A window into 18th-century queer London, tender yet defiant

March 17, 2021 compassq 5 THINGS TO KNOW, HEROES & HISTORY, HISTORY Comments Off on A window into 18th-century queer London, tender yet defiant
A Meeting of Umbrellas by James Gillray, hand-coloured etching, 25 January 1782. (Image: Courtesy the National Portrait Gallery, London)

In the first few decades of the 18th century, London was gripped by a moral panic. Vigilante mobs seized and attacked members of the public, calling them ‘unnatural’ and ‘undecent’. Judges and juries rushed to convict, threatening death by hanging. They wanted…