John Saul - A Victorian Gay People Should Know, But Few Do

Did you grow up in a forest, OP?

There's a pretty good book about him published a few years ago, The Sins of Jack Saul:

At trial as stated John Saul gave as good as he got.

"Saul delivered his testimony in a manner described in one newspaper report as "brazen effrontery that reduced the court to shocked silence"[6] and detailed his sexual encounter with Euston in the brothel in explicit language that shocked the court.[25] He was also sharp, witty, and defiant.[26] The line of questioning and his responses included:

"And were you hunted out by the police?" – "No, they have never interfered. They have always been kind to me."

"Do you mean they have deliberately shut their eyes to your infamous practices?" – "They have had to shut their eyes to more than me."[3]

Given to what John Saul confessed to he should have been prosecuted and a conviction likely handed down. But rather amazingly there was none of that; District Attorney declined to bring a case, and John Saul simply went on with his life.

OP, why didn't you start your thread, "Eldergays -- John Saul -- who's had him?"

Does this mean we can revive one of my favorite threads — “Let’s Be Victorian Era Datalounge” ?

There's a book called The Sins of Jack Saul about him that is really good

Better Call Saul.

I'm surprised no one has ever made a movie about the Cleveland Street Scandal

Jack Saul wrote a book, The Sins of the Cities of the Plains, which is part autobiography, part prime Victorian gay porn.

I love that Victorian rentboys were called "Mary-Anns."

MARY!

....

Think reason why no one has ever done a film or television drama about Cleveland Street scandal runs with same reasons John Saul wasn't charged. Too many high profile names would need to be mentioned if not outright implicated.

There was Prince Eddy for a start.

The people are all dead, r12. Nobody need worry about their reputation. If the Mexicans can make a movie about the Dance of the 41, the Brits can make a movie about Cleveland Street or Jack Saul.

Per those links, John Saul was 32 when he was working at the brothel. Isn't that a bit old to be a "young telegraph boy."

r14, most of the guys at the brothel were telegraph boys but Saul wasn't

R13

True, all true, but we're talking about the Queen's great uncle.... Royal archives and other documents related to Prince Eddy have been firmly shut since his early death, and likely to remain so in foreseeable future.

There had been all sorts of talk about Prince Eddy in his day. How much of it was true only RF and insiders knew. But something was certainly up because his behavour worried Queen Victoria (grandmother), Prince and Princess of Wales (parents).

Had Prince Eddy just fooled around with women (mistresses, whores, etc..) and in general behaved like his father no one would have batted an eye. But that couldn't have been case because whatever Prince Eddy got up to upset the Queen, and her heir no end. Prince Eddy was in love with Princess Alix of Hesse Darmstadt of and by the Rhine. She turned down his offer of marriage (and went with Nicholas of Russia instead), citing various reasons but one of them alluded to Prince Eddy's "nature". Clearly the German princess found something wanting, and or had been warned off.

If it wasn't a gay angle there was also lose talk tying Prince Eddy into either being Jack The Ripper himself, or somehow involved.

All that being said agree with you 100%. Would love to see a dramatization of Jack Saul's life or at least what was going on surrouding many of the scandals he was somehow connected.

For instance Jack Saul knew "Fanny and Stella" two Victorian trans who worked as prostitutes, but one was also married to a peer and MP.

More about "Fanny and Stella"

[quote] There had been all sorts of talk about Prince Eddy in his day. How much of it was true only RF and insiders knew. But something was certainly up because his behavour worried Queen Victoria (grandmother), Prince and Princess of Wales (parents).

I recall reading about someone prominent writing in his diary that it was best that Prince Eddy died before becoming king because he was wholly unsuited to the role temperamentally and otherwise. He reminds me of the Duke of Windsor in that way.

More Fanny and Stella....

Mind you this was going on about 25 years before Oscar Wilde got into trouble. So it shows there was gay and trans action going on in UK (in particular London), long before Mr. Wilde was made an example.

“It is impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. Half of them don’t believe that it can physically be done, and the other half are doing it.”

A little known movie about the Ripper and a royal personage.

One of the Cleveland Street clients was Lord Arthur Somerset, an army major and equerry to the Prince of Wales

I like that the one male prostitute is named "Thickbroom" - great name!

^ Another was named Henry Newlove

Quote:. "Brazen effrontery" Love this! Words such as this are not used as often anymore and I miss them. With that description you just know it is good and juicy. Thank you , OP.

Dick Thickbroom will be my gay pron name

I recommend The Alienist (novel and TV series), whose major plot line concerns a boy brothel in NYC and a serial killer who preys upon these children. Luke Evans is in it.

R27, Luke was raped by the boy whores. It was quite shocking.

I was not shocked.

Saul was caught up in another juicy gay scandal, the Dublin Castle scandal in 1884

Thanks to this thread i read his book SINS OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN. Decent pornographic read.

A TV Show called 'City of Vice' focuses on a 'Molly House' (Male Brothel) in Episode 2.

[italic] Investigating the murder of the Reverend Erasmus Cavendish leads the Runners to a 'Molly house', a brothel and social club for gay men, especially those who like to dress as women. Young Thomas Deacon, also known as Miss Kitten and recently half of a gay 'wedding' is implicated as committing murder in order to prevent his secret being exposed to his employers. [/italic]

It's set over a 100 years before Cleveland Street though and is a mix of fact and fiction about the early days of 'The Bow Street Runners' ( precursor of the Police force)

The full episode is on YouTube.

A gay MAN people should know?

The City of Vice episode was really good. Back then men convicted of sodomy got the death penalty

For those who like academic reading....

I’d love to go to a gay brothel. Anyone ever been?

^ I've read that before. It's really fascinating

In film Maurice Lord Risley is entrapped by a solider in British military (home guard IIRC), this wasn't an accident nor purely fiction either.

Guardsmen along with other British military were *it* far as idea of ideal masculinity were concerned, this was for both females and males. Problem is by Victorian or Edwardian period many were "gay for pay" as it were (to supplement their low wages I shouldn't wonder), and or genuinely were up for gay sex being homosexual or bisexual.

At some point Scotland Yard decided to make good use of this highly sought after bait, and used guardsmen in uniform to lure gay men into situations like poor unfortunate Lord Risley. The result was same in real life as in fiction, usually a conviction of "gross indecency", imprisonment, and professional/social ruin.

In many ways the class society of Victorian and Edwardian UK (right up to really WWI or just after), allowed gay men to live together under guise of master and servant.

While Jeeves and Wooster may have been straight, there were plenty of gay footmen, butlers and valets in Victorian and Edwardian UK. Presumably many of their same sex employers knew this (no that footman Thomas in Downton Abbey wouldn't have been alone), and or in some situations were actually lovers of same.

Montague Glover and his lover/life partner Ralph Hall had just that sort of arrangement.

^ Lord Beauchamp was well known for finding bf amongst his male servants

More on Monty Beauchamp

There was a gay horror writer who wrote quite a few, fairly schlocky, horror novels from the 70s to the aughts like Comes the Blind Fury and Suffer the Children. I have often wondered if that was a pen name he chose referring to the John Saul that is the subject of this thread, and if so, was he telegraphing his sexuality while still closeted, or was that just a coincidence, and his name really is John Saul.

His Wikipedia entry does't mention any other name, so I may just be reading into things.

R41 correction. Make that Monty "Glover"

Carry on

Thanks for the book link R9. Pretty amazing that he got that published back then.

R9

It is highly unlikely John Saul wrote "The Sings of the Cities of the Plains" for several reasons. As for the book being actual memoirs of Jon Saul dictated to one or more persons, jury is still out on that score. What does seem likely is the book is based on bits of John Saul's life and may even have been written by someone who knew JS and others in same circle.

Evelyn Waugh had an affair while at Oxford with Hugh Lygon, Lord Beauchamp's son who was described as "blond", "beautiful" and "dumb". You don't need a guide book to figure out who Sebastian Flyte was based upon and Brideshead Revisted in general.

Lord Beauchamp deserves an entire thread to himself, there's just so much dirt.

Rictor Norton (c.f. R39's link) book, [bold]Mother Clap's Molly House[/bold] (1992, with later edition/s incl. 2006) is a good look at London gay life 1700-1830.

R45, I agree it is pretty unlikely that Jack Saul was the actual author, but taken together the photo on the cover of The Sins of Jack Saul... well, a boy can dream, can't he?

Given the Grindr activity, I think my upstairs neighbor runs a Molly House

The "Cities of the Plain" is heavily fictionalized. This is discussed in The Sins of Jack Saul.

I'm tired of all this "informed" speculation, which is basically making things up after the fact.

Eldergays, tell us about the Cleveland Street scandal and what is was like as it happened.

Weren't they called "Molly Boys" ?

Of course, the really informative data we all like to read is contained in that Wikipedia article...to wit:

"Saul's character is described as possessing "a fresh looking beardless face, with almost feminine features, auburn hair and sparkling blue eyes…and endowed by a very extraordinary development of the male appendage".

Not just an extraordinary development, mind you.. but a VERY extraordinary development....woo hoo!

It really is a shame we have no photographs, sketches or any other sort of image of John Saul. He may have decedents living ( children of his siblings), but that isn't same thing. John Saul along with his parents and grandparents is buried in an unmarked grave.

John Saul's death anniversary is coming up, died 28 August 1904

On a more uplifting note, Our Lady’s Hospice in Harold’s Cross where John Saul died is still around and going very good work.

August 28th should be an official datalounge holiday!

So much bullshit here. Let's address some of the myths:

1. Jack Saul wrote a book, The Sins of the Cities of the Plains, which is part autobiography, part prime Victorian gay porn.

NO, he didn't. The novel was written by an unknown author who possibly never met him.

2. "Saul's character is described as possessing "a fresh looking beardless face, with almost feminine features, auburn hair and sparkling blue eyes…and endowed by a very extraordinary development of the male appendage".

VERY POSSIBLY NOT. This was the description the porn novelist. By the time of the Cleveland St, Saul was almost over the hill and suffering from the tuberculosis that killed him.

3. Royal archives and other documents related to Prince Eddy have been firmly shut since his early death, and likely to remain so in foreseeable future.

NO they're not. All the papers of Eddy's father were burnt after his death on his instruction. Letters of Eddy's occasionally surface. All the documents about the Cleveland St case were released in 1977.

4. there was also lose talk tying Prince Eddy into either being Jack The Ripper himself,

NO there wasn't. This was bullshit that arose through some wankers spinning conspiracy shit in the 1970s. It's all been completely disproven.

You sure like to say NO a lot.

R57

Ooooh!

Don't come to us all high and mighty dearie, we know where you've been...

If you're on Twitter, there's some interesting accounts that often cover this stuff. Rictor Norton's

Can Dean-Charles Chapman do a convincing Irish accent? He'd be perfect for the sexually explicit biopic.

This one's for an upcoming book about a gay Victorian scandal

Someone found this "Jack Saul" in a Paris flea market several years ago. I think it's a repurposed shop dummy head, but it's fascinating that some Olde Time queen when to the trouble of assembling it as a kind of sodomy shrine!

[quote]Prince Eddy was in love with Princess Alix of Hesse Darmstadt of and by the Rhine. She turned down his offer of marriage (and went with Nicholas of Russia instead)

big mistake, lady!

Yeah, she could have died happily as a made widow with syphilis instead of being bullet holed in a cellar.

We could call the movie The Courtship of Eddy's Father and tell is from Alice Keppel's point of view.

Just as long as there's a part for an Oscar winning corpse somewhere.

^ lol!!!

Dam what an interesting thread! I've been reading all the articles and stuff linked, its fascinating.

Another Irish queer who refused to play the British superficial game of denial for the sake of propriety.

^ Well, it's not like there were tons of Irish people hiding in the closet, too