27 St James’s Square, c.1770. As the areas of St James’s, Piccadilly and Mayfair became increasingly fashionable among ‘the quality’, they also grew in popularity with the less salubrious element of society. Contrary to popular belief, prostitutes were not ghettoised into red light districts at this period. The homes of ladies ‘in keeping’, as well as upscale brothels like those owned by Charlotte Hayes, frequently nestled among the townhouses of respectable members of high society.
APPENDIX
A LIST OF COVENT GARDEN Lovers
SINCE THE PUBLICATION of the first Harris’s List nearly 250 years ago, the literate public has been free to learn the names of London’s fallen women. The names of their customers and keepers, however, receive an easy passage out of history’s spotlight. The compilation of another equally fascinating list, one which identifies the devoted patrons of the sex trade, has been made possible through a detailed examination of the Harris’s Lists and other related materials. The names cited below represent only a fraction of these ‘Covent Garden lovers’ active during the second half of the eighteenth century.
Lord Chief Justice Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth
Admiral George Anson, 1st Baron Anson
Sir William Apreece
Sir Richard Atkins
Sir John Aubrey, MP
Richard Barry, 7th Earl of Barrymore
Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl of Bathurst
Sir Charles Bingham, 1st Earl of Lucan
Captain George Maurice Bissett
Admiral Edward Boscawen
Hugh Boscawen, 2nd Viscount Falmouth
James Boswell
Sir Orlando Bridgeman
Thomas Bromley, 2nd Baron Montfort
Captain John Byron
John Calcraft, MP
Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll
John Campbell, 5th Duke of Argyll
John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun
George Capell, 5th Earl of Essex
David Carnegie, Lord Rosehill
Charles Churchill
John Cleland
Henry Fiennes Clinton, 9th Earl of Lincoln
Robert ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo’ Coates
Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess of Cornwallis
Colonel John Coxe
William Craven, 6th Baron Craven
His Royal Highness, Prince Ernest, Duke of Cumberland
His Royal Highness, Prince Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland
His Royal Highness, Prince William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland
The Honourable John Damer
Sir Francis Dashwood, Lord Despenser
Sir John Dashwood-King
Francis Drake Delaval
Reverend William Dodd
George Bubb Doddington, Lord Melcombe
William Douglas, 4th Duke of Queensbury
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville
George Montague Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax
Sir Henry Echlin
Richard Edgecumbe, Lord Mount Edgecumbe
Lord Charles Fielding (son of the Earl of Denbigh)
The Honourable John Finch
John Fitzpatrick, 1st Earl of Upper Ossory
Samuel Foote
Charles James Fox
Stephen Fox, 2nd Baron Holland
George Fox-Lane, 3rd Baron Bingley
John Frederick, 3rd Duke of Dorset
His Majesty King George IV
Sir John Graeme, Earl of Alford
James Graham, 3rd Duke of Montrose
Charles Hamilton, Lord Binning
Charles Hanbury-Williams
Colonel George Hanger
Count Franz Xavier Haszlang, Bavarian Envoy to London
Judge Henry Gould
Robery Henley, 1st Earl of Northington
Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton
Henry Herbert, 10th Earl of Pembroke
Joseph Hickey
William Hickey
William Holies, 2nd Viscount Vane
Rear-Admiral Charles Holmes
Admiral Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood
Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham
Admiral Lord Richard Howe, 4th Viscount Howe
Thomas Jefferson (manager of Drury Lane theatre)
John Philip Kemble
Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel
William John Kerr, 5th Marquess of Lothian
Sir John Lade
Penistone Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne
William Langhorne (poet laureate)
Lord Edward Ligonier
Field Marshall John Ligonier, 1st Earl of Ligonier
Simon Lutrell, 1st Baron Carhampton
Thomas Lyttelton, 2nd Baron Lyttelton
Kenneth Francis Mackenzie, 4th Earl of Seaforth
Charles Macklin
The Honourable Captain John Manners
John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland
Charles Maynard, 1st Viscount Maynard
Captain Anthony George Martin
James McDuff, 2nd Earl of Fife
Captain Thomas Medlycott
Isaac Mendez
Major Thomas Metcalfe
Sir George Montgomerie Metham
John Montague, 4th Earl of Sandwich
Alexander Montgomerie, 10th Earl of Eglinton
Arthur Murphy
Richard ‘Beau’ Nash
Francis John Needham, MP
Henry Nevill, 2nd Earl of Abergavenny
John Palmer (actor)
Thomas Panton
William Petty, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne
Evelyn Meadows Pierrepont, 2nd Duke of Kingston
Thomas Potter
John Poulett, 4th Earl of Poulett
William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath
William Powell (manager of Drury Lane)
Charles ‘Chace’ Price
Richard ‘Bloomsbury Dick’ Rigby
Admiral George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney
David Ross (actor)
Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford
Frederick John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset
Sir George Saville
George Selwyn
Ned Shuter
John George Spencer, 1st Earl of Spencer
The Honourable John ‘Jack’ Spencer
Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Sir William Stanhope, MP
Edward Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby
Sir Thomas Stapleton
George Alexander Stephens
John Stewart, 3rd Earl of Bute
Frederick St John, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke
Colonel Sir Banastre Tarleton
Commodore Edward Thompson
Lord Chief Justice Sir Edward Thurlow
Robert ‘Beau’Tracy
John Tucker, MP
Arthur Vansittart, MP
Sir Henry Vansittart, MP
Robert Vansittart
Sir Edward Walpole
Sir Robert Walpole
John Wilkes
His Majesty King William IV
Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont
Henry Woodward (actor)
His Royal Highness, Edward Duke of York
His Royal Highness, Frederick Duke of York
Lieutenant Colonel John Yorke
Joseph Yorke, 1st Baron Dove
NOTES
CHAPTER 5: THE RISE OF PIMP GENERAL JACK
1. Brown-haired girl.
2. In other words, a prostitute one might find sitting in the side boxes of either of the two theatres.
3. It will be easy to trick punters into thinking that she’s a virgin.
4. Just moved into the West End six months ago.
5. Here Harris has supposedly written a note to remind himself that Jewish merchants are willing to pay over the odds for prostitutes like Fanny.
6. The Lock Hos
pital was devoted to the cure of venereal disease.
CHAPTER 9: AN INTRODUCTION TO HARRIS’S LADIES
1. Members of high society such as Lady Seymour Dorothy Worsley and Lady Sarah Bunbury, who indulged in scandalous affairs, would be considered whores by society.
2. In the mid-eighteenth century these were generally high-born or seemingly respectable women who conducted extra-marital sexual relations with whomever they desired.
3. Generally an unmarried woman who allowed her admirers sexual favours.
4. Those who might at this period be defined as courtesans, or any woman supported by a man in lodgings in exchange for rights to sole sexual access.
5. Generally polite, attractive and accomplished prostitutes who worked in high-class brothels such as Charlotte Hayes’s, or who saw men in their own lodgings without being under the care of a specific keeper.
6. Those women who belonged to lower-ranking brothels and who plied their trade openly in taverns, coffee houses and at the theatre.
7. Similar to their streetwalking sisters, but generally plying their trade with a semblance of modesty in the parks.
8. Those openly (and aggressively) plying their trade on the streets. These women offered a cheap but medically risky sexual experience that might be had in a dark alley or in their filthy lodgings.
9. The lowest, rudest and lewdest of the streetwalking class – frequently diseased and often described as ‘half-starved wretches’.
10. Generally homeless beggars who make their beds on the bulks below shop windows. The lowest of the low, riddled with disease and the ravages of drink, these women occupy the space closest to death.
CHAPTER 10: THE List
1. Sir Orlando Bridgeman.
2. Gertrude Mahon, a fashionable courtesan.
3. A term for a public dance or assembly.
4. Mary Young (alias Jenny Diver) was one of the most notorious pickpockets of her generation. She was hanged in 1740.
5. With furious passion.
6. Quite possibly a licentious gentlemen’s society known as ‘The Choice of Paris’.
7. A type of carriage.
8. A slang term for tea.
9. Soled or sold – a play on words.
10. Noble was a publisher who ran a lending library.
11. A term used to describe locations of ‘infamy and debauchery’.
12. Ranelagh pleasure garden, a popular evening venue for entertainment.
13. John Cleland, Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.
14. To be salivated, or ‘in a sal’, refers to the effects of undergoing a mercury treatment for venereal disease. Taking small doses of mercury led to, among other things, the patient producing vast quantities of saliva.
15. A slang term for guineas.
16. Going out on the street.
17. ‘Uncle’ was slang for pawnbroker.
18. A fashionable lady’s hairdresser.
19. Cull or cully: a man, or in the case of prostitutes, the term used for clients.
20. ‘Son of Esculapius’: a physician.
21. Sea-holly.
22. A drug mixed with honey or syrup.
23. The Magdalen Hospital for repentant prostitutes was founded in 1758 and offered a place of refuge and reform for women who wished to renounce their former trade.
24. To cheat someone of their pay.
CHAPTER 15: ‘THE LITTLE KING OF BATH’
1. Quin’s nickname.
2. David Garrick rose to fame as ‘Bayes’ in the Duke of Buckingham’s play The Rehearsal.
3. In this poem Derrick refers to how truly passé Quin’s style of acting had become. He recounts how the cowardly Quin, outdone by David Garrick and his natural style of dramatics, retired to Bath. Quin’s performance of Falstaff was legendarily bad but Derrick claims it was actually the most convincingly played role of his career, due to his belief that Quin was typecast.
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LONDON METROPOLITAN ARCHIVES:
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