Oxford’s Queer History: From Medieval Records to Pride

Tracing Oxford’s recorded queer history begins in a London gaol in 1394. John Rykener was arrested in December for “[committing] that libidinous and unspeakable act” (exchanging sexual acts for money), and “[practising] the abominable vice”. Rykener's trial case is frequently discussed in academic circles today in relation to male-male sexual relations and is also occasionally examined in the context of transgender studies. 

Rykener had for some time lived as a woman and unwaveringly referred to herself as ‘Eleanor’ and with female pronouns, even in hostile interrogative and judicial environments, indicating that she may be understood to be transgender in the modern day.

She was known to engage in a variety of traditionally women’s work, not only as a sex worker, but also, in her time in Oxfordshire, as an embroideress in the city, and as a tapster in a Burford alehouse. In the 14th century, a ‘tapster’ referred to a female innkeeper or barmaid whose primary role was to serve alcohol.

Her testimony also refers to a woman named Elizabeth Brouderer and another called Anna, who had given her clothing and named her Eleanor, indicating that there was a community, however small, which accepted her and helped her live and present as a woman. 

Much of the queer history of the city centers around the university, and the earliest records of a queer academic come nearly a century later, in Merton College. Richard Edmund, a Fellow of Merton, was expelled in 1492, accused of ‘peccato contra naturam’, or sins against nature. Initially, he admitted to seducing other young academics while at Oxford. However, he later retracted his statement.

Edmund wavered between admissions and denials for several months. Yet, when one of the boys he had allegedly seduced agreed to testify against him, he offered a final admission and named four others he had ‘induced to said sin’. He was expelled by the Warden and ‘six seniors’, but was allowed to remain until the end of term for the sake of the college’s reputation. In fact, though the law could have seen Edmund executed, the University handled the inquiry with such secrecy that Edmund’s name appeared on the list of new doctors in the school of arts in February the next year. 

The 1730s saw the University rocked left, right, and centre with accusations of Sodomy (A once-considered criminal sexual act in the Buggery Act of 1533), and numerous records of these various proceedings reveal a deeply entrenched culture of queerness and debauchery at the university itself. 

Perhaps the most infamous case is that of Robert Thistlethwayte, the Warden of Wadham. In 1739, Thistlethwayte was accused of sodomy by William French, whom he had attempted to seduce. French was advised to prosecute by George Baker (who shortly thereafter accused the ordinary of Oxford Castle, Reverend John Swinton of a similar crime), who helped him deliver an affidavit to a Justice of the Peace and the Vice Chancellor. Thistlethwayte‘s actions were judged “too gross and obscene to be repeated, and such as amounted to the most notorious sodomitical attempt conceivable”, and the case was sent to the next assizes, at which point Thistlethwayte had posted his £200 bail and fled to France. The incident was immortalised through such limericks as:

There once was a warden of Wadham
Who approved of the folkways of Sodom.
For a man might, he said,
Have a very poor head
But be a fine fellow, at bottom.

At the same time, the Methodist Church was developing in Oxford from John Wesley’s Holy Club. Wesley and other members of his Holy Club would make monthly visits to Oxford’s Bocardo Gaol, where they would minister to various inmates and offer them food, clothing and legal aid. This drew some amount of anger towards the group in 1732, for their efforts in securing more humane conditions for an inmate named Thomas Blair, who was accused of sodomy. In fact, Wesley’s group was first called ‘Methodists’ in an article criticising these efforts in Fog’s Weekly Journal, published in December of 1732.

While there are many records of queer men at this time (albeit usually in court and/or prison), there’s less recorded history of queer women.

One who did make it into the historical record, however, was the daughter of an apothecary living near Carfax, who was reported in The Reading Mercury to have dressed in men's clothes and left her father’s house for the Oxfordshire countryside, where she “[committed] those unaccountable Pranks in the Country about of courting and marrying other Women,” in December 1726.

Diarist Thomas Hearne also mentioned this story, writing on 29th December 1726 that the girl was “a bold, wild young Creature,” who had “courted young Women, and been married as if she were a Man.” She remained unnamed, and little else is known about her or her wife.

1811 saw the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his very dear close friend Thomas Hogg expelled from University College together for atheism. Many letters and manuscripts of Shelley’s were purposefully altered or destroyed to align better with Victorian morality following his early death. However, a letter from him to his best friend Hogg survives, stating:

“You have chosen me, and we are inseparable. …Are you not he whom I love…? …If I thought we were to be long parted, I should be wretchedly miserable-half-mad! …Will you come; will you share my fortunes, enter into my schemes, love me as I love you, be inseparable, as once I fondly hoped we were? …Oh! How I have loved you! I was even ashamed to tell you how!”

Later in the century, John Addington Symonds arrived at Oxford in 1858. John is considered the first modern historian of male homosexuality and often the first British advocate for gay liberation. His writings were an integral pillar of inspiration for the Gay Liberation movement of the 20th century, and his work was essential in popularising the work of queer poets and authors, most notably Walt Whitman. 

Then, in 1866, one of the first intercollegiate drama societies at Oxford was formed; the Oxford Shooting Stars. As women weren’t yet allowed to attend the university, this meant that all parts were performed by men. The Shooting Stars were run for four years, during which they performed several classical plays and burlesques. 

However, in 1870, a number of the actors were embroiled in a prominent gay scandal, and several were tied to the Fanny and Stella Affair in London. In June of that year, all theatre productions at the university were cancelled, and theatre groups were banned at Oxford University for the next decade. 

Of course, queer history in Oxford cannot be discussed without mention of Oscar Wilde. The poet studied Classics at Magdalen College in the 1870s and left Oxford in 1878, but would frequently visit throughout his life and referred to the city as ‘the capital of romance.’

It was in Oxford that he met his long-time lover, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, who encouraged Wilde to litigation against the Marquess of Queensbury (Douglas’s father), resulting in his imprisonment and eventual death.

Today, queer identities are celebrated much more openly in modern Oxford, and only recently has the depth of queer history begun to be truly explored. The twentieth century saw Gay Liberation efforts rise exponentially in the city, and students of Oxford University became more and more demonstrative of their identities - they even let students do theatre again.

The turn of the century saw the first Oxford Pride festival in 2003, which has grown each year. This year, Oxford Pride is on Saturday, 6th June.  The parade will make its way through the city centre to Radcliffe Square, before continuing festivities at the Westgate Shopping Centre, Paradise Street (by the Jolly Farmers Pub) and Oxford Castle Prison's Courtyard, bringing Pride into a space connected to a difficult part of Oxford’s queer history and reclaiming it as a safe space for visibility, community and celebration.