1781: Benjamin Loveday and John Burke, “for the detestable Crime of Sodomy”

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October 12, 1781 saw the hanging at Saint Michael’s Hill in Bristol of Benjamin Loveday and John Burke — “for the detestable Crime of Sodomy; they were both capitally convicted on the clearest Evidence, which is shocking to Human Nature to describe.”

The newspaper reporting, both slight and heartbreaking, can be perused at the website of gay history expert Rictor Norton, here. Between the lines, it suggests Loveday as the proprietor of a molly house or something very like it — an establishment catering to the underground market in same-sex desire, the like of which periodically surfaced in moral panic episodes in the 1700s and early 1800s. (See Norton’s topical Mother Claps Molly House: Gay Subculture in England 1700-1830.)

Loveday, “about 41 years of age … was formerly waiter at a principal inn in Bristol, but had lately kept a public-house in Tower Lane.” The younger Burke “had acted as a midshipman in the impress service, and he was the unlucky one. Three other men, Joseph Giles, James Lane, and William Ward, also faced potentially lethal charges of committing sodomy with Loveday at the same assizes; Giles and Lane got off with misdemeanor convictions and Ward was acquitted outright.

About Twelve o’Clock they were brought out of Newgate, and being placed in a Cart, moved in slow Procession to the fatal Tree, preceded by the Under-Sheriff on Horse-back, and other proper Offices; and attended in a Chariot by the Rev. Mr. Easterbrooke and two other Clergymen, who have frequently visited them since their Conviction, and earnestly laboured to bring them to a due Sense of their Crime, and a Confession of their Guilt. To and at the Place of Execution, their Behaviour was decent, and becoming their awful Situation; and though their Convicted was founded on clear and positive Evidence, yet with their last Breath, they both, in the most solemn Manner, protested their Innocence respecting the Crime for which they were doomed to suffer; but at the same Time acknowledged themselves to have been guilty of many heinous Offences. (Oxford Journal, Oct. 20, 1781)

On this day..

Possibly related executions:

One thought on “1781: Benjamin Loveday and John Burke, “for the detestable Crime of Sodomy””

  1. Newgate in is London, right? They travelled all the way to Bristol for the execution?

    Lord, let us never forget our martyred dead/let us STOP any more murdering of our LGBTQ family everywhere and forever!

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