Madams : bawds & brothel-keepers of London / Fergus Linnane.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Linnane, Fergus.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prostitution--England--London--History.

Prostitution.

Procuresses--England--London--History.

Procuresses.

History.

England--London.

Physical Description:

x, 246 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Stroud : Sutton, 2005.

Summary:

During the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were almost no career openings for women. Yet a group of intrepid and gifted females scaled the heights of what was literally a man's world - they became bawds. Taking what had been a furtive activity on the borders of legality, they turned brothel-keeping into a major industry, colonising some of the exclusive areas of London and making a major contribution to the city's prosperity. Fergus Linnane's new book reveals the other side of London's years of pomp and splendour, painting a vivid picture of the bawds, their girls and their clients.

Elizabeth Holland was the first of the great bawds. She set up a luxury brothel known as Holland's Leaguer on Bankside in 1603 and provided the best food and wine and the prettiest and most accomplished women for her illustrious clients. When troops tried to shut her brothel down she and her girls drove them off. Elizabeth Holland's motto was 'This Chastitie is clean out of date', and it is clear that many agreed with her. Mrs Berkely was a famous flagellant while Mother Clap ran male brothels, or Mollies' Houses. The Georgian bawd Charlotte Hayes held a 'Cyprian Fete' at which gentlemen 'of the highest breeding' first watched athletic young men copulating with nubile whores and then joined in themselves.

From the first legal brothels in 1161 - owned by the Bishop of Winchester - to the twentieth-century 'Luncheon Voucher Madam' Cynthia Payne, Madams is an entertaining romp through several centuries of social history. Drawing on a rich variety of sources - court records, pamphlets, newspapers, diaries and letters - it is fresh and original, offering humour, insight and a very candid view of the sexual behaviour of Londoners through the ages.

Contents:

Part 1 The Early Years

1 My Bouncing Lasses 3

2 Mother Holland, a Deceiving Bawd 6

3 The Rise of Covent Garden 28

Part 2 The Golden Age

4 A Choice Stock of Virgins 51

5 Bucks, Bloods, Demi-reps and Choice Spirits 89

6 Jack Harris, Pimpmaster General 104

7 Almighty Curtezan 113

8 Men of Pleasure 164

Part 3 Decline and Fall

9 Into the Abyss 177

10 Haunts of Pleasure 189

11 Mary Jeffries, 'the Wickedest Woman of the Century' 198

12 War and Gangsters 204

Appendix I Mollies' Houses 221

Appendix II The English Vice 228

Appendix III Prostitutes' Prices 233.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 238-241) and index.

ISBN:

0750933062

OCLC:

61217094