School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses

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The Presence of Such Monsters: The Moral Arbitration of Sodomy Trials in Victoria's Colonial Press, 1859-1869

Bosman, Jacobin ( 2023)

In the decade spanning 1859-1869, newspapers in colonial Victoria began telling lurid stories of sodomy trials and accusations. What provoked this shift from largely noting examples of this criminalised act, to engaging in extensive editorialising? "The Presence of Such Monsters" explores examples of nineteenth-century 'trial by media' as sites of moral arbitration intended, first and foremost, to establish and police the boundaries of the settler civic body: determining who could be reincorporated into respectable society, and who excised from it. Taking a case study approach to the trials of John Flannery, Dr. John Hulley, Ellen-John Wilson and Father Patrick Niall, it interrogates the significance of class in colonial formations of sexuality and gender.