Plate Four of Hogarth's Harlot's Progress
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I am delighted and very flattered to be able to say Georgian London was voted 'History Website of 2009' by the online readers of History Today Magazine, and also won the 2009 Cliopatria Award for 'Best Individual Blog' and 'Best New Blog'.
'Fun and engaging posts covering day to day trivia and the more bizarre aspects of eighteenth-century London life. One of the best history blogs out there.' The Digital Scholar
'From London's 18th century rookeries, to being a dwarf in 18th century England, to Jeremy Bentham and the birth of a surveillance society, to what it was like to have gout, to bizarre birth stories from Gentleman's Magazine, Georgian London informs, instructs, and entertains us on ordinary life in 18th century London, emphasizing especially the artisan and immigrant populations of the city. This is fascinating social history presented in blog form, and is a terrific younger entrant into the burgeoning history blog scene.' History News Network
'The focus is, as the title suggests, all eighteenth-century London all the time...and the more you know, the more wonderful it gets, at once more real and more fantastic.' Erin O'Connor, Critical Mass
Welcome to Georgian London. My particular interests are the immigrant population and the artisan communities of London during the 18th century, as well as day to day trivia and the more bizarre aspects of London life three centuries ago.
I maintain large databases: of images from 1600 to 1900 that relate to the fabric of London during the 18thC, of notable immigrants, and a database of artisans and their works which can be searched by name, location, date, work, or trade associations.
You can find more through the tags if a subject catches your eye. Please get in touch for more information on sources or images. You are very welcome to comment and use the information here to inspire your own reading, but please don't reproduce material from this site without contacting me first.
I also blog at http://www.layscience.net where you can find all sorts of interesting things.
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Lewd London
Plate Three of Hogarth's Harlot's Progress
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Alimony and Acting: The Life of Nosegay Fan
Frances Barton was born around 1737 (although some say as early as 1731) near Vinegar Yard off the Strand, where her father had a shoe stall. Her mother died when she was young and her father did not remarry. Fanny had the good luck to be a very beautiful little girl, and her father and brother (who ran a pub in Stanway Yard later in life) sent her out to sell nosegays. Her cheeky spirit and quick ear soon meant she was singing to the customers and reciting bits and pieces she had heard on the streets of Covent Garden. The actors and actresses thought she was hilarious and used to put her up on a table and get her to sing or act for them and give her a few pence in return. A shrewd girl, she began to learn passages from the famous poets and bring them forth to great amusement, and no doubt a few more pennies.
Fanny then took work with a French milliner in Cockspur Street. She must have had an ability with languages, as she apparently emerged from this employment speaking fluent French. Her stay in Cockspur Street also introduced her to fashion, something that would serve her well for the rest of her life. For a while, she had a friend whose boyfriend was an actor, and spent a lot of time in the theatres.
This period of Fanny's life is hazy. Some scholars have her down as a child prostitute at this stage. I can see why they would draw this conclusion (especially with the later associations with Reynolds), but in the early 1750s Fanny was aged somewhere between 13 and 20. The age of consent at the time was 12. She seems to have continued in employment from the milliner to service as a kitchen maid in the North household, earning money on the side as a 'ballad-singer'. Perhaps she also took money for sex. Who knows? I am in no way condoning teenage prostitution but as far as I can see Frances Barton was acting under no authority but her own and the tendency to brand attractive, assertive women as whores isn't exactly a concept limited to the Georgian period. I would argue for the opposite being true. I would argue that Fanny seems to have abandoned street and theatre working as she entered sexual maturity, for respectable work in a shop and household, in order to avoid becoming a prostitute. There may have been an incident that told her it was time to find more secure work, or maybe she was smart enough to work it out for herself.
By 1755 though, Fanny is on the stage. She is a comic actress, a new kind of entertainer. She dons outlandish outfits, breeches and sometimes fantasy costume. Fanny is a hit. Suddenly earning the heady sum of 30 shillings a week, she invested in education; learning languages, literature and music. Then she married James Abington, trumpeter and music master. Big mistake. They went to Ireland. Dublin only had two theatres at the time, and it appears Mrs Abington was queen of both of them. Mr Abington got jealous, and finally they had to part, but not before Fanny had agreed to give him a pension for the rest of his life, and based upon her success. Oh yes.
Fanny went on to become the mistress of Mr Francis Needham, an MP who furthered her hard-won education and happily showed her off in society. In 1765, they came to England, and Needham died at Bath, with his mistress in attendance. She quickly returned to the stage, where she was even more popular than before.
Once again, there are assertions that Fanny was living as a courtesan. There are no clear attachments extant, but she was soon acting as a trendsetter and arbiter of taste, as a single woman. By 1764, she was posing for Joshua Reynolds. He depicted her as an actress, not a whore, unlike Kitty Fisher and Nelly O'Brien. In 1781, she had a costume allowance from the Covent Garden Theatre for five hundred pounds a year. If Mrs Abington was also selling sex, it was because she wanted to, not because she needed the money.
Fanny took a house in Pall Mall and set about surrounding herself with the thinkers and wits of the day. Horace Walpole, notorious bitch, thought she was great as did Samuel Johnson. She had an ongoing feud/mutual admiration society with David Garrick, who quite rightly regarded her as both a prima donna and businesswoman (he signed his letters to her 'Yours very truly, when you are not unruly'). A mark of her popularity was the sell-out of her benefits. Benefits were the night when one of the actors got most of the takings at the door, and her nights were always 'full to the rails'. James Boswell once upbraided Johnson for braving the crush to attend Fanny's benefit, and Johnson turned on him with, 'When the public cares one thousandth part for you that it does for her, I shall go to your benefit too.'
Frances Abington continued to live in a fashionable and very popular way long after she had given up the stage. She died in her home in Pall Mall in 1815, an old and very successful lady. Brava!
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The Importance of Foundation Garments: A peep up the skirts of Georgian London
Any girl worth her salt knows underwear is of vital importance. I am not particularly interested in fashion, as anyone who has ever met me will be able to testify, but I am interested in daily life and the observations of costume in this post are based on my knowledge of Georgian London as ordinary working wear has not survived in any great quantity. Beautiful silks and tabbies in patterns too complicated to be easily changed with fashion were packed away and passed down to others and have now made it into museums, but ordinary wools, linens and cottons were cut down for smaller sisters, babies and eventually, rags. If you know more about 18thC fashions than me, please do comment and correct any inaccuracies.
The female inhabitants of London in the 18thC had the top half sorted as far as underwear went. They wore a calf-length shift of fine linen which could be of elbow or 3/4 length on the arms. Over that went stays. Stays were usually made of calico and 'boned' to stop them buckling when one bent down. Some of them are only boned on either side of the laces to prevent tearing (more usually for younger girls, or pregnant women) and serious tight-lacing was more common during the Victorian period, and stays can be tightened or loosened within reason. Constant lacing throughout childhood, even of a modest sort created an enviably defined waist and inch measurements for young women were often in the low twenties. I doubt working women such as shopkeepers and housemaids laced themselves up very tightly, but firmly enough to give support (and they also do marvels for the posture and general shape). Stays are remarkably form-fitting and surprisingly comfortable, without the lumps and bumps created by bras. If you were reasonably well off, a petticoat would have gone over the shift and the stays. If you worked inside, it could be pretty; if you worked outside, it would be shorter and plainer, and so out of the worst of the filth, but washable if it did get soiled. Over the top went the gown. It might be cut away to show the petticoat, or it might not. Or you might wear a masculine style jacket and a skirt. For a long time, women tied a fat cloth sausage, known as a bum-roll just beneath their waists and put the skirt on over it. This made the skirt full without thick layers beneath, and hid the shape of the hips. A maid or a food retailer would then have an apron tied about her waist with the front flap pinned firmly over her chest. Various accessories such as shawls or a gauzy fichu could be used to fill in a bold neckline during the day, or in modest company.
The majority of stockings in London were hand-knitted until the end of the Georgian period. The machines were large, complicated and breakable and in the end only marginally more productive than a good hand-knitter sitting at home, who could produce about one pair a day in wool or silk. Stockings were tied up with garters, usually a silk ribbon or a wool band with a little give in it so that it could be tied tight. I have tried tying stocking both above and below the knee. Above the knee is prettier, but gravity is a nuisance and they usually sag. I'm fairly sure most women would have worn their stockings gartered below the knee, especially those who walked a lot. Men who wore their own hair long instead of a wig (notable exceptions being Frenchmen, who wore their hair cropped fairly short and almost always went without a wig) would use garters, a token from a wife or girlfriend if they had one, to tie their hair back.
We have reached the one garment for which there is an alarming lack of 18thC evidence: knickers. Charles Ist wore pants, both long and short, depending upon the weather, as did Samuel Pepys. Apparently, things were different for the girls. Titillating pictures of the 18thC reveal the coquette raising her skirts to reveal nothing beneath. Many costume historians are certain women wore nothing beneath their shifts. Well, I don't agree. Little girls wore knickers, boys and men wore knickers; why on earth wouldn't women wear knickers? It's not as if they were worried about VPL. Agreed, it's a fine and dandy principle, rendering every lady an available little minx, but commando is not a practical daily option. If you are anything like me and female, there are also a few questions you might have, which I hope I have answered here.
Pretty, long knickers exist from about 1800 onwards, usually without a gusset, although lots of material so that when you were wearing them, they didn't actually look 'crotchless'. It also meant you didn't have to fumble about around your waist for the drawstring ribbons in a dim bog-house. I think these are the most practical possibility for women during the 18th century, although I am also fairly sure that young couples of modest means probably had 'linen' that they both wore, particularly during the cold weather. All linens were boiled with a soap mixture to remove stains and keep them nice and white. All but the poorest people could afford a large enough pan and some soap to boil their linens, which is as effective a way of cleaning them as any other. I take exception to the accusations of poor hygiene in Georgian London and the assumption that we only achieved any notion of personal hygiene with the invention of anti-perspirant and showers. More on laundry, bath-houses and Georgian deodorant next week.
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Fashionable London
Lewd London
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A Molly's Map of Georgian London
Click the Gay London and Lewd London tags to see the stories related to this map.
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The Green Canister: Mrs Phillips's Covent Garden Sex Shop
Teresia Constantia Phillips's life is as extraordinary and outlandish as one can imagine of an 18thC courtesan. She was born in 1709, the daughter of an army Captain who fell upon hard times and she came to London aged 13 to stay with family friends and to try and earn her living as a seamstress. Lodging in the same buildings was the young Philip Stanhope, later the Earl of Chesterfield. In her best-selling, and long-winded Apology in 1748, Con (as she became familiarly known) alleged that Stanhope became infatuated with her, and proclaimed himself her lover. Far from claiming she put him off, Con admitted that she entertained any young girl's enjoyment of being adored, but later realised that Stanhope was fascinated with adolescent girls and virgins in particular. She then alleged that Stanhope locked her in his room, tied her hands to a chair and raped her. It was an allegation Chesterfield was to deny strenuously, but an odd one to make if there was no grain of truth in it. He also admitted that he had kept her as a mistress for a few months when she was very young.
Con went on to become the mistress of too many men to mention without it sounding like a roll call. She kept getting married illegally, made money, spent money, travelled and safe to say, did a lot of entertaining. She died in Jamaica in 1765 on yet another adventure. Some of her liaisons lasted years, and appear to have been exclusive, yet around 1732, she was at something of a loose end, having broken with her long-term lover so that he could make a good marriage (he settled money on her). During her time as a courtesan, Con had learned a thing or two, and so she set up shop (or had someone do it for her) in Half Moon Street, which is now Bedford Street in Covent Garden, and had handbills printed to advertise her wares which were given out in the street by link boys earning a few extra pence.
By far the most well-recorded item of merchandise were Con's 'preservatives' or condoms. Condoms, or 'cundums' (even worse!) had been recorded in popular use since around 1500. They were made from a sheep's intestine, and the standard length was between seven and eight inches, secured with a coloured ribbon about the base. This might sound gross, not to mention unwieldy, but the treatment process to make them thin and flexible was extensive, and the end of the condom was stitched and sealed, then tested, by blowing them up to check for leaks. It was recommended they were soaked in water, then squeezed out before use, to keep them elastic and comfortable. Gut of any sort is porous, which means these condoms weren't infallible, but they were also subjected to various treatments which one imagines must have made them less permeable. They certainly had some degree of efficacy, and they were popular. Casanova swore by them and sought them by the box whenever he found a reliable source. They were marketed as preventing both pregnancy and disease.
Much is made of condoms being expensive, and hence whores not carrying them. Rubbish, rubbish, all. If you had enough money for a whore, you had enough money for a condom. Furthermore, if you wanted to use a condom with a whore, why on earth would you let her provide one when you didn't know where it had been? You don't care if she gets pregnant after all, that's why you are going to her in the first place. Besides, condoms had more than one use in them well into the 20th century, and so men carried them more often than street-walkers. However, any decent brothel boasted of its stock, and the goods did not just include the girls, but 'every Device to restore old men and debauched youths.' Con sold condoms wholesale to the brothels and bagnios, so if you wanted to use one, all you had to do was ask.
In addition to condoms, Con probably also sold other methods of contraception. One of the most common ones for women was a piece of natural sponge with a length of ribbon stitched into it. The sponge was soaked in a dilute solution of lemon juice, or commonly vinegar and worn internally to prevent pregnancy. This was not just a method used by prostitutes, but common amongst ordinary women who wanted a break from child-bearing, and Con's shop provided a decent, if not respectable place to buy them. This brings me briefly onto the subject of clientele. In many of the printed sources referring to the sex trade, there are mentions of 'lady-clients' (Lady Loveit being one of my personal favourites). Whether they attended the brothels in a hetero, homosexual or fetishistic capacity isn't clear, but they were there nonetheless. Most brothels were run by women, and most whores were women. Therefore I conclude that a decent percentage of the customers to The Green Canister would have been women.
The 'Devices' employed by the brothels had to be purchased somewhere, and it appears Con sold just about everything, whatever your particular 'caprice'. 'Widow's comforters' were available in leather, ivory and wood. Flagellation machines could be made to order, and various brothels specialized in different types. Literature on the education of young ladies was prolific and often alarmingly well-illustrated. Although there are no records as to her stock, I can't imagine it would have been any different to a modern sex shop, only fewer batteries.
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Let us tarry here a while: Advanced Courtship in Georgian London
Modern commentators are very keen to perpetuate an image of young couples entering into marriage and procreation in a state of complete ignorance but this is not really the case outside the aristocracy (and then only for the girls). The idea that 18thC swains and shepherdesses met at the country fair, then married after a few chaste kisses is not impossible, but in reality is highly unlikely. The openness of courting in England in general (outside particularly religious communities) was observed with both astonishment and approval by Continental travellers, who noted young unchaperoned couples eating picnics together on Sundays in London's various pleasure gardens. Any reader of Samuel Pepys is aware of the amount of grappling a young woman could expect if caught unawares, or if she had led a man to think she might permit it. I think Sam was rather enthusiastic in his approach, but he certainly sheds light on the interaction between the sexes in the late 17thC and it appears women were not exactly put on a pedestal, unless they were worth a very great deal of money.
As previously noted, during the long 18thC the average age of marriage for men was in the late 20s, and for women, the early 20s. This doesn't include the upper classes, where sexual continence for the women was paramount before marriage. To imagine that all these other young, healthy people abstained from sex for over a decade after puberty is plainly rot. 'Bundling' or 'tarrying' is put forward as one theory whereby young couples in an established relationship might engage in minor foreplay and achieve physical intimacy without intercourse: try before you buy, as it were.
This approach makes perfect sense: as a parent you weren't condoning pre-marital sex. The opposite in fact. The girl had a knot tied in the bottom of her nightdress, or was wrapped up in a blanket, and the couple were allowed to sleep together, at the girl's home. This means the parents were approving of the young man, but setting limits upon the relationship. The man was to stay dressed and outside the blanket. It is alleged that the Puritans used a 'bundling board', but I think this is more like for the event of strangers sharing the same bed, rather than courting couples. Only a minute's thought will reveal tarrying to be both a sensible idea, and a bit of a cheat for the girl. Still, it was infinitely preferable to getting married without knowing your arse from your elbow, so to speak, and very useful for making sure you weren't going to buy the last chicken in the shop.
Bundling is often asserted to be a one-time only deal, but I'm fairly sure that's not true. After all, if you liked your daughter's suitor but he didn't have quite enough money to marry but had hopes for the future you'd rather she hung onto him by progressing their relationship under some sort of supervision rather than went off with someone else, or got pregnant after a furtive knee-trembler. If she did get pregnant, through the blanket obviously, it was expected the couple would marry. After all, the relationship was established in the family, if not the community. Apprentices were not supposed to marry during their 7 years, but this method of courtship would allow them much more freedom than simple abstinence. Bundling was really for younger couples, to allow them to learn gradually about a fundamental part of married life. It also allowed those stolen moments that are so important to developing relationships.
(A more extensive history of bundling is documented in America, where it continued into the 1920s as a folk custom and ritual part of courtship. It continued even longer in Amish communities. Bundling has been recorded from about 1600 in Norway, the Netherlands and Germany, as well as England, and finally appears in the Dictionary for 1781, before which it was known as tarrying.)
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The White Swan: The Gay Brothel in Vere Street
Researching the homosexual culture of Georgian London is a bit like unpicking a fine and very knotted chain with pins: it's difficult to see how it got so tangled in the first place and just when you think you've got it sorted, the knot is tighter than ever. The White Swan in Vere Street was by no means the first gay brothel in London, but it is one of the first and most accurately recorded establishments that had been set up with the aim of making money. Perhaps the most famous of all 'molly-houses' was Mother Margaret Clapp's (more another time), but that was more of a coffee-house primarily for homosexual clientele, rather than a place where gay sex was traded for money (although there was probably an aspect of that too).
On the 8th of July, 1810 the Bow Street Police raided The White Swan, a tumbledown pub of Tudor origin near Drury Lane. Twenty-seven men were arrested on suspicion of sodomy and attempted sodomy. The Swan had been going for less than six months, established by two men, Cook and Yardley, but already had a considerable following. Cook, whose wife ran an ordinary pub nearby called the White Horse, was proud of his amenities, and his clientele:
Cook states that a person in a respectable house in the city, frequently came to his pub, and stayed several days and nights together; during which time he generally amused himself with eight, ten, and sometimes a dozen different boys and men!
Cook and Yardley had furnished their establishment for its purpose, admirably:
Four beds were provided in one room - another was fitted up for the ladies' dressing-room, with a toilette, and every appendage of rouge, &c. &c....The uper part of the house was appropriated to youths who were constantly in waiting for casual customers; who practised all the allurements that are found in a brothel, by the more natural description of prostitutes. Men of rank, and respectable situations in life, might be seen wallowing either in or on beds with wretches of the lowest description.
The account of The White Swan raid and the subsequent trials was told in 1813 by Robert Holloway, later Cook's lawyer, who sold many copies of his account. In it there are some excellent observations of the behaviour within the house, where faux marriages were sometimes conducted to 'bless' the coming union. Of course, someone had to play the girl.
It seems the greater part of these quickly assumed feigned names, though not very appropriate to their calling in life: for instance, Kitty Cambric is a Coal Merchant; Miss Selina a Runner at a Police Office; Blackeyed Leonora, a Drummer; Pretty Harriet, a Butcher; Lady Godiva, a Waiter; the Duchess of Gloucester, a gentleman's servant; Duchess of Devonshire, a Blacksmith; and Miss Sweet Lips, a Country Grocer. It is a generally received opinion, and a very natural one, that the prevalency of this passion has for its object effeminate delicate beings only: but this seems to be, by Cook's account, a mistaken notion; and the reverse is so palpable in many instances, that Fanny Murry, Lucy Cooper, and Kitty Fisher, are now personified by an athletic bargeman, an Herculean Coal-heaver (my bold), and a deaf Tyre-Smith:
It is Blackeyed Leonora, the drummer who stands out amongst this motley crowd, for Leonora was in fact most likely Thomas White, a 16 year old drummer in the Guards. Thomas was one of the 'youths' who stood and waited in the upper part of the house. He was a great favourite amongst the 'more exalted' visitors to the house, according to Holloway. It is interesting to note that almost every single one of the people at The White Swan had an occupation. Of course, some were visitors, but White worked there. No doubt it was his youth, and probably his looks that drew attention from the richer customers.
White, being an universal favourite, was very deep in the secrets of the fashionable part of the coterie;
Poor Thomas, who wasn't even at The Swan on the night of the raid, was too quick to confess, and was executed for his 'crime' after almost a year in prison, although there was no doubt he was guilty of the charge. With him died a man called John Hepburn, aged 46, who had procured White's services with the help of a witness who testified against him. White was prosecuted as the giver, rather than the receiver which made it almost impossible for the court to avoid the death sentence when the jury convicted him of 'buggery'. At White's execution, various people of note were recorded:
A vast concourse of people attended to witness the awful scene. The Duke of Cumberland, Lord Sefton, Lord Yarmouth, and several other noblemen were in the press-yard;
The Duke of Cumberland had avoided a homosexual scandal by a razor thin margin in June 1810 when his servant was found with a cut throat after threatening to out his master after catching the Duke and his valet 'in an improper and unnatural situation'. Perhaps Cumberland was one of White's 'fashionable' guests. We will never know. Of the other 25 or so, only six were found guilty and they were pilloried and imprisoned, including Cook the landlord. Yardley seems to have got away with the whole thing. The White Swan affair raised the public ire, and the convicted men suffered at the hands of a mob.
The disgust felt by all ranks in Society at the detestable conduct of these wretches occasioned many thousands to become spectators of their punishment. At an early hour the Old Bailey was completely blockaded, and the increase of the mob about 12 o'clock, put a stop to the business of the sessions. The shops from Ludgate Hill to the Haymarket were shut up, and the streets lined with people, waiting to see the offenders pass....A number of fishwomen attended with stinking flounders and entrails of other fish which had been in preparation for several days.
Cook refused to implicate any more clients, but on his release he began to blackmail two members of the clergy who had escaped prosecution during the raid and investigation. In what was probably a set-up, he ended up in prison for assault and debt and his whole family were systematically ruined in a series of evictions and persecutions that Holloway attributed to 'influential persons'. Just how influential, we will never know.
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