Eighteenth-century London’s attitude towards the ‘fair and frail’ ladies who shared their pavements, parks, taverns, theatres and assembly rooms can at best be described as confused and at worst as schizophrenic. A prostitute was either an object of pity or of scorn, someone to be helped or avoided, a victim of society or one of society’s polluters, and, at times, all of these descriptions simultaneously. She was rarely ever just a woman. A patriarchal England, where women existed to serve men, required prostitutes as much as it required faithful, fertile wives, dutiful, innocent daughters, and selfless, loving mothers. A prostitute bore the brunt of the unacceptable face of womanhood, everything that these other figures could not have or be: the sexual, the base, the greedy, the animalistic. Because the authors of the Harris’s List were men, their perceptions of the women they profiled were coloured by the preconceptions of their era. The reader receives only a one-sided view, and consequently the women of the List are never provided with an opportunity to tell their version of events. In many cases, it is likely that their stories would have differed quite significantly from those recounted by their customers for the benefit of the List’s publishers.
As might be imagined, there is much to be said in defence of Harris’s ladies. The women featured in the publication were regularly maligned for the most understandable of minor offences, from apathy in bed to the display of mercenary tendencies. Dissatisfied customers were certainly not coy about coming forward with negative reports. Miss Dean, featured in the 1773 supplement, received a complaint for demonstrating ‘great indifference’ during the sexual act. According to her cull, she had the audacity to ‘crack nuts’ behind his back ‘whilst he was acting his joys’. Similarly, women who didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves as a whore should were described as ‘lazy bedfellows’ or, like Charlotte Gainsborough, scorned for being ‘motionless in the very height of the sport, preferring rather a pinch of snuff to all the joys of venery.’ Others failed to endear themselves by displaying qualities that their patrons found unappealing; this included the use of ‘an immoderate quantity of paint’ and, ironically, any honesty surrounding their true motives for prostituting themselves. Miss O’Dell was criticised for this in 1764, and was decried as being ‘of a disposition a little too mercenary’. After all, who wanted to believe that prostitutes were just in it for the money? Miss O’Dell’s problem was that she ‘shews too plainly that the love of money is more predominant in her than the soft passion which bears the chief sway over most female breasts’. According to the beliefs of the era, prostitutes were lascivious, hot-blooded women who loved a good tumble and sold their sexual favours because they enjoyed copulation with a variety of partners. By nature, they were as lewd as any drunken libertine in Covent Garden, and any woman who betrayed evidence to the contrary was liable to be forcibly corrected. Consequently, Miss O’Dell was granted her comeuppance: ‘an arch wag once put a trick upon her … This was no other than paying her with money of which he had picked of her pocket’, a lesson which ‘provoked her highly when she came to discover it’. The men who used the Harris’s List didn’t want to be reminded that the women who looked so tempting and promised such a feast of delights were nothing more than accomplished mistresses of deception. They didn’t want to know what happened to their little ‘choice piece’ once they had buttoned their breeches and that she, like Kitty Atchison after being left alone in 1761, might have cried out, ‘what a disagreeable situation is this to a generous mind! What an unhappy circle to move in, for a thinking person! – To be the sink of mankind! – To court alike the beastly drunkard and the nauseating rake – dissimulating distaste for enjoyment!’ A prostitute’s client wasn’t especially interested in knowing the sad details of her life or being reminded that, unlike him, she had little choice about with whom she would share the intimacies of her body. For those like Lenora Norton who had suffered rape as a child and like many of Charlotte Hayes’s recruits who were ‘induct[ed] into the mysteries of Venus’ even before the age of puberty, it is likely that sex was never anything other than a distressing experience. All things considered, who could blame these women for their sexual indifference, for accusations of frigidity, or for betraying their desire simply to earn money?
For those who enjoyed the comforts of a kept mistress, complaints of infidelity and ingratitude were rife. Gentlemen were constantly the dupes of these jades, who were fickle in their affections, or so driven by their libidinous and material desires that they flitted thoughtlessly from the embrace of one protector to another. According to The Connoisseur, a kept mistress was an artful and scheming harlot who stopped at nothing to secure her own pleasure and exact precisely what she desired from her keeper. The author of an article entitled ‘On Kept Mistresses and Keepers’ recounted how his friend had been used by his lady:
… what pains she took to bring him to the most abject compliance with all her wishes and to tame him to the patient thing he is now. A frown on his part would frequently cost him a brocade, and a tear from her was sure to extort a new handkerchief or an apron. Upon any quarrel—O! She would leave him at that moment … she would work upon his jealousy by continually twitting him with – she knew a gentleman, who would scorn to use her so barbarously and she would go to him, if she could be sure that she was not with child …
Invariably, the author concluded, men who kept whores were sure to find themselves ‘deserted by their mistress, once she has effectually ruined their constitution and estate’. No one ever questioned why a lady in keeping might behave so, or why she was so keen to make the most of her situation. Men like William Hickey scoffed at the pledges of kept ladies who claimed that they ‘could never be unfaithful to any man with whom they lived’. Hickey knew these promises to be false ones and had experienced at first hand how easily such women changed their tune when better prospects appeared.
Most keepers were short-sighted enough to believe that such behaviour went hand-in-hand with a wanton character and chose, in the interests of their own pleasure, not to recognise the motivations of a prostitute. A kept mistress’s livelihood depended upon her keeper’s indulgence as well as her ability to maintain his interest. Spoilt, wealthy young men were liable to boredom and acquiring the latest celebrated beauty contained all the transient joy of acquiring a new watch or fashionable coat. Inevitably, their interest waned; the coat was handed down to a manservant and the mistress was booted from her Queen Ann Street lodgings. With no promise of anything, no future, no security, no income, never knowing when the axe might fall and when she might find herself on the street or back in the deplorable brothel from which she came, any savvy mistress had one eye constantly towards new opportunities, scanning the horizon for anyone who might promise her something more than she had currently.
And what of love in all of this business? Where did love, if at all, figure into these dealings? Harris’s ladies would not be human if they didn’t dream of it or fall prey to its enticements. In a profession where the word ‘love’ was bandied about to describe (most of the time quite falsely) the activities that comprised their existence, did any real love exist between at least some keepers and mistresses, and a handful of certain culls and their whores? Of course it did. Love manifested itself in complicated ways, just as it does today. Simply because Harris’s ladies were warned against forming romantic attachments did not mean they didn’t, although it frequently made situations a bit more uncomfortable. An ability to shut these emotions off at will was a tool necessary for one’s survival, while a harlot’s greatest gift was her ability to make a man believe that she adored him. In some cases she may have done, or if he proved to be generous, kind and affectionate, she may have grown to do so. When a genuine admirer presented himself, a certain degree of self-delusion would have also paved the way for an easier life, one that opened the door at least temporarily to happiness. Without the possibility of this, a life led in such darkness would have remained intolerable.
1 Samuel Derrick. One of the only known port
raits of Derrick, this image appeared as a frontispiece to his Letters Written from Leverpool, Chester and Cork in 1767. It also features in a 1773 engraving, Macaronies Drawn After the Life, where it hangs above a bookshelf on which a copy of the Harris’s List sits prominently.
2 Charlotte Hayes (engraving after Joshua Reynolds), painted shortly after Charlotte and Dennis established their ‘grand serail’ on Great Marlborough Street; Charlotte would have been in her thirties.
3 The Times of the Day, ‘Morning.’ Although Covent Garden was predominantly a night-time venue for pleasure-seekers, much merrymaking continued into the morning hours. As revellers in this Hogarth engraving carouse with the whores from Tom King’s Coffee House (seen pitched in front of the portico of St Paul’s Covent Garden), the Piazza begins to fill up with market traders and churchgoers (centre left) starting their day.
4 The Distrest Poet. Not unlike the subject of Hogarth’s engraving, Sam Derrick led a penurious existence as a Grub Street hack. Without a devoted patron, many found themselves beholden to the ceaseless demands of unscrupulous publishers.
5 Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn. During the eighteenth century, actors and actresses bore a shameful reputation for flouting the conventions of society. Backstage, men and women mixed freely in various states of undress (as pictured here), while the term ‘actress’ was considered synonymous with that of ‘whore’. The presence of children in this engraving alludes to the fact that actresses were noted for fostering broods of illegitimates by fellow performers and adoring patrons alike.
6 The Harlot’s Progress, Plate 1. The entrapment of an innocent country girl by a scheming London bawd was a story retold countless times in the eighteenth century. William Hogarth made use of this urban fable in his moral tale, The Harlot’s Progress. Drawing upon recognisable London personalities in many of his works, here he depicts the well-known procuress Mother Needham luring the unsuspecting heroine of his series, Moll Hackabout, into a life of prostitution.
7 Mrs Lessingham in the character of Ophelia: ‘There’s rue for you’. Jane Lessingham appeared as Ophelia in a production of Hamlet at the Covent Garden theatre in 1772. The actress had a notorious reputation for casting off her lovers.
8 Frontispiece and title page from the Harris’s List, 1761. Over the course of its thirty-eight-year print run, the publishers of the List changed the work’s frontispiece at least three times. This title page bears the supposed signature of Jack Harris as a seal of authenticity. The handwriting is almost certainly that of Sam Derrick, to whose own signature this sample bears a striking resemblance.
9 Frontispiece from the Harris’s List, 1779, featuring a man soliciting the favours of a prostitute beside the colonnades of Covent Garden. The two very long objects in the man’s possession, his sword and his oversized walking stick, are particularly suggestive. His companion is coyly accepting payment from the small purse in his hand.
10 The Harris’s List, 1761. A page from the earliest existing copy.
11 Frontispiece and title page from the Harris’s List, 1793. By the 1790s, H. Ranger has decided to adorn the frontispiece to his publication with frolicking nymphs and garlands, bestowing the work with a slightly more dignified, classical appearance.
12 The owner of the 1761 copy of the Harris’s List had this image of a noted votary of Venus bound in the work beside mention of Miss Smith’s name. Miss Smith had been a beauty in her earlier years, the period when this engraving was most likely executed. However, by the time Sam Derrick mentions her in 1761 he claimed that she had ‘defaced her native charms’ through ‘too much use’.
13 Industry and Idleness, ‘The Idle ’Prentice return’d from Sea & in a Garret with a common Prostitute.’ The life of streetwalking prostitutes differed enormously from that of those who worked in the more well-established brothels in Covent Garden, Soho and St James’s. Forced to live in slum conditions, many coupled soliciting with other criminal activities such as pickpocketing. Beside the young apprentice in this engraving by Hogarth, a prostitute examines her cache of pilfered watches and jewellery.
14 Before and 15 After. Alexander Pope’s statement that ‘every woman is at heart a rake’ was one to which many eighteenth-century men subscribed. Although a woman might protest at a sexual advance, it was believed that, in fact, ‘no’ meant ‘yes’. It was dependent upon the man to ‘force his point’, a situation which greatly blurred the line between rape and what was defined as ‘seduction’. As expressed in these engravings by Hogarth, once a woman’s sexual appetite had been whetted, irrespective of the circumstances, she was then thought to become insatiable in her desires.
16 The Laughing Audience. Theatres were the acknowledged arena for every rank of prostitute, from the humble orange seller (top left) to the genteelly apparelled courtesan.
17 Charlotte Spencer. A chapter in the Memoirs of Miss Fanny Murray recounts the story of Charlotte Spencer, who claimed to have been initiated into her profession through the schemes of Jack Harris. For some time she acted as the mistress to Lord Robert Spencer, thereafter assuming his surname and referring to herself as ‘the Honourable’.
18 Fanny Murray. During her heyday in the 1740s and 1750s, Fanny Murray was one of Charlotte Hayes’s greatest rivals. Although she and Charlotte shared numerous lovers and keepers, Fanny managed to avoid financial difficulties and retire to a life of circumspect matrimony with the celebrated actor David Ross.
19 Betsy Coxe (or Cox). Deposited into the care of Charlotte Hayes at an early age, Elizabeth Green had been a starving, orphaned, streetwalking wretch. Under Charlotte’s ‘tuition’, Betsy Coxe, ‘a perfect model of voluptuous beauty’, was born. Betsy, like several of Charlotte’s ‘nuns’, went on to become an actress and was particularly noted for her success at playing ‘breeches parts’, which required her to dress in male attire.
20 Dennis O’Kelly with Philip O’Kelly and others at Newmarket. By the time Thomas Rowlandson satirised ‘Count’ O’Kelly (far right), surrounded by his thoroughbreds and lackeys, he and Charlotte were at the summit of their prosperity. Portly and fashionably dressed, he is accompanied by his brother Philip, who acted as the master of his stables at Clay Hill and later at Canons.
21 The Rake’s Progress, ‘The Rose Tavern’. Rough, rude and dangerous, even before John Harrison assumed the proprietorship of the Rose the establishment possessed a reputation for debauchery. In this depiction of its main room, posture molls prepare for their naked performances and pockets are picked, while the tavern’s interior is defaced and abused. The party of prostitutes, with their ragged dress, penchant for drink and appalling display of table manners, are among the lowest ranks of the sisterhood.
22 A Late Unfortunate Adventure at York. In spite of being a wealthy landowner with a stable of champion race horses, society would never entirely exonerate Dennis O’Kelly from his seedy reputation. Matters came to a head in 1770, when he was accused of attempting to force himself on a ‘Miss Swinbourne’ while at York races. The incident gathered a storm of negative press and was the source of great embarrassment to both Dennis and Charlotte. This cartoon shows a vulgar Dennis attempting to silence a faint Miss Swinbourne with cash. She eventually received a payment of £500 and a public apology.
23 Miss S—t—n, the beauty of Arlington Street. A number of lurid engravings from a slightly later date were bound into the 1761 copy of the Harris’s List. Among them is this engraving of Miss S—t—n. At the time this work was executed she may have been one of Charlotte’s Arlington Street ‘bevy of beauties’, mentioned by William Hickey.
24 Canons Park, 1782. Canons (or Cannons) as it looked shortly before Dennis purchased it. One of the estate’s selling points included a particularly spacious stable block and adjoining pasture land suitable for horses.
25 The yard of the Fleet Prison, c.1749. Although an established prison for centuries, by the Georgian era ‘the Fleet’ had become known as a reformatory for debtors. In spite of the comparative freedoms enjoyed
by those held within its walls, prisoners were still subjected to unsanitary living conditions, disease and starvation, as well as the brutality of gaolers and fellow inmates.
26 Covent Garden (eastward view), 1786. Covent Garden as John Harrison might have known it in his later years. The Shakespear’s Head is located at the north-eastern corner of the colonnade. By this period, the area’s brothels had begun to fall out of favour with the more fashionable pleasure-seekers.
The Covent Garden Ladies: The Extraordinary Story of Harris's List Page 33
