Gustavus Guydickens

Major-General Gustavus Guydickens (1732 – March 1802) was a British Army officer and courtier who resigned his positions amidst accusations of homosexuality in 1793. An officer in the 3rd Foot Guards, Guydickens served in the Seven Years' War as aide de camp to Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. He also became a Gentleman Usher to the British royal household, rising to become Gentleman Usher of the Privy Chamber. Having briefly served in North America during the American Revolutionary War, Guydickens was promoted to major-general in 1790 and assumed command of his battalion in the following year.

Guydickens was caught having sexual intercourse with a lawyers' clerk in Hyde Park, London, on 16 August 1792. After briefly arresting the two soldiers who had detained him, he was indicted for gross indecency and suspended. He failed in attempts to both bribe his accusers and undermine them with counter-accusations. His trial, repeatedly delayed, never began, and Guydickens retired from the army in 1793. Heavily in debt, he was imprisoned in Fleet Prison in the same year and died there in 1802.