Why Harris's List Was Endemic to 18th Century London

Note: this essay was submitted to King's College London for what would be my successful first attempt to be admitted to their new 18th c. studies course.

Why Harris’s List Was Endemic to 18th Century London  

by Laurie Wiegler  

18th Century Studies MA application, King’s College  

Key: Bawd: A woman who procures prostitutes./ Bawdy house: A brothel/ Bagnio: A bath-house, usually a location where sexual favours could be received./ Bubbies: Breasts/ Bully: A man who acts as a prostitute‘s protector./ Clap: A “venereal taint,” usually gonorrhoea/ Favourite: A prostitute’s best client, someone for whom she may feel genuine affection./ ‘In keeping’: The state of being financially supported by one man as his mistress./ Mercury: The primary ingredient in treatments for venereal disorders./ Pimp: A man who seeks “to bring in customers and to procure… Wenches.” – Rubenhold, The Harlot’s Handbook, Harris’s List (7-9) *****/

Prostitution has always had its ups and downs — even in Jane Austen‘s era. In 18th Century London, the “oldest profession in the world” flourished to become what Biographer James Boswell called “an urban phenomenon.” Merchant ships sailing into the city along the Thames into the capital brought not only wares, but randy sailors and sea captains. When a banking boom infused the city with cash, now converted from gold, bankers and sailors alike took advantage.

On the brink of the Industrial Revolution, London was in flux. Three centuries earlier, Gutenberg had invented the mechanical printing press and published a Bible. Now, the great-great grandchild of that technology was being used to proliferate glossy images of harlots - often in the guise of satire - which flashed from shop windows. These neon invitations seduced men eager to escape London’s physical, emotional and moral stresses.

Arguably, and perhaps ironically, by the upcoming Victorian Era the city would become far more prim on the surface - as it roiled from the ribald past of the previous century. Yet even that was a ruse. In 1859, 2,828 brothels were known by the police, though the paper Lancet thought London housed far more than that, and stated that as many as 80,000 prostitutes worked in the city (Porter 299).

In another era, it was none other than Henry VIII who, responding to a wave of syphilis — he himself was a sufferer — decided to clamp down on the city’s brothels. They remained closed until Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne. Prior to this, the 1500s had been an era of acceptance in London. Some even considered that the bordellos, once closed by Mary Tudor as well, went together with the theatre profession. (Nevertheless, prostitutes were sometimes committed for their crimes, and sent to Bridewell prison (Porter 55)). London, perhaps like all cities, has always had a decadent underside.

Such hedonism would color the choices of Sam Derrick, a down-on-his-luck journalist/poet struggling to escape yet another trip to debtor’s prison in the 1740s.  

Pub Luck --

Covent Garden in the early 18th century bustled with writers, financiers and all sorts - except respectable ladies, of course - downing gin and other spirits at the pubs. With the exception of well-water and the fortune of the well-heeled, the as-yet unfiltered Thames supply was undrinkable. Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones, wrote at the time that gin was “the principle sustenance” and there were an estimated 8,000 gin sellers in London alone.

What’s more, living conditions included public hangings, dog carcasses rotting in the streets and buildings crumbling after the rush of reconstruction that followed the Great Fire of 1666. Just yards away from these pubs in Covent Garden sprung a bevy of Fleet Street brothels boasting 31 flavors of harlots — young, old, skinny, fat, clean, crazy, notorious.

One savvy and sordid-minded waiter, John Harrison — a.k.a. “Jack Harris” — took a notion to keep tabs on the area’s ladies-of-the-evening. Their various attributes and talents were documented on a list that circulated amongst the patrons of Shakespear’s Pub.

Author and historian Hallie Rubenhold wrote in The Harlot’s Handbook, Harris’s List: “Upon his arrival in London in the late 1740s, Sam Derrick’s first port of call had been Covent Garden, the capital’s hedonistic heart. Here, the area’s most renowned watering holes pulsated with a carnival-like atmosphere. Anyone with literary, artistic or criminal inclinations was drawn to its vibrant glow. On most evenings at its two premier establishments, the Shakespear’s Head Tavern and the Bedford Coffee House, a visitor might brush their coat against Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Joshua Reynolds, Samuel Foote, William Hogarth , Tobias Smollett or Henry Fielding…(14).”

Imagine Sam Derrick, creditors at his heels, fighting hunger and feeling like a failure. He certainly wondered if his literary ambitions would ever materialize when suddenly, he met a man who was unaware of the true market value of his product! So Derrick cut Jack Harrison a deal. (How much Derrick paid for the use of Harrison’s name is unknown, but one can assume it was enough to thrill the seller at the time - although not nearly enough to appease him later when he rued what might have been. It is also unclear why the book was not called Harrison‘s List.)

Who knows whether the moniker made a bit of difference. Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies was a smash in London, selling over a quarter of a million copies, at two shillings and sixpence — or roughly the cost of a week’s lodging — in nearly four decades during the 18th Century (Wikipedia). What made the book such a success says as much about the period and place as it does about the “list” itself.  

Poetry in Prostitution --

Perhaps snippets from the book, which started coming out every Christmas, tells us in part, why Harris’s List was a hit. Hitherto professionally unacclaimed, Derrick seemed to hit his literary stride when marketing the ladies. For example, under “Spirited Sparks,8 0 Miss Hussey, at Mrs. Giffard’s, Market Court, Covent Garden, Derrick wrote:

“Behold a ripe and melting maid Bound ‘prentice to the wanton trade This lady’s features are very agreeable and tolerably regular, Which, with a plump and pleasing figure And lovely breasts, make Her, though a woman, The father of lust …

The end of the same passage tells much about what the morality - at odds with the author’s basest instincts - was of the day:

…Gods! What Havock doth the - Bottle make ‘mongst Womankind! Under the heading “Ladies of Experience,” Derrick wrote of a Mrs. Griffin, near Union Stairs, Wapping: This comely woman, about forty, And boasts she can give more pleasure Than a dozen raw girls. Indeed she has acquired great experience, in the course of twenty years Study in natural philosophy at the University Of Portsmouth, where she was long The ornament of the back of the point. She is Perfectly mistress of all her actions and can proceed regularly From the dart of her tongue, and the soft Tickle of her hand, to the ecstatic squeeze of her thighs… With regard to a “Mifs Sh-rd, No. 46, on Goodge-street, Derrick said that she was “a woman if she’s young and fair, Of lovers never need despair.” He called Sh-rd “A very desirable companion, though in the knowing stile she is up to a thing or two, and is not to be had by a queer cull. She is of a middle size, inclined to be fat, and may be said, if we draw a kind view of things, or argued o posteriori, to incline to the luscious.” While the point could be argued, in a city with such a highly literary populous, the mood would seem to be ripe for even the most sordid of ditties if such works whet an appetite for reading material.

Author Hallie Rubenhold, a Yank transplant to England — born to British parents in California — carefully researched and published books regarding the list, and was later featured in print and television media including the BBC. She wrote that:

“Years of avid womanizing provided Derrick with a rich source of personal knowledge from which to draw his own compendium of names, as did the candid contributions from associates and the area’s locals. The result was a witty chronicle of the Piazza’s women, which included tales of their exploits, assessments of their personalities and retellings of inside jokes, al l intended to raise a laugh from Covent Garden’s circle of rakes. Derrick’s version of The Harris’s List was designed as much for the entertainment of the mind as it was for the loins.” (The Harlot’s Handbook, Harris’s List, 18)

In 2008, the UK has a 99 percent literacy rate. In 1773, literacy was far less — at best 75 percent among the upper-class, but the groundswell of interest in prints, including satire/cartoons, reflects Londoners’ keen appetite for reading material. After all, only two centuries earlier on the Southbank of the Thames, the Bard presented his plays, stories which were and remain as bawdy as they are intellectually challenging.

Printing Press helps to Proliferate The List --

Fueling Londoners’ appetite for print, Fleet Street led the way as the center of the burgeoning British press. Londoners flocked to nearby pubs and coffee houses, which became popular places to debate ideas uncovered in books during the 18th century.

The first London coffee house opened in 1652, but by Queen Anne’s death in 1714 there were about 500, including those near the Royal Exchange and Paternoster Row. In the aforementioned Covent Garden, “wits” were found at Wil’s Coffee House, on the corner of Bow Street and Russell Street (Porter 170).

Arguably, the quarter of a million readers over the course of Harris’s publishing20lifetime were therefore endemic of the time. Further, with literature in its infancy, the book lacked sufficient rivals for comparison. After all, the extant Hatchards, the earliest known bookstore in London, located at Piccadilly Circus, didn’t even open until 1797.

Thus, Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies (1757 - 1795), a directory of streetwalkers in Georgian London, was a sort of iPod or Blackberry of the day; or perhaps the 18th century’s Internet pornography. And like pornography, the list was no doubt simply savoured by many, with fewer still actually buying the ladies’ services.  

Prostitution as Art

Not only was the “profession” featured prominently in prints, but the very representation of prostitution was a central theme in depictions of 18th century London, either as a background or as the sole subject matter.

In the book Purchasing Power: Representing Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century English Popular Print Culture, author Sophie Carter points out that these images were actually inspired by high anxiety within the culture rather than as an extension of a loose-minded society. Whatever the cause, the result was a flurry of images proliferating through the streets of London.

Further, Carter points out that the figure of a prostitute is actually a way for the prevailing attitudes of the day to be traced - from=2 0gender, sexuality and public order in the metropolitan culture.

Unlike the images of scantily clad women in the 21st century -- in Maxim or Playboy, for example — these pictures served a purpose, the author argues, that went far beyond titillation.  

Literacy and the ‘List’ --

Post-French Revolution, the Anglican church and other religious movements inspired interest in the era’s burgeoning literacy. According to Richard Altick, historian of the growing literacy phenomenon in the UK, the prevailing belief was that:

“If … the millions could be herded into classrooms, if only for a brief time, they could be permanently immunized against Jacobinism, radicalism, subversion, blasphemy, atheism, and every other ill to which they were exposed by the east wind of social change. Their native reason, however crude and untutored, could be depended upon to accept the truths of religion and society as laid down before them by the superior classes…(Demarest par. 11)."

A growing interest in philosophy during the Enlightenment also inspired a proclivity towards literacy. Imanuel Kant, Jean-Jacque Rousseau and David Hume and other philosophers around the world needed to transmit their ideas in written form in order to be fully appreciated. A developing printing press allowed for this, and their brilliant works circulated and gained an audience.

Similarly, this was the age when English proverbs pervaded popular thought: “Cleanliness is next to godliness” (late 18th), “He who hesitates is lost” (early 18th), “Hope springs eternal,” (early 18th), “Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is better”(early 18th), “If the shoe fits, wear it“ (late 18th) and the ever-popular, “It never rains but it pours.” (early 18th). (Famous-Proverbs.com)

It was as if, after centuries of forethought, England and other intelligent, developing nations, took advantage of an opportunity — and then exploited it. Towards that end, Harris’s List could be viewed as much for its ability to satiate a literary as well as a sexual appetite. A Woman’s Plight

Yet, print’s and literacy’s popularity notwithstanding, 18th century London was not a place for women to grow and prosper. Readers of Jane Austen novels may buy into the myth that life was romantic and rosy, but history shows a bleaker side. The same men riding off through the English countryside on horseback, well-turned out and polite in good company, were enjoying the pleasures denied them by “proper” society.

Contrarily, a woman had almost no freedom and remained vulnerable, her rights tied up with that of her husband‘s. And if she chose not to marry - or was otherwise passed over in this regard - she was limited to pursue the life of a laundress, seamstress or other similarly low-paying profession. Prostitutes, especially the young ones, could make far more for their services than could women who stitched a man‘s trousers (most times). Further, poverty forced some women into the streets; a fact that has not changed in modern times. It is unclear how many of these prostitutes may have been on Harris’s List. It is also unclear as to whether Derrick, in proliferating the use of the list for many years, felt conflicted by its purpose. Rubenhold writes that: “The List, he [Sam Derrick] felt was not so much a tool of exploitation as an implement that provided otherwise impoverished women with an income, as well as opportunities, to meet potentially generous lovers The Harlot‘s Handbook, Harris‘s List, 10).”

However, according to Daniel Defoe, the reasons for prostitutes’ — not necessarily those ladies from Harris’s List — existence were far less glamorous. In 1725 he wrote that the huge numbers of prostitutes sprung from a servant’s life, spilling into the streets in a desperate attempt to support themselves. “This is the reason why our streets are swarming with strumpets. Thus many of them rove from place to place, from bawdy-house to service, and from service to bawdy-house again,”7 he wrote. Even so, women in the “profession” were oftentimes more independent than women who worked in more “proper” jobs or stayed home with husband and kids. They had money, clothing, and could afford their own rooms. They were also permitted in the taverns alone, an advantage not even enjoyed in 21st Century Western Ireland (Wiegler).

But Why London? --

During the 1700s, London was growing at a steady clip. By 1820, the city expanded to approximately 1,274,000 from 674,000, bulging to 12 square miles. Bloomsbury Square had been laid out in 1680, to be followed within twenty years by Grosvenor Street, Red Lion Square and Golden Square. In the post-Great Fire era, ubiquitous building occurred in the city, with new roads opening up into the surrounding countryside (Henderson).

If one puts himself into the minds of Londoners at the time, he imagines the insecurity of life in a city that had crumbled fairly recently, enduring the stench of rotting carcasses on the streets and lack of sufficient drinking water and proper plumbing. While hardly a devil-may-care environment, it would nonetheless appear to be a time of poor oversight of metropolitan life. After all, if contrasting the severity of arresting a thief or arsonist, how would interfering in the life of john and prostitute compare?

Further, on a philosophical level, a culture which runs from its “dark side” is destined to act out. Modern philosopher Deepak Chopra pointed out that without expression of the dark side, the light is not allowed to flourish. God, if one believes in him/her, created both light and dark because both are needed. And eighteenth century philosophers such as David Hume frequently discussed the necessity and existence of good and evil.

In modern London, Friday night bankers are taking to the pubs to get drunk and” laid,” no doubt descendents of the ribald customs of two and a half centuries earlier. One could argue that the more repressed a culture is - as exhibited by the universal image of the polite and proper Englishman - the more he is bound to act out. In the era of Jane Austen and Mr. Darcy, balls and corsets, Harris’s List was therefore a welcome respite from the confines of the day.

Gentility in Prostitution -- According to Rubenhold, when Derrick’s list was re-published by brothers John and James Road and John At kin, its oeuvre changed. “The ensuing publishers of The Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies also attempted to move with the whims of their era,” writes Rubenold.

“As the 18th century progressed, notions of gentility were beginning to pervade almost every walk of life, even the most unexpected. Sex with a prostitute moved from the realm of base, grunting euphemisms to a thing of beauty. No longer described as ‘squat, swarthy, round-faced’ wenches, now these ‘daughters of Venus’ were praised for their ‘fonts of pleasure and ‘moss-covered grots of love, ’” Rubenhold writes (Rubenhold, The Harlot’s Handbook, Harris‘s List, 22).

From this model, the book was doomed. Imagine Hugh Hefner’s Playboy starting to publish images of women in t-shirts and shorts! But more than that, the book lacked the poetic punch of its predecessor. It now seemed that Sam Derrick, who had become ‘the little King of Bath’ and published the book in secret, had actually created a successful book, one which stopped just short of being a literary masterpiece - perhaps.

Prostitution, Post-Mortem --

Sadly, though, all the poetry in the world could not save a prostitute from the “clap.” They were tended to with mercury, and many died in the streets.

Indeed, times were hardly fodder for cinematic romances. Author A.N. Wilson writes in London: A History:

“…The phantasmagoric nature of money and capital had been demonstrated to and by London, with life-shattering consequences. W William Hogarth, the greatest English painter of the age, would in the 1730’s depict the moral squalor of his times in the unforgettable series of “Progress” paintings, popularized in large-edition engravings— A Harlot’s Progress, A Rake’s Progress, and Marriage Á La Mode (1743-45) - all depicting a society whose values were utterly materialistic and selfish, and where the only consolations for the misery of a poverty-stricken life were to be sought in the taverns of Gin Lane or the arms of clap-ridden whores…”

In 1785 the Times reported that each year, an estimated 5,000 prostitutes died on the streets of London.

Would Harris’s List Succeed Now? --

For Harris’s List to succeed in 2008, it would need to be an MTV special featuring Snoop Dog. So no, this quaint though controversial gem would not be a success in modern times. Society today is simply a more complex world, and one which values flash over substance more than the careful turn of the phrase. If the book was circulated in the pubs of London now, someone would no doubt photograph it on his mobile phone and send it off to the Metropolitan Police.

Further, prostitution in the age of terrorism — is no longer something to write poetically about. In an age when the Western World is cleaning up the streets, along with that go the scantily-clad, desperate young ladies who might, in another century, have inspired Derrick’s pen.

Therefore, it is quaint indeed to reflect upon the ditties of yore. As Rubenhold wrote: “Even to modern eyes, wearied by constant media titillation, The Harris’s List makes for intriguing reading. In the twenty-first century it is often fashionable to bemoan the world we have lost, one devoid of Big Brother and the publicized sex stunts of celebrities. But the pages of the Harris’s List demonstrate that we cannot search for our innocence in the era of Jane Austen, either. The spirit of eighteenth-century Covent Garden has always been with us The Harlot‘s Handbook, Harris‘s List, 24).” ***  

Old Profession, New Pros --

In the 1980s, the “Scarlet Harlot,” a.k.a. Carol Leigh, a writer-cum-harlot activist, was convinced that prostitution should be widely legalized. Presently, the United States prosecutes prostitutes as criminals whereas many other countries, such as Germany, maintain a social stigma against it but consider it a legal business. Prostitutes in Germany must pay taxes.

Thinking it unfair for the U.S. to prosecute, then 34-year-old Scarlet, who worked out of her Tucson, Arizona base, came frequently to San Francisco to join feminist prostitute Margo St. James on cable network shows and wherever else she could be heard. Leigh told a young reporter at the time that she felt empowered as a prostitute, a choice that had led her to pen many-a-poem regarding her proclivities. She said she was the first literary prostitute.

Yet, when one pours over Harris’s List, it’s apparent that Leigh is just the descendent of others who’ve gone before. While Derrick was the messenger (pimp) and not the message (whore), his literary bent was strikingly similar to hers.

To wit, Scarlet wrote a book entitled, Autobiography of a Whore: The Demystification of the Sex-Work Industry as well as dozens, if not hundreds, of poems by the early 1980s. These days, a glimpse to her social networking page shows how she’s continued to pursue both sex work and literary endeavors. Her poems were bold, even by 1980s American standards: Cheap is when you f**k them just to shut them up. Cheap is when you do it because they are worth so much. Cheap is when you s**k them till your jaws hurt So they won’t say you’re uptight. Cheap is when you do it to keep them home at night…D -- (From “Cheap,” by Carol Leigh)

It’s hard to imagine the profession has changed much since the 18th Century. If anything, 20th and 21st Century “professionals” have been helped by the condom. Since the AIDS phenomenon arose in the 1980s, smart hookers and johns practice safe sex.

When the reporter interviewed Leigh, the hooker was asked if she was afraid - just generally afraid. “I’m not scared of what I see. I like to see what life is really like.” T

hen she added: “I don’t want to portray prostitution as an easy profession. It’s not easy taking care of people’s sexual requests. There are so many women who make a living in the sex business and who don’t admit it. Topless dancers are sex workers, for example. And we’ve all heard the story about the wife who has sex with her husband to get a new refrigerator.” ***  

--ENDS--

Works Cited: Carter, Sophie. Purchasing Power: Representing Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century English Popular Print Culture. CITY: Surrey, UK: Ashgate publishers, 2004. Demarest, Marc. Controlling Dissemination Mechanisms: The Unstamped Press and the 'Net. August 1995. . Famousproverbs.com. Henderson, Tony. Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London: Prostitution and Control in the Metropolis. 1730-1830 (Women and Men in History). Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1999 Miles, David. The Tribes of Britain. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005. Porter, Roy. London: A Social History. London: Harvard University Press, 1994. Rubenhold, Hallie. The Harlot’s Handbook - Harris’s List. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Tempus, 2007. Rubenhold, Hallie. The Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack and the Extraordinary Story of Harris’s List. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2005. Wiegler, Laurie. Personal diary. Wilson, A.N. London: A History. New York: Modern Library, 2004. Stroud Gloucestershire

Photo: Wikimedia Commons Images: A General View of the City of London and the River Thames, plate 2 from 'Views of London'; Thomas Bowles, 1751. If you'd like to help me get to grad school at King's College, please visit: www.gofundme.com/lauriewieglerkings.