Abberline sent Constable Hanks to interview Allies at his parents' home in Sudbury, Suffolk. In his pockets they discovered letters from Algernon Allies. The police arrested Veck at London Waterloo railway station. A seventeen-year-old youth found in Veck's London lodgings revealed to the police that Veck had gone to Portsmouth and was returning shortly by train. Veck had actually worked at the Telegraph Office, but had been sacked for "improper conduct" with the messenger boys. On 19 August, an arrest warrant was issued in the name of George Veck, an acquaintance of Hammond's who pretended to be a clergyman. A watch was placed on the now-empty house and details of the case shuffled between government departments. Although Somerset was interviewed by police, no immediate action was taken against him, and the authorities were slow to act on the allegations of Somerset's involvement. Somerset was the head of the Prince of Wales's stables.
On the way to the police station, Newlove named Lord Arthur Somerset and Henry FitzRoy, Earl of Euston, as well as an army colonel by the name of Jervois, as visitors to Cleveland Street. In the time between his statement to Hanks and his arrest, Newlove had gone to Cleveland Street and warned Hammond, who had consequently escaped to his brother's house in Gravesend.
He found the house locked and Hammond gone, but Abberline was able to apprehend Newlove at his mother's house in Camden Town. The Act made all homosexual acts between men, as well as procurement or attempted procurement of such acts, punishable by up to two years' imprisonment with or without hard labour. Inspector Abberline went to the brothel on 6 July with a warrant to arrest Hammond and Newlove for violation of Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885. Ĭonstable Hanks reported the matter to his superiors and the case was given to Detective Inspector Frederick Abberline. Constable Hanks obtained corroborating statements from Wright and Thickbroom and, armed with these, a confession from Newlove. In addition, he named two seventeen-year-old telegraph boys who also worked for Hammond: George Alma Wright and Charles Ernest Thickbroom. According to Swinscow, he was introduced to Hammond by a General Post Office clerk, eighteen-year-old Henry Newlove. After hesitating, Swinscow admitted that he earned the money working as a prostitute for a man named Charles Hammond, who operated a male brothel at 19 Cleveland Street. Suspecting the boy's involvement in the theft, Constable Hanks brought him in for questioning. At the time, messenger boys were not permitted to carry any personal cash in the course of their duties, to prevent their own money being mixed with that of the customers. During the investigation, a fifteen-year-old telegraph boy named Charles Thomas Swinscow was discovered to be in possession of fourteen shillings, equivalent to several weeks of his wages. In July 1889, Police Constable Luke Hanks was investigating a theft from the London Central Telegraph Office.
Illustration of Inspector Frederick Abberline from a contemporary newspaper Such perceptions were still prevalent in 1895 when the Marquess of Queensberry accused Oscar Wilde of being an active homosexual. The scandal fuelled the attitude that male homosexuality was an aristocratic vice that corrupted lower-class youths. After Henry James FitzRoy, Earl of Euston, was named in the press as a client, he successfully sued for libel. The male prostitutes, who also worked as telegraph messenger boys for the Post Office, were given light sentences and no clients were prosecuted. Both he and the brothel keeper, Charles Hammond, managed to flee abroad before a prosecution could be brought. The police acquired testimonies that Lord Arthur Somerset, an equerry to the Prince of Wales, was a patron. Unlike overseas newspapers, the British press never named the Prince, but the allegation influenced the handling of the case by the authorities and has coloured biographers' perceptions of him since. It was rumoured that Prince Albert Victor, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales and second-in-line to the British throne, had visited, though this has never been substantiated. The government was accused of covering up the scandal to protect the names of aristocratic and other prominent patrons.Īt the time, sexual acts between men were illegal in Britain, and the brothel's clients faced possible prosecution and certain social ostracism if discovered. The Cleveland Street scandal occurred in 1889, when a homosexual male brothel and house of assignation on Cleveland Street, London, was discovered by police. Discovery in 1889 of male brothel in London