In Bed with the Georgians
Dedicated to dollymops in general, and to Dolly Mopp in particular.
Love in her eyes sits dreaming.
In Bed with the Georgians
Sex, Scandal and Satire in the 18th Century
Mike Rendell
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Pen & Sword History
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
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Barnsley
South Yorkshire
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Copyright © Mike Rendell 2016
ISBN 978 1 47383 774 4
eISBN 978 1 47388 438 0
Mobi ISBN 978 1 47388 437 3
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Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Sex Workers
Chapter 2 The Alphabet of Sex, and More Besides
Chapter 3 Of Brothels and Bagnios, Madams and Molls
Chapter 4 Courtesans and Harlots
Chapter 5 Sex and Satire in Print
Chapter 6 Royal Scandals and Shenanigans
Chapter 7 Adulterous Aristocrats
Chapter 8 Sex Crimes – Rape, Bigamy, Murder, Suicide and Sodomy
Chapter 9 Rakes, Roués and Romantics
Glossary: A Selection of Sexual Terms
Bibliography
Introduction
Observing the events of 1750, Londoner Richard Hall noted in his journal that an earthquake was felt in the capital on Thursday 8 February – and again on 8 March at 5.30 in the morning, i.e. precisely one month later.
Earthquakes are not, of course, common in the London area. Scientificallyminded people at the time were able to conjecture that immediately below the earth’s surface there was a void – a honeycomb of air pockets – and that from time-to-time violent winds, or possibly flames, or water, or maybe all of the above, would rush through these pockets causing quakes on the surface. The Gentleman’s Magazine was able to inform its anxious readers that there were three types of quake: the ‘Inclination’, where the earth vibrated from side to side; the ‘Pulsation’ where it shook up and down; and the ‘Tremor’ ‘when it shakes and quivers every way like a flame’.
But the Church was having none of this scientific mumbo-jumbo. The Bishop of London, Thomas Sherlock, wrote to all his clergymen calling on them to inform their flocks of the true reason for the earthquakes: Divine displeasure at pornography. In fact the word had only recently been coined, from Greek roots meaning ‘writing about prostitutes’. Were these quakes not ‘immediately directed’ against London, the sinful city? After all, nowhere else experienced the tremors. Was it not a reflection of the Lord’s wrath at the publication of ‘The Memoirs of Fanny Hill, this vile book, the lewdest thing I ever saw?’ as the Bishop put it.
‘Have not the histories of the vilest prostitutes been published?’ he bellowed from the pulpit, going on to have a swipe at swearing and blasphemy, and at the ‘unnatural lewdness’ for which God had destroyed Sodom, and for the constant publication of books which challenged ‘the great truths of religion’.
Before long, rumours swept the Capital that these two minor quakes were warning signs, precursors of ‘the big one’ which would surely be unleashed on London exactly one month later. And so it was that on 8 April 1750, large swathes of the population tried to leave the City with their worldly belongings stacked high in wheel-barrows, hand-carts – whatever was available. The result was chaos, a total gridlock which lasted until nightfall, when everyone sheepishly trudged home.
The story illustrates several interesting points about the eighteenth century – the so-called Age of Reason. Many of the long-held beliefs of the day were in fact mere superstitions dressed up as scientific proof. Pornography caused earthquakes; masturbation caused blindness; having sex with a young virgin would cure venereal disease (a sort of ‘reverse infection’ – the man could catch the goodness from the virgin, and this would drive out the evil). It was generally believed that a woman could spontaneously catch venereal disease from having sex with healthy males, and then infect their male partners. No-one thought that the man was in any way to blame – it was entirely the woman’s fault. In treating venereal disease there was no distinction made between syphilis, gonorrhoea or other sexually transmitted diseases – and treatment invariably involved either ingesting or applying mercury, often with fatal results. The medical profession still adhered to the vestiges of the ideas of ancient Greece. Hippocrates in his book On the Nature of Man had described the four fluids – humours – which made up the human body, namely: blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. Any imbalance between these humours could cause illness. Writing a century after the birth of Christ, Galen developed the idea of the four humours – characterised by a combination of hot, cold, moist and dry qualities – and identified them with four temperaments – sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic. Men were considered to be predominately ‘cold’ and ‘dry’ whereas in women ‘hot’ and ‘moist’ dominated.
Medical ignorance extended to a staggering lack of knowledge about human reproduction and the menstrual cycle. Folk lore and old wives’ tales took the place of family planning. Drinking the water from a local smithy, where red-hot iron and molten lead would have been plunged into butts of water by the blacksmith, was believed to prevent pregnancy. Eating strawberries in pregnancy would cause the baby to be born with birthmarks, and eating lobsters could result in your progeny having claw feet. Beware of being frightened by a hare while pregnant – or your child would be born with a hare-lip. Avoid intercourse on the stairs, or your child would suffer from a hunched back.
Superstition and confidence tricks went hand-in-hand, as in the curious case of Mary Tofts. It was in November 1726 that a story broke in Mist’s Weekly Journal that a young woman from Godalming had given birth to a rabbit. Or rather, various rabbit parts. The story quickly became famous, not least because the newspaper which Nathaniel Mist published had a reported readership of 20,000 a week, and the public lapped up details of the remarkable story. More rabbits were ‘delivered’ from under a blanket by the poor young woman, who had secreted the rabbit parts up her vagina, presumably in an attempt to gain fame (and fortune). Doctors examined her, and astonishingly did not dismiss the fakery out of hand. News reached the ear of King George I. Intrigued, the king sent Nathaniel St. André, the surgeon to the Royal household, to check out the story. He appears to have been taken in by the deception, and it was another month before the true story emerged. The medical profession was lampooned mercilessly and William Hogarth produced an etching entitled Cunicularii, or The Wise Men of Godliman in Consultation (1726), showin
g the labour throes of Mary Toft surrounded by St André and the other dupes.
So much for the Age of Reason. The story of the earthquake also illustrates another aspect of life in the 1700s: the constant and often futile battle by the Church to make its voice heard above the torrent of immorality which swept the country. Nowadays our newspapers may be dominated by stories of the antics of wannabees, reality TV stars, super-models and WAGS. They are the celebrities of modern culture, held up as role models, and fashion icons. Two hundred and fifty years ago, that role was held by the courtesans. The name ‘celebrity’ when used to describe a famous person, may not have been developed until the 1840s, but in the 1750s the high class courtesan emerged as the arbiter of fashion and taste, an aspirational figure for lesser mortals. They were the women who were succeeding in a man’s world; they had money, fame and status, and they were celebrities in all but name. The papers were full of their antics, in and out of the bedroom. The world of the ‘demi rep’ as it was called – half respectable – was not so much criticised as held up for public admiration. Stories abounded of the vast ‘signing on’ fees charged by these beautiful and often wealthy young women, as they became the subject of bidding wars between rival aristocrats and members of the royal family. Far from shunning the limelight, these women revelled in their fame – they dressed immaculately in the latest fashions from France, they disported themselves in open phaetons drawn by matching horses controlled by liveried horsemen, they went to public places such as the theatre with the sole purpose of being seen by as many admirers as possible. The courtesan represented the pinnacle for those who sold sex for money, but they were supported by a huge pyramid underneath. The favoured few were backed up by thousands – tens of thousands, of women who were available for hire. The streets of London were thronged with prostitutes plying their trade – from the pox-ridden drunken slut, sleeping in a doorway and willing to exchange her favours for the price of a meal and a glass of oblivion-making alcohol, to the well-dressed whore promenading at places like Bagnigge Wells, (Image 1) or the occupants of the fine seraglios, those high class brothels which were nick-named ‘nunneries’, run by fierce bawds called Lady Abbesses.
It has been estimated that a figure of twenty per cent of all women in London were engaged in the sex trade at one time or another in their lives. They were not necessarily earning their living from full-time prostitution – they may have been servant girls who occasionally made a few shillings satisfying the whims of their randy employers; they may have been women who had no other means of avoiding starvation while seeking new employment; they may have been ‘good time girls’ who enjoyed sex and who were very happy to be paid for something they found pleasurable. And of course, many were vulnerable young girls, seduced or raped and then abandoned to their fate.
Daniel Defoe, writing in 1725, was certainly of the view that young servant girls made up the majority of London prostitutes, and that they took to prostitution when they were unemployed, as a way of supporting themselves. ‘This is the reason why our streets are swarming with strumpets. Thus many of them rove from place to place, from bawdy-house to service, and from service to bawdy-house again.’
The numbers are staggering, although calculations varied: one report in 1758 estimated that there were 62,500 whores plying their trade in London. The German traveller Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz, writing in 1789, came up with a figure of 50,000, but this was stated to include only full-time prostitutes. By 1839 Michael Ryan was claiming in his book Prostitution in London, with a comparative view of that of Paris and New York that there were then about 80,000 prostitutes, operating out of 5,000 brothels, in the London metropolis. He also gives a figure of 400 full-time ‘procurers’ engaged in London in kidnapping young children for sale into the sextrade. At the time the age of consent was just twelve years old, but the market for young virgins meant that many children below this age were entrapped as prostitutes, with orphanages providing a constant supply of newcomers. It is clear that girls as young as eight or nine were lured into prostitution by a trade desperate for virgin newcomers.
The eighteenth century saw a massive growth in London’s population but this was set against the statistic that, in many years, deaths exceeded births in the capital. The growth was entirely made up of migrants drawn to London from all over England. They came in search of work, and for young girls that often meant the sex trade. Large numbers were lured over from Ireland. Many moved on to other areas of work once they reached their mid-twenties, if, of course, they lived that long. The Times of 31 October 1785 famously quoted a figure of 5,000 prostitutes dying every year in London. Of those that survived a few (a very few) lived the dream, with money, fame and glamour. But, for the majority, it was a seedy life of depravity, degradation, poverty and debilitating illness. Not that that ever put off the wave of newcomers entering the City every year, eagerly snapped up by the bawds and procurers who scoured the coaching stations and inns on the main arterial routes coming in from the country.
What follows is the story of sex in the Georgian era. It is the story of the common whore, just as much as that of the high class courtesan. It is also a tale of male bigotry and hypocrisy, of incredible double-standards and appalling examples set by royalty and the ruling classes. It shows the world as it appeared to the people living through that period, through the eyes of the writers, the artists and in particular the satirists who faithfully recorded the foibles, the scandals, the frailties and the criminality of the nation’s rulers.
Chapter One
The Sex Workers
In 1758 a book was published by G. Burnet (author unknown) with the long-winded title of A Congratulatory Epistle from a Reformed Rake to John F…g Esq upon the new scheme of reforming prostitutes. It contained ten gradations of prostitutes, starting with the most genteel, and working down through to the most miserable of sluts:
Looking at each category in turn:
1. Women of Fashion, who intrigue. This classification covered bored wives, perhaps married into the aristocracy, who felt sufficiently liberated to have multiple affairs simply because they wanted love, and sex, and could not find it within marriage. As they did not ‘sell’ sex they cannot really be classed as prostitutes.
2. Demi-reps. Girls of a dubious reputation were called demi-reps, short for demireputation. They would not have ‘lived in’ at the brothel or seraglio, but would have been brought in when customers required their services.
3. Good-natured girls. These were the unmarried women who would have sex with their admirers in return for a good meal and an evening’s entertainment.
4. Kept mistresses. An example would be a courtesan paid an annuity, or provided with a house, by a man who was not her husband, and who would be available for sexual favours although not necessarily on an exclusive basis. In France these kept women were known as ‘dames entretenues’, and the practice of keeping a mistress was termed ‘la galanterie’. In England, a whole new language developed in line with the French – men were no longer adulterers, they were ‘gallants’ and ‘affairs’ became ‘intrigues’.
5. Ladies of Pleasure. These would be attractive, well-spoken prostitutes able to discuss current affairs with their admirers, perhaps play a musical instrument, and who would live in lodgings or high class brothels.
6. Whores. Living in down-market brothels, operating from bagnios, or making a living by picking up custom in the taverns and theatres such as the ones around Covent Garden.
7. Park-walkers. These would attract custom by walking through parks such as Ranelagh and New Spring Gardens (later Vauxhall Gardens). Well-dressed, they would attract male attention by a touch on the elbow or a provocative tilt of a fan.
8. Street-walkers. Openly accosting men in the street, and either servicing their clients in public places, (when they might be termed ‘threepenny stand-ups’) or in garrets or rooms above taverns.
9. Bunters. These were the diseased whores, the lowest of the low. Unclean, often physically scarred
by mercury poison and open syphilitic sores, bunters would be found near the docks, willing to exchange their favours for the price of a drink.
10. Bulk mongers. Homeless beggars, living rough and often in the final stages of disease.
The same book goes on to urge readers to accept that the higher class sex-workers were just as likely to corrupt the morals of the nation as the lowly street-walker:
If low, mean, Whores are a Bane to Society, by debauching the Morals, as well as Bodies, of Apprentices, and Lads scarce come to the Age of Puberty; if they frequently infect them with venereal Complaints, which almost as often terminate in as fatal Consequences; if they sometimes urge these youths to unwarrantable Practices for supporting their Extravagance in Gin; do not those in a more dazzling Situation produce still worse Consequences, by as much as they are above the others? Are not youths of good Family and Fortune seduced by these shining Harlots, who more frequently than their Inferiors in Rank, propagate the Species of an inveterate Clap, or a Sound-pox?
Later, the blame is put fairly and squarely on women for corrupting men, rather than the other way round:
There is a Lust in Woman that operates more strongly than all her libidinous Passions; to gratify which she sticks at nothing. Fame, Health, Content, are easily sacrificed to it. Fanny M…y and Lucy C….r have made more Whores than all the Rakes in England. A kept mistress that rides in her Chariot, debauches every vain Girl she meets – such is the Presumption of the Spectator, she imagines the same Means will procure her the same Grandeur. A miserable street walker who perhaps has not Rags enough to cover her Nakedness, more enforces Chastity – I had almost said Virtue – than all the moral Discourses, and even Sermons that ever were wrote or preached.
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