John Saul (prostitute)

John Saul (1852?–?), also known as Dublin Jack, was a prostitute of the Victorian era. He featured in two major homosexual scandals, and as a character in two works of pornographic literature of the period. Considered "notorious in Dublin and London" and "made infamous by the sensational testimony he gave in the Cleveland Street scandal",[1] which was published in newspapers around the world, he has recently been the subject of scholarly analysis and speculation. One reason is the lack of information on the lives and outlook of individual male prostitutes of the period. Saul has also drawn attention as a defiant individual in a society that sought to repress him: "a figure of abjection who refuses his status".[2]

Early life

Apart from the fact he was of Irish birth, nothing is known of Saul's early life. In Dublin in 1875 he was charged with committing an indecent offence.[3] Giving testimony in the later Cleveland Street scandal, he called himself "a professional Mary-ann" – a period euphemism for rentboy, and stated: "I have lost my character and cannot get on otherwise. I occasionally do odd-jobs for different gay people." He sent money home to his mother.[2] A handwritten note on his police statement of 1889 records that he had the pseudonym 'Dublin Jack' and that "he was in the Dublin scandals (French and others)"[4]

The Sins of the Cities of the Plain

The alleged memoirs of Saul were published in an anonymously-authored and clandestinely published 1881 erotic book The Sins of the Cities of the Plain or Recollections of a Mary-Ann, With Short Essays on Sodomy and Tribadism. It is more likely to be an early form of the non-fiction novel,[5] although Saul may have contributed. In the words of one scholar: "Although some of the details of Sins...are exaggerated for effect, it is based upon fact[6]

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". Asked by a prospective customer to provide this name, his character replies:"Saul, Jack Saul, Sir, of Lisle Street, Leicester Square, and ready for a lark with a free gentleman at any time."[7]

In the book Saul is picked up on the street by a 'Mr Chambon' who, charmed by his looks and story, pays him five pounds a week to write his memoirs. Chambon lives "in the Cornwall Mansions close to Baker Street Station". William Simpson Potter, who was a friend of William Lazenby the publisher, did live at Cornwall Residences, a now-demolished block of nondescript Victorian flats near the Station,[8] from about 1877 until his death in 1889. Potter was the 'compiler' of another anonymous piece of the erotica A Letter from the East (1877) as well as Letters from India during HRH the Prince of Wales' Visit in 1875/6 (1876) [9] Mr Chambon could be based on Potter, who was also a friend of Henry Spencer Ashbee, and it is possible Potter may have been the connection to the real Saul. It has been suggested that the book was largely written by James Campbell Reddie and the painter Simeon Solomon,[10][11] who had been convicted of public indecency in 1873 and disgraced.[12]

Saul's cross-dressing persona 'Evelina' appears in the 1883 sequel Letters from Laura and Eveline, Giving an Account of Their Mock-Marriage, Wedding Trip, etc. Published as an Appendix to Sins of the Cities.

Dublin Castle scandal

In 1884, Irish nationalists alleged homosexual orgies among the staff at Dublin Castle.[13] Saul was interviewed by the police, and together with a John Daly who had also been frequently mentioned in the case, was brought from London to Ireland to be a Crown witness.[14] Saul was never called to give testimony – a matter which is still cause for speculation. One newspaper of the time claimed that it was not used because "the story was too old...It is not true that he was told that his evidence would not be received on oath because of his disreputable character."[15] Saul's record of interview was destroyed in the Irish Civil War.[16]

Cleveland Street scandal

After living at a succession of addresses in London, in 1887 Saul moved into a male brothel at 19 Cleveland Street run by a fellow prostitute Charles Hammond whom he had previously lived with. Saul was one of several professionals working there, but telegraph boys were also recruited for part-time work. In 1889, when one of the boys was questioned at the General Post Office regarding how he obtained a sum of money in his possession, the Cleveland Street scandal broke, creating news stories around the globe. The first trial that resulted was a libel action by Lord Euston, heir to the Duke of Grafton, against Ernest Parke, editor of the North London Press. Parke had alleged Euston had been a visitor to the male brothel at the centre of the scandal. It came to court in January 1890, and Saul was called as a witness for the defence.

Saul delivered his testimony in a manner described in one newspaper report as "brazen effrontery that reduced the court to shocked silence"[3] and detailed his sexual encounter with Euston in the brothel in explicit language that shocked the court.[17] He was also sharp, witty, and defiant.[18] The line of questioning and his responses included:

And were you hunted out by the police? – No, they have never interferred. 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.[2]

In the assessment of one scholar "Saul refused to play the role assigned to him."[2] In his summing up, the judge asked the jury to assess whether they could possibly accept the word of a "loathsome object" against that of Lord Euston. Park was found guilty of libel and imprisoned. However Saul's testimony is likely to have been the truth, as Euston was well known in the homosexual underwood and was later subject to repeated blackmail.[18]

Despite Saul's blithe confession of prostitution on the witness stand, the Attorney General declined to prosecute him. The reason is unknown. Given Saul's revelations and manner as a mere witness – which had been considered shocking enough, and the unproven rumour then circulating in high society and police circles that Prince Albert Victor had visited the brothel, it may be that the authorities were concerned over what he would have said, or who he may have implicated, had he been placed in the position of having to defend himself.[18]

Legacy

A biography of Saul, The Sins of Jack Saul by Glenn Chandler will be published in March 2016.[19] A musical of the same name by Chandler, with lyrics by Charles Miller is premiering in London in May 2016 at The Stag theatre.[20]

Saul has also featured prominently in a large number of academic studies, and histories, including Morris Kaplan's Who's Afraid of John Saul?, Neil McKenna's The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde and Fanny and Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked England, and three books on the Cleveland Street Scandal, including Theo Aronson's Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld.

Saul also partially inspired Jonathan Kemp's novel London Triptych.[21]

He appears as an embittered older prostitute and narrator in the 2011 stage show Cleveland Street: The Musical by Glenn Chandler and Matt Devereaux[22][23]

References

  1. ↑ Cohen, A. William Sex Scandal: The Private Parts of Victorian Fiction, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 1996, p123
  2. 1 2 3 4 Kaplan, Morris (1999). "Who's Afraid of John Saul? Urban Culture and the Politics of Desire in Late Victorian London". GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Quarterly 5 (3): 267–314.
  3. 1 2 "Lord Euston's Libel Case". The Advertiser (Adelaide) (Adelaide). 17 February 1890. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
  4. ↑ DPP/1/95/4 quoted in Baxendale, Graham The discursive production of homosexual regulation, University of Southampton, 2013, p144, Note 17
  5. ↑ Gunn, Drewey Wayne Gay Novels of Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth 1881-1981: A Reader's Guide, McFarland and Company, North Carolina, 2014, pp5-7
  6. ↑ Hyde, H. Montgomery The History of Pornography, p141.
  7. ↑ Anon: Saul, Jack The Sins of the Cities of the Plain or the Recollections of a Mary-Anne, Vol I, 1882
  8. ↑ Cornwall Mansions: The Rise and Fall of 7K and Its Neighbours, The Gissing Journal, Vol XLIV, No4, October, 2008
  9. ↑ Cornwall Mansions: The Rise and Fall of 7K and Its Neighbours, in The Gissing Journal, Vol XLIV, No4, October, 2008
  10. ↑ Cook (2003) p. 19.
  11. ↑ Ditmore (2006) p. 443.
  12. ↑ Peniston (2004) pp. 77–78.
  13. ↑ O'Riordan, Tomás (Winter 2001). "The Theft of the Irish Crown Jewels". History Ireland.
  14. ↑ The Dublin Scandals, Weekly Mail (Cardiff), 23 August 1884 http://newspapers.library.wales/view/3373250/3373256/158/
  15. ↑ Kaplan, Morris (2005). Sodom on the Thames. Cornell University Press. p. 201.
  16. ↑ Hyde, Harford Montgomery The Other Love, 1970
  17. ↑ Hyde, H. Montgomery The Cleveland Street Scandal,p146-7
  18. 1 2 3 Aronson, Theo Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld, John Murray, London, 1994, pp154-61
  19. ↑ "THE SINS OF JACK SAUL".
  20. ↑ http://www.abovethestag.com
  21. ↑ Kemp, Jonathan London Triptych, Myriad Editions, 2010 See: Afterforward
  22. ↑ "Cleveland Street The Musical". Exeunt Magazine. 20 April 2011.
  23. ↑ "Cleveland Street - the Musical".

Bibliography

External links

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