuality (PCOM ). Further, since men convicted of "sexual offences" could be imprisoned, it may be possible to find material relating to their experiences. From the 1930s onwards, such men were increasingly referred to prison medical officers for diagnosis and "treatment". Medical officers' reports for particular prisons, and discussions of medical responses to homosexuality, are also held by The National Archives (PCOM , HO ).

b. Education and Youth Organisations

Anxieties over close friendships between pupils, the "unhealthy" influence of gay or lesbian teachers, and the need to educate girls and boys into their appropriate futures as heterosexual wives, mothers, fathers and citizens have pervaded debates over education and youth organisations since the 19th century. These anxieties may be reflected in the relevant material held in HO and ED series

c. The Military

Concerns surrounding the effects of living in a single-sex environment were particularly marked in the armed forces, where homosexual practices were seen as a threat to discipline, morale and the security of the state. Servicemen were regularly prosecuted, court-martialed or discharged for "sexual offences", and the military authorities responsible for the army, navy, airforce and women's services often discussed the potential impact of, and responses to such offences. Procedural discussions and individual cases may be found in the relevant documents held by The National Archives (ADM , WO , AIR ).

3.4. Public Health, Medicine and the Welfare State

As well as a threat to the stability of the state and heterosexual marriage, gay men and lesbians have also been perceived as "ill" or "diseased" individuals, and, as such, a potential source of danger to public health. Although this is clearest in recent reactions to HIV and AIDS, such concerns have been evident since at least the 19th century. Particularly since the 1920s, the state has been concerned both with minimizing the risk of "infection" and with incarcerating, "treating" and "curing" gay and lesbian individuals. Medical understandings of homosexuality, and responses to it, are reflected in records at The National Archives, as are early responses to AIDS (BD , MH , HO , PCOM , FD ).

4. Searching the online catalogue

Understanding the institutional and historical contexts within which evidence of the experiences of, and attitudes towards, gay men and lesbians has entered particular sections of The National Archives collections allows researchers to use the Catalogue (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue) in a more informed and effective manner to locate sources for writing gay and lesbian history.

First, the catalogue searches become more productive, and less time-consuming, when narrowed down to specific series of documents. For the researcher working on institutional lesbianism, for example, searching the whole catalogue for "female AND delinquency" will generate a huge number of responses, many of which will be irrelevant. In contrast, a search limited to the records of the Home Office or Prison Commissioners will produce a more manageable number of responses to view, and is likely to produce better results.

Second, searching the catalogue becomes more productive with an understanding of the language and terminology within which the experiences of gay men and women have been historically framed. Searching for specific keywords in this way will allow the researcher to identify potentially useful files. In part this involves recognising and searching under alternative historical labels for gay and lesbian ("sodomite", "tribade" or "pervert") or the legal offences and categories within which individuals become subject to the law ("gross indecency" or "libel").

Third, it is important to recognise that the responses generated by these searches only represent a fraction of the relevant material held by The National Archives. Knowledge of official procedure can inform more tangential searches, which are also potentially productive. Knowing, for example, that sexual and emotional relationships within single-sex institutions were a constant source of concern will allow a search of PCOM files for medical officers's reports, or files relating to girls' reformatories for material on discipline.

Fourth, as the examples cited above suggest, concentrating upon particular series of documents as PCOM , WO , or HO 45 allows the researcher to browse the catalogue in an effective and time-efficient manner. A browse search enables the researcher to move from series to sub-series to individual item level in order to identify particular files for further researcher. For example, a browse search of PCOM suggests the potential of the sub-series PCOM 2: Home Office and Prison Commission: Prison Records Series 1: 1770-1881.

5. Other collections

Whilst The National Archives represents a significant resource for those working on gay and lesbian history, it is by no means the only archival collection on which researchers might draw. Given the historic anxieties surrounding same-sex love, sex and bonding and the role of the state in regulating gay and lesbian lives, it is likely that the holdings of local record offices will include similar sources to those contained within The National Archives' collections. Productive areas for further exploration might include, for example, local court and police records - particularly those for large urban centres - school and educational archives, and the individual archives generated by single-sex institutions like individual prisons or youth organisations. Within these guidelines, potentially productive collections can be identified by searching the National Register of Archives at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/. Locating relevant material within these collections will still present significant problems, though the suggestions offered in this research guide will often be helpful.

The most significant resource for researchers interested in the history of gay and lesbian political activism since 1957 is the Hall-Carpenter Archive at the London School of Economics (www.lse.ac.uk/library/archive/gutoho/hall_carpenter_archives.htm). Founded in 1982, the collection includes the archives of organisations like the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and the Homosexual Law Reform Society, as well as of individual activists. It also contains a collection of periodicals and newspaper cuttings. A series of interviews with older gay men and lesbians recorded as part of the Hall-Carpenter Oral History Project is available at the National Sound Archive at the British Library National Sound Archive, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB; tel: 020 7412 7440; email: sound-archive@bl.uk). LAGNA, the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive set up by Hall Carpenter has over 80,000 press cuttings covering all aspects of gay life from the 1930s to the present. It is based at Middlesex University Cat Hill campus.

6. Suggested reading

Although the gay and lesbian history of Britain is less developed than, for example, that of the United States, and there is a serious lack of histories of lesbianism that use sources in The National Archives, there are a number of works that have used material contained within The National Archives. Many of these offer further suggestions as to how the experiences of gay men and lesbians have come under official scrutiny.

7. Glossary

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