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Vere Street Coterie

1810 in England1810 in the United Kingdom19th century in LGBT history19th century in LondonLGBT history in the United Kingdom
Sex scandals
The Vere Street Gang at the pillory in 1810
The Vere Street Gang at the pillory in 1810

The Vere Street Coterie were a group of men arrested at a molly house in Vere Street, London in 1810 for sodomy and attempted sodomy. Eight men were eventually convicted. Two of them were hanged (as per the then still extant sodomy laws promulgated by Henry VIII in 1534) and six were pilloried for this offence. Along with Oscar Wilde's imprisonment for a similar offence, this episode was one of the major events in gay history in England during the 19th century. The White Swan on Vere Street in London was established as a molly-house in early 1810 by two men, James Cook and Yardley (full name unknown). The club had been operating for less than six months when, on 8 July 1810, it was raided by the Bow Street police. Twenty-seven men were arrested, but the majority of them were released (perhaps as a result of bribes), and eight were tried and convicted. Six of the convicted men, who had been found guilty of attempted sodomy, were pilloried in the Haymarket on 27 September that year. The crowds who turned out to witness the scene were violent and unruly, throwing various objects (including rotten fish, dead cats, "cannonballs" made of mud, and vegetables) at the convicted men. The women in the crowd were reported as being particularly vicious. The city provided a guard force of 200 armed constables, half of them mounted and the other half on foot, to protect the men from even worse mistreatment. A man and a boy, John Hepburn (46) and Thomas White (16, a drummer boy), were convicted of the act of sodomy, despite not being present at the White Swan during the night of the raid. They were hanged at Newgate Prison on 7 March 1811. Vere Street Coterie is also known in connection with alleged same sex marriages there, performed by Reverend John Church. The history of the White Swan and the Vere Street Coterie were related by the lawyer Robert Holloway in The Phoenix of Sodom in 1813.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Vere Street Coterie (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Vere Street Coterie
Houghton Street, London Holborn

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London School of Economics and Political Science (London School of Economics)

Houghton Street
WC2A 2AE London, Holborn
England, United Kingdom
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The Vere Street Gang at the pillory in 1810
The Vere Street Gang at the pillory in 1810
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London School of Economics
London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE or the LSE) is a public research university located in London, England, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas, and George Bernard Shaw, LSE joined the University of London in 1900 and established its first degree courses under the auspices of the university in 1901. LSE began awarding its degrees in its own name in 2008, prior to which it awarded degrees of the University of London. LSE is located in the London Borough of Camden and Westminster, Central London, near the boundary between Covent Garden and Holborn. The area is historically known as Clare Market. LSE has more than 11,000 students, just under seventy percent of whom come from outside the UK, and 3,300 staff. It had an income of £391.1 million in 2020/21, of which £32.8 million was from research grants. One hundred and fifty-five nationalities are represented amongst the LSE's student body and the school had the second highest percentage of international students (70%) of the 800 institutions in the 2015–16 Times Higher Education World University Ranking. Despite its name, the school is organised into 25 academic departments and institutes which conduct teaching and research across a range of pure and applied social sciences.LSE is a member of the Russell Group, Association of Commonwealth Universities, European University Association and is often considered a part of the "Golden Triangle" of top universities in South East England. The LSE also forms part of CIVICA – The European University of Social Sciences, a network of eight European universities focused on research in the social sciences. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, the school had the highest proportion of world-leading research among research submitted of any British non-specialist university.LSE alumni and faculty include 55 past or present heads of state or government and 18 Nobel laureates. As of 2017, 27% (or 13 out of 49) of all Nobel Memorial Prizes in Economics have been awarded or jointly awarded to LSE alumni, current staff, or former staff, who consequently comprise 16% (13 out of 79) of all Nobel Memorial Prize laureates. LSE alumni and faculty have also won 3 Nobel Peace Prizes and 2 Nobel Prizes in Literature. Out of all European universities, LSE has educated the most billionaires (11) according to a 2014 global census of US dollar billionaires.