Episode 1 of 2
Arrest for Gross Indecency
- When
- 6 April 1895
- Where
- London
Wilde was arrested in London on 6 April 1895 for gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885.
The arrest followed the collapse of his libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry. The term 'gross indecency' referred to homosexual acts not amounting to buggery, which was a separate offence. This event marked the transition from civil litigation to criminal prosecution.
Sources
- Oscar Wilde Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-17
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.