Queer Heritage · London, Greater London
The Cadogan Hotel (arrest of Oscar Wilde)
Oscar Wilde was arrested at the Cadogan Hotel on the evening of 5 April 1895, in a room now generally identified as 118; hotel tradition dates it to 6 April. Betjeman immortalised the scene, and royal mistress Lillie Langtry also lived on the site.
The story
On 5 April 1895, hours after his libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry collapsed, Oscar Wilde sat in the Cadogan Hotel on Sloane Street — in the room now generally identified as 118 — drinking hock and seltzer and refusing to flee to France, though friends begged him to catch the boat train. At about 6.20 that evening two detectives arrested him. (Sources split between 5 and 6 April; the libel trial ended and the arrest came the same evening, but the hotel and many accounts say the 6th.) John Betjeman immortalised the scene in a poem of Nottingham lace and plainclothes policemen. There followed conviction under the Labouchere Amendment on 25 May 1895, two years' hard labour, Reading Gaol, De Profundis, exile and death in Paris in 1900. In 2017 Wilde was pardoned posthumously under the "Alan Turing law".
More stories at this spot
- Lillie Langtry's residence at 21 Pont Street (absorbed into the hotel)
Sources
- The National Archives
- British Newspaper Archive blog
- English Heritage, "Oscar Wilde" (Tite Street)
- Magdalen College, Oxford, "Wilde at Magdalen"
- LitHub, "The Exile of Oscar Wilde" (Portora honours board and windowsill)
- UK Parliament, "1885 Labouchere Amendment" and Wikipedia, "Alan Turing law"
Nearby on the map
The Serpentine placed outdoor swimming in the ceremonial centre of London, turning public bathing and the visible body into part of everyday metropolitan life.
Documented historyQueer HeritageOscar Wilde's house, 34 Tite StreetLondon, Greater London · EnglandWilde's family home during his years of fame and his affair with Bosie — a ten-minute walk from the hotel where it all came crashing down.
Documented historyNotable LandmarksThe Gateways ClubLondon, Greater London · EnglandBehind a green door at 239 King's Road, the Gateways became what English Heritage calls London's best-known and longest-lived lesbian social venue. It introduced a women-only policy in 1967, closed in September 1985, and received an English Heritage blue plaque on 2 July 2025.
Documented historyHot spotSpotted an error, or hold a better source? Write to marquis@marquisdemayfair.com — corrections are made, never defended. Our methodology.