Speaking the Unspeakable: Buggery, Law, and Community Surveillance in New South Wales, 1788–1838

Abstract

This paper is an empirical and theoretical analysis of buggery charges brought against men in New South Wales in the period 1788—1838. Drawing on a previously unexamined archive, it shows that an irregular pattern of charges in the first forty years of colonization was displaced by a dramatic increase in buggery charges in the period 1828–1838, and a move towards charging accused persons capitally; that the genesis of most complaints was community, rather than official, surveillance; and that throughout the entire period witnesses were far from circumspect in their evidence of unspeakable acts. The paper then argues that the upswing in charges post-1828 was only partly related to the introduction of the Offences Against the Person Act 1828 and its lower evidentiary threshold for proof of buggery. More important, it suggests, was the acute moralism of NSW society in the 1820s and 1830s, generated in part by John Thomas Bigge's 1822 Report into the State of the Colony of New South Wales. The move towards capital charges, however, does appear to bear some relationship to the changes in the Offences Act. The final part of the paper connects social anxiety over buggery to the 1837–38 Molesworth Inquiry into Transportation and the eventual cessation of convict transportation to NSW in 1840.