A Harlot’s Progress: Prostitution in 18th Century London by Tara Alexander

On the 25th of March, 1763, famed diarist James Boswell wrote an excerpt on the proceedings of the day. Boswell writes, “I went to St. James’s Park and like Sir John Brute, picked up a Whore. For the first time did I engage in Armour [a condom] which I found but a dull satisfaction. She who submitted to my lusty embraces was a young shropshire Girl only seventeen, very well-looked, her name Elizabeth Parker.” This casual regard to sex with a prostitute represents the commonplace nature of the sex trade in London at the time. The sale of flesh was just as prevalent in the 18th century as in the modern age, if not more so in its lack of proper criminalisation. Prostitutes in London during this period came from a variety of backgrounds. Tony Henderson puts forth that, “A sizable minority (approximately forty percent) of prostitutes came from London; the remaining sixty percent immigrated from the countryside or Ireland.” These numbers are far more difficult to nail down in surety. In reading Harris’ List of Covent Garden Ladies, which advertised women in the sex trade, their skills and fees, it is clear that they were decidedly diverse. From mid-teenage girls to elderly women; from blonde to black haired; from fair to dark-complected. London was almost as diverse as it is today, if not so. Furthermore, there were many modes through which women would be forced into prostitution, or might voluntarily commit themselves to the trade. Many women entered the sex trade with hopes for independence, financial freedom, or temporary employment. Others were left with few options after relenting their virtue out of wedlock, or were assaulted and left in ruin. Some became prostitutes by less conventional methods as well. One trick employed by pimps such as the infamous Jack Harris was to fool women into a bed of false marriage, replace himself with an admirer, and leave the victim of deceit with the options of becoming their assailaint’s mistress or becoming a sex worker. One such victim, Charlotte, was the daughter of a coal merchant in Newcastle. Lord Robert Spencer, a politician visiting a local assembly, fell in ‘love’ with her at first sight. When her father was unable to supply a proper dowry for her to wed the man, Lord Spencer hired Harris to create a fake identity and entice the girl to marry him instead. Charlotte later testified that after their marriage in London, “[...] having undressed himself, and extinguished the candles, [he] came to me, as I thought.” In the morning, she was horrified to find, by the light of day, Lord Spencer in bed with her. Harris explained, “‘You must [...] endeavour to get into the good graces of my Lord,” and, “‘I doubt not but his lordship will make a handsome provision for you.’” Charlotte, taking the name Charlotte Spencer, became the mistress of Lord Robert Spencer to save herself from personal and financial ruin. He later tired of her and cast her off, leaving her to enter the sex trade to survive. Although Harris’s methods were particularly heinous, deceit was not uncommon in creating prostitutes. William Hogarth’s series of etchings entitled “The Harlot’s Progress,” illustrates how common deception was a tactic used for recruitment. These six prints, created in 1732, follow the life of a girl named Moll Hackabout after she moves from the countryside to London. She is immediately preyed upon by a notorious madam who promises the girl employment in a respectable trade yet forces her into prostitution. This certainly did happen to some extent. But many women entered the trade due to financial need or familiarity with the work. Charlotte Hayes, a prostitute-turned-bawd who made an impressive living for herself and rose through the ranks is one such case. Her own mother, Elizabeth Ward, was a prostitute who opened her own brothel, which Charlotte was raised within. Historian Rictor Norton states that, “[...] 10 to 15 percent of the women convicted for prostitution offences were old offenders who had a long history of prostitution lasting about ten years.” However, this leaves 85 to 90 percent of women who had not. According to Daniel Defoe in his 1725 work Everybody’s Business Is Nobody’s Business, some women would act as sex workers only when the financial need arose. Others, such as milliners and dressmakers, would be associated with the sex trade regardless of the extent of their involvement. Prostitutes were widespread within London. London’s lawmakers were more interested in controlling prostitution than outright criminalising it. Keeping a brothel was deemed illegal with the passing of the Disorderly Houses Act of 1751, but prostitution was not explicitly targeted to the same degree until the Vagrancy Act of 1824. Thus, it had time to expand, and no reason to stop. Sex workers would also work in a variety of different locations. Some girls preferred to work independently, and would see clients in their own lodgings. Though this could be dangerous, as working alone placed girls at risk of theft, assault, and or murder. Others, often fearing these threats, worked in brothels. These were usually run by a madam, in many cases an older prostitute who had lost her looks to age, and existed on a spectrum of luxury. In poorer brothels, girls might share rooms, entertaining men of the lower to middle classes in turn. These brothels were typically near places of entertainment such as taverns, coffeehouses, pubs, etc. Upper class establishments differed in their sense of luxury. Charlotte Hayes’s ‘The Covent’ is one such example. Hayes’ bawdy house kept carriages for those in its employ and had many household servants. The girls would be sent to take walks in well known pleasure gardens and parks where rich gentlemen might tarry. They also hosted elaborately themed sex parties with girls dressed as Greek deities. These brothels were also expected to procure specific women for wealthy clients with niche tastes. For instance, many men were infatuated with the idea of sleeping with a virgin. Some believed this would cure them of venereal diseases. Thus, they could make requests of madams to provide them with one. An invaluable manual for bawds at the time was John Armstrong’s Oeconomy of Love. According to Armstrong, virginity could be restored. Hallie Rubenhold describes in her book The Covent Garden Ladies, how, “To tighten the walls of the vagina, a concoction of herbs was needed which included myrtle’s ‘styptic Berries’, the roots of a caper bush, oak bark stripped ‘bleak and bare’, in addition to ‘Bistort, and Dock and that way-faring Herb Plantain’.” These houses, in promoting an image that they provided sexually clean girls who were learned, well-spoken, and neatly dressed, often played host to well known guests. Even the Prince of Wales and his close friends were well-known to madams such as Charlotte Hayes. The more capable a madam was of catering to the fetishes of the beau monde discreetly, the more likely her business was to flourish.

Much like the varying feelings and attitudes towards sex in the present day, the people of the past were just as complex. There is no one answer to the question of society’s feelings towards prostitutes and their trade in 18th century London. In fact, there are many! Negative attitudes towards sex work are evident in not only satirical prints of the period, but also published writings, and the intensifying laws as time passed surrounding prostitution and brothel-keeping. However, for years, local magistrates in London were uninterested in truly ridding the city of the sale of sex. Most members of law enforcement would watch lower-class brothels for the simple reason that other criminals might loiter there. Otherwise, laws surrounding prostitution and brothels were not clear cut, and often, not worth pursuing. This lack of force came to a head in 1758 with the establishment of the Magdalen Charity. The members of the Magdalen Charity sought the reform of sex workers at their Magdalen Houses. This charity would focus on a fallen-woman motif in order to garner financial support for their houses of reformation from the middle and upper classes. This is evident in the aforementioned work of William Hogarth. Prostitutes were seen as worthy of aid by some, but only when they disowned their trade and labeled it for the sin it was considered to be. Or, of course, if they were raped or forced into the trade as an innocent maiden. Women who chose sex work were not respected in the same manner. Hence why this figure was avoided in advertising for charity unless a sex worker would denounce the trade before the public in self-condemnation. Samuel Derrick, the writer of the inaptly named Harris’ List of Covent Garden Ladies, was one of the few men who approached the subject of sex work differently. For years, Derrick would include a lengthy passage meant to calm a reader’s conscience as he opened the first pages of the List. Rubenhold describes the sentiment behind his words, noting, “To Derrick, the prostitute becomes a ‘Volunteer of Venus’, wrongly persecuted [...] To the ‘whore’ we owe ‘the peace of families, of cities, nay, of kingdoms’.” As Derrick was well connected to and liked by men of means, he was a significant friend and male protector for some women. This could mean interceding on her behalf in a dispute, or even appearing in court as a trustworthy ‘gentleman defender’. This lack of disdain for prostitutes did not create a reformer of Derrick, though. He did not invite prostitutes to stop their work, but instead asked, “[...] wealthy patrons to lift these frail and fallen women into ‘high keeping’.” Derrick may have believed they had fallen in terms of respectability, or perhaps had chosen to appeal to his readers on the behalf of his female friends. Regardless, in the case of women forced into the trade through circumstances or assault, Derrick also peddled their stories as a source of arousal for his readers. No matter the variety of opinions and beliefs about sex workers in 18th century London, it is clear in some of the most memorable women of the day that they were alluring and interesting to the public. Courtesans such as Kitty Fisher, Emma Hamilton, and Fanny Murray are remembered in British history as some of the earliest examples of celebrity culture. The people of London, regardless of religious fervor or moral code, enjoyed sex, scandal and beauty just as the media does today.

Sex workers also faced many horrors as a consequence of their labour. The same worries we face today in terms of sex were true in 18th century London as well, to a more concerning extent. From venereal diseases, assault, fear of their own madams or pimps, pregnancy and age prostitutes were met with an extensive list of dangers. Sexually transmitted diseases were of course one of the most dangerous aspects of sex work, especially during a period when contraceptives were very simplistic and often much less effective. Smallpox, otherwise known as ‘the pox’, and gonorrhea, or ‘the clap’, were both treated with a concoction of alcohol and mercury. Mercury could result in ulcers of the mouth, tooth decay, and kidney failure. The tincture could even prove fatal, which led to the Georgian saying, “A night with Venus, and a lifetime with mercury.” With this dangerous ‘cure’, either illness could be a death sentence. A rash or pain during urination and intercourse could be the first signs of these diseases. But if time passed and they worsened, syphilis may have been the culprit. Syphilis was so widespread in the city that historians Simon Szreter and Kevin Seina have posited 20 percent of Londoners had the disease by their 35th birthday during the Georgian period. First would be the sore on the genitals or in the rectum or mouth. After, a rash, hair loss, swollen lymph nodes and fever would develop. Following the latent phase, syphilis entered the fourth and final stage. This could result in damage to the heart, brain, eyes and or bones. To combat these diseases, prostitutes would, if they had the opportunity, exercise selectivity with partners, cleanliness, and primitive condoms. But these modes were by no means entirely effective. Alongside the threat of sexually transmitted diseases, women in the sex industry also faced the danger of rape and or physical assault. Many girls entered the trade after being sexually assaulted, such as Lenora Norton from the 1788 and 1789 editions of Harris’ List. The daughter of a surgeon, Norton was assaulted before she had even entered puberty. Later, she would go into the keeping of her abuser, a Mr. Cotton. Some girls, like Betsy Weymes of the 1761 edition who had lost an eye to an abuser, experienced violence on the job. If working alone, girls were more at risk of being robbed of their payment, beaten and or raped by clients. However, in the case of Ann Bell, her wealthy keeper raped her, attacked her with a pen knife, and broke her hands. Women in the sex trade were never truly safe. Receiving justice for such abuse was difficult, as bringing cases to court was costly and prostitutes were fighting public opinion. Although clients and disease were particularly frightening factors for girls in the sex trade, their work itself could be made more dangerous for the madams and pimps they worked for. Most girls in a brothel were bound to their procurer or procuress by debt. This was due to the clothes, food, room and board, and more they received in a bawdy house or under a protector. For example, one of the first debts a girl would owe her pimp was the twenty-pound bond, which acted as a security for her health. Harris’s List explains that, ‘Poundage is the pimp’s long established tax of five shillings out of every guinea (The Sportsman’s Pound) which pretty ladies receive for favours granted to gentlemen’. In some cases, pimps or bawds might lock their girls in a room and force them to service clients. If they refused, they could be abused into submission. Life would have been agonising if these girls were robbed of their meager earnings as well as fearing the other threats on their person. Girls were also faced with the danger of their own bodies turning against them in the cases of age and pregnancy. Either culprit could very well end a sex worker’s career. Many prostitutes relied on apothecary herbs and potions to rid themselves of pregnancy if their condoms and coitus interruptus (pulling out) were ineffective. If even these efforts proved fruitless, some women were forced to carry to terms, and if truly desperate, could turn to infanticide. Others might leave their baby on the doorstep at the Foundling Hospital. Bawds and pimps would often put out expectant mothers when they could no longer work, or if they kept their child and had another mouth to feed. As the abortions themselves could prove fatal, pregnancy was a terrifying prospect for sex workers. Age was another factor that might attack a prostitute's looks and business. The ideal option for older sex workers was to save enough money to become a madam, but this was not an easy task. Not only were women grappling with external forces in trying to survive and make a living, they were also fighting their own biology. Although life for a sex worker in 18th century London might seem bleak to most, there were modes through which life might improve for them. In being kept by a wealthy client, saving their money, and support in the form of sisterhood, prostitutes found ways to cope with their way of life, and even find joy within it. One of the most common ways for women in the trade to rise through the ranks was to find a keeper of sizable wealth. The women who found a good match are the ones we know the most about today. Fanny Murray, a prostitute turned famous courtesan, began her life in London as a young girl from the countryside. In her own Memoirs of the Celebrated Miss Fanny Murray, she describes how when she came to London at fifteen and began working in a brothel, keeping only a sixpence in her pocket most of the time. By the age of eighteen, however, she had her own box at the opera and a private carriage. Another celebrity of the 18th century, Kitty Fisher, was the daughter of an immigrant artisan. After being seduced at sixteen by an officer into a sham marriage and discarded, she became one of the first celebrities in a modern sense. Weekly, Fisher made nearly £3,000 to £4,000 in modern currency. She was known for her extravagant lifestyle, being said to have eaten a £20 banknote on bread. Other sex workers, however, made their way in the world through scrimping and saving their own earnings. In the case of Charlotte Hayes, financial acumen and saving allowed her to do what many prostitutes hoped for: open her own brothel. Hayes’ beginnings were quite meager. Born in Genoa in about 1725 to a sex worker, Elizabeth Ward, she was raised in her own mother’s brothel as a young girl. Provided an education through her mother’s own financial savvy and being good-looking, Hayes was one of the most desirable ladies in London. In fact, after the success of her first high-class brothel, dubbed ‘The Convent’, Hayes would go on to open a number of bawdy houses for wealthy clientele across London. By her late life, alongside her common law husband Dennis O’Kelly, her estate was worth £70,000. Women in the sex trade could prove themselves just as capable of creating their own wealth at times. When discussing prostitution in the 18th century, many have heard before about finding keepers, collecting your own finances, and making your way in the world. However, one lesser known way in which women in the sex trade survived their work was through the formation of clubs and sisterly support. One such club was dubbed ‘The Whores’ Club’. Hosted on Sundays at the Shakespeare’s Head Tavern, this club was formed of women in the sex trade who, after meeting a number of qualifications, would gather to talk business and enjoy one another’s company. The group would discuss the financial support of women in prison or suffering from sexually transmitted diseases. Hallie Rubenhold writes, “This fund was amassed through club dues, and also through nominal donations made by members who became ‘modest’ women ‘by going in keeping’.” To sex workers, the only people capable of understanding their plight were the women in their own sphere. And courtesans, upon attaining wealth, did not always forget their companions on the streets and in the taverns. Throughout its perils and bodily harm, prostitutes found solace in their shared experience and relationships. Regardless of the sex, scandal, and terror that inhabited the daily lives of these women and entices us to delve into the history of prostitution in the past, it is imperative we humanise the people involved. Many were victims, suffering abounded, and life was fraught with difficulties specific to the sex trade. And despite these challenges, women supported one another and fought hard for their success in 18th century London’s vicious environment.