England, 1861 - England revised its criminal code to
remove the death penalty for sodomy, a penalty that dated to the time of Henry VIII. The
death penalty had not been applied to any crime beside murder or treason in England since
1838, so the revised Offenses Against the Person act brought the law into line with actual
judicial practice.
The focus of the British government at mid-century was on international
affairs, especially on its perennial enemy France and on nurturing the growth and
containing the rebellions of the colonies in its growing empire. In spite of
lip-service
to the principles of liberalism and liberty, the nation maintained a conservative body of
law, the aristocracy retained its perquisites, and the Church of England retained its
power far longer than, for example, in France which had decriminalized adult consensual
sex in 1791.
It is not surprising, granted England's 19th Century social conservatism
that sodomy remained illegal, but that it was a capital offense seemed anachronistic even
to the English. In 1861, parliament partially remedied that. A revised Offenses against
the Person act was passed. It retained most of the Act of 1828,
but the penalties for buggery and attempted buggery were reduced.
The Act of 1861 reiterated the 1828 principle that that only emission must
be proven to adjudge guilt of sodomy, but the penalty was no longer death. The new
penalties were still severe: a convicted bugger could expect a minimum of 10 years in
prison, but the law allowed judges to sentence offenders to life imprisonment. Even
attempting buggery was punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Same-sex sexual acts without anal penetration remained effectively outside
the purview of the law until "gross indecency", the crime that put
Oscar Wilde
in prison, was created as a criminal category in the Labouchere Amendment to the Offenses
against the Person act in 1885.
Davies, Norman, 1996. Europe: A History. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Hyde, H.M., 1970. The Other Love. London: Heinemann.
