The Raid on Mother Clap's Molly House
Okay but seriously someone needs to make this a movie.
A molly house was basically the Georgian era version of a gay bar but with bedrooms and more illegal since they were popularized while the Buggery Act was very much a thing.
This specific molly house was held by a woman named Margaret Clap, or "Mother Clap", as she was affectionately known.
This molly house lasted from 1724 - 1726 before being raided by the police who had been watching the place for a while with the assistance of two men, Thomas Newton and Mark Partridge, who were at one time frequent costumers.
Thomas Newton was first contacted by constables and members of the Society of the Reformation of Manners when he was trying to bail Mother Clap out of prison for who knows what. They asked if he could be an informant and he said?? Yes?? For some reason??? Most likely because he needed money.
This guy was the type of guy who had slept with almost every molly in town, which made it easy for him to sell people out. The men he reported were either imprisoned, or executed.
Mark Partridge, who's name is censored as P----- in the written accounts of the trials, had a lover whose first name is unknown, and whose last name was Harrington. Harrington, whatever his intention was, had let it slip to some close friends that Mark was his lover. Pissed off that he was exposed as a sodomite, Mark went around "accidentally" spreading rumors about Harrington and his homosexuality which spread so much that he was contacted by the police. Whether he agreed willingly or he was blackmailed, when the police ask Mark to assist them in going into molly houses undercover to see who frequented them, Mark agreed.
He took the two constables, Joseph Sellers and William Davidson, around to all the molly houses he knew and would introduce one or the other as his "husband" which was a term used among mollies to recognize an official relationship despite marriage between two men being illegal at the time.
In one molly house, the men that were there had caught word that Partridge was sneaking police into molly house to get them arrested. They acted very hostile towards him and the other officers, and called Partridge a "treacherous blow-up" and "mollying-bitch" and even threatened to kill him, but Mark blamed Harrington for starting the rumor and claimed it was untrue, which calmed them down a bit.
Because of Mark's salty piece of trash attitude, he had caused many men to get arrested and hung.
The raid took place in 1726, when police surround the molly house and arrested all who were present, including Margaret herself. Many trials were held. Three men, Thomas Wright, Gabriel Lawrence, and William Griffin were hung in Tyburn, and Margaret Clap was pilloried and sentenced to two years imprisonment in which she died either during or shortly after.
