How Bramwell Booth Helped Put Oscar Wilde In Prison (Short Read)
Estimated reading time: 0 minutes
Sometimes, things happen which have unexpected consequences. The Salvation Army’s work, particularly that of Bramwell Booth, in seeking to raise the age of consent for women in the UK indirectly led to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde.
The Reformation of Manners
In the middle of the nineteenth century, a popular movement for the reformation of manners and morals was gaining momentum. There was a sense that the increasing urban population was leading to moral degeneracy, exacerbated by the licentious behaviour of young upper-class people who were pushing against the social norms of the day.
For many in the establishment, this moral degradation was an existential threat to society as they knew it. They tried to address this by passing a piece of legislation through parliament called the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which would target morally bankrupt or supposedly deviant behaviour. This included child prostitution, gin-drinking, gambling, and homosexuality. They failed to pass it on two occasions.
Into the middle of this steps The Salvation Army.
The Salvation Army and the Moral Crusade
The work of Florence Booth in establishing shelters and rescue homes for women who had left prostitution brought the Booth family and the Army into contact with Josephine Butler, the great social reformer. This brings together the first two of the triumvirate of reformers who sought to change the laws on the age of consent and raise awareness of the staggering numbers of abused girls in the sex trade.
The third was William T. Stead, a newspaper editor and social reformer who first encountered the Army in Darlington, had supported Josephine Butler’s campaigns to get rid of legislation targeting prostitutes on supposed grounds of societal health, and who had been an advocate for William Booth in his first forays into establishing food and shelter depots for the poor of London.
If you want to know more about Stead, check out my blog post on him:
The Maiden Tribute
Stead had uncovered some of the depths of depravity in London in the abuse of its girls. Josephine Butler worked with him to raise awareness and, through their joint contacts, came into communication with Bramwell Booth.
Butler and Stead had a plan to purchase a girl from her parents, just as was done by procurers and brothel madams across the country. By doing this, they could highlight the widespread criminality. Through his wife Florence, Bramwell Booth had just the right person to help.
Rebecca Jarret comes into the story. A prostitute, brothel madam, and procurer, she had been saved in an Army meeting and taken into an Army refuge. She had the experience and contacts to successfully procure a girl and take her through the motions of purchasing a child for prostitution.
The story goes on, becoming increasingly complicated, but through the work of Stead’s newspaper publishing a series of articles called The Maiden Tribute, Jarret’s bravery, Butler’s social contacts, and the Army network, public attention was brought to the issue.
Stead, Jarret, and a couple of others went to prison for it. But it created the noise and public outcry necessary to provoke the government into action.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act was brought before parliament and became Law on the third time of trying. The age of consent was raised from 13 to 16.
Happy days for all involved and a legend of Army history was created.
But this is where the story takes a sideways turn. Because the Criminal Law Amendment Act did more than just raise the age of consent. It also changed the law on homosexuality.
Oscar Wilde Enters The Story
Since the middle of the sixteenth century, it had been illegal for a man to have sex with another man. If found guilty, they would be executed. In order to be convicted, it had to be proved that penetration had occurred. Anything else didn’t count.
As you can imagine, it was not easy to prove this.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act changed this. Very few people had actually been executed under the previous legislation, and moral reformers thought that such leniency was contributing to the decline of society by allowing homosexuality to thrive.
The new law made it illegal for men to engage in what was termed criminal conversation, extending to gross indecency. This meant any act that might suggest morally degenerate behaviour, including simply spending too much time alone together or an act that could offend witnesses.
Amongst the establishment moralists, there were plenty who made a hobby out of being offended. Just as there are today.
This legislation was used to convict Oscar Wilde and led to his imprisonment. On 25 May 1895, Wilde and Alfred Taylor were convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years’ hard labour.
We may well consider today that no one should be imprisoned for being gay. However, Wilde groomed teenage boys to become his lovers and then used his influence and position to make them keep quiet about it.
His behaviour was, on at least a few occasions, harmful and predatory. There is some measure of debate about the extent of this, and I’m not an expert, so if you’re interested, it’s definitely worth reading further. But, from what I’ve read, he was abusive and coercive to at least some of his lovers.
The Salvation Army Made It More Likely That Oscar Wilde Was Imprisoned
Without the Maiden Tribute campaign, the Criminal Law Amendment Act may not have passed through parliament. Without the Army, the Maiden Tribute campaign may not have worked as well or possibly at all. Without the work of the Army, it is entirely possible that Oscar Wilde would not have ended up going to prison.
It’s amazing how many threads come together when we consider the wider context of what the Army did and the consequences that can come from the actions of a few good people.
If you want to keep up to date, sign up to My Theology Corner Newsletter for a weekly lite-bite theology hit. Get short-form reflections from topics on the main blog and or on other interesting topics from that week.
https://chrisbutton.substack.com
