The story of a Blackpool captain convicted for being homosexual

Local historian Anne Charlesworth writes on Captain Edward Rigby - convicted in 1698 of sodomy

It’s no secret that Blackpool has been the gay capital of the North for decades. Its vibrant LBGTQ+ community continues to thrive and now provides at least twenty five friendly venues, in addition to the new ‘Be You’ branding initiative.

It’s no surprise that our town can boast this title when we consider how the growth of tourism, and an increasingly diverse range of entertainment, has provided visitors to Blackpool with a sense of freedom and escape from the constraints of everyday life for generations.

Basil Newby has been a trailblazer in the Blackpool LGBTQ+ entertainment scene since the 1970s, no doubt partly due to the passage of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act when homosexuality was partially decriminalised in England and Wales. Since then, the rights of LGBTQ+ have significantly developed over time, and so has Blackpool’s gay community.

What very few people will know is that Blackpool can lay claim to a much earlier connection to the seventeenth century clandestine gay community – in the shape of Captain Edward Rigby of Layton Hall who was convicted of sodomy in 1698.

Credit: British Museum

Born in 1658, Edward was the eldest son of Royalist Alexander Rigby Esq. of Layton. The Rigby family had been at the hall since the latter part of the 1500s and owned various land in and around what is now Blackpool, and elsewhere in Lancashire. They would remain at the hall until all their estate had to be sold in the 1720s due to another son, also named Alexander, losing everything to debt – but that’s another story! During the family’s tenure at Layton, a new hall was erected - described below by Porter in 1876;

“The original edifice, which was taken down and a farm-house erected on the site about one century ago, was a massive gabled building. At the bottom of the main staircase was a gate or grating of iron, the whole of the interior of the Hall being fitted with oak panels etc. in a very antique style”.

In 1837, local historian Rev. Thornber also stated that he had seen the remains of a broken shield belonging to the Rigby’s and the massive iron gate which he claimed had protected the hall within the main entrance during the civil wars. Although there are no known sketches of the earlier halls, the Tudor gate-posts were erected at the north-west entrance of Stanley Park. They were later re-erected at the south entrance where they remain today, minus the pineapple cappings, which were stolen.