The Sexual History of London (23 page)

London's most splendid shopping mall, the Burlington Arcade, was a favourite beat. This elegant arcade, running between Piccadilly and Bond Street, is still celebrated for its array of exotic luxury goods, from glittering jewellery to soft cashmere and exquisite chocolates; but in Victorian London, sex was for sale here too. Between the hours of three and five in the afternoon the ‘Cyprian corps', consisting of the massed ranks of the Prima Donnas, the Better Educated and the More Genteel, could tout for business and bag an entire range of clients, from a dashing young blade to a ruddy-faced gentleman farmer up from the country or a silver-haired old charmer.

Far from protesting about having their mall overrun by prostitutes, many of the proprietors recognized that they were good for business and resorted to ‘Paphian intricacies' (another reference to Aphrodite), renting out rooms above their shops in return for a share of the takings. Once a woman had approached her prey, it was an easy matter to steer him inside a friendly bonnet shop or accommodating tobacconist's and upstairs to the bedroom.
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‘Walter' and two of his friends amused themselves in one such establishment: ‘it was not an unusual thing then for two [women] to have a cigar shop, with a big sofa in a back parlour, one keeping shop whilst the other fucked. Whilst the strumming was going on in the parlour, people bought cigars and tobacco – for it was really sold there, – little did they guess the fun going on behind that red curtain.'
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And of course, as always, there were the enthusiastic amateurs. Occasionally, one might see beautiful young shopgirls or milliners flitting along Regent Street or Pall Mall like bright birds of passage, to meet with some gentleman on the sly, and to earn a few shillings to top up their meagre salaries. Sometimes, one might see a fashionable young widow, or a beautiful young wife, wending her way in the evenings to meet with some rickety, white-haired old gentleman loitering about Pall Mall. And such scenes did not even merit a second glance: such things were not wondered at by those acquainted with high life in London.
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Acton referred to these amateurs as ‘dollymops', young women who prostituted themselves for their own pleasure, in return for a few trinkets. These girls tended to be servants, shopgirls or maids who met men during the course of business; instead of heading for the casinos and taverns, they flirted with their customers from behind the shop counter, or were accosted while returning to their lodgings, or walking their employers' children in the park. Nursemaids were particularly popular with soldiers, and the girls were flattered by the attention, succumbing easily to ‘scarlet fever', attracted by their dashing red uniforms. ‘A red coat is all powerful with this class, who prefer a soldier to a servant, or any other description of man they come in contact with.'
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Even when business was nominally over for the day, the Cyprian corps remained in the West End. Mayhew and his friends watched them walking up and down Regent Street and the Haymarket, some by themselves, some in pairs, some with a gallant they had picked up, calling at the wine-vaults or restaurants, or sitting down in the brilliant coffee rooms, adorned with large mirrors, to a cup of coffee or China tea. They patrolled the theatre district of Leicester Square and Haymarket as crowds of theatre-goers poured out into the streets after the performances, but they were also to be seen plying for trade at the crowded bars, ‘these dreadful hotbeds of vice and immorality' as one commentator described them.

This prostitute described a typical day in her life to the journalist Bracebridge Hemyng, Mayhew's researcher, in the 1850s:

Many of the more faded prostitutes frequented the Pavilion to meet gentlemen and enjoy the singing and instrumental music over some liquor, while the younger and more affluent girls flocked to the music halls, or the Argyll Rooms, rustling in splendid dresses, to spend the time till midnight, when they accompanied the gentlemen they had picked up there to the expensive supper rooms and night houses. Acton described a visit to the Argyll Rooms where he sat in

The Argyll Rooms offered the perfect opportunity for ‘sporting ladies', another euphemism for prostitutes, to consort with ‘sporting' aristocrats, such as Lord Hastings, a famous playboy and prankster who once emptied a sack of rats onto the dance floor.
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Meanwhile, at the Portland Rooms, where the most expensive courtesans worked the room between midnight and four in the morning, punters could see the Parisian ‘can-can' danced, ‘in every unrestricted form, the women behaving in a more Bacchanalian fashion than in other places'.
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The chief attraction of the can-can was, of course, that the dancers were performing in voluminous skirts, and no knickers.

After a hard afternoon working the Burlington Arcade, the girls' favourite rendezvous was Kate Hamilton's supper club, where they could dissipate their ennui and restore themselves for another night of carousing at a private party or Mott's casino. Kate Hamilton's was actually the Cafe Royal, but such was Kate's influence in 1850s London that the club bore her name. Situated in Princess Street, near Leicester Square, Kate's club was approached by a long and securely guarded passage leading to a saloon where the mistress of the establishment sat enthroned among her favourites, a formidable figure weighing twenty stone, with the weather-beaten features of an ex-sailor. Seated on a raised platform, in a low-cut dress, Kate Hamilton sipped champagne steadily from midnight to daylight, keeping order with her powerful voice and shaking like a blancmange every time she laughed.
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Kate made a killing by selling food and drink at highly inflated prices. She had a bouncer on the door to keep out the riff-raff and only gentlemen prepared to spend over £5 were admitted. Mayhew noted that these supper rooms were ‘frequented by a better set of men and women than perhaps any other in London'.
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Kate could afford to bribe the authorities, but every now and again there was a raid. There was a well-rehearsed drill on such occasions: when the alarm went up that the police were on the way, carpets were rolled up in the twinkling of an eye, floorboards were raised and bottles and glasses thrust underneath, everyone assumed a virtuous, demure air and spoke in subdued tones, as if butter wouldn't melt, while a bevy of police officers headed by an inspector marched solemnly in and, having completed the farce, marched solemnly out again.
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Over the course of the evening, many of the girls were seen walking with young, middle-aged and sometimes frail old men to Oxenden Street, Panton Street and James Street, near the Haymarket. They were taking their clients to ‘houses of accommodation', which was safer than going home with them. ‘Walter' described one to which he had resorted in his youth: ‘It was a gentleman's house, although the room cost but five shillings; red curtains, looking-glasses, wax lights, clean linen, a huge chair, a large bed, and a cheval-glass, large enough for the biggest couple to be reflected in, were all there.'
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For all their glamour, the off-duty lives of the Cyprian corps were grim. They might be treated to splendid suppers amidst lascivious smiles in the Haymarket, but they lived in seedy flats in Soho, Pimlico or Chelsea, and were so careless and extravagant that they were often reduced to pawning their dresses to buy food. Mayhew painted a disheartening picture of the girls at home, ‘sprawled lazily in bed, in sad dishabille, with dishevelled hair and muddy eyes, their voices hoarse with bad temper and misery'.
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The girls who could not afford to rent their own flats shared lodging houses or ‘convives' (shared in connivance with the landlord) just off Piccadilly. It was in these frowzy and horribly overpriced rooms that the girls demonstrated a degree of loyalty which genuinely impressed Mayhew. ‘They may have dispensed with all womanly modesty,' he admitted, ‘but they bond with each other fast, and within hours are referring to one another as “my dear”; they lend each other clothes and money, and even support one another with unparalleled generosity. They are forced to room together, as no respectable landlord would take them in.'
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This sense of solidarity sprang from the fact that, as Nickie Roberts reminds us, prostitution at this period was essentially female controlled. Brothels, lodging houses and accommodation houses were mostly run by women, all of whom had been through the experience of prostitution themselves. Madams or bawds took a cut from the girls who worked on their premises, but pimps were virtually unknown. One reformer, Mary Higgs, gained a glimpse of this solidarity when she visited a lodging house; although she disapproves, of course, of the girls' lifestyle, there is a trace of admiration in her description: ‘round the fire was a group of girls far gone in dissipation, good-looking girls most of them, but shameless; smoking cigarettes, boasting of drinks or drinkers, using foul language, singing music-hall songs, or talking vileness. The room grew full and breakfasts were about. A girl called “Dot” danced the “cake-walk” in the middle of the room.'
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It was a precarious life. ‘Strange things happen to us sometimes,' one told Mayhew. ‘We may now and then die of consumption; but the other day a lady friend of mine met a gentleman at Sam's, and yesterday they were married at St George's, Hanover Square. The gentleman had lots of money, I believe, and he started off with her at once for the continent. It is a very strange and unusual case, but we often do marry, and well too; why shouldn't we, we are pretty, we dress well, we can talk and insinuate ourselves into the hearts of men by appealing to their passions and their senses.'
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The second class of prostitutes in the Haymarket, the third in Mayhew's whores' division, were the young working-class girls, daughters of domestic servants and labourers. Some of these girls were of a tender age, thirteen and upwards, and were to be seen wandering around Leicester Square and along the Haymarket and Regent Street. They dressed in girlish light cotton gowns, and crinolines that seemed too fancy for the daytime, with light grey or brown cloaks and funny little pork pie hats in white or red, some with a waving feather. Some walked timidly, others were brazen; some looked artless and ingenuous, others artful and pert. Some had fine features and good figures, while others were short and dumpy. These were girls who sold themselves for a lower price, and haunted the coffee shops around Leicester Square, where the blinds were drawn down, and there were notices over the door announcing that ‘beds are to be had within'.
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Many of these girls qualified as Mayhew's ‘thieves' women'; they were often in league with pickpockets, who robbed their clients of their watches, purses, pins and fine silk or linen handkerchiefs (which they would sell after the embroidered initials had been unpicked) after the girls had duped them down a dark alley.

Many went into their occupation willingly, with a pragmatic rationale. ‘Walter' picked up such a girl in the Strand, and, after the usual business had been transacted, had a long chat with the girl, named Kitty, who possessed ‘a frankness, openness and freshness which delighted me',
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as does her level of denial. When he asks: ‘How long have you been gay?' Kitty retorts, ‘I ain't gay!', astonished. When ‘Walter' points out that ‘you let men fuck you, don't you?', she insists, ‘Yes, but I ain't gay!' The gay ladies, as far as she is concerned, are the ones who ‘come out regular of a night, dressed up, and gets their livings by it'.
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Further questioning elicits the information that both Kitty's parents are employed, her mother as a charwoman, and that she is supposed to be at home, looking after little brothers and sisters. Instead of which, she locks them in the kitchen and heads up West. ‘Walter' is quite disturbed by this. ‘“They may set fire to themselves!” said I. “There ain't no fire; after we have had breakfast, I puts it out, and lights it at night if mother wants hot water.”'
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‘Walter' struck up something of a relationship with Kitty, and saw her several times. The most poignant element of his description is the reason Kitty sells herself: to buy food. They can't live on what her mother earns, and Kitty's takings go on sausages, pies and sausage rolls. ‘That's what you went gay for?' ‘Walter' says, incredulously. ‘Sausage rolls?' ‘Yes, meat-pies and pastry too.'
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