Harlots, Prostitution in London in the 18th Century

 

In 1757, Samuel Derrick, a penniless and homeless poet, created The Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, a compendium of information about London’s prostitutes. Historian Hallie Rubenhold, author of a book investigating the handbook of the '18th-century pimp', found it revealed much about the situation of the courtesans of the Georgian period…
 
It has often been claimed that the story of history’s underclass is a difficult one to tell as so few details of the lives of these individuals have been documented. However, in the second half of the 18th century, one astute observer left a remarkable and colourful record of London’s working women. In 1757, Samuel Derrick, a penniless and homeless poet, created The Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, a compendium of information about London’s prostitutes. Designed as a necessary accessory for the Georgian “man of pleasure”, the guidebook became an annual publication for the next 38 years. For 2s 6d, men like James Boswell could purchase this small leather-bound volume and read about the physical appearances and personal histories of London’s “votaries of Venus”.
 
As its name suggests, The Harris’s List was not entirely the invention of Samuel Derrick. For several years prior to its publication it existed in handwritten form as the sole possession of the self-proclaimed “Pimp-General of all England”, Jack Harris. Harris (whose real name was John Harrison) served as the head waiter at Covent Garden’s emporium of drink and sin, the Shakespear’s Head Tavern. Having gained a reputation for “making introductions” between patrons and ladies of the town, Harris fell back on the tradition of documenting his business by maintaining a ledger of prostitutes. As Covent Garden, with its theatres, bath houses, taverns, and coffee houses, was considered to be London’s centre of entertainment, Harris and his “ladies” did a booming trade. At the height of his dominion, in the late 1750s, it was rumoured that Harris’s handwritten list bulged with no less than 400 names. The head waiter of the Shakespear’s Head had also grown wealthy by his well-managed enterprise, claiming to have earned, “four or five thousand pounds in a half dozen years”; roughly £500,000 by today’s standards.
 
While prostitution and the “procuring of women” was illegal in 18th-century London, the law made few significant attempts to apprehend men like Jack Harris, its primary perpetrators. Sex was a profitable industry for the capital’s brothel-keepers, pimps, procuresses and courtesans, many of whom, like Moll King, the keeper of Tom King’s Coffee House, were able to retire to a comfortable existence with a fortune of thousands. It was natural, therefore, that those who found themselves in financial need often looked to the flesh trade for assistance.
 
Samuel Derrick was in just such a position when he alighted upon the idea of creating his own version of Harris’s list. Born into a family of Dublin linen drapers in 1724, Derrick had always fostered ambitions of becoming “a poet of the first rank”. This was never to be. Derrick set out for London around 1751 and attempted to establish himself, trying his hand as both a dramatist and actor. Although he managed to secure a meagre living as a literary translator and a Grub Street author, Sam chose to squander his money on the pleasures of Covent Garden. While his literary friends like Tobias Smollet occasionally offered him shelter and “slipt a guinea into his hand” at the worst of times Derrick was forced to sleep rough on the streets of London. In 1757 the author’s irresponsible spending finally got the better of him. Unable to pay his bills he was apprehended by the bailiffs and imprisoned in a “sponging house”, a privately operated lock-up for debtors. It was from these confines that Derrick concocted a money-spinning scheme designed to regain him his liberty.
 

Years of merry-making in the company of London’s prostitutes meant that Derrick knew the women of Covent Garden as well as Jack Harris. His version of The Harris’s List is not merely a record of those whose services were available, but a witty and journalistic chronicle of the area’s female characters. As a publication, its intention was to entertain Covent Garden’s regular crowd of “bucks and bloods” as much as it was to advertise the women listed within it. Derrick’s hastily scribbled manuscript was snapped up by the elusive Fleet Street publisher of obscenity, H Ranger, who was said to have paid “a handsome sum” for it, which “thereby secured Derrick his freedom”.
 
The Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies became an instant sensation. It has been suggested that approximately 8,000 copies of it were sold yearly, though it is likely that these numbers are slightly exaggerated. Nevertheless, its production became an enduring enterprise. After Sam Derrick’s death in 1769, The List continued to appear on booksellers’ shelves, though the names of its ensuing editors are unknown. Increasingly, its succeeding authors were not as interested in documenting the area’s colourful personalities as they were in creating bawdy advertisements for the listees. By the time the publication was stamped out in 1795, the work was little more than a guidebook of names and addresses featuring reprinted stories from earlier editions.
 
Today, only a handful of The Harris’s Lists (those from 1761, 1764, 1773, 1774, 1779, 1788–90 and 1793) remain in public collections. When examined alongside additional material from the period, such as diaries, newspaper articles and popular literature, they assist in painting a picture of the lives of poor and lower-middle class Georgian women.
 
In 1758, shortly after the first edition of The Harris’s List came into print, the magistrate and moral reformer Saunders Welch estimated that of a population of 675,000, London was home to approximately 3,000 prostitutes. Although Welch suggested that the majority of these women came from a class of “industrious poor”, a level just above the truly impoverished, there is much to suggest that their backgrounds were more wide-ranging than this. Among those names that appear on The Harris’s Lists are those who had previously worked as trained milliners, glove makers and seamstresses, in addition to domestic servants, shop-keepers, actresses, singers and married women. Women are often described as being literate or “having received a tolerable education”.
 
Information gleaned from The Lists also provides an insight into these women’s daily existences, and in particular their living arrangements. As each woman’s listing is accompanied by her address, it is possible to gain a picture of the demographic distribution of prostitution across London’s west end. Prostitutes were not geographically confined to “red light districts” during the 18th century. Instead they lived cheek-by-jowl with their more respectable neighbours and businesses, not only in and around Covent Garden but in Soho, St James, Piccadilly, Mayfair, Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia and Marylebone. Rather than facing ostracism from within these communities, many trades-people let out lodgings to prostitutes. Sally Forman, for example lived “At a Chandler’s Shop, in Fleet Market”, while Sally Straton, could be found “at a Grocer’s in Little Wild Street”.
 
Similarly, not every prostitute worked out of a brothel. Many shared accommodation with fellow ladies of the town, like the notorious duo Miss Townsend and Miss Charlton of 12 Gress Street, who not only lived under the same roof but also shared the expenses of their own carriage. Others, like Becky Lefevre of Frith Street, who were fortunate enough to be placed in “high keeping” by a wealthy admirer, frequently let out spare rooms in their own houses to other members of “the sisterhood”.
 
As might be imagined, the experience of prostitution in Georgian London varied immensely. The Harris’s Lists contain an array of women’s stories, from that of the celebrated beauty Emily Coulthurst, who resided in splendour at Mrs Mitchell’s King’s Place “nunnery”, to the tragic Kitty Atchison who “more than once endeavored to extricate herself” from the grasp of her profession. The entries also reveal that the capital’s “legions of Venus” were a far from homogenous group. A surprisingly diverse population of continental and eastern European as well as American and West Indian women swelled its ranks. Some, like Madam Dafloz, came to London to escape from French revolutionaries. Others, like the Sells sisters, were the daughters of immigrants. It is their previously unheard tales that make The Harris’s Lists such a unique and fascinating set of documents.
 
A closer look at the ‘Ladies’ of Harris’s Lists
 
The following are extracts from later editions of the List, which was constantly updated to keep up with the changing fortunes of London’s ‘votaries of Venus’
 
Miss Wilkins
 
“What an angelic face! – but what a form!” This lady very lately resided in Princes Street, Bloomsbury, at a midwife’s. She is not above twenty, and has a very engaging countenance, with fine, dark, melting eyes, and very regular teeth. Her person does not entirely correspond; she is short and very crooked; but she has a certain latent charm that more than compensates for any deformity of body. In a word, take her all in all, she is a very good piece; and, if you can forget she is hunch-backed, she is a little Venus. (1773)
 
Mrs Horton, No 3, Beauclerc’s Buildings
 
“Ah! La jolie de petite Bourgeoise” Keeps a shop and sells gloves, garters, &c. and drives on a very capital trade, considering she has no shop-woman to assist her; her customers are but few, yet they are good ones, and always pay ready money; she is short and plump, has a good dark eye, and is full-breasted; her legs are remarkably well made, and she is reputed a most excellent bed-fellow. In trying on a glove she will create desire; and in selling her garters, she will commend that pattern which she wears herself, and will make no scruple of showing her legs; she has great good nature, and we do not recollect any woman who is better qualified as a shop-keeper; her age is twenty-six. (1779)
 
Lucy Bradley, Silver Street, Cheapside
 
Alow, square built lass, with a good complexion, void of art; her face is round, and her features regular; her hair is dark, and her eyes hazel. She lived as a nursery maid with a foreign practitioner of physic, near Soho, who took first possession of her, not without some force. She gets up small linen and works well with her needle; has some good sense, and honest principles. Necessity first compelled her to see company, and she seems conscious of its not being right. (1761)
 
‘The Abbesses’ of King’s Place
 
During the 18th century, King’s Place, a passage that ran between King’s Street and Pall Mall, was home to England’s most exclusive brothels or “nunneries”. It was patronised by the aristocracy and royalty. Prostitutes who plied their trade there included these two colourful figures:
 
Harriot Lewis
 
Born in Guinea, Harriott Lewis (or “Black Harriott”, as she was known) began life as a slave on a plantation of Captain William Lewis, who brought her to London as his mistress in 1766. The death of her lover left Harriott alone in the capital. With the help of John Montague, the Earl of Sandwich, she opened a brothel on King’s Place. Her business prospered until 1778, when her servants robbed her. Unable to recover financially, Harriott was committed to debtor’s prison where she died shortly thereafter.
 
Charlotte Hayes
 
The daughter of courtesan and brothel keeper Elizabeth Ward, Charlotte was born into a life of prostitution in 1725. Called “Santa Charlotta of King’s Place”, she was renowned for her “unaffected charm” and honesty. It was these qualities that inspired Samuel Derrick (her one-time lover) to bequeath the profits of his List to her. Charlotte, however, was a calculating business-woman. Despite a period imprisoned for debt, by 1769 she and her partner Dennis O’Kelly had built an empire around horse racing and brothel-keeping said to be worth at least £40,000.
 
The real Harlots: Hallie Rubenhold on Covent Garden’s courtesans. By Hallie Rubenhold.  History Extra, August 10, 2020.

In 1760s London, sex was big business. There were brothels on almost every street corner, and thousands of enterprising women collecting their share of the massive wealth that poured through the city.

 
Most people's views of sex workers in Georgian times are limited to a few glimpses of courtesans in paintings, or the occasional character on TV. However new show Harlots (which is now airing on BBC Two) follows the fortunes of women selling sex in the 18th century, giving us an intriguing insight into their everyday lives – and there are some surprising similarities with the sex we have today...
 
18th-century sex workers had client review websites (kind of)
 
In 2020, sex workers can post adverts online to market their services, and on some sites clients can even leave comments and reviews. The Georgian version of this was a book called Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies. A bestseller in its day, it effectively functioned as a Who's Who of Covent Garden sex workers, telling potential punters where the best brothels were, who to ask for, which services could be procured and – of course – the price.
 
But as well as the headlines, Harris's List also contained intriguing snippets of back story, often explaining how the women came to be working in the city. Miss Le__ of Soho was a "tall and genteel" lady who was caught one day "with a certain naughty book". After being whipped by her governess, she ran away and was eventually taken in by a city merchant who was himself "fond of the rod". This submissive suitor helped Miss Le__ find her feet.
 
Sex work in Georgian times was big business
 
How big? Estimates vary but historian Dan Cruickshank, in his book The Secret History Of Georgian London, posits that the sex trade in London at the time had an annual turnover of around £20 million. That's close to £1.5 billion in today's money.
 
Why so much money? Well, back in Georgian times there were far more women working in the sex trade – it wasn't just the quickest route to riches, it was one of the few ways women really could earn money. As historian Dr. Kate Lister explains on her blog Whores of Yore, there were far fewer options than there are for women today: “Historically, men have always held the money and the power and there was only three ways a woman could access some of that for herself; she could inherit it, she could marry it, or she could shag it.”
 
Sex could cost anywhere from a few pennies to £9,000
As a Georgian sex worker, how much you could charge depended on a number of factors. Your Harris review would certainly make a difference, but so would the reputation of the brothel you were working in. Apparently, the average cost was just under one guinea (about £1), although haggling wasn't unheard of. Harris's List explains of one woman:
 
“Her price is one pound one, but, like many others of the fraternity, she will not turn her back on a less sum, she will rather accept of half a guinea, than her friend should return home with his burthen.”
 
More genteel establishments could command much higher prices, though. It is estimated that a night at one of the most fashionable and successful brothels in Soho – with an emphasis on well-groomed women and high-class clientele – could cost up to £2,000 in today's money.
 
Special services cost even more. Many would charge huge sums – up to £50 (£9,000 in today's money) – to people who wanted to buy a woman's virginity. Naturally, there was big money to be made, as a savvy businesswoman could sell her 'virginity' many times over.
 
Some rose to the status of major celebrity
 
Kitty Fisher, a real-life sex worker, was such a celebrity in her day that she even attracted the Georgian equivalent of paparazzi: newspapers and ballad-writers mocked her for falling off her horse one day, playing on the notion of the 'fallen woman'. Her portrait – by one of the most prominent painters of the time – hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
 

They used condoms (though not as we know them)
 
Long before the invention of latex there was... sheep intestine. Condoms in Georgian times were made from washed-out sheep guts, tied at the end to stop leaks, and sewn at the other end with ribbon. The resulting condom could be tied on to the penis before sex and rinsed out afterwards.
 
The Georgians were as keen on porn as we are
 
The more you look at the sex lives of the Georgians, the easier it is to spot similarities between the sex industry of the time and what we have today. Though our tech might be a little better – porn sites, webcams, nude selfies and the like – Georgians weren't limited to using their imagination. One of the reasons Harris's List was a bestseller was because it wasn't just used as review material, it also served as the Georgian equivalent of porn. People would buy it purely for the titillating reviews inside.
 
Like the review of Miss S__tt of Cavendish Square, who was “amorous to the greatest degree, and has courage enough not to be afraid of the largest and the strongest man that ever drew weapon in the cause of love.” Or Miss Fra___r, who “enjoys the sport with all the vigorous ardour that may be expected from a girl of one and twenty.” Or Miss H__y: “very active and nimble, and not a little clever in the performance of the art of friction.”
 
What Life Was Like As A Sex Worker In The 1700s. By Girl on the Net. Refinery , August 5, 2020
 

"The year is 1763. One woman in five makes a living selling sex.” So opens ITV Encore’s latest period drama; Harlots (Hulu in the US). Created by Alison Newman and Moira Buffini and directed by Coky Giedroyc, the eight-part drama follows the rising fortunes of London bawd, Margaret Wells (Samantha Morton) and her daughters, Charlotte (Jessica Brown Findlay) and Lucy (Eloise Smyth). Harlots has gone beyond simply dusting off the tit crushing corsets and has deftly woven historical facts into the warp and weft of this bloomer dropping, gin swilling, cinematic trupenny upright, and I love it. But, I'm not here to tell you how much fun the show is (and it really is!) I'm here for the history. Harlots tells a hell of a story, but there is more to consider here than a corseted dose of how’s your father in a sepia filter. That Harlots so clearly uses historical truth to embellish the show is what really piques my interest.

 Numbers

​We’ll start with that statistic “The year is 1763. One woman in five makes a living selling sex.” The simple truth is that we do not have accurate estimates for the numbers of sex workers in eighteenth-century Britain (or anywhere else) for several reasons. Sex workers were, and still are, a marginalised, criminalised community and ran the risk of being publicly shamed, punished and even deported if identified; subsequently, few people were open enough about selling sex to collect accurate data. The eighteenth century lexicon did not include words such as ‘sex worker’, but rather used words such as whore, harlot, strumpet or lewd woman. The definition of each of these terms covered women selling sex to those who had sex outside of marriage, or lived with a man they were not married too; so when number of whores are being recorded, it does not necessarily men someone who sold sex for a living. Quantitative data analysis around sex work in the eighteenth century was far closer to what we could politely call ‘guess work’, than anything that would pass peer review today. However, this did not stop people from having a damn good guess.

 In 1758, Saunders Welch, a Justice of the Peace for both the County of Middlesex and the City and Liberty of Westminster, published A Proposal to render effectual a Plan, To remove the Nuisance of Common Prostitutes from the Streets of this Metropolis and conservatively estimated there were some 3000 women who made their living selling sex in the capital. When Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz visited London in 1789, he estimated there were 30,000 ladies of pleasure living in the district of Marylebone alone (Archenholz, 1789). Michael Ryan, author of Prostitution in London (1839), estimated that by 1802 there were 80,000 sex workers and some 5000 brothels in London (Ryan, 1839). In 1795, police magistrate Patrick Colquhorn calculated there were 50,000 sex workers in London – which had a population of around 730,000. Viewing Colquhorn's data as the most reliable, modern historian Dan Cruickshank suggests that sexually active women will account for around 250,000 of that figure, which roughly equates to one in five women selling sex in Georgian London (Cruickshank, 2010).

 As you can see, estimates differ wildly and really the only thing we can say with some certainty is there were more than a few women on the game in eighteenth-century London. But, it shouldn’t come as any kind of surprise that so many women sold sex to earn a crust. Historically, men have always held the money and the power and there was only three ways a woman could access some of that for herself; she could inherit it, she could marry it, or she could shag it. Far from being a last desperate resort, as perilous as it was, sex work could offer a decent income, independence and social advancement in a deeply patriarchal world that barred women from positions of power. Of course, women could try to earn an income as a seamstress or some kind of domestic worker, but this was a long time before Destiny’s Child asked independent women to ‘throw their hands up’; working in the eighteenth century (especially for women) was damn tough. The eighteenth-century wage gap was not so much a gap as a vast, unforgiving ravine with horny sharks at the bottom; and the only kind of employment rights on offer was the right to work yourself to death (preferably quietly and without making a mess.) But, a sex worker could make serious cash, and there were many honeys makin' money.

 If a lowly female domestic servant could expect a wage of around £2 - 4 a year (with accommodation and food), a sex worker could earn that in one night (Oldbaileyonline.org, 2017). Of course, there was no standard charge for sexual services, and there were kept mistresses who could wouldn't get into bed for less than a hundred guineas (Casonova recorded that Kitty Fisher once ate a thousand guinea note on a slice of bread and butter). But, there were also many destitute people who would exchange sex for food. In 1762, James Boswell walked through London and recorded in his diary that he was "surrounded with numbers of free-hearted ladies of all kinds: from the splendid Madam at fifty guineas a night, down to the civil nymph with white-thread stockings tramps along the Strand and will resign her engaging person to Honour for a pint of wine and a shilling’ (Boswell, 1762).

 The amount charged by the sex workers featured in Harris’s List varies, but averages at around one guinea per customer, which is slightly over £1 (12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound and a guineas was worth 21 shillings.) Despite significant risks to health and well-being, many people sought out sex work and the wealth it promised.

 The eighteenth-century literary blockbuster, Harris’s List (1757 to 1795) is featured in the opening scenes of Harlots. Harris’s List was an annual almanac of London sex workers. A forerunner to TripAdvisor, the list detailed the appearance, skills, and prices of up to two hundred women selling sex in the capital. One source I heartily recommmend if you want to learn more about the list is Matthew Sangster's research project for "Romantic London". Sangster has created an incredible resource in an online map of Harris's List, using the addresses provided in the 1788 edition here. You can see exactly where these women lived in London, as well as read their description in the list; it's fabulous.

 The list seems to have been the result of a collaboration between an Irish Grub Street hack and poet, Sam Derrick, and London Pimp, Jack Harris. Only nine known volumes of the list survived today (1761, 1764, 1773, 1774, 1779, 1788, 1789, 1790 and 1793), and they are scattered throughout various archives around the world. There have been a handful of reprints, but until 2005, if you wanted to see the list, an appointment at an archive and a pair of white gloves would have been required. It wasn’t until historian Hallie Rubenhold undertook the herculean task of researching and editing the list in her publication The Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack and the extraordinary story of "Harris' List" (2005), that the list was dusted off and shown to the public anew. Rubenhold and her work remain the leading authority in the study of the list, and this article is likewise indebted; so, thanks Hallie!

 As you may well imagine, Harris’s List was a hugely popular work. As well as being a practical resource, the list also provided titilation. As Delinger notes, the list functions in two ways: ‘names, addresses, and prices all point to their practical use, while the lush descriptions of women also function as soft-core pornography’ (Denlinger, 2002). The list itself straddles the boundaries of fact and fiction; and we will never be able to attest to its accuracy; were Betsy Miles’s breasts ‘of immense size’? Was Nelly Anderson truly a ‘squat, swarthy round faced wench’? Were Miss Simms ‘low countries’ like ‘a well-made boot’? (Rubenhold, 2005). We will never know.

 

Episode one of Harlots opens with an excited group of young women anxiously awaiting their reviews, and with good reason; Harris’s List could make or break the fortune of London’s sex workers. In episode one, Emily Lacey’s favourable review as ‘young votary of Venus’ allows her to leave Covent Garden and approach an elite brothel in Golden Square to seek a better position. Like every profession, sex work was (and still is) densely layered, and a favourable review would allow a girl to command more money, richer clients and go up in the world. A bad review, or an accusation of carrying the pox (like Miss Young of Cumberland Court, who is described as spreading ‘her contaminated carcass on the town’), would see business dry up quicker than sawdust on sick.

 Despite Jack Harris’s narrative style of a cheeky scamp about town, sampling the delights of the city at random, the selection process was highly competitive; Harris knew the marketing value of his list. The memoirs of Fanny Murray, one of the most celebrated eighteenth-century courtesans, provides valuable insight into the processes. Fanny had to apply to Harris to have her name ‘enrolled upon his parchment list’. She then had to be interviewed, submit to a medical examination, agree give Harris a fifth of the money she earned and sign a contract that stipulated she must forfeit £20 to Harris if she is found to have lied about her health during the examination (Memoirs, 1759). Expensive this certainly may have been, but it could be a worthwhile investment, Harris’s List helped to launch the careers of several London’s top courtesans; Fanny Murray, Lucy Cooper and Charlotte Hayes.

 Cast of Characters

 Harlots has an impressive cast of characters and whilst the plot is fiction, many of the characters are impressions and composites of real lives lived on the fringes of the Georgian underworld. In an interview with The Radio Times, Alison Newman is quoted as saying when they ‘were dreaming up Charlotte Wells (Jessica Brown Findlay), they were thinking about Kitty Fisher’ (Griffiths, 2017). Whilst Kitty Fisher is a fascinating character (you can read more about her here), Charlotte Wells is clearly based on one of the most notorious and successful eighteenth-century courtesans turned madam, Charlotte Hayes. Charlotte Hayes is favourably described in the 1761 edition of Harris’s List.

 "Were we to enter into an exact description of this celebrated Thais; that is, were we to describe each limb and feature a party, they would not appear so well as taken altogether, in which we must acknowledge her very pleasing; and in our eye (and sure nobody can better tell what is what) she is as desirable as ever". (Harris, 1761)

 Despite a single entry in the list, a much fuller account of Charlotte’s life is found in another eighteenth-century text, Nocturnal Revels (1779), which you can read at this link. The most comprehensive studies of Charlotte’s life are to be found in Rubenhold’s The Covent Garden Ladies (2005), Dan Cruickshank’s A Secret History of Georgian London (2010) and Fergus Linnane’s Madams: Bawds and Brothel Keepers of London (2011). But, it is Rubenhold's biography of Charlotte that is most clearly expressed in Harlots.

 Charlotte clawed her way up from desperate poverty to become one the most successful bawds in London, and Madam of the King’s Place brothel. When she died in 1813, she had amassed a fortune of over £20,000, achieved celebrity status and hobnobbed with royalty; not bad for a girl from the gutter. Rubenhold’s biography of Charlotte suggests she was the daughter of another London bawd, Elizabeth Ward (who is on record in 1754, accusing Ann Smith of stealing clothing from her.) Rubenhold’s details how Elizabeth Ward bred Charlotte up for a life on the town and eventually auctioned off her daughter’s virginity to the highest bidder, which would have proved ‘one of her mother’s greatest business transactions’ (Rubenhold, 2005). This narrative is certainly played out by Harlots, where Charlotte’s mother, Margaret Wells, is shown taking ‘sealed bids’ for her youngest daughter’s virginity (which she sells twice), just as she did for Charlotte’s some years earlier (Harlots, 2017). Alas, I do not have access to the sources that confirms Elizabeth Ward was Charlotte Hayes’ mother. Nocturnal Revels seems to suggest that Ward was Charlotte’s madam, rather than mother, and ‘initiated her all the mysteries of a Tally-Women’ (Revels, 1779). But, Nocturnal Revels provides explicit details about the selling of virginity several times over, and quotes Charlotte herself as saying a virginity is ‘as easily made as a pudding’ (Revels, 1779). However, rather than her mother selling her virginity, here Charlotte reveals she had sold her own ‘thousands of times’ (Revels, 1779).

 Whomever Charlotte’s mother was, she managed to secure herself a very rich ‘keeper’ in Robert 'Beau' Tracy. Just like in Harlots, Charlotte financially drained her patron and was ‘notoriously unfaithful to him’ (Revels, 1779). When Tracey died Charlotte ended up in debtor’s prison. It was here that she met and fell in love with an Irish sedan-chairman, Dennis O’Kelly (Daniel Marney in Harlots). According to O’Kelly’s memoirs, before he met Charlotte, he had earned additional income by having sex with wealthy women who hired his chair, also seen in Harlots (O'Kelly, 1788). And it seems that whilst in prison together, Charlotte also called upon Mr O’Kelly’s services. She was soon ‘devoted to him’, and he in turn was ‘devoted not only to her person, but to her purse’ (O’Kelly, 1788). Whilst I do not know how this will play out in the show, the various historical texts tell is that the real life Charlotte’s patronage allowed O’Kelly to quit his job as a bar tender and sedan chair carrier and become a kept man. O’Kelly began calling himself ‘Count’ and after Charlotte had liquidated his debts, he became the owner of the most famous racehorse in Britain, Eclipse. He and Charlotte went on to open the exclusive brothel, King’s Place. A satirical list of services and prices available at Kings are given in Revels, and it gives some idea of just how lucrative this business could be.

 Mary Cooper, who is found dying of the pox in an alleyway in episode two of Harlots, seems to be based on Lucy Cooper, a courtesan who really did blaze her way through the ranks and beds of the London elite. Lucy’s life is detailed alongside Charlotte’s in Nocturnal Revels, and a description of both Lucy and Charlotte is found in the 1761 edition of Harris’s List; both women achieved fame and fortune, but Lucy did not have the business acumen of Charlotte and failed to save for the inevitable rainy day. In Harlots, Mary Cooper is celebrated for her sexual prowess, street smarts and dazzling beauty.

 "Mary Cooper, Mary Cooper. 

She's had every Lord and Trooper

Mary Cooper, Mary Cooper

Leaves her lovers in a stupor 

Ridin' high, no man can dupe her 

London's Venus, Mary Cooper!"

 The real Lucy Cooper also had a reputation for debauchery and songs were sung about her too.

 "Must Lucy Cooper bear the bell

And give herself all the airs?

Must that damnation bitch of hell

Be hough’d by Knights and Squires?

Has she a better cunt than I

Of nut brown hairs more full?

That all mankind with do her lye

Whilst I have scarce a cull?"

(The Gentleman's bottle companion, 1768)

 Whilst Mary Cooper dies of syphilis in Harlots, Lucy Cooper lived a life of excess and saw her wealthy, elderly protectors die one by one. Finding herself grog blossomed, partied out and the wrong side of thirty-five, Lucy was unable to replace them. Having set nothing aside from her heyday, Lucy could not meet her debts and soon found herself destitute and in debtor’s jail. She died in squalid poverty in 1772, just four years after being immortalised in song as the woman who ‘all mankind’ wanted to lie with. 

Nancy Birch, the bawd who birches her culls bloody in Harlots also has a real life counterpart in Ms Nancy Burroughs of Drury Lane, who appears in the 1789 edition of Harris’s List. This Nancy was said to use ‘more birch rods in a week than Westminster school in a twelvemonth’ (Harris’s List, 1789). Other women specialising in BDSM that appear in the list include Miss Lee of Soho who is ‘constantly visited of amateurs of birch discipline’, and Mrs Macatney who birches young girls for the amusing of her paying customers, both of whom appear in the 1793 edition.

 Harriet Lennox (Pippa Bennett-Warner) and Violet Cross (Rosalind Eleazar) are both black sex workers in Harlots and both have real life counterparts. Moira Buffini revelled that Violet was based on a thief who appears in the Old Bailey records, a black woman called Ann Duck who was hung for highway robbery in 1744; “we sort of based Violet on her" (Griffiths, 2017). Harriet bears more than a striking resemblance to the real life story of ‘Black Harriot’. Harriot was brought to Jamaica as a slave, where British born plantation owner, William Lewis, fell in love with her and they married. Upon moving back to England, Harriot learnt all the airs and graces of high society, but when Lewis suddenly died, she found herself in a desperate situation. However, Harriot decided to take this lying down – quite literally; she turned to sex work and eventually opened her own establishment, becoming the only black madam in London (Arnold, 2010).

Trade in Virgins

 Sex work is a highly complex experience that resists simple stereotypes; sex work in the eighteenth century was no different. There was a dark side and for all the celebrated grande horizontals, when there is that much money at stake, many people were chewed up and spat out by the cities’ never ending demand for flesh. Harlots depicts the eighteenth-century sexual obsession with virgins; as Lady Repton quips in episode one at the auctioning of Lucy Wells’s virginity, ‘my husband loves a hymen’. In Nocturnal Revels, Charlotte Hayes discusses how easy it is to fake a virginity, we also see this trick in Fanny Hill where Fanny is instructed in how to fake a maidenhead;

 "In each of the head bed-posts, just above where the bedsteads are inserted into them, there was a small drawer, so artfully adapted to the mouldings of the timber-work, that it might have escaped even the most curious search: which drawers were easily opened or shut by the touch of a spring, and were fitted each with a shallow glass tumbler, full of a prepared fluid blood, in which lay soaked, for ready use, a sponge, that required no more than gently reaching the hand to it, taking it out and properly squeezing between the thighs, when it yelded a great deal more of the red liquid than would save a girl's honour". (Cleland, 1749)

 This tells us two things; firstly, women have been faking things in the bedroom for a long time; secondly, there was such a demand for virgins, knowing how to pass yourself off as an innocent was a staple of any self-respecting harlot’s repertoire. But, for every virginity faked, there were real girls offered up for sale.

 William Hogarth’s 1732 A Harlot's Progress (a series of engravings) depicts a young Moll Hackabout who arrives in London fresh from the country, only to be tricked into prostitution by the cunning bawd, Elizabeth Needham. (In 1731 Mother Needham was convicted of keeping a disorderly house and sentenced to be pilloried, she did not survive the experience.) The madam seeking out young girls and tricking them is also seen in Harlots when Lydia Quigley stalks registry offices and stage coaches to find virgins to offer up to well-paying clients.

 Nocturnal Revels details how Charlotte Hayes procured an endless supply of new ‘nuns’ for her ‘cloister’. Just as Lydia Quigley did in Harlots, Charlotte would dress in a ‘plain and simple manner’ and approach employment offices, searching for any young girl who was seeking domestic work. Charlotte would then tell her she required a maid for her mistress and offer ‘very handsome’ wages. The unsuspecting victim would be taken to a house, plied with drink and be put to bed, only to wake in the night being raped by whomever had paid Charlotte for a virgin. Revels tells us after such a traumatic experience, the victim would be given a few guineas and removed to the ‘nunnery’ in King’s Place ‘in order to make room for a new victim, who is to be sacrificed in the like manner’ (Revels, 1779). When victims could not be procured in this way, Charlotte and other bawds placed advertisements, like the one opposite, in newspapers to bring the girls to them.

 Hellfire Clubs

 In Harlots, Lydia Quigley is supplying virgins to an anonymous, but aristocratic and powerful group of men; it is later revealed these men are murdering these girls. The eighteenth century saw the rise of the Hellfire Clubs across Britain and Ireland. These were exclusive, secretive clubs for wealthy libertines who met to engage in ‘the most impious and blasphemous Manner, insult the most sacred Principles of Holy Religion, affront Almighty God himself, and corrupt the Minds and Morals of one another’ (Gordon, 1721). The clubs were shrouded in mystery and historians have long tried to understand exactly what happened there. Rumours about Satanic abuse of women, devil worship and debauched behaviour circulated around the clubs from the beginning. Did these rich men really deflower virgins and worship the devil, or was it simply as case of, as Evelyn Lord suggests, ‘wealthy men with too much time and licence on their hands, wanting to assert their masculinity’ (Lord, 2010). The most notorious club was formed in 1746 by Sir Francis Dashwood with the motto "Fais ce que tu voudrais" (Do as you will). Lord Sandwich, Lord Bute, the Duke of Queensbury, the Prince of Wales and even Benjamin Franklin were all rumoured to be members (Arnold, 2010). Whist we will probably never know exactly what happened there, the public have always been willing to believe the very worst of them; including the kidnap and rape of virgins. It seems the secretive world of the Hellfire Clubs provided inspiration for the elite group of aristocrats seeking out and murdering virgins in Harlots.

 Harlots is a delicious peep up the skirt of the eighteenth-century sex trade. Far from being a make believe world, here fact and fiction lie side by side in a sweaty bed, smoking a post-coital cigarette and asking ‘how was it for you?’ The lives held up here are nods to history, but we must remember that the lives of the infamous, people like Charlotte Hayes, Black Harriot and Lucy Cooper, have always been subject to sensationalism. What we know about them is left to us through a series of texts that were designed to inflame the senses and have us clutching our pearls whilst eagerly turning the page for more. For me, the most fun part of Harlots are the background details; the reusable condoms, the women squatting over basins to wash themselves between clients, the perils of pregnancy, butter as lubrication, and the Foundling Hospital - all documented facts about sex in the eighteenth century. (If you would like to read more about birth control and abortion in the eighteenth century, you can read another article I wrote here.) I would urge you to enjoy Harlots for the fantastic romp in the hay it is, and view its reference to historical facts as the delicious sprinkles on top. But, remember a little history can be a dangerous thing and must not be understood to be the full picture. If you want to learn more about sex work in the eighteenth century, I cannot recommend Dan Cruickshank’s Secret History, or Rubenhold’s Covent Garden Ladies enough. And once you have read that, please read about current sex workers and sex worker rights. Historical sex work can be bawdy fun because it allows us to look at a distance and to tell fun stories, but always remember this is the history and heritage of sex work today, and that such stories really do matter to the people fighting the same systems today.

 ‘’I am Sunk in Lust and Lechery ‘’ : The History behind ITV’s Encore ‘’Harlots’’. By Kate Lister.   Whores of Yore, May 24, 2017.

 

People think I’m obsessed with syphilis, and maybe I am. But it’s only because of my recent indoctrination into 18th-century history by aficionados of the period, such as Lucy Inglis, Adrian Teal and Rob Lucas.  I can’t read 10 pages of a medical casebook without coming across a reference to lues venerea. By the end of the century, London was literally crawling with the pox.

 And it’s no surprise. Sexual promiscuity was as much a part of Georgian England as were powdered wigs and opium. For a few pennies, a gentleman could pick up Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, or Man of Pleasure’s Kalendar—a pocket guide to London’s prostitutes published annually starting in 1771—and peruse it as he might do a fine wine list.

 For three guineas, a man could partake in the pleasures provided by Miss L—st—r at No. 6 Union Street, whose ‘neighbouring hills [are] full ripe for manual pressure, firm, and elastic, and heave at every touch.’  If three guineas were too much, one could always spend a third of that for a night with Miss H—ll—nd at No. 2 York Street, who, ‘tho’ only seventeen and short, is very fat and corpulent…a luscious treat to the voluptuary.’   And for those who fancied a woman ‘rather above the common height’, they could visit Miss S—ms at No. 82 Queen Ann’s Street East, who frequently attracted lovers of a ‘diminutive size’ who loved ‘surmounting such a fine, tall woman.’

The guidebook wasn’t all slap and tickle, though. Hidden within these pages were warnings about the dangers of sleeping with diseased prostitutes.  Military men were cautioned against Matilda Johnson, since ‘it is thought by some experienced officers, that her citadel is in danger, on account of a quantity of fiery combustible matter which is lodged in the covered way.’ Some warnings were not so subtle (or hilarious). The guidebook alerts its readers to Miss Young, who had ‘very lately had the folly and wickedness to leave a certain hospital, before the cure for a certain distemper which she had was completed.’ The book ominously adds that she has ‘thrown her contaminated carcass on the town again.’

 Yes, syphilis was ubiquitous in 18th-century London. Aside from abstaining or entering into a monogamous relationship with a healthy partner, there was very little one could do to protect oneself from the pox. Condoms, though available during this period, were rarely employed. When used, they were frequently reused multiple times, defeating their purpose as safeguards against contamination.

 That said, the telltale signs of the disease could often be seen on those suffering from the pox, allowing the astute observer to steer clear of infected persons. In this wax moulage  by the talented artist, Nicole Antebi, you can see the effects of the disease on the face and mouth. Blemishes such as these came to be associated with prostitution. Georgian women went to great lengths to cover these marks with ‘beauty spots’ made of fine black velvet, or mouse skin.

 Those who suffered from the pox often turned to surgeons for help. Before the discovery of penicillin, syphilis was an incurable (and ultimately fatal) disease. The longer it went on, the worse the symptoms became. In addition to unsightly skin ulcers like the ones mentioned above, sufferers could experience paralysis, blindness, dementia and ‘saddle nose‘, a grotesque deformity which occurs when the bridge of the nose caves into the face.

 Many treatments involved the use of mercury, which could be administered in the form of calomel (mercury chloride), an ointment, a steam bath or pill. Unfortunately, the side effects could be as painful and terrifying as the disease itself (see illustration, right, of patient suffering from over-exposure to mercury). Many patients who underwent such treatments suffered from extensive tooth loss, ulcerations and neurological damage. In many cases, people died from mercury poisoning. Indeed, it’s hard to fault Miss Young for throwing her ‘contaminated carcass on the town again’ after refusing to continue treatment that most likely included mercury.

 Prostitutes bore the brunt of it when it came to syphilis in Georgian London. Yet despite the dangers, women entered into the profession at an astonishing rate. An estimated 1 in 5 women were ‘Ladies of the Night’ during this period. Some entered the sex trade as young as 12 years of age; and many could expect to make as much as £400 per year.

 Still, the financial advantages of prostitution meant little if one contracted the deadly disease. The two syphilitic women mentioned above did not appear in later editions of Harris’s List. Their fates were sealed once their secrets had been exposed. No doubt countless other women suffered the same future after they became infected, losing not only their livelihoods, but also their lives to this dreadful epidemic.

 Am I obsessed with syphilis? Yes. But for good reason!.  

The Syphilitic Whores of Georgian London. By Lindsey Fitzharris.  Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris , March 3, 2014. 

In the late 18th century, one in five Londoners contracted syphilis by their mid-30s, according to a fascinating (if you enjoy reading about the history of medicine, as I do) paper published online this week in the journal Economic History Review.

 Using data painstakingly collected from the archived admission records of London’s hospitals and workhouse infirmaries, the paper’s authors — historians Simon Szreter of Cambridge University in the U.K. and Kevin Seina of Trent University in Canada — estimate that 2,807 Londoners were being treated annually for syphilis in the “foul” (venereal disease) wards of those facilities in the 1770s.

 That’s twice as many people as were being treated for syphilis in the much smaller English city of Chester during that period and about 25 times more than as were being treated in rural areas of England and Wales.

 Based on those 2,807 cases, Szreter and Seina estimate (conservatively) that 20 percent of Londoners during the Georgian era could expect to have at least one bout of syphilis by their 35th birthday.

 Yet syphilis was just part of the considerable venereal disease problem in 18th-century London. “A far greater number would have contracted gonorrhea or chlamydia than contracted syphilis in this period,” the historians point out.

 No one who has read the surviving diaries of James Boswell (1740-1795), the biographer of the great English writer and wit Samuel Johnson, will be surprised by the findings in this paper. In his diaries, Boswell recounts no less than 19 episodes of venereal disease between 1760 (when he was 20) and 1786.

 “Our findings suggest that Boswell’s London fully deserves its historical reputation,” says Szreter in a released statement. “The city had an astonishingly high incidence of STIs at that time. It no longer seems unreasonable to suggest that a majority of those living in London while young adults in this period contracted an STI at some point in their lives.”

 “In an age before prophylaxis or effective treatments, here was a fast-growing city with a continuous influx of young adults, many struggling financially,” he adds. “Georgian London was extremely vulnerable to epidemic STI infections rates on this scale.”

 Georgians called syphilis “the pox,” while gonorrhea was known as “the clap.” Both tended to be lumped together as a single disease: “venereal distemper.” The first effective treatment for syphilis was not discovered until 1910, so Georgians who developed the disease had no real hope of recovery, although they didn’t know that at the time, as Szreter and Siena explain:

 ‘’On experiencing initial signs of discomfort, such as a rash or pain in urination, most hoped it was just ‘the clap’ and would have begun by self-medicating for many weeks with various pills and potions — there was certainly a large market for these.

 However, a substantial proportion would find that this failed to alleviate symptoms, which worsened, because the delayed secondary stage of syphilitic infection, when it arrives, typically produces debilitating pain and fevers lasting weeks and even months, which could not be ignored. Although they cursed their luck for getting the pox, most contemporaries believed that there was available to them a reliable, permanent cure. This was to submit to the rigours of mercury salivation treatment.’’

 The idea behind the mercury treatment was to get the patient to excessively salivate, which was thought to help get rid of the impurities causing the disease. The initial administration of the mercury often occurred in a hospital, where patients typically stayed for a minimum of five weeks. Mercury, however, is a poison, so the treatment led to severe side effects, including painful mouth ulcers, loss of teeth, kidney failure and often death.

 Despite doing more harm than healing, mercury treatments were administered for weeks, months and years, a factor reflected in a well-known Georgian saying: “A night with Venus, and a lifetime with mercury.”

 As Szreter and Seina emphasize, the incidence of syphilis and other STIs in 18th-century London was particularly high among “young, impoverished, mostly unmarried women, either using commercial sex to support themselves financially or in situations that rendered them vulnerable to sexual predation and assault like domestic service.”

 Indeed, Boswell’s STIs were the result of frequent encounters with London’s sex workers.

 It’s not surprising, therefore, that financially established men like Boswell also had a high incidence of STIs. The other group of men with a high incident rate were young, unmarried laborers who had migrated to London from other areas of Britain and who lived on the margins of the city’s economy.

 Both men and women who could not afford treatments could usually get them for free at London’s specialist hospitals and infirmaries, Szreter and Siena point out.

 This look at syphilis in the 18th century has ramifications beyond simple historical curiosity.

 “Syphilis and other STIs can have a very significant effect on morbidity and mortality and also on fertility,” says Szreter. “So infection rates represent a serious gap in our historical knowledge, with significant implications for health, for demography and therefore for economic history.”

 “Understanding infection rates is also a crucial way to access one of the most private, and therefore historically hidden, of human activities, sexual practices and behaviours,” he adds.

 One in five Londoners had syphilis by age 35 in the late 18th century, historians estimate. By Susan Perry.  Minnpost , July 8, 2020.

 

Further reading :  One in five Georgian Londoners had syphilis by their mid-30s. Science Daily, July 6, 2020.