1854 – Local Men Convicted of Sodomy
Stafford prison where Joseph Warrilow and Joseph Stretch were held following conviction for sodomy in 1854
On 25th March 1854 the Staffordshire Evening Sentinel reported that Joseph Warrilow aged 50 and Joseph Stretch aged 17 had been found guilty of a “crime of an abominable nature” that took place in Stone on 5th November 1853. Both men were sentenced to death though neither of the men were actually hanged. The sentence for Joseph Warrilow was later changed to transportation for life but he died in Dartmoor prison. The much younger Joseph Stretch only served a short sentence before being released. Read more about their stories below.
Staffordshire Evening Sentinel 25th March 1854
The records for Staffordshire Assizes 11th March 1854 tell us that the “crime of an abominable nature” that Joseph Warrilow and Joseph Stretch were convicted of was “sodomy”. In the Evening Sentinel report above there is also mention of Thomas Plimmer being convicted of an “unnatural offence” which we can see on the record was actually bestiality.
Staffordshire Assizes 11th March 1854 – Image from The National Archives
The record for Joseph Warrilow records a sentence of death but a note added later tells us that this was changed to transportation for life. The record for Joseph Stretch also records a sentence of death but a note added later along with other records (see below) tells us that he only served a short time in prison before being sent to a reformatory.
It is hard to imagine the fear and horror of both the men and all who knew them when the sentence of death was initially passed upon them even though the sentence was not ultimately carried out. We can read into this that the court intended to make a point about how seriously the crime was regarded and to make a public display of this as a deterrent to others.
Also visible on this page is someone convicted for manslaughter with a sentence of transportation for life and a conviction for rape with a sentence of 15 years. Further down the page (not shown here) is someone convicted for robbery with violence sentenced to 4 years and a malicious stabbing with a sentence of 18 months. It is hard for us now to comprehend that less than two hundred years ago sex between men was considered to be worse than these offences and was regarded as one of the most serious crimes that anyone could commit.
Finding the convictions of men who had sex with men in our old records can be challenging. The people of the time did not want to name or describe the offences and “unnatural crime” was sometimes used to refer to sex between men as well as to bestiality. The word sodomy became most commonly used to mean buggery usually involving men. But in earlier history it had a wider use that included any sexual act that was not intended for procreation including oral sex, women receiving anal penetration, and even mutual masturbation.
References to offences involving sexual acts taking place between two women are rare to the point of being almost impossible to find.
The Life of Joseph Warrilow
So far we have only discussed Joseph Warrilow as a name on the court records from our distant past. Let’s take a closer look at his life and remember him with the humanity he deserves.
Joseph was born in Draycott, Staffordshire on the 5th Nov 1803 and was christened in Stone, on the 12th November. The records of his birth and christening tell us that his father was named Thomas and his mother was Sarah.
The 1841 census tells us that Joseph was a labourer, living in Church street in Stone. He is sharing the home with others but he is unmarried. In 1849 he received a 2 month sentence for fraud (recorded at the Stafford Assizes, 2nd July 1849). The 1851 census records Joseph living alone at 28 Leese Houses in Stone. He is an agricultural labourer.
On 5th November 1853 Joseph Warrilow had sex with Joseph Stretch. The circumstances in which this came to the attention of the police are unknown. On 11th March 1854 Joseph was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to death. His sentence was later amended to transportation for life.
On 19th July 1854 he was moved from Stafford to Millbank prison which was used for convicts awaiting transportation to Australia .
An extract from the Millbank Prison Register 1854 – National Archives
The Millbank Prison Register for this period (extract above) tells us that Joseph was removed to Dartmoor Prison on the 29th Nov 1854. Dartmoor Prison had been brought back into use in November 1850 to help accommodate men sentenced to transportation who were waiting for space on ships bound for Western Australia, or because they were too unhealthy to undertake the voyage.
There is a note of a relative – Sarah Warrilow, Abbey Court, Stone. This is his mother, probably noted here as his next of kin. Other records tell us that Joseph’s father Thomas had died in 1850 and Sarah is a widow.
Dartmoor prison where Joseph Warrilow was sent while awaiting transporation.
Joseph Warrilow died aged 53 years on the 15th Dec 1856 at the Dartmoor Convict Prison Near Tavistock. The cause of death was “consumption” which refers to tuberculosis, an infectious disease that causes rapid weight loss and wasting, hence the name. He was buried in the Dartmoor Prison cemetery at Princetown on the 26th December 1856 more than 200 miles away from his home town of Stone in Staffordshire.
Joseph Warrilow is consistently recorded as single in all the historical records I have found. He was 53 years old when he died and it is likely that he had not married because he was primarily attracted to other men. However, we should be cautious about describing Joseph as gay or queer as these are words that denote modern identities that should not be projected onto the past lives of men who desired sex with other men.
The Life of Joseph Stretch
Joseph Stetch was born in Stone in 1936 to parents John and Mary Ann. He was baptised at St Michael in Stone on 5th February.
In the 1851 Census we find Joseph Stretch living with his parents John and Mary at Richard Street, Stone. He has an older brother and a younger sister. Joseph is 15 years old and working as a Cordwainer (a shoe maker). Joseph has four brothers, (one older and three younger) and a younger sister.
On 5th November 1853 Joseph had sex with Joseph Warrilow and on the 11th March 1854 he was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to death.
We can see from this report in the Evening Sentinel that the sentence of death was never carried out. Joseph has served one year in a reformatory before being released.
Evening Sentinel Aug 15 1863
The 1861 census (extract below) tells us that Joseph is now married with two young children living at 89 Church Street in Stone.
An edited extract from the 1861 census for Joseph Stretch
The eldest child on this record is Sarah Ann Stretch aged 4 years. The baptism record for Sarah Ann in 1857 (below) tells us that she was baptised on 27th April 1857 and her parents John and Mary Ann were living in Gaol Road Stafford. This would seem to suggest that one or both parents were in Stafford Gaol.
Baptism of Sarah Ann Stretch 1857
When I checked the General Register Office birth record for the youngest child John, I found that Mary Ann’s maiden name was Hall. I have been unable to find any marriage record for Joseph Stretch and Mary Ann Hall. Maybe they were married in prison or maybe they never married at all even though they have declared being married on the census records.
An intriguing possibility is that Joseph producing a child with Mary Ann and marrying her was a factor in his release from prison. This is, however, just speculation.
In the 1871 census Joseph is still living in Stone with his wife, Mary Ann. His elder daughter Sarah Ann is living elsewhere working as a servant aged just 14. His ten year old son, John, is still at school.
In 1876 Joseph died of cancer of the pylorus (stomach cancer) at the age of just 40 years. He was buried at St Michael’s Church in Stone on September 30th. He was just 40 years old at the time of his death.
It is impossible to know or even to speculate whether Joseph had sex with men on other occasions than the one that he was convicted for. His later marriage with two children may indicate the pressure to conform with society’s expectations or maybe he was only incidentally homosexual in his early life.
Comments on Legal and Social History
The Buggery Act of 1533 was passed during the reign of Henry VIII and made “the detestable and abominable vice of buggeri committed with mankind or beest” a felony punishable by death.
Over time the words buggery and sodomy were used almost without distinction. However, there was a general unwillingness to use either of these words hence the trend towards public discourse using the phrase “unnatural crime” or the “vice that cannot be named”
The buggery act was used to prosecute various non-procreative acts between men and women and, significantly, men and men. The term buggery and sodomy were later interpreted by the courts to include only anal penetration (with a male or female partner) and bestiality. The act was widely used to prosecute men engaged in consensual sex.
There was a kind of moral panic in the late 1700s and the early 1800s leading to increased rates of convictions in which sodomy was dealt with harshly and in secret.
In 1828, the provisions of the buggery Act became part of the new Offences Against the Person Act. Buggery remained a capital offence until 1861, though the last executions were in 1835. (see Staffordshire’s connection to the last men to be hanged)
In Chris Bryant’s excellent book “James and John” about the last two men hanged for sodomy he states that Homosexuality remains a criminal offence in 34 out of 54 countries in the Commonwealth and still carries a death penalty in some of these. (Chris Bryant, James and John published 2024)
Joseph Swift was just 17 years old when he had sex with Joseph Warrilow. This act of consensual sex between two men only became legal in 2001 when the age of consent was finally equalised to 16 years of age to be the same as that for heterosexual sex.
Grateful Acknowledgements
The story of Joseph Warrilow and Joseph Stretch was originally researched by Kat Boon and presented as part of Potboiler Theatre’s Gay Stoke project. Many thanks to Kat for providing me with her research notes. I am pleased to have been able to add to this material, in particular the sad fate of Joseph Warrilow.
Copyright Notice
The newspaper cuttings and other records featured here have been compiled from archives by this post’s author, Andrew Colclough, as part of his personal research into local LGBT+ history. Copyright belongs to the newspapers that published the articles and to the National Archives. The material has been shared here by Andrew Colclough on the basis of fair personal/non commercial use.
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