The Covent Garden Ladies (46 page)

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 Hospital 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.