Running Horse

The Running Horse was. Gay pub in Shepherd's Market, London. It had been under police surveillance since 1933. SDI Gavin said:

...men of an effeminate nature do regularly use the house... [who] may be of sodomist tendencies... [but here is] nothing taking place... To which the police can take exception. The appearance of these effeminate ly dressed young men may be repugnant to certain people, but their conduct... Is uh that no objection can be taken.

The police had never prosecuted a landlord, preferring to indict individuals caught in the act. But the Canadian Military and Admiralty complained and the police were compelled to caution the landlord on section 44 of the 1939 Metropolitan Police Act (MPA): willfully and knowingly permitting disorderly conduct. When the landlord failed to comply with the ban on drunkenness and serving on cited importuners, he was prosecuted, convicted, fined and the pub was shut down in spring 1937.

The Met had established a precedent, from now on they used the MPA to prosecute proprietors and not the clientele who were more expensive to take action against. The MPA was used against pubs like the Fitroy, White Horse, Billy's Snack Bar on Bouchin Street and the Ham Yard Café.

Other clubs and pubs popular with homosexuals at the time were the York Minster, the Swiss and the Marquis of Granby in Soho. Peter Wildeblood called them "less [than] discreet", rough and cruisy. Throughout the 1930s respectable men in evening dress and camp queans solicited sailors and workmen in the Running Horse. Other venues included the Billie's Club, the Hungry Horse, Gerano's in New Compton Street, Chez Victor in Wardour Street. The downstairs bar at the Ritz Hotel was frequented by men from high society, nicknamed l’Abri (the shelter), and the Trocadero Long Bar, owned by Lyon's Corner House.

References

Queer London – Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918-1957 Matt Houlbrook, The University of Chicago Press, 2005.