Out of the eight men put on trial for homosexual offences in the Dublin Scandals of 1884, two of them – Gustavus Cornwall, the head of the Irish Post Office and James Ellis French – head of the Intelligence Department of the RIC – held high positions in the British administration in Ireland.

By 1884, Cornwall was approaching the end of his career; French’s era of power, on the other hand, appeared to be just beginning.  Aged in his early fifties at the time of the trials, French had first appeared in court as a youth, giving evidence in court against a pickpocket in his home county of Armagh. French joined the Royal Irish Constabulary as a cadet and in 1864 was appointed third sub-inspector.   In the 1870s, he was moved to Dublin and, after that, his rise was meteoric.

In a letter to one of the many young men he was involved with, French signed himself ‘Smiler,’ and the only image available of him is a sketch in uniform, smiling in court during the Land League Trials of 1881.  He was also involved in investigating the Phoenix Park Murders and numerous other political crimes, though some said that he might have fabricated some of these crimes himself to serve the agenda of Dublin Castle. 

There were also rumours that French’s rapid promotion was attributable to sexual favours  which he had provided to a ‘person in a very high position’ in the RIC, and that he had adopted the very same policy as regards his subordinates, actively pursuing young detectives and promoting those who complied with his demands.

The Castle’s location at the heart of the city made it an ideal work location for a man who, if the depositions contained in the prosecution brief against him are to be believed, was compulsively addicted to pursuing, at all possible times and in all possible places, young men of every sort, whether they welcomed this or not. Sometimes he invited them to dinner at his house, served by his police guards, where he always requested that they wash their hands prior to intimacy.  Other, less hygienic, liaisons took place against the less salubrious backdrop of the Dublin quays or Phoenix Park.  With such a busy amatory life, it is difficult to see how French got any work done, but perhaps his nocturnal perambulations assisted the pursuit of intelligence gathering.  

Some years prior to French’s arrest, a fellow-officer in the RIC, District-Inspector Murphy, had filed a report with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and other high-ups in the administration, detailing his constant harassment of junior members of the force.  Nothing was done.  Eventually, Murphy (who was later dismissed from the RIC on a trumped-up charge of insubordination), sent the report to William O’Brien MP, publisher of the journal United Ireland.

In late 1883, there appeared in United Ireland the first of a series of articles referencing ‘unnatural practices’ on the part of French and another Dublin Castle official, Corry Connellan.  Following its publication, Connellan fled the country, and French never returned to work at Dublin Castle.  At first it was thought that he, too, had gone to Paris, perhaps taking with him the war chest of money reputedly used by the Castle to bribe informers, but this proved to be unfounded; he had in fact been certified as unfit for work. 

The striking out for want of prosecution of a subsequent libel action initiated by French against O’Brien, and the ignominious collapse of similar libel proceedings brought by Gustavus Cornwall, finally prompted prosecution authorities to arrest French and charge him with attempted buggery.  The trial, twice postponed due to the accused’s ‘cerebral softening of the brain’, finally took place in late 1884. French was convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.  To add insult to injury, one of the doctors, who had earlier certified him as unfit to plead, subsequently had him declared bankrupt on foot of their unpaid bill.

The prosecution brief in respect of the 1884 trials includes depositions sworn by several intended witnesses, including Alfred McKiernan, a 32-year-old clerk with the Munster and Leinster Bank, who also claimed to have had a brief relationship with Gustavus Cornwall. McKiernan admitted engaging in intimacy with French at his house at 20 Bessborough Terrace, North Circular Road in 1882-3, after being introduced to him by an unnamed third person.

It was through McKiernan that French met another deponent (and another former lover of Cornwall), George Taylor.  Taylor, who lived with his mother and sister in Ranelagh, and was described by another witness as possessing a dress suit, but little else.  Presumably he wore that dress suit when he attended, at French’s invitation, to dine at Bessborough Terrace. The two men were served champagne by French’s bodyguard, John Haw, before adjourning – after the usual handwashing request – to French’s bedroom. Somewhat to his host’s disappointment, Taylor, while permitting intimacy, declined French’s offer of sodomy.

At French’s express request, Taylor brought to tea at Bessborough Terrace his friend Malcolm Johnston, heir to Johnston’s Bakery.  However, on their arrival, French made clear that intimacy preceded tea, rather than the other way round; sherry and whiskey and soda were provided instead.  The intimacy was unsuccessful, and the refreshments, when they finally arrived, spoilt by French’s constant attempts to expose his person to the others while they were partaking of them.  The trio parted on reasonably good terms, after Johnston agreed with French that he would arrange for his teenage cousin, Johnston Lyttle, to accompany him to the next band performance held at the RIC Depot in the Phoenix Park.

Taylor, Johnston and Lyttle subsequently attended at the Depot, where some intimacy took place between French and Lyttle.   According to Taylor and Johnston, French then brought them into his private office at the Depot, where he exposed his person to Johnston and ejaculated in his presence.

Johnston’s evident distaste for French did not, however stop him visiting his office at Dublin Castle to obtain entrance forms for a cadetship in the RIC.  There were some small boys in French’s office when Johnston arrived, whom French sent into an adjoining room.  French then locked the door, pulled down the blinds in his office and commenced a reprise of the conduct previously engaged in by him in the Depot office.

The most disturbing, account of French is to be found in the deposition of William Clarke, a 22-year-old cooper from Usher’s Quay, who had also sworn a deposition against Cornwall.   Clarke deposed to having initially encountered French outside Trinity College, when he was 16.  According to Clarke, French paused, looked at him, and then followed him down the quays, his intentions becoming clear to Clarke in the vicinity of the Mendicity Institution. French and Clarke subsequently proceeded to Kingsbridge, where, after some intimacy, French gave Clarke a shilling for a drink, requesting his address.

 According to Clarke, a couple of days later, he received a letter as follows:

‘Dear Willy,  if you could meet the friend who met you last Sunday night, he would be glad to see you at Bloody Bridge at nine pm.’

For whatever reason, Clarke chose not to turn up to this appointment, but when he ran into French in the vicinity of the Four Courts one subsequent evening, he chose to pretend that the letter had not arrived on time. The two men then walked down the quays to the Phoenix Park, where French sodomised Clarke forcibly and without his consent before taking him home for a glass of whiskey.  Clarke, who had anticipated intimacy but not sodomy, refused French’s subsequent overtures and left as soon as possible.  A year and a half later, when Clarke next saw French outside the Bank of Ireland on College Green, he was angry enough about their previous encounter to accost French. call him a bloody old dog and request the sum of two half sovereigns in return for his silence.   

French’s friend, John Strong, who himself had history with French, deposed to having been present at the altercation. Strong, formerly a cashier at Smith and Sons in Abbey Street, and now an actor known by his professional name of Harry Pentland, had originally encountered French at the National Bank, where he went daily to lodge cash.  French took to calling into Smith and Sons to converse with Strong, and ultimately invited him to his house, where intimacy occurred.   According to Strong, French’s only response to Clarke’s attack was a request to Strong to ‘get that man away from me’ before walking off.

In further depositions, French’s former bodyguard John Haw confirmed that he had attended on Taylor and French during Taylor’s dinner at Bessborough Parade, and that McKiernan had also visited the house.  Another bodyguard, Samuel Stinson, deposed to having delivered letters from French to Malcolm Johnston’s house in Ballsbridge and having directed Taylor to French’s rooms at the RIC Depot during the band performance at French’s request.

French’s maid Marion Shiel likewise confirmed that Taylor and Johnson had both visited the house and Maria Halloran, who had been employed in French’s previous house in Victoria Terrace during the period 1874-77, deposed that young gentlemen had spent nights in his bedroom during this period.

There are no further Irish newspaper references to French following his release from prison, but there is a reference to a ‘J.E. French’ at a masonic event in England some years later.  According to United Ireland, French was a ‘master or Prince Mason,’ so perhaps this is the same person.  McKiernan, Taylor, Johnston, Clarke and Strong likewise disappeared into obscurity.

Although the legislation under which the accused in the Dublin Scandals were prosecuted was, by its very definition, homophobic, the contents of Clarke’s deposition, if true, would make French, under current Irish law, a rapist. Moreover, the contents of the other depositions are such as to lead one to suspect that the sexual harassment allegations made against him by Inspector Murphy may not have been entirely unfounded. His homosexuality aside, it is difficult to avoid concluding that French was entirely unsuitable for the position which he held; the contents of the depositions against him cast a very bleak light indeed on the administration responsible for his appointment.

Read the depositions against French and others in full here.

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