Timeline of UK LGBT History

Bust of Julius Caesar in the British Museum

This is a timeline of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history in the United Kingdom throughout the centuries.

Jump to 21st century

1st century BC

• 55 BC – Julius Caesar's first invasion of Britain.

1st century AD

• AD 43 – Roman invasion and establishment of the province of Britannia.

2nd century

• 122 – Emperor Hadrian visits Britain.

The Emperor Hadrian

3rd century

• 286 – Britain becomes independent from the Roman empire for ten years under Carausius and Allectus.

4th century

• 343 – the emperor Constans visits Britain.

5th century

• 410 – usual date for the end of Roman rule in Britannia.

6th century

• c.547 – Death of King Maelgwn of Gwynedd.
• 597 – St Augustine becomes first Archbishop of Canterbury.
• late 6th century – Findchán and Áid the Black cursed by St Columba.

7th century

• 670 – St Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, prescribes fasts and penances for various homosexual acts.

9th century

• 804 – Death of Alcuin.
• 850s – a woman from Wimborne Minster was supposedly elected Pope Joan.

Seal of Anselm as Archbishop of Canterbury

Edward II

Robert DeVere as Duke of Ireland

10th century

• 927 – England is united as a single kingdom by King Æthelstan of Wessex.

11th century

• 1066 – Battle of Hastings and Norman conquest of England.
• 1100 – Death of King William II.

12th century

• 1102 – Council of London condemns homosexuality.
• 1109 – Death of Saint Anselm
• 1120 – Death of William Atheling in the sinking of the White Ship.
• 1123 – Rahere founds St Bartholomew's Hospital.
• 1125 – Hilarius writing around this time.
• 1167 – Death of Saint Aelred
• 1187 – Gerald of Wales describes the practice of same-sex marriage in Ireland.
• 1189 – William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, appointed to rule England while Richard I is away on the crusades.
• 1199 – Death of King Richard I

13th century

• c.1290 – Publication of Fleta, first book to suggest a punishment (which was not enforced) for homosexuality in English law.

14th century

• 1327 – summary execution of Piers Gaveston.
• 1327 – Murder of King Edward II.
• 1376 – The Good Parliament petitions King Edward III to banish foreign traders for having introduced "the too horrible vice which is not to be named".
• 1386 – Richard II makes Robert DeVere Duke of Ireland.
• 1391 – Death of Sir John Clanvowe and Richard Neville.
• 1395 – John Rykener arrested for cross-dressing.
• 1400 – Death of King Richard II

16th century

• 1533 – Buggery Act 1533 brings in the death penalty (hanging) for gay sex in England.
• 1540 - Sir Walter Hungerford executed for treason and buggery.
• 1541 - Nicholas Udall convicted of buggery and imprisoned.
• 1542 - The Laws in Wales Act 1542 extends English laws, including the Buggery Act 1533, to Wales.
• 1593 - Death of Christopher Marlowe in suspicious circumstances.

King James I

17th century

• 1603 – King James VI of Scotland becomes King of England as James I, uniting the two crowns but not yet the two countries.
• 1625 – Death of King James I.
• 1625 – Death of Francis Bacon (philosopher).
• 1628 – Assassination of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.
  • – Jeremy Farrer found "abusing himself in a sodomitical manner" in a church.
• 1631 – Mervyn Tuchet beheaded for alleged sodomy with his page.
• 1660 – Foundation of the Royal Society by John Wilkins and others.
• 1664 – Death of Katherine Philips.
• 1678 – Titus Oates invents the "Popish Plot".
• 1682 – Arabella Hunt's marriage is dissolved as her husband is discovered to be a woman.
• 1688 – "Glorious Revolution" brings William III to power.

The Ladies of Llangollen

18th century

• 1702 – William III dies, succeeded by Queen Anne.
• 1703 – First performance of Tunbridge-Walks by Thomas Baker, containing a "molly" character.
• 1706 – Thomas Vaughan convicted of blackmail.
• 1707 – Act of Union unites England and Scotland as the Kingdom of Great Britain.
• 1726 – Three men convicted of sodomy following cases brought by Thomas Newton and raids on Mother Clap's Molly House.
  • – Death of Sir Isaac Newton, Britain's greatest scientist, sometimes considered to have been gay.
• 1727 – Charles Hitchen convicted of attempted sodomy.
• 1732 – Beggar's Benison Club founded in Anstruther, Scotland.
• 1737 – Robert Thistlethwayte, Warden of Wadham College Oxford, flees to France to escape prosecution.
• 1742 – First performance of Handel's Messiah.
• 1748 – Publication of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett, including an explicitly gay character.
• 1749 – Publication of Fanny Hill by John Cleland, sometimes thought to have been a homoerotic work in disguise.
  • – Publication of a defence of homosexuality, Ancient & Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd by Thomas Cannon.
• 1772 – Robert Jones publishes the first book on figure skating, but is convicted of sodomy.
• 1780 – The Ladies of Llangollen set up home together.
• 1781 – Edward Onslow forced to resign his seat in Parliament and flee to France.
• 1784 – William Beckford's affair with William Courtenay is publicised, causing them both to flee the country.

Photo of J A Symonds, presented by him to Walt Whitman

Oscar Wilde

19th century

• 1801 – Act of Union creates the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
• 1806 – Gay club discovered in Great Sankey, Cheshire.
• 1807 – Suicide of James Massey.
• 1810 – The White Swan, Vere Street raided.
• 1822 – Percy Jocelyn deposed as Bishop of Clogher for "Sodomitical practices".
• 1824 – The Vagrancy Act 1824 limits cruising.
  • – Suicide of Lord Castlereagh.
• 1835 – James Pratt and John Smith were the last two men to be hanged for sodomy in England.
• 1859 – sudden resignation of Charles John Vaughan as Headmaster of Harrow School, for reasons not explained until the 1970s.
• 1861 – The Offences against the Person Act 1861 abolished the death sentence for gay sex.
• 1864 – Robert Browning's poem "Sludge the Medium" denounces Daniel Dunglas Home.
• 1865 – James Barry, army surgeon, dies and is allegedly found to have been a woman.
• 1866 – The case of Hyde v Hyde and Woodmansee established the definition of marriage in English law.
• 1871 – "Fanny" and "Stella" (Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park‎) acquitted of sodomy and cross-dressing.
• 1873 – The painter Simeon Solomon fined for cottaging.
• 1880 – The police raid a drag ball in Manchester.
• 1883 – Publication of A problem in Greek ethics by John Addington Symonds, one of the first essays in defense of homosexuality in the English language.
• 1885 – Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 made "gross indecency" (homosexual acts, even in private) a crime. The "Labouchere Amendment" was known as the “Blackmailer’s Charter”.
• 1889 – the Cleveland Street scandal.
  • – Mary Mudge dies aged 85 and is found to have been a man.
• 1895 – Oscar Wilde convicted of gross indecency.
  • – Winston Churchill successfully sues for libel.
• 1897 – First English-language publication of Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds, the first medical textbook about homosexuality.
• 1898 – Birth in Hull of Elsa Gidlow, Canadian/American lesbian poet.
• 1899 – Public Morality Council formed.
• 1900 – Death of Oscar Wilde.
  • – Death of Samuel Butler

Sir Roger Casement

20th century

Radclyffe Hall

John Gielgud

Alan Turing

Daily Mirror, March 25 1954 “The Montagu Case”

Nancy Spain

April Ashley

Benjamin Britten in 1968

The Admiral Duncan

• 1909 – Death of Renée Vivien.
• 1912 – Birth in Worthing of Harry Hay, later a leading gay activist in the United States.
• 1914 – Henry Scott Tuke elected to the Royal Academy.
• 1916 – Execution of Sir Roger Casement.
• 1921 – Parliament rejects an attempt in the Criminal Law Amendment Bill 1921 to ban sex between women.
• 1924 – Death of Marie Corelli
• 1927 - Trial of Bobby Britt and others for tippling, whoring, using obscene language, indecently exposing their private naked parts and behaving in a lewd obscene and disorderly and riotous manner at a house in Fitzroy Square London .
• 1928 – Publication of lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall.
• 1929 – Death of Edward Carpenter.
• 1933 – A court in London heard of "disgusting behaviour" at Selina Hopps' dance club.
• 1936 – Death of Hugh Lygon.
• 1936 – Oliver Baldwin appointed Governor of the Leeward Islands.
• 1938 – Sigmund Freud flees from Austria and takes up residence in Hampstead
• 1943 – Ethel Walker, painter, made a Dame.
• 1946 – Sir George Mowbray convicted of importuning.
  • – Sir Alec Guinness said to have been fined for cottaging.
• 1947 – Lord Mountbatten presides over the independence and partition of India.
• 1950 – Harry Hay helps found the Mattachine Society in the USA.
• 1951 – Roberta Cowell has sex-change surgery.
• 1952 – Alan Turing convicted of gross indecency.
  • – Publication of Society and the Homosexual by Gordon Westwood (Michael Schofield)
• 1953 – Sir John Gielgud convicted of importuning.
  • – Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean flee to Moscow.
  • – European Convention on Human Rights comes into force.
• 1954 – Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Peter Wildeblood and Michael Pitt-Rivers convicted of gay offences at Winchester Assizes.
  • – Suicide of Alan Turing
• 1955 – Publication of Homosexuality by D J West.
• 1956 – Knighthoods awarded to Anthony Blunt (cancelled in 1979) and John Wolfenden
• 1957 – Wolfenden Report recommends decriminalisation of homosexuality.
• 1958 – Albany Trust and Homosexual Law Reform Society formed.
  • – Ian Harvey MP arrested in St James's Park.
• 1959 – Screening on ITV of South, thought to be the first gay-related drama on British television.
• 1960 – Georgina Turtle (previously George Turtle) has her birth certificate changed from male to female.
• 1961 – Release of the film Victim.
• 1962 – John Vassall arrested and charged with spying.
• 1963 – Founding of lesbian magazine Arena Three.
• 1964 – Death of Nancy Spain in an air crash.
  • – North Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee formed, later to be re-founded as CHE.
  • – Ellis Powell dropped from Mrs Dale's Diary.
• 1965 – Founding of lesbian organisation Kenric.
• 1966 – Founding of trans organisation the Beaumont Society.
  • – publication of trans-related book I want what I want.
  • – Humphry Berkeley's Sexual Offences Bill passes its second reading but is lost when Parliament is dissolved; Berkeley loses his seat at the election.
• 1967 – Sexual Offences Act 1967 partially decriminalises sex between men in England and Wales.
  • – Joe Orton murdered by his partner.
• 1968 – the Home Secretary confirms that Sir Ewan Forbes is male and can succeed to the baronetcy, despite having been registered and originally brought up as female.
  • – Rose Robertson founds Parents Enquiry.
  • – SK, probably the first gay social group in the country set up after partial decriminialisation, is founded at the Royal Foundation of St Katharine in Limehouse.
• 1969 – the Stonewall riots in New York.
  • – founding of the Scottish Minorities Group.
• 1970 – First GLF meeting.
  • – Death of E M Forster.
  • – Integroup founded in Catford.
  • - publication of two books about the Uranians:
    • - Love in Earnest by Timothy d'Arch Smith
    • - Sexual Heretics by Brian Reade.
• 1971 – the Corbett v Corbett case, involving April Ashley, established the precedent that a person's sex could not legally be changed from what it was at birth.
  • – London Friend formed.
  • – CHE London Group Seven (later Croydon Area Gay Society) founded.
  • – GLF Gay March: first London Gay March took place protesting against the unequal age of consent for men.
• 1972 – release of trans-related film, I want what I want.
  • – Allegro Music Group formed.
  • – Gay News first published.
  • – first London Pride march and carnival: about 200 take part
• 1973 – Death of Sir Noël Coward.
• 1974 – London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard launched.
  • - CHE Law Reform demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 2 November- estimate of up to 2,500 attended.
• 1975 – Brighton and Hove LGBT Switchboard launched.
  • – Gay Sweatshop theatre company founded.
  • - On Sunday 23 November several hundred people marched from Marble Arch to attend a rally in Trafalgar Square London calling for homosexual law reform.
• 1976 – John Curry wins a gold medal for skating at the Winter Olympics.
  • – Death of composer Benjamin Britten.
  • – London Gay Teenage Group set up; possibly the first gay teenage group launched in the world .
• 1977 – Death of Sir Terence Rattigan
  • – Peter Mitchell stands as "Westminster Campaign for Homosexual Civil Rights" candidate in the Cities of London and Westminster South by-election.
• 1978 – Tom Robinson releases the song "Glad to be Gay".
  • – the film Nighthawks is released.
• 1979 – CHE moves its office to London.
  • – Jeremy Thorpe acquitted of conspiracy to murder.
  • – Gay Humanist Group founded (now GALHA).
  • – Murder of Peter Wells.
  • - Gay's the Word bookshop opens in London.
• 1980 – Heaven, the first all-week gay nightclub, opens in London.
  • – Scotland decriminalises male homosexuality.
  • - Gay Youth Movement set up following a summer conference in London.
• 1981 - London Bi Group forms, the first bi-specific social/support group.
  • – The London Pride march was moved to Huddersfield, and followed by the South Bank Gay People's Festival.
• 1982 – Terrence Higgins Trust the HIV/AIDs charity formed.
• 1983 – Long Yang Club founded for gay Asians and non-Asians.
  • – Northern Ireland decriminalises male homosexuality.
• 1984 – Chris Smith MP, Culture Secretary, becomes first MP to come out as gay whilst in office. In 2005, he was the first politician to disclose he was HIV positive.
  • - First BiCon bisexuality conference.
  • – Silver Moon women's bookshop founded.
  • – Drew Griffiths, playwright, murdered by a pickup.
• 1985 – Goslings Swimming Club founded.
• 1986 – GLC and metropolitan county councils abolished.
  • – Death of Sir Peter Pears.
  • – London Gay Symphony Orchestra founded.
• 1987 – Gay men convicted for S&M sex in Operation Spanner.
  • – Pink Paper founded.
• 1988 – Section 28 passed.
• 1989 – Stonewall (UK) launched.
  • – London Raiders LGBT Softball team begins.
  • – Quim magazine founded.
  • – Rose's club founded.
• 1990 – UK-MOTSS founded.
• 1991 – Death of Freddie Mercury.
• 1992 – Death of Francis Bacon (artist).
  • – Europride held in London.
  • – Gay Men Fighting AIDS founded (later GMFA and HERO).
  • – Diversity Choir founded.
• 1993 – Back Pocket Guide to London first published.
  • – Colin Ireland, the "gay slayer", murders five men he had met in the Coleherne.
  • – the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act, 1993 finally decriminalises gay sex in the Irish Republic.
• 1994 – Age of consent for gay men reduced to 18.
• 1995 – Adonis Art Gallery founded.
  • – Bi Community News magazine launches.
  • – Mermaids founded for children with gender dysphoria.
  • – Launch of South London Gays.
  • - Better Dead Than Gay, Channel 4 documentary on the suicide of 26-year-old Simon Harvey (unable to reconcile being a Christian and being gay).
• 1996 – Derek Rawcliffe banned from acting as an assistant bishop in the Ripon diocese.
• 1997 – Angela Eagle is first sitting MP to come out as lesbian.
• 1998 – LGBT Consortium founded.
  • – The Bolton Seven convicted for consensual sex.
  • – Queer Notions mental health group founded in Liverpool.
• 1999 – Admiral Duncan pub bombed (30 April).
  • – Last SLAGO Conference.
  • – Soho Masses begin.
  • – Michael Cashman elected to European Parliament.

Jody Dobrowski

Griffith Vaughan Williams

• 2000 – Ethical Standards in Public Life etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 repeals Section 28 in Scotland.
  • – Removal of ban on gay people serving in the Armed Forces.
  • – "ADT" is awarded compensation for being convicted for private group sex.
  • – Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 equalises the age of consent.

21st century

Allan Horsfall

Ray Gosling

• 2001 – Croydon Friend closed.
• 2002 - First Cake Awards presented.
• 2003 – Section 28 repealed in England and Wales.
  • – Rev Jeffrey John rejected as Bishop of Reading.
  • – Europride held in Manchester.
  • – Discrimination at Work on the grounds of sexual orientation becomes illegal.
• 2004 – Civil Partnership Act 2004 gives legal equal rights to lesbian and gay couples.
  • – Gender Recognition Act 2004 allows people to legally change gender.
  • – Gay and Lesbian Arts and Media closes.
  • – Lesbian and Gay Employment Rights closes.
  • – James Clark is appointed British Ambassador to Luxembourg.
• 2005 – Murder of Jody Dobrowski.
  • – First Civil partnerships performed.
• 2006 – Europride held in London.
  • – Alegri founded.
• 2007 – Sexual Offences (Jersey) Law 2007 lowers the Age of consent in Jersey to 16.
  • – Publication of the Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Law in Relation to Issues of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.
  • – Death of Paul Wilde
• 2008 – Age of consent lowered to 16 in Northern Ireland.
• 2009 – First Derek Oyston Film Award.
  • – Grindr launched.
  • – London AIDS Memorial Campaign launched.
• 2010 – LGBT London website set up.
  • – Death of Antony Grey.
  • – Death of Griffith Vaughan Williams.
  • – Ian Campbell becomes Britain's first openly gay mayor.
• 2011 – LGBT History Project website set up.
  • – Diversity Role Models launched.
  • – First Out Café London, closes after 25 years.
  • – Civil partnership ceremonies permitted on religious premises.
• 2012 – Europride held in London.
  • – Death of Allan Horsfall.
  • – Michael Peacock acquitted on obscenity charges.
• 2013 – Government introduces Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill; it becomes law as the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013.
  • – Death of Ray Gosling
  • - Death of Georgina Somerset and discovery that Roberta Cowell died two years before.
  • - Jo Swinson MP is the first government minister to send a message of support for Bi Visibility Day.
  • - Posthumous royal pardon for Alan Turing.
• 2015 – the 2015 general election brings an unprecedented number of LGBT people into Parliament, including Mhairi Black, the youngest MP since the nineteenth century.
• 2017 - Goldsmiths College, University of London run M.A. course in Queer History-the first degree level course in that field.
• 2019 - Marriage and Civil Partnership equality legislated for Northern Ireland, coming into effect in 2020.
• 2020 - Layla Moran is the first MP to come out as pansexual.
• 2021 - Numerous organisations leave the Stonewall Equality Limited Diversity Champions Scheme. LGBAlliance hold its first National Conference.
• 2022- Health Secretary Sajid Javid announces a review of gender treatment services for children in England.
• 2023- Gender Wars documentary with Kathleen Stock broadcast on Channel 4.
• 2023- In December Government issue 'Gender Questioning Children' Guidance for schools to try and assist schools in dealing with increasing number of children identifying as trans. The guidance had been delayed. .
• 2024- Dr Hilary Cass report on gender identity services published: Cass Review.
• 2024- Guidance written for care homes to support inclusive care practice for older LGBTQ+ people.
• 2025-Supreme Court (UK) rules that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex .
• 2025-Government reaffirms commitment to Free Speech in universities .

External links

Some other LGBT timelines:

• Timeline of (world) LGBT history on Wikipedia
• Wikipedia: Timeline of UK LGBT history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_LGBT_history_in_Britain
• Timeline of events recorded in the Hall-Carpenter Archives: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/library/archive/online_resources/lgbt/timeline.aspx
• Gay Chronicles from the beginning of time to the end of World War II: http://www.webcitation.org/5knsbJ2KF
• NHS Northwest LGB&T Timeline: http://www.help.northwest.nhs.uk/lgbt_timeline
• PCS Proud Ourstory: http://web.archive.org/web/20101226051702/http://www.pcsproud.org.uk/our_story.pdf retrieved via the Internet Archive
• Glasgow Lesbian Archive and Information Centre timeline: http://www.womenslibrary.org.uk/laic/laictimeline/laictimeline.html
• Jobcentre Plus Timeline of gay history: http://lgbthistorymonth.org.uk/website/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/9631_GHW-A3FlagPoster.pdf
• GLBTQ Encyclopedia: United Kingdom History http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/united_kingdom_01.html
• UK Gay News Timeline Of Gay and Lesbian Marriage, Partnership or Unions Worldwide: http://ukgaynews.org.uk/marriage_timeline.htm
• Black British Lesbian Timeline: http://blackbritishlesbian.typepad.com/
• Timeline of CHE and its times (from 1945): http://amiable-warriors.uk/timeline.shtml

See also

• Timeline of UK LGBT Legislation
• Timeline of UK LGBT Sport
• Timeline of UK LGBT Science
• Timeline of UK LGBT Music
• Timeline of age of consent legislation
• Timeline of UK Transgender History
• Timeline of UK LGBT Religion, Belief and Philosophy
• Timeline of London Bars and Clubs
• List of the first LGBT holders of political offices in the United Kingdom
• Category:Births by year
• Category:Deaths by year