Lord Arthur Pelham-Clinton

Lord Arthur Pelham-Clinton (23 June 1840 – 18 June 1870) was an English aristocrat and Liberal Party politician. A Member of Parliament (MP) for three years, he was notorious for involvement in the homosexual scandal and trial of Boulton and Park.

He was the son of Henry Pelham-Clinton, 5th Duke of Newcastle and Lady Susan Harriet Catherine Hamilton. He went to Eton College and became a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, serving in the Baltic from 1854 to 1856 and in India during the Mutiny. He was elected as an MP for Newark at the general election in July 1865,[1] and held the seat until he stood down at the 1868 general election.[2] He was declared bankrupt on 12 November 1868, with debts and liabilities reported to total £70,000.[3]

In 1870 he was living with Ernest Boulton, who had been dressed as a girl by his mother from an early age and was known to his friends as "Stella".[4][5] Boulton and Frederick William Park often appeared in public in female dress: they were arrested and charged "with conspiring and inciting persons to commit an unnatural offence" with Pelham-Clinton and others.[6][7] Pelham-Clinton died on 18 June, the day after receiving his subpoena for the trial, ostensibly of scarlet fever but more probably a suicide.[8] Boulton and Park were acquitted.[4][9][10][11]

References

  1. ^ Robert Henry Mair, "Debrett's Illustrated House of Commons and the Judicial Bench", 1867, p.44
  2. ^ Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1977]. British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 215. ISBN 0-900178-26-4. 
  3. ^ "Court of Bankruptcy, Basinghall-Street, No. 12". The Times (London): p. 11. 13 November 1868. 
  4. ^ a b Pearsall (1971) 461-8
  5. ^ Cocks (2003) 105
  6. ^ Michael Diamond (2004) Victorian Sensation: Or, the Spectacular, the Shocking and the Scandalous in Nineteenth-Century Britain Anthem Press, 121-122. ISBN 184331150X
  7. ^ Robert Aldrich, Garry Wotherspoon, "Who's who in gay and lesbian history: from antiquity to World War II", Routledge, 2001, ISBN 0415159822, p.66
  8. ^ Laurence Senelick, "The changing room: sex, drag and theatre", Gender in performance, Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0415159865, p.303
  9. ^ Edward William Cox (1875) Reports of cases in criminal law argued and determined in all the courts in England and Ireland, Volume 12 J. Crockford, Law Times Office
  10. ^ Chris White (1999) Nineteenth-Century Writings on Homosexuality, CRC Press, 45. ISBN 0203002407
  11. ^ Cocks (2003) 106

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
John Handley
Grosvenor Hodgkinson		 Member of Parliament for Newark
1865 – 1868
With: Grosvenor Hodgkinson		 Succeeded by
Edward Denison
Grosvenor Hodgkinson