City Freinds London

'A New City of Friends': London and Homosexuality in the 1890s
Author(s): Matt Cook

Source: History Workshop Journal, No. 56 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 33-58
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4289858
Accessed: 22-09-2015 17:13 UTC
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1
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Earlymorningbathersat the Serpentine,Hyde Park.FromLivingLondon,ed. G. R.Suims,

London,1901-3,vol. 1, p 39-
'A New City of Friends':

London and Homosexuality in the 1890s
by Matt Cook
In the 'Calamus'sequence of Leaves of Grass (1855) the Americanpoet
Walt Whitmanembraced the city in an examinationof the relationship
betweenhomosocialbonds,selfhood and democracy.He deftlyclosed in on
the Americanmetropolisand used it simultaneouslyas a materialsetting
for the 'swiftflashof eyes offeringme love' and as a broadermetaphorfor
fraternityand connection.Whitman'snarratorpartookin the city's sexual
pulse:he 'penetrate[d]its light and warmth'and felt the scope for an exhilaratingcomradeshipand stridentself-expression.'
Fortyyearslater acrossthe Atlantica numberof homophilewriterswere
grapplingwith similarissues in relation to London, a city rarelydescribed
in terms of 'light' and 'warmth',but which was nevertheless difficultto
avoid for those exploring ideas of homosexual selfhood and community,
and the place of both within society. Homosexualityhad long been associated with the city, and the link was reaffirmedin the 1880s and 1890s, a
periodwhen sex and relationshipsbetween men were the focus of particular debate and concern.2Homosexualitywas repeatedlyalignedduringthis
time with a series of urban 'types' and spaces, and also with a range of
anxietiesabout the modern metropolis- about degeneration,decadence,
excessive consumption and sexual excess, for example.3 The modern
'homosexual' was being delineated as a determinedly urban figure,
associated,it seemed, with the very worst features of urban life. Those
History Workshop Journal Issue 56
? History Workshop Journal 2003; all rights reserved
34
HistoryWorkshopJournal
attemptingto legitimizehomosexualitycouldnot easilyescapethis insistent

connection even as they attempted to imagine ways of being in the city
which somehow reconnected with the freedoms glimpsed by Whitman.
Oscar Wilde, the classicistJohn Addington Symonds, romantic socialist
EdwardCarpenter,and the lesser-knownGeorge Ives, founderof the first
supportand pressuregroup for 'homosexual'men in England,were each
inspiredby Whitmanand were also acutelyawarethat wider depictionsof
homosexualityin the metropolis did little to further their 'cause'. Each
wrote of a pastoralescape and idyll - in his prisonletter De Proftundis,for
example,Wilde called on natureto 'cleanse [him]in greatwaters,and with
bitterherbs[to] wash [him]whole'4- but they each also reimaginedthe city
in their writing, binding it into their ideas of homosexual subjectivity,
communityand politics. The pages that follow explore this process, and
examinethe interplaybetweenthe sense these men had of London'shomosexual opportunities,their need and desire for secrecy in the city, and
attemptsto constitutea publicandlegitimizingdiscourseof homosexuality.
The four men had much in common. Symonds,Wilde, and Carpenter
had each passedthroughOxfordor Cambridgein the 1860sand 1870s,and
Ives, the youngest of the four, went to Cambridgein the late 1880s.As a
result they had all experiencedthe intense homosocialityof universitylife
and were also familiarwith the classicsand with the Hellenic justification
of homosexualrelations.5Ives noted the importanceof the ancientGreeks
in the fight for legitimacyand referredto Whitmanand the others as the
'four leaders of Hellas', pioneers for the 'cause'.6Living in London on a
privateincome,he dedicatedhis life to homosexualand prisonreformand
publishedthree volumesof 'Uranian'poetryas well as workson Hellenism
and on crime and punishment.7In the early 1890she formed close friendshipswith Wilde,who was at the peak of his career(if not of his notoriety)
when they met, and Carpenter,who was fast gaininga reputationas a writer
on socialism,democracyand the importanceof personal relations in the
drive for both. Symonds,who was by this time renowned as one of the
country'sforemost 'men of letters', was also friends with Carpenter,and
was known to Wilde and Ives for his advocacy of the legitimizationof
homosexualrelationsin two privately-circulated
pamphlets,'A problemin
Greek ethics' (1873) and 'A problemin modernethics' (1891).The former
ultimatelygaineda wideraudiencethroughits inclusionin SexualInversion
(1897), on which Symondsworkedwith Henry Havelock Ellis in the early
1890s;he was namedas co-authorin the firstedition.Symondsdied in 1893
and his Memoirs,whichare consideredhere, were writtenin the last years
of his life, around the time of the appearanceof Wilde's The Pictureof
Dorian Gray (1891) and the third section of Carpenter'sepic prose poem
Towards Democracy (1892) - and also just as Ives was establishing his
Order of the Chaerona and earnestly documentingthe progress of the

'cause' in his diary.This paper looks at these writingsin turn. They were
written with different audiences in mind and with different intent;
'ANew Cityof Friends'
35
Symonds'sMemoirs were not even publisheduntil 1984 (and then only in

edited form), and Ives's diaryremainsin manuscript.They all nonetheless
reflect on the relationshipbetween London and homosexuality,and each
describeshomoeroticroutes aroundthe city - routeswhichintersectedand
diverged, and which mapped a new politics of homosexualityon to the
urbanterrain.
SECRETSAND SOLACEIN THE CITY
Wilde'sappealto natureto 'wash[him]whole' implicitlysignalsthe conception of the city in other sections of De Profundis, and also more generally,
as a place where identities became fragmentedand confused ratherthan
affirmedand defined.It was preciselythis aspectof metropolitanlife which
underpinnedWilde's earlier and most famous fictional engagementwith
London. ThePictureof Dorian Grayfirstappearedin 1890in the American
Lippincott's Monthly Magazine and then as a single volume in 1891, to a
generallyhostile press.It evoked a secretivecity of sensualpossibilityin the

wake of a series of notoriouscases. In 1885 W. T. Stead's'MaidenTribute
of Modern Babylon' articles in the Pall Mall Gazette had sensationally
exposed the putative trade in young virginsin 'the urban labyrinth',and
three yearslaterthe Jackthe Rippermurdersheightenedfearsof the urban
sexual predator.London'ssexual underworldwas exposed once againjust
prior to the appearanceof the novel: telegraphboys from the Post Office
Headquartersin St Martin's-le-Grandin the City of London were found
workingat a male brothel in ClevelandStreet, in the West End just north
of Oxford Street. The brothel was apparentlyfrequentedby a numberof
prominentaristocratsand the case continuedfor almost a year, involving
prosecutions,a libel action, and a debate in parliament.8W. E. Henley, a
former friend of Wilde, famouslyconnected the ClevelandStreet scandal
directlyto The Picture of Dorian Gray. 'The story',he noted in the Scot's
Observer, 'deals with matters only fitted for the CriminalInvestigation
Department... if [Wilde]can write for none but outlawednoblemenand
pervertedtelegraphboys, the sooner he takes up tailoring(or some other
decent trade) the better for his own reputationand the public'smorals.'9
The novel also featuredprominentlyin the prosecutionof Wilde five years
later. Despite this its homoeroticismis veiled and there is no explicit
disclosureof London'shomoeroticpossibilities.The novel insteadturnson
the possibilityof constitutinga secret, individualizedmap of the metropolis whichreflects,endorses,but also problematizes,dissidentsexualbehaviour.
The early part of The Picture of Dorian Gray focuses on Lord Henry
Wootton,on his aesthetictastes and on his WestEnd circuit.Details of the

latter- communicatedthrougha descriptionof an afternoonstrollthrough
the West End - would almost seem superfluousexcept that the places
mentioned were not merely fashionable but also had homoerotic
36
resonancesfor those in the know. He begins in St James',whichhad longstandingassociationswith homosexualactivityand was knownin the 1880s
and 1890sfor its homosocialclub-life,bachelorchambers,and the London
and ProvincialTurkishBaths in JermynStreet. The bar at the St James'
Theatre had a reputationas a meeting place for 'homosexual'men - and
Lord Henry would have passed another,the CriterionBar, as he walked
acrossPiccadillyCircus.The Circusitself was well-knownfor rentboys, and
it was here, accordingto his evidence,that the self-described'professional
sodomite'JackSaulhad toutedfor customfor the ClevelandStreetbrothel.
Lord Henry continues along Piccadilly to visit a bachelor uncle in the
Albany, home, accordingthe contemporaryjournal Leisure Hour, of 'a
recognisedvariety of the man about town'.10He then walks throughthe
Burlington Arcade, which had featured prominently in the notorious
Boulton and Park cross-dressingscandalof 187011and from where dyedgreen carnations,supposed symbol of transgressivedesire in Paris, could
apparentlybe purchased.12 From there to Hyde Park, notorious for its
guardsman'rent', and then on to Soho and a draper'sin WardourStreet,
where he went 'to look after a piece of old brocadeand had to bargainfor
hoursfor it'.13It was from a draper'sin Soho that a fictionalJackSaul was
first solicited in Sins of the Cities of the Plain (1881), a pornographic novel
Wilde reputedly purchasedin 1890 from Charles Hirsch's bookshop on

Coventry Street, between Leicester Square and PiccadillyCircus.14 It is
tempting to put a similargloss on Lord Henry's hours of bargainingfor
fabric.WhetherW. E. Henley was also awareof these associationswhen he
suggested Wilde should enter tailoring is not clear, though the fashion
historian ChristopherBreward has noted a contemporarysuspicion of
drapersand clothingretailers.15In outliningthis walk, in conjunctionwith
the suggestions of Lord Henry's decadence and obsession with Dorian,
Wilde registeredan alternativeway of reading and knowingthis familiar
terrain.Yet the preciseassociationswouldhave eluded manyof his readers
and spoken directly only to a few, perhaps affirmingfor them a shared
circuitand a subculturalknowledge.'6
DorianabsorbsLordHenry'smappingof the WestEnd quicklyandsoon
moves beyondit. Watchingthe 'fascinating'and 'terrifying'people in Hyde
Parkand Piccadillyfills him with a 'madcuriosity'and awakens'a passion
for sensation'.He strikesout and 'wanderseastward'into 'the labyrinthof
grimystreets',not as partof the philanthropicprojecthe is engagedin with
Lady Agatha, but in searchof beauty,'the real secret of life'.'7The visit is
describedin directspeech,largelywithoutnarratorialintervention,and the
East End becomes Dorian'screation.Echoingcontemporarydepictionsof
the area by some of the so-called 'urbanexplorers',18it is an abject and
mapless place which both repels and seduces. Here Dorian enters the
theatre, a place which allows him to create a fantasy around the actress
Sybil Vane. She transformsherself before Dorian's eyes from Juliet to a
'pretty boy in hose and doublet and a dainty cap' and back again,'9 a
A New Cityof Friends'
37
performancewhichechoes that of Boulton and Parkand the more circumscribedtransformationsfamiliarfrom the music-hallstage. Dorian is fascinated by Sybil and by his own spectatorialrole and he returnsrepeatedly
as if to confirmhis new-founddesires.LordHenryaptlydiagnoseswhathas
happenedto him in terms of space and movement:'out of its secret hiding
place had crept his Soul, and Desire had come to meet it on the way'.20
It is when the space ceases to be secret,describedby the narratorrather
than Dorian, and when Lord Henry and Basil visit the theatreas well, that
the fantasyand the desiresevaporate.Sybilno longerinterestsDorian and
he retreatsto his luxuriousbedchamberin Mayfair.The theatre loses its
mysteryand is soon specificallylocated:the St James' Gazette reportsthat
the Royal Theatre, Holborn was the site of Sybil's 'death by misadventure'.21The theatre is no longer the locus of desire in the midst of the
labyrinth,but is insteadmore mundanelymappedin Holborn,near Covent
Garden- and much furtherwest than we might expect.
The theatre and the whole romantic episode are erased by being
renderedunspeakable.Dorian tells Basil 'if one doesn't talk about a thing,
it has never happened. It is simply expression,as Harry says, that gives
reality to things'.22Similarlythe homoeroticimplicationsof Lord Henry's
walk and his 'bargainingfor fabric'remain unspoken and maintaintheir
potency preciselybecause they are oblique and only suggestive.Following
Lord Henry'sexampleand his own trystwith Sybil,Dorian does not detail
his exploits and they become mysteriousand insubstantialas a result.The
reader cannot piece together the full extent of his personal map of the
capital,a map whichwouldperhapsreveal the natureof his desires.We can
only guessthe implicationsof the placesthat are mentionedandwhatit was
about him that 'was so fatal to the lives of young men'.23
Dorian'suse of the city revealsits expansiveness:each place leads somewhere else and has somewherebeyondit where it mightbe possible to find
new pleasures. We do not experience Dorian's townhouse as entirely
separate but are made aware of the garden, the square outside, and the
balcony on to which Dorian steps after murderingBasil. The schoolroom
whichhouses the paintingis significantlyprivateand not open to the public
gaze, but it is also bathedin light duringthe day,not shut awayin the dark.
Beyond the house and the squareis Piccadillyand 'the little Italianrestaurant in Rupert Street',24whichthe same night gives way to the 'dingybox'
in the theatre.From here Dorian moves into the fantasyspaces evoked by
Sybil - 'the forest of Arden' and 'an orchardin Verona'- and backstage,
the scene of his equallyfantasticrelationshipwith her.25Then there are the
'distant parts of Whitechapel' and 'the dreadful places near Bluegate
Fields', where the Telegraph journalist James Greenwood had earlier
described finding mannish female prostitutes who had 'the air of
Whitechapelfighting men in disguise'.26At home Dorian evokes other
sensual and exotic locales by burning'odorous gums from the East' and
giving'curiousconcerts'in which'yellow-shawledTunisianspluckedat the
38
strained strings of monstrous lutes [and] slim, turbaned Indians blew

through long pipes'.27There is a fluid movement between public and
private,and real and fantasyspaces;between self-createdinteriorsand the
labyrinthine,secret and hiddenaspectsof the metropolis.It is the interplay
of these spaces which signalsand makes possible Dorian'sintricateexploration of desire and identity.
This decadentengagementwith the city is facilitatedby Dorian'sability
to keep places separate from each other whilst maintaininghis mobility
between them. His independentmovementthroughLondon, on foot and
by cab, maintainshis secret and disguiseshis locale and destination.This
rendition of London is of course based on assumptionsof possibility
consistentwith Dorian'smasculinityand class,and the depictionof the city
in the novel also replays familiar urban dynamics. Most obviously his
journeys east replicated those of philanthropists,urban explorers and
'slummers'.The allusionsto his exploits there reproducedconceptionsof
the East End poor as sexuallypliantand ideas of the 'sensual','bestial'and
'revolting'LimehouseChinese,who provideda passportto fantasticalother
worlds throughopium.28Dorian's sensual acquisitivenesstapped into the
expandingconsumeristpossibilitiesof the West End, and the transformation and transgressiveuse of the city by night were familiarfrom renditions of both heterosexual and homosexual sexual activity. Wilde, Neil
Bartlettnotes, was in some ways merelyrepeating'the clichesof a descent
into London's underworld'.29
The novel neverthelessindicatesthe possibilitiesof the city and there is a markedcontrastbetweenDorian and other
figureswho do not or cannot act upon its potential.Dorian'simitatorsare
'frozen in Mayfair balls' and 'sit like shop dummies in Pall Mall club
windows'.30Those ruined by him find themselvesshut out: Lord Henry's
sister, Lady Gwendolen,is excluded from society, and when Dorian asks
Adrian Singletonwhy he is in the opium den he replies 'whereelse would
I be?'31Of the working-classcharacters,the carters only know Covent
Gardenand London at dawn,and Sybil and JamesVane feel and look out
of place in the park.They returnfrom their walk there on the set route of
a public bus, which 'left them close to their shabby home in the Euston
Road'. Their excursionis predictable,traceableand public, and confirms
their economic and social standing. Dorian, meanwhile, sustains his
fantasies and evades detection partlybecause of his perpetualyouth, but
partlybecausehe is mobile andthe preciseco-ordinatesof his personalmap
of the city remain unclear,even if its general patternsare 'cliched'.This
opacity was the means throughwhich Wilde suggested a departurefrom
convention and what geographerSteve Pile calls 'administrativerationality'.32Whilstthe bedroomand the familyhome might define and specify
maritalsexual relations,here it is the multiplicityof spaces and untracked
movements between them which indicate Dorian's transgressivesexual
appetite.
In this sense the novel resonateswith the ethos of individualismWilde
39
outlined in his Utopian polemic 'The soul of a man under socialism', also
published in 1891. In the novel, however, Wilde explores the complexities
of such a vision in an unreformed and class-bound culture, and, in consequence, the possibilities of the city are also tainted by a fear of scandal.
Dorian is ultimately afraid to leave London in case the mutating portrait is
discovered, and the city which enables his exploration of his 'myriad lives'
and 'myriad sensations' also traps him. London is conceived as a place
where individualism both flourishes and founders, and when Dorian
plunges the knife into the painting in the final passage of the novel a
personal transgressive odyssey is brought abruptly to an end: the formal
divisions between inside and out, the public and the private are reestablished, and the policeman makes his entrance. Given this orderly
ending it is telling that The Picture of Dorian Gray was still perceived by
Lord Queensberry's defence to be 'calculated to subvert morality and
encourage unnatural vice'.33Wilde explored and represented the complexity of the city in the novel and it came to implicate unruly and ineffable
identities and desires. London destroyed and debilitated perhaps, but it also
permitted an elaborate and secretive negotiation of subjectivity. This
constituted part of the novel's threat and, for some, its promise.
Symonds
Symonds wrote in a different vein in his Memoirs, though they also moved
against the grain of nineteenth-century autobiography. They were, as Trev
Lynn Broughton points out,
sharply different from the Life writing with which the Victorian literary
world was familiar: not only as a moving and detailed study of homosexual subjectivity ... but, with [their] emphasis on dreams, fantasies and
formative sexual experiences, as a moving and detailed study of
consciousness at a time when histories of conscience were the biographical order of the day.34
From his deathbed in Rome in 1893, Symonds wrote to his wife Catherine
of his hope that the Memoirs would be 'useful to society', but also advised
her that he had given his literary executor Horatio Brown control of them
after his death because 'I have written things you could not like to read'.35
Although Catherine Symonds knew about - and (Symonds claimed)
accepted - her husband's desires it is likely that Brown vetoed publication
out of sensitivity for her feelings and those of the couple's daughters. Phyllis
Grosskurth also suggests that Symonds may have indicated to Brown that
the time was not 'propitious' for publication.36 Brown had the manuscript
placed with the London Library on his death in 1926 and barred publication
for a further fifty years. Despite the long road to publication Symonds
clearly had an eye on a future reader and on the solace the Memoirs might
40
bringto 'othersas unfortunateas himself',37ratheras Ives did as he wrote

his diary, which is considered in the next section. He attempted to be
candid, but his political agenda is also clear: he was keen to show the
natural,ratherthan pathological,genesis of his desires, and their capacity
to be a force for good ratherthan corruption.38
As such the city becomes a
problematiccomponentin his narrativeand he appearsto find the implications of the kind of meeting between the self and the city describedin
The Pictureof Dorian Gray deeply troubling.The labyrinthineaspects of
LondonwhichdrewDorian east were too unpredictableand overpowering
to accommodatehis more ascetic vision of desire. This hinged on ideas of
Hellenic self-control and social responsibility,and also on an idealized
conception of the relationshipbetween citizens and the ancient Greek
polis.39In his MemoirsSymondsneverthelessreturnedrepeatedlyto the
modernmetropolisto trackthe genesis of his desiresand the sexual crises
he experienced- from his boyhood fantasiesof 'sailors,such as [he] had
seen about the streets of Bristol' to his fleeting encounterin 1865 with a
'younggrenadier'in whatjournalistGeorge Sala describedas a 'chokedup
labyrinthof noisome courts and alleys' between Trafalgarand Leicester
Squares.40Symondsrefused the grenadier'spropositionand 'broke away
from him with a passionate mixture of fascinationand revulsion'.41He
experienceda similarsensation later when he saw a 'rude graffito'- 'an
emblematicdiagramof phallic meeting, glued together gushing',accompanied by the words 'prickto prick so sweet' - scrawledon a wall 'in the
sordidstreets'just to the west of Regent'sPark.He wrote:
Wandering[one] day for exercisethroughthe sordidstreetsbetweenmy
home [nearPaddingtonStation]and Regents ParkI felt the burdenof a
ponderous malaise . . . While returning from this fateful constitutional,
at a certain corner,which I well remember,my eyes were caughtby a

rude graffitoscrawledwith pencil upon slate. It was so concentrated,so
stimulative,so penetrativea character- so thoroughlythe voice of vice
and passion in the proletariat- that it pierced the very marrowof my
soul ... now the wolf leapt out:my malaiseof the momentwas converted
into a clairvoyantand tyrannicalappetite for the thing which I had
rejectedfive monthsearlierin the alley by the barracks.The vague and
morbidcravingof the previousyears defineditself as a precise hunger
after sensualpleasure,whereof I had not dreamedbefore save in repulsive visions of the night.42
Symondsfound himselfprofoundlyaffected by the urbanfabric.Not only
did the 'sordidstreets' seem responsiblefor his 'malaise',but the graffito
incitedandfocusedhis desires.The labyrinthineaspectof Londonproduced
appetiteswhich were, for him, vicious and predatory.What disturbedhim
particularlywas the precisionthe urbancontextgave them:'vaguecravings'
become 'concentrated'and 'precise', apparentlyprecludinghuman and
41
admittingonly genitalcontact.In these 'sordidstreets'Symondswas transported into his tortured dream world and the city became nightmarish.
MorrisKaplanconvincinglyarguesthat this encounter,togetherwith others
described by Symonds in the Memoirs, indicate contradictoryimpulses:
'animaldesire', a quest for comradeship,and an attemptto 'domesticate'
same-sexdesire in line with prevailingnotions of middle-classrespectability.43Symonds'sstatus as a 'man of letters' and as husband and father
impingedon the way he experiencedand wrote about homosexuality.
Symonds'sresponse to 'the voice of vice and passionin the proletariat'
shiftedin his move to the Graubundenin the SwissAlps. Therehe enthused
about the purity and simplicityof the people and their unity with their
surroundings.'When I came to live among peasants and republicansin
Switzerland',he wrote,'I am certainthat I took up passionaterelationswith
men in a more naturaland intelligiblemanner- more rightlyand democratically- than I should otherwisehave done.'44Symondsreportedthat he
'kept aloof' in the Graubunden'fromthose who had been sophisticatedby
residencein foreign cities'.45He shielded himself from what he saw as his
own potentiallydepravedlongingsby shunningthe city and those who lived
there.The metropolisintroducedsomethingmore disturbingthanSymonds
could countenanceand instead he sought to frame his desires with a philosophy of rural comradeship.Switzerlandsoftened the implicationsof
abusethat often accompaniedreportsof cross-classrelationsin the city and
which were powerfullysuggested in the Cleveland Street scandal which
broke as Symondswas writinghis Memoirs.
London neverthelessprovidedsolace for Symondsand he was also able
to locate his Hellenic and pastoralideal of homosexualrelationswithinthis
urbancontext.In the Memoirshe recounteda visitto LondonfromSwitzerland in 1877duringwhichhe visited a male brothelnear the Regent'sPark
Barrackson Albany Street, just to the north of ClevelandStreet. With a
'strappingyoung soldier' Symonds 'enjoyed the close vicinity of that
splendidnaked piece of manhood'.After sex he 'madehim clothe himself,
sat and smokedand talkedwith him, and felt, at the end of the whole transaction,that some at least of the deepest moralproblemsmightbe solved by
fraternity'.He added: 'I met him several times again, in public places,
withoutany thoughtof vice'.46The brothelprovideda specificallyurbanbut
also insulatedspace where Symondscould conjurecomradeshipout of sex
in ways that the chanceencounterwith the grenadierand the graffitoin the
sordid' streets seemed to preclude.47The possibility of ambush was
removedand Symondsmaintainedcontrol:he visitedthe brothelvoluntarily, not throughimportuning,and directedthe relationshipwith the soldier
- 'making' him dress and talk after sex, for example. It was this that
renderedthe whole event acceptablefor Symonds,and ironicallyallowed
him to derive a sense of reciprocity- 'we parted the best of friends,
exchangingaddresses'- fromthe indulgenceof whathe calledhis 'sophisticated passion'.48This passion,he seemed to assume,was not - or could not
42
be - sharedin the same way by his working-classcompanion.The sex and

post-coital conversation in the brothel nevertheless did their work for
Symondsand the relationshipdid not representto him urbanvice, but a
more laudable and 'respectable'fraternity.With this man by his side, the
publicspacesthey meet in subsequentlywere less threatening,less likely to
evoke his 'wolf of desire'. We do not know what the soldier made of the
meeting,or of the constructionSymondsput on it, but for Symondshimself
it was part of what was most promisingabout 'masculinelove'. 'Whereit
appears',he wrote to Edward Carpenterin 1893, 'it abolishes class distinctions,and opens by a single operationthe cataract-blindedeye to their
futilities.'49He did not seem to conceive that it might have been precisely
the cross-classnatureof their liaison whichso excited him.50
Symondshankeredafter ruralsimplicitybut paradoxicallyoften found
it in the city. At the Embankmentponds Symondsindulgedin fantasiesof
cross-classconnectionfive minutes'walk from the place where he encountered the young grenadier.In his poem 'The song of the swimmer'(1867),
a poem pasted into the manuscriptof his Memoirsbut not includedin the
edited publishedversion,he describedthe scene at the Embankmentin epic
terms:'a young rough'is transformedinto 'a Greek hero' as he stripsand
enters the lake. 'His firm and vital flesh, white, rounded, radiant,shone
upon the sward . . . I followed him with swift eyes, as a slave his master'.
The narrator'ssoul - personifiedas femininein line with the conceptualization of the 'Uranian'as a man's body with a woman'ssoul - pursuesher
hero for an erotic embrace:'My soul was not less ardentthan his joy. She
thrusther armsabouthis breast;she felt his armsthrob,the dew dropsdried
beneath her clasp'.Finally,'the rough'kneels upon the grassand 'quickly
resumed his clothes'. 'The beautiful bright god was hidden; the hero
disappeared',51 and the fantasyis neatly closed before Symondswalks on.
Elsewherein the MemoirsSymondsdescribesthe solace offeredby bathers
at the Serpentine:'Earlyin the morning',he wrote, 'I used to rise from a
sleepless bed, walk across the park, and feed my eyes on the naked men
and boys bathing in the Serpentine.The homeliest of them would have
satisfiedme.'52Ives also enjoyed swimmingthere - as at other baths he
knew to be popularwith working-classmen - and in the summerof 1894
he met 'a jolly youth .
. evidently a worker .
. and so frank and un-
sophisticatedas to be quite a study'.53Symonds'sand Ives's descriptions

echo those of the so-called Uranian poets of the period who repeatedly
representteenagersand youngmen in a waterysetting,but theirwordsalso
resonate with a description in the famous Baedeker guide. Successive
editions of the 1880sand 1890sstronglyrecommenda visit to the Serpentine to the (implicitlymale) tourist.The guide describedthe 'scene of unsophisticatedcharacter'with evidentrelish:'whena flag is hoisted,a crowd
of men andboys,most of themin veryhomelyattire,are to be seen undressing and plunging into the waters, where their lusty shouts and hearty
laughtertestify their enjoyment'.An image and descriptionof the bathers
43
also appearedin George Sims'spopularseries Living London (1901).54 The

scene appealedto a fantasyof ruralEnglandas well as touchinga homoeroticchordwith men like Symondsand Ives. Similarlythe BritishMuseum
- a site closely associated with Britain's imperial profile and cultural
prowess- drew Symonds,WalterPater, E. M. Forster,and the poet A. E.
Housman (doubtlessamongstmany others) to look at the ancient statues
of naked men.55The studiedgaze and yearningsof these men were readily
accommodatedwithin the philhellene, upper-middle-classculture of the
second half of the nineteenthcentury:despite the taint of unnaturalvice,
Hellenic ideals spoke of nationalrenewal,of self-realizationand of control.
These statues,like the 'homely'and 'lusty'Serpentinebathers,symbolized
an alternativeconfigurationof desire whichcounteredimages of 'modern'
urbandisarray,debauchery,and effeminacy.The BritishMuseumand the
Serpentine in Hyde Park were overtly public and respectable spaces:
strangebut welcome displacementsof ancientGreece and ruralarcadiain
central London. They seemed to reflect the relationshipbetween citizen
and space in the idealizedGreek polis where meaningsand functionswere
supposedly obvious and simple. Paradoxically,of course, the secretive
desires of some of the assembledmen complicatedthe supposedclarityof
this relation by introducingdifferentlevels of use and knowledge,something whichWilde also enjoyedplayingwith as we have seen.
Symonds was searching for stable sexual identificationsframed by
Hellenicself-control,Whitmanesquecomradery,and ruralmuscularity.Yet
in his Memoirsand poetry particularparts of London were used to mark
out his desires and the developmentof his sexual and politicalphilosophy.
He definedhis brandof inversionin specificoppositionto the random'vice'
of the labyrinthinecity streets and the lack of self-controlthey apparently
invitedandrepresented,but he also foundcomfortandthe scope to indulge
in some neo-Hellenic hero worship at the Serpentine and Embankment
ponds, and in the brothel, where he broughtto his relationshipwith the
guardsmenthe sense of camaraderiehe had found in Switzerland.The
meanings Symonds found in these spaces were partly determined by
broaderdiscoursestouting urbandepravityon the one hand and pastoral
simplicity and Hellenic self-possession on the other. As with Wilde, a
radicaldisassociationfrom domineeringlanguagesof the city and society
was impossible, and they ran through his work and erotic imaginings.
However, the very ideas of variety,dislocationand chaos whichcharacterized the city duringthis period and before, and the confusionof histories
and possibilitiesLondonpresented,also allowedfor what was particularin
these explorationsand experiencesof desire. The conjunctionof diverse
spacesand meaningsmeantthere were places even in the metropoliswhich
could endorseratherthan disruptSymonds'sfantasiesand sexual ethos. In
the Memoirs he recallsthem carefully,givinga homoeroticgloss to a series
of metropolitansites and connecting them wistfully to other places and
other times.
44
REFORMAND THE URBAN SCENE

Symondsand Wilde perceivedin London the potentialfor self-realization
on the one hand and for the disruptionor at least evasion of class orthodoxies on the other. They also profferedpotent argumentsfor reform in
their writing and - in Wilde's case - from the dock. Carpenterand Ives
elaborated these argumentsin their work - and the city was once again
central. Like Symonds, Edward Carpentervoices a reticence about the
urbanscene. In 'the greatcities'he wrotein HomogenicLove (1894),'there
are to be found associatedwith this form of attachmentprostitutionand
other evils comparablewith the evils associated with the ordinarysex
attachment'.56He was disdainfulof the constraintsof the built environment, and, againlike Symonds,celebrateda robust,masculinebond which
he associated with manual labour. This was assumed to 'belong' to the
countrysideand to relationshipswith working-classmen, who, as Matt
Houlbrook suggests, 'represent some kind of "reality"' from which
'modern middle-classculture had been distanced'.57Carpenterhimself
lived for muchof his life on a smallholdingat MillthorpenearSheffieldwith
his lover George Merrill. In TowardsDemocracy, however, he turned
repeatedlyto the metropolisand found it to be a potent metaphorfor the
fraternitywhich he saw drivingsocial and politicalchange.The four parts
of TowardsDemocracywere publishedseparatelybetween 1883 and 1902.
Initiallythey sold slowly and receivedlittle criticalattention,but after the
publicationof the first collected edition by Swann Sonnenscheinin 1905,
Carpenterbecamesomethingof a celebrityand he received'pilgrims'from
all over the country,and beyond. By 1916 16,000copies of the book had
been sold. The text itself is composedof a single lengthyprose poem (part
one) and three additionalsections which contained shorter pieces. The
work outlined Carpenter'spolitical and social vision and demonstrateda
clear philosophicaland stylisticdebt to Whitman.58
The figureof 'democracy'is the lynchpinof the series and is repeatedly
imagined in iconic, homoerotic terms. He is a mutable, omniscient and
invariablymale deity, who moves between the diverse spaces aroundthe
globe which are evoked in the text, drawingthem together and emphasizing their simultaneity.The focus is not on one characterand his sensual
adventuring,as in The Pictureof Dorian Gray, but rather on a series of
parallel spaces, stories and figures. The literary critic Scott McCracken
describesthe poem as havingan atemporalitythroughwhicha new subjectivity might be imagined.59
This use of space relates in part to a radicaltraditionwhichsaw change
in environmentas crucialto wider shifts in social and politicalconsciousness. This included the projectsof CharlesFourierin France and Robert
Owen in Scotlandin the early nineteenth century,as well as later movements such as the Guild of Handicraftsand the Utopian Fellowshipof the
New Life. William Morris and the sexologist Henry Havelock Ellis's
45
The
Utopian writingsalso foregroundedenvironmentaltransformation.60
reinventionof space, and,most notablyin Morris,the integrationof nature
into the city, were seen as central - practicallyand symbolically- to the
liberationof the subjectandthe reformationof society.In TowardsDemocracy Carpentersimilarlydrew heavily on pastoralimageryand focused on
space and its effects.He did not outline a reformedspace,however,instead
encouraginga differentperspectiveon existing spaces and their potential
to yield a sense of comradeship.His vision combined the idealized rural
muscularityof 'democracy'with the seductive fabric and figures of the
metropoliswhich threadthroughWilde'sand Symonds'swriting.He used
the eroticsof urbanlife to shape and articulatea social and politicalvision.
Democracyin Carpenter'spoem is drawnespeciallyto outdoor spaces
and to places of confluenceratherthan separation.In St James'Park,for
example, desire and democracyintertwine:the mysteriousstranger'easy
with open shirtandbrownneck andface' attractseveryonearoundhim and
embodies 'one of the slowly unfolding meanings of democracy'.More
intriguingthan this recourse to urban parks in the poem, though, is the
deliberate engagement with aspects of city life which Symonds found
troublingand whichwere the subjectof broadercommentand concern.In
the city crowd and also in images of urban criminalityand degeneracy
Carpenterfound a democraticpromise.
At nightI creep down and lie close in the greatcity - there I am at home
- hoursand hoursI lie stretchedthere;the feet go to and fro, to and fro,
beside and over me . . . You, soaring yearning face of youth threading
the noisy crowd,though you soar to the stars you cannot escape me. I
remainwhere I am. I make no effort. Whereveryou go it is the same to
me: I am there already.6'
The passage echoes the imagery associated with the urban predator:
Democracycreeps throughthe streets,lies in wait, is inescapable.He also
picks out - it is temptingto say cruises- the 'soaringface of youth' in the
urban crowd. However, this 'predator'is transformedinto a redemptive
force and is envisagedrepresentinga positiveratherthan degenerateset of
desires.The destructiveand pervertedforces of the city are transfiguredby
the incorruptibleforce of democracy;the dangerousstreets harbournot a
sexual monster but an omnipresentguardianangel. The 'noisy crowd',
meanwhile,potentiallyyields connection,and sustainsratherthandissolves
identity.It is a vision that recursforciblyelsewherein the poem:
Throughthe city crowdpushingwrestlingshouldering,againstthe tide,
face afterface, breathof liquor,money-grubbingeye, infidelskin,shouts,
threats,greetings,smiles,eyes and breastsof love, breathless,clutchesof
lust, limbs, bodies, torrents,bursts,savage onslaughts,tears, entreaties,
tremblings,stranglings,suicidal,the sky, the houses, surges and crest of
46
waves, white faces from afar bearing down nearer nearer, almost
touching,and glancesunforgottenand meant to be unforgotten.62
A collection of diverseimpressions,from the ecstaticto the desperate,are
equalized here in an outpouringof jumbled adjectives and nouns. The
passage representsthe multiplicityof the urbancrowd but there is also a
rhythmicmovementwhich unifiesthe elements into an eroticizedtotality:
from an alienatingentry to 'breathof liquor,money grubbingeye, infidel
skin', to an orgasmicsurgein the middle of the passage ('eyes and breasts
of love, breathless,clutchesof lust, limbs,bodies, torrents,bursts'),a postorgasmicdespair (of 'tears, entreaties,tremblings'),and finally,from the
passionateembraceof the crowd,enduringmemories,reiteratedin the first
line of the stanzathat follows:'I do not forget you: I see you quite plainly'.
The crowdis imaginedas a sexualexperienceand whilstchaoticit does not
assail 'consciouspersonality'as Carpenter'scontemporaryGustavLe Bon
suggested it might. Whilst Le Bon and other commentatorsvariously
imagined crowds breaking down identity, propriety,class, and ideas of
Englishness,63Carpentercast them as settingsfor intimateencountersand
for desireswhichcould drive social, culturaland politicalchange.
The power of comradeshipto pull people together into a new life
suggesteda politicalproductivenessin a set of desireselsewhereconceived
as sterile, degenerate,or nostalgic.The Hellenic ideal of masculinelove,
which was seen to embody and producesocial stabilityand progress,was
conjuredanewwithinthe contemporaryurbanscene. Moreover,a temporal
generativedimensionto homosexualdesirewas recovered.In a papergiven
to the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychologyhe noted that 'the
loves of men for each other and similarlythe loves of womenfor each other
may become factorsof futurehumanevolutionjust as necessaryand wellrecognisedas the ordinaryloves whichlead to the birthsof childrenand the
propagationof the race'.64Carpenterenvisageda productivesocial, pedagogical,philanthropicand artisticrole for the invert,extendinghis sphere
of influencebeyond the immediatephysicalenvironmentwhich was more
commonlyseen to enclose anddefinehim.65Withinthis schemathe citywas
used to stress the place of the invertwithin- and as a productivemember
of - the social body. Carpenterthus evades the idea of an elusive,secretive
urbancircuitand subculture,and clearly identifiesin a publishedwork a
series of urban homosexual 'types' and the scope for homosexual and
homosocialconnectionin the city.He picksout, for example,'the carefully
brushedand buttonedyoung man walk[ing]down Piccadilly',reminiscent
of the men describedattendingthe Wilde trials;66the 'youngprostitute'in
'his chamber''arrangingphotographsof fashionablebeauties';the 'young
man who organiseshis boys fromthe slums';67
and the 'poorlad bornin the
slums' who finds his long-lost friend, 'a man twice his own age . . . a large
free man, well acquaintedwith the world, capable and kindly', 'in a little
street off the Mile End Rd'.68
47
These vignettes often have the ring of anecdotes about them, of tales told
about experiences in the city, of lovers and comrades found there. Unusually these stories sometimes recreate the perspectives of working-class men,
who become subjects rather than simply objects of desire. Of the 'poor lad
born in the slums', for example, we are told that 'many spoke to him, asked
him to come and have a drink, and so forth; but still it was no satisfaction
to him; for they did not give him what he needed'.69 In another case a sick
man working twelve-hour shifts in a 'wretched tailor's den' in the city meets
a man 'of athletic strength and beauty' at the 'casual little club he was in
the habit of attending'. This man 'came and championed and nursed him,
and stayed whole nights and days with him and loved him'.70 Whilst
Symonds focused on his own 'sophisticated' passion for guardsmen and
'roughs', Carpenter in these episodes represented working-class men
actively seeking similar comradely bonds through various locales: London
pubs, working men's clubs, university settlements. It is a representation of
the East End and of London more broadly which differs markedly from
those discussed earlier. Like Whitman, Carpenter saw the city as a place
which might facilitate and sustain homosocial bonds. He reinflected visions
of the urban labyrinth in The Picture of Dorian Gray and Symonds's
Memoirs, and eschewed both Dorian's trenchant individualism and
Symonds's dismay and frequent feelings of isolation. Instead Carpenter
found a potent force of human connection in the diverse spaces and distinctive experiences of the metropolis, seeking to override the impulse to
secrecy and shame which its pleasure inspired.
Ives
Carpenter positioned homosexuality and city life within his broad socialist
and democratic agenda. The 'stories' of homosexuality embedded in
Towards Democracy are narrated alongside others of heterosexual
comradeship, showing the power of desire and interpersonal relations to
effect change across the board and around the globe. George Ives held
Carpenter and his values in high esteem and forged a close friendship with
him. However, whilst Carpenter's conceptualization of an 'intermediate sex'
was essentially conciliatory and part of a wider schema, Ives developed a
more combative stance in his evolving politics and in the language he used.
He envisaged a dichotomy between 'them' and 'Us' - the latter always capitalized - and referred to 'the battle', the 'fight', to 'traitors', 'martyrs', and
to 'the faith' and 'the cause' (echoing, it should be noted, the rhetoric of
contemporary socialism).71 In his diary, which covers the period from 1886
to 1950 and runs to a mammoth 122 volumes, Ives communicated a keen
sense of personal injustice and of his own exclusion, which related to his
homosexuality and also to his illegitimacy. Ives had been brought up by his
maternal grandmother, Emma Ives, and was the illegitimate son of Gordon
Maynard Ives and the Baroness de Molarti of Spain. He experienced the
48
privileges associated with his family's wealth - the London home near
Regent'sPark,the countryhouse in Bentworth,Hampshire,the villain Nice
- but also felt stigmatized.He took an interestin the workof the Legitimation Leaguein the 1890s,and,in termsof his sexuality,had greathopes that
sexologywould bringabout a changein both in social attitudeand the law.
He learnt Germanto keep abreastof the more wide-rangingcontinental
sexologicaldebate and was, along with Carpenter,an activememberof the
BritishSocietyfor the Studyof Sex Psychology,foundedin 1913.
Ives had a more singular focus on homosexual 'emancipation'than
Carpenter,who turneddown an invitationto join the exclusiveand issuespecificOrderof the Chaeronashortlyafter it was formedaround1892.It
is temptingto conjecturethat this arose out of Ives'sproximityto an urban
subculture,to the blackmailers,police, and the courtswhichmade the need
for self-protection seem acute and the battle for legitimacy especially
urgent. He was keenly aware of the pressureson men who had sex and
relationshipswith other men in London, and the ways in which they were
depicted in the press. Ives's Order,his writing,and his sense of self were
shapedin specificrelationto a felt marginalizationwithinthe city. Carpenter felt this marginalizationtoo, and apartfromthe idealshe communicated
throughhis writing,he took an activepartin protestsagainstspecificinjustices, especiallywhen they involvedcensorship.72
Carpenterwas, however,
one step removedfrom the city in Millthorpe,and this distanceis perhaps
reflectedin the way homosexualityis figuredas partof a broaderlandscape
in his writingand politics.Ives meanwhileimagineda stridentpoliticalfight
for legitimacy,and he connected this explicitlywith London. It was there
that he felt the greatestsense of common cause and the closest comradeship, as well as the greatest threat to his friends and relationships.The
Service of Initiation for the Order appropriatelyincluded Whitman's
eulogy to democracyand fraternityin 'a city invincible','a new city of
friends'.73
The Orderwas namedafter the finalbattle of the ThebanBands.These
bandswere composedof men fightingalongsidetheirmale lovers and they
were reveredfor their bravery,standingundefeateduntil the battle of the
Chaerona of 338 BC. Ives's obsessive secrecy means that the precise
membershipof the Orderremainsobscurebut his accountsof chance and
planned meetings suggest it involved a fairly large numberof men. Individuals were consideredfor membershipon account of their position or
expertise.Ives commentedon one unnamedman: 'Being a learned figure
we had thought he might have been of use to the order, but so far as I
know, he was never in it'.74(Ives would not necessarilyhave known since
it only took two existing membersto induct a third.) In 1893 he wrote: 'I
am hopeful [of the characterof several London workers]but they are so
far as I know untriedand some are too apatheticfor Us at present'.75He
observed on another occasion the necessity of teaching 'workers' 'the
faith'.76The context of both commentssuggeststhe potential recruitment
49
of working-classmen and indicates a desire to attenuate the Order's

elitism. He noted, however,that the rich and powerfulhad more scope to
act without the threat of legal action:'The helpless and the wage earners
dare not, must not, move or speak unless they wish for martyrdoms'.77
Ives saw the Orderpracticallyas a campaigningand pedagogicalbody,
a meansthroughwhichprejudicemightbe challenged,networksof contacts
established,andpressurebroughtto bearon figuresof influence.He treated
the reformist task with the utmost seriousness and imagined a kind of
Athenian social contract in the face of apparentlymore self-indulgent
explorationsof the city. He was damningof those who he felt used the
Orderfrivolously.He wrote, for example,of a chance meeting in London
with a member of the Order and wrote: 'he ought never to have been
elected. He does nothingsave amusehimself . . . I do regrethe ever heard
our first service. X is another feeble creaturewho is not worthy of our
movement'.78John Stokes is rightto observethat Ives 'foundit a challenge
to reconcile the variety of homosexualpersonalitieswith his own sombre
ideals and retiringnature'.79This intolerance,I would suggest, becomes
more noticeable as his relationshipwith Londonchangedin the 1890s.
In the late 1880s Ives self-consciouslyassumedthe mantle of independent West End bachelor.He kitted himself out with a malaccacane from
the BurlingtonArcade, a new pin, studded with opal, garnet rubies and
diamonds,and a dressingcase, 'fitted with ebony and silver', which was
'quiteenoughfor a bachelor'.80He visitedfriendsin Half Moon Street,just
off Piccadilly,ate with othersat the Savoyand went to performancesat the
Empirein LeicesterSquare.In July 1891he took chambersat 56 St James'
Street where, he noted, 'I can be left entirely to myself'.81 He 'admit[s]
never to have been to the East End', an area he associatedwith a political
agendahe did not yet share:'I am no socialist',he insisted.82
Ives's social circuit expanded when he met Wilde. London, he
announcedin October1891,was a 'grandplace'.83He enjoyedthe company
of Wilde and his circle in some of the new continentalcafes and at the
Authors'Club,the LyricClub,and the New Travellers'Club,where Wilde
once kissed him 'passionately'goodbye.84He yearned for more independence so that he could, in aestheticmanner,'get a glimpsenow and then of
the beauty still in life' - 'so long', he added cautiously,'as it does not hurt
the cause'.85He looked for a permanentWest End apartmentand in 1894
moved into E4 the Albany - the exact addressWilde wryly gave to Jack
Worthingin the original four-act version of The Importanceof Being
Earnest.86On Wilde'sadvicehe also shaved off his moustache,noting that
it was 'anti-Hellenic'and 'bad art', an offence both to his ascetic sense of
the Hellenic masculineideal and to his aestheticism.87In removingit he
keyed into an urbantrendand West End fashionwhichwas at least mildly
suggestiveof sexualdissidence.88Ives sharedhis new home, and sometimes
his bed, with JamesGoddard,the son of one of his father'semployees,and
Harold Holt, his grandmother'sformersecretary.It was also here that he
50
spent the night with Lord Alfred Douglas, though he refused to allow a
thirdpartyto join them becausehe 'thoughtit wouldn'tdo in the Albany'89
- an episode whichreveals Ives's enduringsense of proprietyand reservation for all his avowed radicalism.He could not embraceDouglas'smore
abandoned lifestyle and worried about the consequences of the young
lord'sindiscretions.'I warnedLordA more thanonce thathe was indulging
in homosexualityto a recklessand highlydangerousdegree.For tho' I had
no objectionto the thingitself we were all afraidhe would get arrestedany
day'.90Thisconcernevaporatedwhen Douglasturnedon Wilde:Ives added
the words 'traitor'to any mention of him in the diary.
During this period Ives read Carpenter's Civilisation: its Cause and Cure
and made extensive notes on the section discussingthe Theban Bands of

male lovers.Ives also now visitedpoorerpartsof the city,making'acquaintance amongthe youthfuldenizensof the Borough'.91His dailylife now took
him frequentlybetween the west and east ends, incorporating,for example,
the swimmingbathsin Whitechapeland a visit to Wildein St James'on one
day in the summerof 1892.92Like Carpenterand Symondshe developed a
keen interest in the potential of homoeroticbonds to foster a new social
and moralorder,andwhen he overheardtwo working-classmen havingsex
in a changingcubicleat the Polytechnicbathsin Regent'sStreetin 1893he
concludedthat, removed from 'mercantilesurroundings',a new potential
had been unleashed by these men, who were apparentlyable to flout
conventionand the commonconflationof monetaryexchangewith homosexual sex. 'How much', he wrote, 'mightthis be but a type of the rising
generation,may these two but be specimensand samples of the millions
and we shall do well'.93Influencedby Carpenter'sinsights and his own
experiencesin the East End Ives put a Utopian and reformistgloss on the
swimming-poolencounter.
His interestin the West End waned aroundthe mid 1890s.He chose to
visit the romanticsocialist and architectCharlesAshbee at the Guild of
Handicraftsin Mile End Road ratherthan attenda dinnerwith Wilde after
the premiere of The Importance of Being Earnest, for example,94 and
claimedto like the mainstreetsof the East End betterthan'the horridWest

Centraldistrict'.After a trip to a pantomimeand dinner at the Savoy in
1906Ives proclaimedirritably,'I can't standsociety and its amusements'.95
Rather than seeing the West End as a permissivespace for homosexual
experimentationand expression he felt it detracted from the serious
business of reform.96For him it representeda version of homosexuality
whichwas alliedtoo closelyto the prevailingsocialandculturalorder.From
the mid 1890she became more activelyinvolvedin the Rugby House and
Magdaleneuniversitysettlements,in Notting Hill and Camberwellrespectively, and this expandedtopographicalframe of referenceboth indicated
and fostered a strong commitmentto ideas of homosocialand cross-class
comradeship,a greatersympathyfor socialism,and an interestin anarchy.
His attachment to the city was increasinglyrelated to the streets, the
51
settlements, his associates in the Order of the Chaerona, and various

meetings and conferences, includingfrom 1913 events organized by the
British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology.This shift in his engagement with Londonwas shapedby the interplayof Hellenism,sexology and
socialismin his thinking,whilstthe presenceof these institutions,networks
and organizationsin the city sustained his vision of reform and made it
sometimesfeel almost achievable.
At the close of the 1890sIves moved from Piccadilly;firstto his grandmother's home in Park Road and then, in 1905, to Adelaide Road in
PrimroseHill. Adelaide Road was, accordingto historianDonald Olsen,
'the essence of suburbia',97
and in the diaryfor the post-1905period there
is a sense of Ives settling down - not to a 'conventional'family,but with a
series of working and lower-middleclass men whom he paternalistically
referredto as his 'children'.JamesGoddardbroughthis wife and children
to live there for a while, and in 1909,Harold Bloodworth,a teenage footballer,movedin andstayeduntilIves'sdeathin 1950.Ives'saimat Adelaide
Road was seclusion for himself and his housemates.'I am laying plans to
keep people out', he wrote in 1905,thoughin a verso note of 1927he noted
that his 'precautionsand locks [had] never been necessary'.98Despite the
communalsurveillanceand gossip associatedwith suburbia,the architecture also fostered separation and privacy, adequately fulfilling Ives's
requirementsfor his unconventionalhousehold.
Like some of the writersconsideredearlier,Ives drew on the pastoral
traditionto cleanse and redeem homosexualityin the city. He advocated
ruralizationand the fosteringof spaceswherepeople couldretreatfromthe
streets and find privacy at night, areas he called 'spoonitoria'.'In the
future',he wrote, 'such places will be providedand there will be no spies
or restrictions'.99
He wrote a piece for the Saturday Review insistingthat
London'sparksshouldnot be lit afterdarkand was outragedby a proposal
to close Hyde Park at night.100He consequently compared London
unfavourablyto Berlin,where he admiredthe Thiergarten,with its 'meanderingpaths, thick trees and waterwaysrightin the middle of the capital!'
It was, he wrote: 'unfencedand open as a spoonitoriumat all times; ...
much more free than London'.10'He saw in Berlin a wholesomeness,
freedomand unpretentiousnessthat both Londonand Parislackedfor him.
He found something similarin Sydney, Australia,and in Portsmouth.To
Ives each of these cities had a compactwith nature, and, partlyin consequence, an apparenttolerationof 'natural'desires.By contrasthe characterized London as especiallydangerousin terms of arrestsand blackmail.
It was nonetheless the centre of his social life, support network, and
campaigningwork,and Ives was also buoyedup by its cosmopolitanismand
liberalism.'I renouncenature',he wrote melodramaticallyin 1894, 'to live
amongfriends,amongthe faithful- I wouldn'tcare to be alone, no, not in
paradise,so I must needs live in London,and besides I can do muchwork
there.'"02Ives appreciated the metaphorical power of the city - the
52
History Workshop Journal
prominenceof Whitmanin the Serviceof Initiationindicatesthat clearlybut it was also for him the practicalhub throughwhich supportcould be
offered and pressureexerted. Despite the familiarappealsto the pastoral
in his diaries,it was the city,as a symbol,and London,as a materialreality,
which compelledhim both in his personallife and in his evolvingpolitics.
SECRETTOPOGRAPHIES
Ives describedhimself as 'the SherlockHomes of a 1000 little peculiarities',103and, in the mannerof the sexologists and in line with the broader
Victorianempiricaltradition,he carefullyrecordedwhat he saw and heard
as he wandered around the streets of London, often late at night. He
relishedthe frissonof exchangedglances(thoughhis fear of arrestor blackmail meant that he rarely acted on them) and wrote of seeing inverts,
membersof the Order,andplain-clothespolicemenaroundthe city.He also
monitoredopinion about homosexualityin the gentlemen'sclubsand from
men he met in the streets, on a train,and at the Serpentine.In his scrapbook he indicated sites in the city which were important to him, and
compiledimages of boys and men swimmingin the Thames and the pond
at VictoriaPark, and places and monumentswhich had particularhomosexual resonances.These includedthe statue of educationalistand pioneer
of the polytechnicmovementQuintinHogg, whichwas unveiledin Portland
Place in 1906.104In a parallelentry in his diaryhe noted the inspirational
impact of Hogg's 'homogenic spirit'.105Ives was clearly keen to figure
homosexualitywithinLondon'smonumentaltopographyand in the mainstream of the city's social, culturaland sportinglife. And yet his engagement with the city was individualisticand he conceived of a distinctive,
secretive and in some ways insular homosexual identity there. This
resonated in some ways with Wilde and Symonds'sconceptualizationsof
London discussedearlier.Ives exploredby bike and on foot ratherthanby
publictransport,and relishedsecretsignsand hiddenmeanings.He wanted
Hyde Park to be publiclyredesignateda spoonitorium- for it to be open
to lovers at all times and for the authoritiesto ensure the gates remained
unlocked- but also imaginedit cloaked in darknessso that the configuration of those lovers, what they did, and precisely where they went,
remained a secret. This drive to secrecy was a means of resistingdomineeringinterpretationsof and reactionsto homosexualactivity.But it also
maintaineda space for self-determinationand for developingpatternsof
behaviourwhichwere distinctand exclusive.For the same reason,and in a
reflection of this approach to the city, Ives's engagement with public
discourse on homosexuality - except for one outspoken piece of 1894106-
largelytook place at closely-guardedmeetingsof the Orderandin a private

diary with codes designed to confuse 'pryingeyes'. Ives's fight for public
space and recognitionfor the invertwas thusparadoxicallymarkedby what
Wilde called his 'sillymaniafor secrecy'.107
Despite its rhetoricalstridency,
A New City of Friends'
53
his conception of homosexuality and reform was more covert than Carpenter's. H. G. Cocks convincingly argues that the unspeakable nature of
homosexuality at this time 'produced paradoxical opportunities for selfmaking', and this relates closely to the impulse we see with Ives to inscribe
a personal and secretive mapping of the city in the quest for a distinctive
sense of self and a mode of resistance.108Ives felt compelled to secrecy
because of the dangers associated with homosexuality in the metropolis, but
he also seemed to find the exclusivity such secrecy brought appealing since
it related closely to his conception of an enlightened and heroic elite in
London, akin to the Theban bands and Athenian citizenry.
This dynamic between public spaces with their domineering associations
on the one hand, and personal mappings and meanings on the other, was
certainly not particular to Ives or the homosexual 'condition'.109However,
to inscribe an independent mapping of, and presence within, the city was
especially pressing for those whose lives and relationships were censured
and who were seeking, partly in reaction, to outline and legitimize a sustaining sense of identity, history and culture. The link between homosexuality
and the city had already been made in many minds, both through the
generalized conception of urban debauchery and through the various
homosexual scandals during this period and before. Wilde, Symonds,
Carpenter and Ives were, however, negotiating the relationship on different
terms and conceiving of somewhat different intersections of the city and the
'homosexual' subject. They highlighted particular places within London
which held a range of social, sexual and political possibilities for 'homosexual' men, from the theatres and Piccadilly Circus, to Hyde Park, the
British Museum and the university settlements. These places were conceptualized and experienced differently, and the writings examined here show
that no two mappings or impressions were quite the same, despite frequent
connections and overlaps. Hyde Park, for example, prompted Wilde's
fictional Dorian in his quest for new sensation; for Symonds it was a place
of comfort where he could fantasize about Hellenic and pastoral muscularity; Carpenter conceived of it as a key site in the evolution of democratic
bonds fuelled by desire; some guardsmen saw it as a venue for both sexual
and economic transaction; Ives yearned for its re-creation as a spoonitorium. Newspaper pronouncements about homosexual activity in the park
did not - and could not - wholly account for these other understandings,
associations and experiences. Clearly a range of ways of comprehending
homosexuality and its place in London were circulating during this period
and men found different means of negotiating them and operating within
the metropolis.
The complex intersection of ideas about identity, desire and the city ultimately prevents us from discerning either a unitary urban type or a
coherent culture of homosexuality in London, even though there were
established networks, sustaining groupings and recognizable types. In living
and describing a homosexual life in the city it was as important to chart (or,
54
as Wilde does in The Pictureof Dorian Gray, simplyto suggest) an independent and personalized mapping as it was to share in a subcultural
network of places and experiences.What marks out both kinds of secret
topographyis that they each tantalizinglytouched upon - and also reconfigured- more commonplace,public and dominantways of knowing and
experiencingthe city. These overlappingunderstandingsare perhapswhat
made the city especially compelling for writers exploring homosexual
subjectivityand subcultures,and the place of both within society. For the
city was not only a place where 'homosexual'men congregated,it was also
where the individualmet a subcultureand a subculturemet society most
intensely. The dissonances and congruences between each of these
elements is what created the homoerotic frisson within the writings
consideredhere - and withinthe city they describe.It is hardlysurprising
then to observe the significanceof London to an evolving homosexual
politics or to note its personal importanceto men like Ives. Ives claimed
that it was in Londonthat he had 'alwaysbeen [him]self'- and it was there,
he felt sure, that 'the attack'would 'commence'.110
NOTESAND REFERENCES
With thanks to the HistoricalGeographers'Seminarand the London History Workshop
Seminar;for their help and commentsto JaneCaplan,David Feldman,MarybethHamilton,
CatherineHall, Bill Schwarzand RebeccaSpang;and also, as ever, to Nick Bridgmont.
1 Walt Whitman, 'City of Orgies', in Walt Whitman: the Complete Poems, ed. Francis
Murphy,London,1996,p. 158.
2 On this intensificationof interestsee David Greenberg,The Constructionof Homosexuality, Chicago, 1988; Richard Davenport-Hines, Sex, Death and Punishment: Attitudes to
Sex and Sexuality in Britain since the Renaissance, London, 1990; Leslie Moran, The Homosexual(ity) of Law, London, 1996; Ed Cohen, Talk on the Wilde Side: Towards a Genealogy of
a Discourse on Male Sexualities, London, 1993; Harry Oosterhuis, Stepchildren of Nature:
Kraffi-Ebing, Psychiatry and the Making of Sexual Identity, Chicago, 2000; Linda Dowling,
Hellenism and Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford, New York, 1994; Alan Sinfield, The Wilde
Century: Effeminacy, Oscar Wilde and the Queer Moment, London, 1992; Regenia Gagnier,
Idylls of the Marketplace: Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public, Aldershot, 1997; Eve Kosofsky
Sedgwick, The Epistemology of the Closet, and Between Men: English Literature and Male
Homosocial Desire, New York, 1985; and Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and
Cultureat the Fin de Siecle,London,1990.Manyof these writershave taken their cue from
Michel Foucault'sHistory of Sexuality,and also from Jeffrey Weeks's more specific and
detailed examinationof late nineteenth-centurygay history:Michel Foucault,History of
Sexuality,vol. 1, An Introduction,transl.RobertHurley(firstpublished1976),London,1990;
JeffreyWeeks,ComingOut,London,1979.
3 See Matt Cook, London and the Culture of Homosexuality, c.1885-1914, Cambridge,
2003; Neil Bartlett, Who Was That Man?: a Present for Mr Oscar Wilde, London, 1988;
MorrisB. Kaplan,'Who'sAfraid of JackSaul? Urban Cultureand the Politicsof Desire in

late-VictorianLondon', GLQ 5:3, 1999, pp. 267-314; Morris B. Kaplan, 'Did my Lord
GomorrahSmile? Social Class,Prostitution,and Sexualityin the ClevelandStreet Affair',
in Disorder in the Court: Trials and Sexual Conflict at the turn of the century, ed. Nancy Erber
and George Robb, New York,1999;MorrisB. Kaplan,"'Menin Petticoats":the QueerCase

of Mr Boulton and Mr Park',in ImaginedLondons, ed. Pamela Gilbert,New York, 2002;
Morris B. Kaplan, Sodom by the Thames: Love, Lust and Scandal in Wilde Times, Ithaca,
55
2003;H. G. Cocks, Nameless Offences:HomosexualDesire in nineteenth-century

England,
London,2003. I am very gratefulto the authorfor allowingme to read the manuscriptahead
of publication.
4 OscarWilde,'De Profundis'(1905),in De Profundisand OtherWriting,London,1986,
p. 208.
5 On these pointssee especiallyDowling,Hellenismand Homosexuality.
6 George Ives, 'Diary', vol. 19, 31 March 1894, p. 67 (Harry Ransom Humanities
ResearchCenter,Universityof Texasat Austin,henceforthHRHRC).
7 He publishedthreevolumesof poetryin the 1890sandsubsequentlyworkson GraecoRomanhistory,animalbehaviourandthe criminallaw.C. Branco(pseudonym),Liftingof the
Veil,London,1892;Anon., Book of Chains,London,1897;Ives, Eros'sThrone,London,1900;
Ives, Historyof PenalMethods:Criminals,Witches,Lunatics,London,1914;Ives, TheSexes,
Structureand Extra-OrganicHabitsof CertainAnimals,London,1918;Ives, The Continued
Extensionof the CriminalLaw, London, 1922; Ives, The Graeco-RomanView of Youth,
London,1926;Ives, Obstaclesto HumanProgress,London,1939.
8 For accountsof the ClevelandStreet case see H. MontgomeryHyde, The Cleveland
StreetScandal,London, 1976 and Theo Aronson,PrinceEddy and the HomosexualUnderworld,London,1994;for a sophisticatedanalysisof the classdynamicsof the case see Kaplan,
'Did my LordGomorrahSmile?'.
9 Citedin RichardDellamora, Masculine Desire: the Sexual Politics of VictorianAestheticism,ChapelHill, 1990,p. 208.
10 'London'sBachelorsand theirMode of Living',LeisureHour,vol. 35, 1886,p. 415.
11 The case has been discussedextensivelyby historiansand critics.See Bartlett,Who
WasthatMan?,pp. 128-43;Cocks,NamelessOffences,pp. 166-81;Sinfield,TheWildeCentury,
pp. 6-8;WilliamCohen,Sex Scandal:thePrivatePartsof VictorianFiction,DurhamNC, 1996,
chap.3; Kaplan,"'Menin Petticoats"';CharlesUpchurch,'Forgettingthe unthinkable:crossdressersand Britishsociety in the case of the Queen vs Boulton and Others',Genderand
History12:1,2000,pp. 127-57.
12 Bartlett,WhoWasThatMan?,p. 50.
13 OscarWilde, ThePictureof Dorian Gray(1891),Penguin,London,1985,p. 55.
14 CharlesHirsch,'Notice bibliographique',Teleny: itudes Physiologiques,Paris,1934,
p. 9. (The originalJackSaulpresumablyinspiredthe fictionalone.)
15 ChristopherBreward,'Fashionand the Man,fromSuburbto CityStreet:the Cultural
Geographyof MasculineConsumption,1870-1914',New Formations37, 1999,pp. 47-70. For
widerdiscussionof consumerismand homosexuality,see Gagnier,Idyllsof the MarketPlace;
and RachelBowlby,ShoppingWithFreud,London,1993,chap.2.
16 On ideas of 'knowingness'in popularand sub culturesee Peter Bailey,'Conspiracies
of Meaning:MusicHall andthe Knowingnessof PopularCulture',Pastand Present144, 1994,
pp. 138-71.
17 DorianGray,p. 57.
18 The East End was describedas 'a dark continent',a 'greatdark region of poverty,
misery,squalorand immorality'and 'a humanwildernessof whichnobodyseemed to know
anything'.It was also organicand devouring:'a huge dragon,preyingon mankind':George
Sims, How the Poor Live, London, 1883, p. 4; Andrew Mearns, The BitterCry of Outcast
London, London, 1883, p. 2; Jack London, The People of the Abyss, London,1903,p. 4; J.
MilnerFothergill,'TheTownDweller:his Needs and Wants'(1883),reprintedin TheRise of
UrbanBritain,ed. Lynnand AndrewLees, London,1985,p. 109.
19 Dorian Gray,p. 60.
26 JamesGreenwood,In StrangeCompany,London,1883,p. 186.
28 Greenwood,In StrangeCompany,p. 222.
29 Bartlett,WhoWasThatMan,p. 144.
56
32 Steve Pile, The Body and the City:Psychoanalysis,Space and Subjectivity,London,

1996,p. 226.
33 Citedin Cohen, Talkon the WildeSide,p. 128.
34 Trev Lynn Broughton, Men of Letters, WritingLives: Masculinityand Literary
Auto/biographyin the late Victorianperiod,London,1999,pp. 14-15.
35 Citedby PhyllisGrosskurthin her introductionto her editionof TheMemoirsof John
AddingtonSymonds,London,1984,p. 27.
36 Memoirs,p. 27.
37 Memoirs,p. 27.
38 On thispoint,andon the displacementof sexualrevelationin the Memoirs,see Oliver
S. Buckton,SecretSelves:ConfessionandSame-sexDesirein VictorianAutobiography,Chapel
Hill, 1998,chap.2.
39 See J. A. Symonds,A Problemin ModernEthics,London1891;'A Problemin Greek
Ethics',in H. HavelockEllis, SexualInversion,London,1897.
40 Memoirs,pp. 62 and 186;George AugustusSala,London Up to Date, London,1894,
p. 160.
41 Memoirs,p. 186.
42 Memoirs,p. 187.
43 Kaplan,'Who'sAfraidof JackSaul?',pp. 271-74.
44 Memoirs,p. 191.
45 Memoirs,p. 268.
46 Memoirs,p. 254.
47 Kaplan,'Who'sAfraidof JackSaul?',p. 277.
48 Memoirs,p. 254.
49 Symondsto Carpenter,21 January1893,in TheLettersof JohnAddingtonSymonds:
1885-1893,ed. HerbertSchuellerand RobertPeters,Detroit, 1969,p. 808.
50 On this see MattHoulbrook,'SoldierHeroesandRent Boys:Homosex,Masculinities
and Britishnessin the Brigadeof Guards,c.1900-1960',Journalof BritishStudies42: 3, 2003;
Kaplan,'Who'sAfraidof JackSaul',p. 272;andPeterStallybrassandAllon White,ThePolitics
and Poeticsof Transgression,
London,1986,chap.4.
51 The poem is accompaniedby the words: 'this was clearly introducedunder the
influence of Walt Whitman':Symonds, 'Memoirs',typescriptfrom original ms, London
Library,vol. 1, pp. 284-5. I am extremelygratefulto Morris.B. Kaplanfor this reference.
52 Memoirs,p. 166.
53 Ives, 'Diary',vol. 21, 27 August1894,p. 57.
54 CarlBaedeker,Londonand its Environs,London,1911,p. 262;GeorgeSims,Living
London,vol. 1, London,1901,p. 139.
55 See Cook, Londonand the Cultureof Homosexuality,chap.5.
56 EdwardCarpenter,HomogenicLove, Manchester,1894,p. 15.
57 Houlbrook,'SoldierHeroes and Rent Boys'.
58 Carpenterwrote:'I have said . . . nothingabout the influenceof Whitman- for the
same reasonthat I have said nothingaboutthe influenceof the sun or the winds.These influences lie too far back and ramifytoo complexlyto be traced'.EdwardCarpenter,Towards
Democracy,London,1985,p. 414. On Whitman'simpacton Carpentersee Scott McCracken,
'Writingthe Body:EdwardCarpenter,GeorgeGissingandlate-NineteenthcenturyRealism',
in EdwardCarpenterand Late-Victorian
Radicalism,ed. TonyBrown,London,1990.
59 McCracken,'Writingthe Body',p. 187.
60 Some Utopias includedvisionsof a reformedsexual life. Morrisand Ellis imagined
'natural'- thoughexclusivelyheterosexual- expressionsof desire,whilstFourierdescribeda
communewhere'lesbians,pederasts,flagellants,andotherswithmorereconditetastessuchas
heel scratchingand eatinglive spiderswill all have theirdesiresrecognisedand satisfied':The
FaberBook of Utopias,ed. John Carey,London,1999,p. 212. See also SaskiaPoldervaart,
'Theoriesabout Sex and Sexualityin Utopian Socialism',Journalof Homosexuality29: 2/3,
1995,pp. 41-67; and BarbaraTaylor,Eve and the New Jerusalem:Socialismand Feminismin
the NineteenthCentury,London,1983.
61 TowardsDemocracy,p. 36.
63 Gustavle Bon, The Crowd:a Studyof the PopularMind, London,1896,p. 2; J. A.
Hobson, ThePsychologyof Jingoism,London,1901,pp. 171-8.
57
64 Carpenter,SomeFriendsof WaltWhitman,London,1924;see also 'The Intermediate

Sex' (1906),in SelectedWritings:Sex, London,1984.
65 See Cook, Londonand the Cultureof Homosexuality,chap.3.
66 Carpenter,TowardsDemocracy,p. 198; 'Wilde and Taylor committed for trial'
ReynoldsNews,21 April 1895,p. 4.
68 TowardsDemocracy,pp. 323-4.
69 TowardsDemocracy,pp. 323-4.
71 See StephenYeo, 'A New Life: the Religion of Socialismin Britain,1883-1896',in
HistoryWorkshopJournal4,1977, p. 33. See alsoWeeks,ComingOut,part4; andH. G. Cocks,
'Calamusin Bolton: Spiritualityand HomosexualDesire in late-VictorianEngland',Gender
and History13:2, 2001,pp. 191-23.
72 Carpenterspearheadedthe protestabout the BritishLibrary'scataloguingpolicy in
1911and laterlauncheda defence fundfor the C. W. Daniel, the publisherof A. T. Fitzroy's
Despisedand Rejected,bannedunderthe Defence of the Realm Act in 1918.He was also a
memberof the Free Press Defence Committeefoundedin responseto the arrestof George
Bedboroughin 1898.See EdwardCarpenterto GeorgeIves, 3 May1916,GeorgeIves Papers,
box 1, folder 1, HRHRC;EdwardCarpenter,appealletter in supportof the C. W. Daniel, c.
October 1918, British Society for the Study of Sex PsychologyPapers, box 19, folder 2,
HRHRC;'An Appeal to the People', TheAdult2: 7, August1898,pp. 190-1. See also Weeks,
ComingOut,p. 17.
73 Ives, 'Service of Initiation'(1899), Ives Papers,box 5, folder 11, HRHRC. Lynne
HapgoodidentifiesLondonas an importantfocuspragmatically
andsymbolicallyfor socialism
in the 1880sand 1890s.Morris'sNewsfrom Nowhere(1890)is the most famousexampleof a
'visionarytransformation'of Londonfor socialistends, and his pastoralrecastingof the city
resonateswith aspectsof the work of Symonds,Carpenterand Ives consideredhere. Lynne
Hapgood,'UrbanUtopias:Socialism,Religionand the City',in CulturalPoliticsat the Fin de
Siecle,ed. SallyLedgerand Scott McCracken,Cambridge,1995,p. 187.
74 'Diary',vol. 38, 12 November1900,p. 62.
75 'Diary',vol.18,29 October1893,p. 1.
76 'Diary',vol. 21, 27 August1894,p. 57.
78 'Diary',vol. 60, 5 May 1914,p. 87.
79 John Stokes, 'Wildeat Bay: the Diaries of George Ives', EnglishLiteraturein Transition,1880-192026:3, 1983,p. 177.
80 'Diary',vol. 8, 11 September1890,p. 88.
81 'Diary',vol. 9, 6 December1890,p. 66.
82 'Diary',vol. 6, 13 January1890,p. 91;vol. 9, 29 December1890,p. 79.
83 'Diary',vol.11,6 October1891,p. 72.
84 'Diary',vol. 18, 23 December1893,p. 78.
85 'Diary',vol. 17, 26 October1893,p. 129.
86 KarlBeckson,Londonin the1890s:a CulturalHistory,New York,1992,p. 210.
88 Allan Peterkin,One ThousandBeards:a CulturalHistoryof FacialHair,Vancouver,
2002,p. 66;see also Cook, Londonand the Cultureof Homosexuality,chap.2.
90 'Diary',vol. 17, 19 October,1893.
91 'Diary',vol. 13, 31 May 1892,p. 36.
92 'Diary',vol. 13, 30 June 1892,p. 49.
93 'Diary',vol. 17, 29 July1893,p. 18.
94 'Diary',vol. 22, 1 January1895,p. 86.
95 'Diary',vol. 48, 14 February1906,p. 63.
97 Donald Olsen, TheGrowthof VictorianLondon,London,1976,p. 244.
98 'Diary',vol. 47, 4 June 1905,p. 20.
100 Ives, 'SomeNeeds of a GreatCity', TheSaturdayReview,11 November1912,p. 609;
'Diary',vol. 57, 26 January1912,p. 15.
58
101 'Diary',vol. 50, 15 Aug. 1907,p. 52.

102 'Diary',vol. 19, 9 March1894,p. 37.
103 'Diary',vol. 39, 22 March1901,p. 43.
104 Ives, 'Casebook',vol. vi, p. 49, Ives Papers,Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library,Yale University.
106 Ives, 'The New HedonismControversy',The Humanitarian5: 4, October 1894,pp.
292-7.
107 Wildeto Ives, 12 February1900,cited in Stokes,'Wildeat Bay',p. 183.
108 See Cocks,'NamelessOffences',p. 326.On the importanceof secrecyto ideasof nineteenth-centuryhomosexualsubjectivitysee also Buckton,SecretSelves.
109 See Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, transl. Steven Rendell,
Berkeley,1988,partiii; and Pile, TheBody and the City.
110 'Diary',vol. 46, 17 February1905,p. 63;vol. 10, 22 April 1891,p. 98.

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'A New City of Friends': London and Homosexuality in the 1890s

Author(s): Matt Cook

Earlymorningbathersat the Serpentine,Hyde Park.FromLivingLondon,ed. G. R.Suims,

'A New City of Friends':

? History Workshop Journal 2003; all rights reserved

attemptingto legitimizehomosexualitycouldnot easilyescapethis insistent

Order of the Chaerona and earnestly documentingthe progress of the

'ANew Cityof Friends'

Symonds'sMemoirs were not even publisheduntil 1984 (and then only in

generallyhostile press.It evoked a secretivecity of sensualpossibilityin the

Wootton,on his aesthetictastes and on his WestEnd circuit.Details of the

Wilde reputedly purchasedin 1890 from Charles Hirsch's bookshop on

A New Cityof Friends'

strained strings of monstrous lutes [and] slim, turbaned Indians blew

A New Cityof Friends'

bringto 'othersas unfortunateas himself',37ratheras Ives did as he wrote

at a certain corner,which I well remember,my eyes were caughtby a

'ANew Cityof Friends'

be - sharedin the same way by his working-classcompanion.The sex and

. and so frank and un-

sophisticatedas to be quite a study'.53Symonds'sand Ives's descriptions

'ANew Cityof Friends'

also appearedin George Sims'spopularseries Living London (1901).54 The

REFORMAND THE URBAN SCENE

'ANew Cityof Friends'

A New Cityof Friends'

A New Cityof Friends'

of working-classmen and indicates a desire to attenuate the Order's

and made extensive notes on the section discussingthe Theban Bands of

claimedto like the mainstreetsof the East End betterthan'the horridWest

A New Cityof Friends'

settlements, his associates in the Order of the Chaerona, and various

History Workshop Journal

largelytook place at closely-guardedmeetingsof the Orderandin a private

A New City of Friends'

MorrisB. Kaplan,'Who'sAfraid of JackSaul? Urban Cultureand the Politicsof Desire in

and George Robb, New York,1999;MorrisB. Kaplan,"'Menin Petticoats":the QueerCase

A New City of Friends'

2003;H. G. Cocks, Nameless Offences:HomosexualDesire in nineteenth-century

History Workshop Journal

32 Steve Pile, The Body and the City:Psychoanalysis,Space and Subjectivity,London,

A New City of Friends'

64 Carpenter,SomeFriendsof WaltWhitman,London,1924;see also 'The Intermediate

History Workshop Journal

101 'Diary',vol. 50, 15 Aug. 1907,p. 52.

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