Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a small, holding cell in the court buildings, in which prisoners are kept during their trial.

1845

T. Cooper Purgatory of Suicides pref. vi: A filthy, stifling cell to which prisoners are brought from the gaol on the day of trial, and which in the language of the degraded beings who usually occupy it, is called the ‘glory hole’ .

2. a small room or other space seen as a personal retreat.

1833		Lady Morgan ‘Manor Sackville’ in Dramatic Scenes from Real Life 13: I’ll engage Judy has good care of me, in regard of a bit of fire in my own little glory hole!
1834		Sporting Mag. Feb. 316/2: This led into the interior of the hillock, which had been partially hollowed with much care, and propped. . . it was mine host’s sanctum sanctorum, his glory-hole.
1882		A. Smythe Palmer Folk-Etymology 145/2: Glory-hole. It was long a puzzle to me why a cupboard at the head of a staircase for keeping brooms, &c. (Wright), or a person’s ‘den’ or retreat, which is kept in chronic litter and untidiness, or in general any retired and uncared nook, should be popularly called a glory-hole.
1887		York Herald 20 Apr. 12/2: When witness belonged to the [Salvation] Army there was two small rooms under the platform, and one was called the ‘Glory Hole’.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 7 Oct. 8/4: His sleeping accomodation is of a very inferior character. The room is generally selected because of its absolute lack of comfort and it is owning to this feature that he has called it [...] the ‘Glory Hole’.
1918		Garland City Globe (UT) 21 Nov. 6/2: My ‘glory hole’ was aft on the main deck [...] I piled into the little two-by-four bunk.
1921		Chambers’ Journal 122/2: He went below, past the busy stewards working in their shirt-sleeves among the baggage, past their ‘glory-hole’ full of their clothes and their intimate litter.
1934		A.G. Hulme-Beaman Story of My Life IV 10: Half-way down [the stairs] was a mysterious corner which the servants called the ‘Glory Hole,’ and this of all places was a place ‘not for little girls’.
1976		R. Morrieson Pallet on the Floor 94: The hovering blow-flies outside the ‘glory hole’ [...] The wool was thrown into baskets. Chunks of wool-denuded meat were tossed into a barrow and [...] wheeled to the ‘glory hole’.

3. (Irish) the space under the stairs, or similar confined place; often in the context of a place of punishment for badly behaved children.

1838		Bentley’s Misc. IV 34: Arrah blur-an-ouns, Betty, come out of that glory-hole : your ould face is clane enough.
1882		see sense 1.
1894		Derry Jrnl 20 June 6/4: The smaller articles were washed once a week [...] but the ‘grosses pieces’ [...] of foul linen being stored up for weeks in some ‘glory hole’.
1983		J. Pepper Illus. Encyc. Ulster Knowledge n.p.: Obstreperous children would be threatened: ‘If you don’t be good you’re for the glory hole’ [BS].
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 135: I didn’t want to climb out of my glory hole with a gang of people staring at me.
1995		A. Higgins Donkey’s Years 60: I retired behind the mangle where the cats made their stinks. It was my glory-hole, Mumu said.

4. a meeting place used by the Salvation Army.

1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Nov. 13/3: There has been trouble down at Brighton (Eng.) touching the carrying on of the ‘Army of the Lord’ in their own particular ‘Glory Hole.’.
1905		E. Noble Lady Navigators 108: She repeated the phrase — glory-hole — and found no comfort in it. It savoured of vulgarity; of that tinkling banjo and droned coster song which had so marred her evening's study. ‘Glory-hole!’ it might have been a Salvation Army barracks.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 142/2: Glory hole (Street). One of the names found for the places of meeting of the salvationists – in their early days.
1935		M. Berenson Across the Mediterranean 51: As I walked home remembrances of ‘Moody and Sankey’ revivals came into my head, with repentant sinners wallowing on the floor and urged into the ‘Glory Hole’ to receive Salvation.

5. (US) a bar frequented by homosexuals [also plays on glory hole n.² (2)].

[1925		N. Lucas Autobiog. of a Thief 35: All the stewards lived in a place call ‘the glory hole.’ I think [...] that the ‘glory hole’ of a large liner is about the most vicious and immoral place I have ever had to live in].
1966		C. Ross N.Y. 86: Most lesbians and homosexuals [...] frequent the same ‘gloryholes’ and bars in the Village [...] much like the homo glory-holes of the L.A. strip [HDAS].
1980		A. Maupin More Tales of the City (1984) 7: I will sign my real name at The Glory Holes.
1985		K. Vacha Quiet Fire 159: We moved to L.A. and were [...] going to all the glory holes and all the gay hot spots.