The gay captain who made waves

The Public Record Office, our most indiscreet institution, let slip last week that, in the 1960s, the Royal Navy feared half its strength were practising – or rehearsing – homosexuals. For subscribers to the "Hello, sailor" stereotype, it was proof positive that the Navy was a sort of obliging cruise line for over-friendly males.

In fact, if any of the armed forces should be decorated for services to homosexuality above and beyond the call of duty, it would be the Army. From the Household Cavalry's nocturnal activities over many years in St James's Park, to scandals involving heroes such as the Victorian general Hector MacDonald, guards officers' generous patronage of the smarter London male brothels, plus the rumours that surrounded Lord Kitchener, T E Lawrence and General Montogomery, the Army can comfortably outrank the Navy when it comes to causes célèbres.

But the Navy does have one significant gay battle honour, and thereby hangs the tale of one Captain Edward Rigby, master of His Majesty's Ship Dragon, and in 1698, the first ever victim of entrapment of a homosexual. Rigby had the great misfortune to be active at the same time as the Society for the Reformation of Manners, a gaggle of busybodies who took it upon themselves to snoop, inform and, if that didn't work, set traps.

For their first big quarry they chose Captain Rigby, recently cleared by a court-martial of sodomy, but, according to the society's diligent researches, shamelessly unbowed. Why, he had even propositioned a man on Guy Fawkes' Night. The object of his affections was a servant called William Minton. He talked, word reached the society, and a plot was hatched with Minton as bait. When he arrived at a private room in the George tavern, Pall Mall, for an assignation with Rigby, waiting next door was a constable, two assistants and a clerk of the court. After clothes and inhibitions had been shed past the point of no return, Minton gave the signal, and the prigs pounced. Rigby was convicted, fined £1,000, sent to the stocks for three days, and jailed for a year.

Rigby, however, had something of a last laugh, fleeing to join the French navy. He was last heard of on the man-o'-war Toulouse, in whose service he was captured by the British, only to escape again. It is satisfying to know that this first victim of entrapment had such a talent for getting away. The society, meanwhile, carried on persecuting fellow citizens until, in 1738 it ran out of steam, and folded.