Among the deceased who might be eligible for a pardon is Oscar Wilde, the Irish playwright who was convicted and sentenced to two years of hard labor in 1895 after being accused of sodomy, although the complexity of his case makes it difficult to know for sure. He was tried not once but twice, and only after he withdraw a criminal libel lawsuit against his accuser.

Since October 2012, men who were convicted of sexual offenses that are no longer illegal have been able to apply to the Home Office to have those crimes expunged under what is known as the “disregard process.” So far, 335 applications have been received, and 84 granted.

Under the plan announced Thursday, those men also will receive an automatic pardon.

“It is hugely important that we pardon people convicted of historical sexual offenses who would be innocent of any crime today,” Sam Gyimah, the parliamentary under secretary of state for prisons and probation, said in a statement.

Under the Turing Law, the pardons would apply only to offenses that are no longer crimes. Men who had sex with someone who did not give consent, or who was not 16 or older at the time, will not be eligible for a pardon, nor would men whose crime would now “constitute the offense of sexual activity in a public lavatory,” which is still a crime.

The last provision could be a significant obstacle to a pardon for many men, given that as recently as the 1970s, public bathrooms were often a destination for men seeking same-sex intimacy.

John Nicolson, a member of Parliament from Scotland, has put forward a bill that would offer an automatic blanket pardon to men convicted of having gay sex. That bill, which Parliament is scheduled to debate on Friday, has support from Stonewall, the advocacy group, but appears likely to be blocked by the Conservative majority in the House of Commons.

Mr. Gyimah said the Nicolson proposal was too broad. “A blanket pardon, without the detailed investigations carried out by the Home Office under the disregard process, could see people guilty of an offense which is still a crime today claiming to be pardoned,” he said. “This would cause an extraordinary and unnecessary amount of distress to victims.”

