Death after the molly house raid
Three men died on the gallows at Tyburn in 1726, after a raid on a London meeting place for gay men.
On 9 May 1726, three men were hanged at Tyburn in London: Gabriel Lawrence, William Griffin and Thomas Wright. The charge was sodomy, which had carried the death penalty in England since the 16th century.
Three months earlier, the authorities had raided Margaret Clap's house in Holborn, a so-called molly house. Men who loved men met there. They danced, flirted and even acted out weddings. The landlady, known to everyone as "Mother Clap", had a bed in every room and looked after her guests. Around forty people were arrested.
The house had been betrayed by informers who frequented the scene themselves and talked after quarrels with former lovers. On their evidence, five men stood trial in April. Lawrence and Griffin, both 43 and married, insisted to the end that they had been set up. Wright is said to have run a molly house of his own. All three were sentenced to death. Two other defendants escaped the gallows; one was pardoned and one acquitted. Most of the others arrested were released, because a death sentence required proof of the sexual act, and that was hard to provide.
The execution fell on a day when ten people in all died on the gallows. The crowd pressed so close that several stands collapsed under the weight of the spectators. Lawrence's body was then taken for dissection. Mother Clap was put in the pillory and sent to prison for two years. What became of her is not known. A plaque in Holborn now marks the site of her house.
The case shows that London already had a queer scene with its own meeting places in 1726. And it shows how harshly the state cracked down on it.