Admiral Duncan (pub)

Admiral Duncan
The Admiral Duncan in 2012
Location within Central London
Etymology	Admiral Adam Duncan
General information
Address	54 Old Compton Street, London, W1
Coordinates	51°30′46″N 0°07′57″W / 51.5129°N 0.1324°W / 51.5129; -0.1324Coordinates: 51°30′46″N 0°07′57″W / 51.5129°N 0.1324°W / 51.5129; -0.1324
Owner	Stonegate Pub Company

The Admiral Duncan is a public house in Old Compton Street, Soho in central London that is well-known as one of Soho's oldest gay pubs. It is named after Admiral Adam Duncan, who defeated the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797. In recent history, the pub was the scene of a nail bomb attack carried out by a neo-Nazi, David Copeland, on 30 April 1999.

The Admiral Duncan has been trading since at least 1832. In June of that year, Dennis Collins, a wooden-legged, Irish ex-sailor living there was charged with high treason for throwing stones at King William IV at Ascot Racecourse. Collins was convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, as the medieval punishment for high treason was then still in effect. However, his sentence was quickly commuted to life imprisonment. and he was subsequently transported to Australia. In December 1881 a customer received eight years penal servitude for various offences in connection with his ejection from the Admiral Duncan public house by keeper William Gordon.

It was once in the ownership of the Scottish & Newcastle Brewery but was bought in 2004 by the Tattershall Castle Group, now known as TCG .

The exterior of the bar was repainted in a black and pink motif in late 2006. In late 2005, Westminster City Council decreed that the Admiral Duncan and all other LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) bars and gay businesses that operated in its jurisdiction, including those in Soho and Covent Garden, remove their pride flags claiming that such flags constituted advertising which was forbidden in its planning laws. Businesses would be required to apply for permits to be allowed to fly flags, but the businesses that applied for permission found their applications turned down for spurious reasons. Following media allegations of homophobia in the Council, the I Love Soho campaign and intense pressure from the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, the Council rescinded its directive, and rainbow flags were once again permitted to be flown.