1885 - The 'Criminal Law Amendment Act' criminalised all homosexual acts, including those carried out in private.

 

1895 - Oscar Wilde is sentenced to two years in prison with hard labour for gross indecency over a relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas.

 

1897 -  George Cecil Ives organises the first homosexual rights group in England, the Order of Chaeronea.

 

1910 - Homosexuals in London begin to gather openly in public places such as pubs, coffee houses and tea shops for the first time.

 

1936 - British athletic champion, Mark Weston, has a sex change from female to male.

 

1939 – 1945 WW2 - At least 250,000 men who served in the British armed forces were gay or bisexual. 

 

1952 - Sir John Nott-Bower, commissioner of Scotland Yard begins to weed out homosexuals from the British Government. During the early 50's as many as 1,000 men were locked up in Britain's prisons every year amid a widespread police clampdown on homosexual offences. 

 

1954 - Alan Turing committed suicide. He had been given a course of female hormones (chemical castration) by doctors as an alternative to prison after being prosecuted by the police because of his homosexuality.

 

1957 - The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden report) was published. It advised the British Government that homosexuality should not be illegal.

 

1958 - The Homosexual Law Reform Society is founded in the United Kingdom following the Wolfenden report the previous year, to begin a campaign to make homosexuality legal in the UK.

 

1960 – The House of Commons rejects the recommendations of the Wolfenden report.

 

1964 - The North West Homosexual Law Reform Committee was founded, abandoning the medical model of homosexuality as a sickness and calling for its decriminalisation. The first meeting was held in Manchester. 

 

1965 - Lord Arran proposes the decriminalisation of male homosexual acts (lesbian acts had never been illegal). A UK opinion poll finds that 93% of respondents see homosexuality as a form of illness requiring medical treatment.

 

1967 – The Sexual Offences Act legalises Homosexual acts between consenting males over 21 years of age. However it remains illegal in Scotland, N. Ireland, the Channel islands and the Isle of Man.

 

1969 - Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) formed as the first British gay activist group.

 

1970 - Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was established at London School of Economics.

 

1972 - The First British Gay Pride Rally was held in London with 1000 people marching from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park. Gay News, Britain's first gay newspaper was founded.

 

1975 - A film portraying homosexual gay icon Quentin Crisp's life, The Naked Civil Servant was transmitted on British Television channel ITV.

 

1980 - The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 decriminalised homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age "in private" in Scotland.

 

1982 - The Sexual Offences Act decriminalised homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age "in private" in Northern Ireland.

 

1987 - Margaret Thatcher at the 1987 Conservative party conference, stated that "Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay". Backbench Conservative MPs and Peers had already begun a backlash against the 'promotion' of homosexuality and, in December 1987, Clause 28 is introduced into the local government.

 

1988 - Section 28 states that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". 

 

1990 - In July, following the murders in a short space of time, of Christopher Schliach, Henry Bright, William Dalziel and Michael Boothe, hundreds of lesbians and gay men marched from the park where Boothe had been killed to Ealing town hall and held a candlelit vigil. The demonstration led to the formation of OutRage, who called for the police to start protecting gay men instead of arresting them.

 

1994 - The Conservative MP Edwina Currie introduced an amendment to lower the age of consent for homosexual acts, from 21 to 16 in line with that for heterosexual acts. The vote was defeated and the gay male age of consent is set at 18. The Lesbian age of consent was not set. UK Crown Dependency of Isle of Man decriminalised homosexuality.

 

1999 - In May, the Admiral Duncan, a gay pub in Soho was bombed by former British National Party member David Copeland, killing three people and wounding at least 70.

 

2000 - The Labour government scraps the policy of barring homosexuals from the armed forces. 

 

2001 – Age of consent is lowered from 18 to 16.

 

2002 - Same-sex couples are granted equal rights to adopt.

 

2003 - Section 28, which banned councils and schools from intentionally promoting homosexuality, is repealed in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Employment Equality Regulations made it illegal to discriminate against lesbians, gays or bisexuals at work.

 

2004 - The Civil Partnership Act 2004 is passed by the Labour Government, giving same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities as married heterosexual couples in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is passed by the Labour Government. The Act gives transsexual people legal recognition as members of the sex appropriate to their gender (male or female) allowing them to acquire a new birth certificate, affording them full recognition of their acquired sex in law for all purposes, including marriage.

 

2007 - The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations becomes law on 30 April making discrimination against lesbians and gay men in the provision of goods and services illegal. Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham declared his opposition to the act, saying that the legislation contradicted the Catholic Church's moral values.

 

2010 - Pope Benedict XVI condemns British equality legislation for running contrary to "natural law" as he confirmed his first visit to the UK.

 

2013 - On 17 July, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 was passed, allowing the first same-sex marriages to be performed on the 29th March 2014.