The latest talk from the Manchester Centre for Regional History takes place this Wednesday and its subject is ‘Policing Lancashire Lads-sex in the 2nd Half of the nineteenth century.’
The historicisation of attitudes and practice towards sexual diversity was slowly and apparently grudgingly allowed marginal space within English academy from the 1970s.
However this fascinating topic, that touches so many lives, is still largely marginalised or simply ignored by much of the history profession. The result of this indifference is limited but often remarkable research into this topic that has only begun to scratch the surface.
This presentation provides the first reliable longitudinal statistical reading of one aspect of past attitudes towards sexual diversity: criminalisation. Using evidence from a three-year review of over 280,000 individual indictable prosecutions held in the Lancashire Assize and Quarter Sessions.
Evans provides a remarkable and fascinating reading of criminalisation for the period 1850-1900. A period that is largely dominated by inaction and indifference to both coercive and consensual sexual crimes by the Lancashire police forces and prosecution services towards sex between ‘Lancashire lads’.
The free talk takes place on Wednesday 21st January 2015 at 6.30pm in Room 230, Geoffrey Manton Building,(Rosamond Street West, Off Oxford Road), Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, M15 6LL.All welcome.
