Such was the problem that in 1713, the Corporation agreed on building a constables' prison in the Market Place to secure night walkers and other disorderly persons.
The famous courtesan Fanny Murray was born in Bath around 1729. Orphaned at age 12, she worked as a flower girl until she was seduced by John Spencer, a grandson of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. According to her memoir, she had become a mistress to Beau Nash by 1743, at the age of just fourteen, and soon moved to London, where she became an indentured prostitute. [1]
The famous courtesan Fanny Murray was born in Bath around 1729. Orphaned at age 12, she worked as a flower girl until she was seduced by John Spencer, a grandson of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. According to her memoir, she had become a mistress to Beau Nash by 1743, at the age of just fourteen, and soon moved to London, where she became an indentured prostitute. [1]
In August 1779, the clergyman James Woodford noted in his diary how he met two "common prostitutes" one aged about 15, the other17, as he walked in the fields around Bath.
Many young girls came from the country to Bath and other cities in search of employment. Once they discovered that jobs were not always easy to come by and only those living in the city for five years were eligible for Poor Law relief, they were easy prey to brothel keepers.
This was such a common fate that even Jane Austen alluded to it in correspondence with her family in a letter dated 18th September 1796, written to her sister Cassandra. Jane Austen makes this remark, referring to her plans to visit the Pearsons, the family of Henry Austen’s then-fiancée, unaccompanied:
“I had once determined to go with Frank tomorrow and take my chance, etc., but they dissuaded me from so rash a step-as I really think on consideration it would have been: for if the Pearson’s were not at home I should inevitably fall sacrifice to the arts of some fat Woman who would make me drunk with small beer…” [2]
She is referring to the first picture of Hogarth’s series “The Harlots Progress”, which portrayed the arrival in London of an innocent country girl who is befriended by, in Jane Austen’s own words, “a fat Woman.” This was none other than one of the most notorious procuresses of the Georgian era, Elizabeth “Mother” Needham.
Sex workers plied their trade in all the places of public amusement – the theatre, outside the Assembly Rooms and pleasure gardens, and in the vicinity of local inns. Once a customer had been found, he could be taken to any number of local houses.
In her novel Persuasion, Jane Austen chose the White Hart Inn as the setting for Captain Wentworth’s proposal to Anne Elliot. The White Hart was a well-known Bath inn, and the stables at the rear were particularly popular with local sex workers. Mary Musgrove enjoys looking out the window at the White Hart spies, Mrs. Clay and William Elliot. Mrs. Clay is about to elope, and he is trying to ‘buy’ her services so that she won’t marry Sir Walter Elliot.
Garrick writing from Bath in the 1790s says in passing “I have gain’d two inches in the waist, & the Girls at Night call me Fatty!”
John Skinner, rector of Camerton near Bath at the start of the nineteenth century, recorded in his journal, ‘I was not a little astonished, as I walked through Bath, to observe the streets so crowded with prostitutes, some of them apparently not above 14 or 15 years of age’.
In 1802, the Society for the Suppression of Vice was formed. One of its objects was ‘the Protection of Female Innocence, by the Punishment of Procurers and Seducers’.
In 1805, the Female Penitentiary and Lock Hospital was established in Walcot Street, some of the building still exists, to rescue 'fallen' women and treat venereal disease.
This was such a common fate that even Jane Austen alluded to it in correspondence with her family in a letter dated 18th September 1796, written to her sister Cassandra. Jane Austen makes this remark, referring to her plans to visit the Pearsons, the family of Henry Austen’s then-fiancée, unaccompanied:
“I had once determined to go with Frank tomorrow and take my chance, etc., but they dissuaded me from so rash a step-as I really think on consideration it would have been: for if the Pearson’s were not at home I should inevitably fall sacrifice to the arts of some fat Woman who would make me drunk with small beer…” [2]
She is referring to the first picture of Hogarth’s series “The Harlots Progress”, which portrayed the arrival in London of an innocent country girl who is befriended by, in Jane Austen’s own words, “a fat Woman.” This was none other than one of the most notorious procuresses of the Georgian era, Elizabeth “Mother” Needham.Sex workers plied their trade in all the places of public amusement – the theatre, outside the Assembly Rooms and pleasure gardens, and in the vicinity of local inns. Once a customer had been found, he could be taken to any number of local houses.
In her novel Persuasion, Jane Austen chose the White Hart Inn as the setting for Captain Wentworth’s proposal to Anne Elliot. The White Hart was a well-known Bath inn, and the stables at the rear were particularly popular with local sex workers. Mary Musgrove enjoys looking out the window at the White Hart spies, Mrs. Clay and William Elliot. Mrs. Clay is about to elope, and he is trying to ‘buy’ her services so that she won’t marry Sir Walter Elliot.
Garrick writing from Bath in the 1790s says in passing “I have gain’d two inches in the waist, & the Girls at Night call me Fatty!”
John Skinner, rector of Camerton near Bath at the start of the nineteenth century, recorded in his journal, ‘I was not a little astonished, as I walked through Bath, to observe the streets so crowded with prostitutes, some of them apparently not above 14 or 15 years of age’.
In 1802, the Society for the Suppression of Vice was formed. One of its objects was ‘the Protection of Female Innocence, by the Punishment of Procurers and Seducers’.
In 1805, the Female Penitentiary and Lock Hospital was established in Walcot Street, some of the building still exists, to rescue 'fallen' women and treat venereal disease.
One local paper estimated that in the 1820s, there were 300 sex workers in Avon Street alone.
1. Queen of the Courtesans: Fanny Murray 2nd June 2014 by
1. Queen of the Courtesans: Fanny Murray 2nd June 2014 by
Osborn, Melanie Erin. "The Bitter Relicks of My Flame: The Embodiment of Venereal Disease and Prostitution in the Novels of Jane Austen." 2012, https://core.ac.uk/download/235716853.pdf.
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