The Covent Garden Ladies (45 page)

16
The Laughing Audience
. Theatres were the acknowledged arena for every rank of prostitute, from the humble orange seller (top left) to the genteelly apparelled courtesan.

17 Charlotte Spencer. A chapter in the
Memoirs of Miss Fanny Murray
recounts the story of Charlotte Spencer, who claimed to have been initiated into her profession through the schemes of Jack Harris. For some time she acted as the mistress to Lord Robert Spencer, thereafter assuming his surname and referring to herself as ‘the Honourable’.

18 Fanny Murray. During her heyday in the 1740s and 1750s, Fanny Murray was one of Charlotte Hayes’s greatest rivals. Although she and Charlotte shared numerous lovers and keepers, Fanny managed to avoid financial difficulties and retire to a life of circumspect matrimony with the celebrated actor David Ross.

19 Betsy Coxe (or Cox). Deposited into the care of Charlotte Hayes at an early age, Elizabeth Green had been a starving, orphaned, streetwalking wretch. Under Charlotte’s ‘tuition’, Betsy Coxe, ‘a perfect model of voluptuous beauty’, was born. Betsy, like several of Charlotte’s ‘nuns’, went on to become an actress and was particularly noted for her success at playing ‘breeches parts’, which required her to dress in male attire.

20 Dennis O’Kelly with Philip O’Kelly and others at Newmarket. By the time Thomas Rowlandson satirised ‘Count’ O’Kelly (far right), surrounded by his thoroughbreds and lackeys, he and Charlotte were at the summit of their prosperity. Portly and fashionably dressed, he is accompanied by his brother Philip, who acted as the master of his stables at Clay Hill and later at Canons.

21
The Rake’s Progress
, ‘The Rose Tavern’. Rough, rude and dangerous, even before John Harrison assumed the proprietorship of the Rose the establishment possessed a reputation for debauchery. In this depiction of its main room, posture molls prepare for their naked performances and pockets are picked, while the tavern’s interior is defaced and abused. The party of prostitutes, with their ragged dress, penchant for drink and appalling display of table manners, are among the lowest ranks of the sisterhood.

22
A Late Unfortunate Adventure at York
. In spite of being a wealthy landowner with a stable of champion race horses, society would never entirely exonerate Dennis O’Kelly from his seedy reputation. Matters came to a head in 1770, when he was accused of attempting to force himself on a ‘Miss Swinbourne’ while at York races. The incident gathered a storm of negative press and was the source of great embarrassment to both Dennis and Charlotte. This cartoon shows a vulgar Dennis attempting to silence a faint Miss Swinbourne with cash. She eventually received a payment of £500 and a public apology.

23
Miss S—t—n, the beauty of Arlington Street
. A number of lurid engravings from a slightly later date were bound into the 1761 copy of the
Harris’s List
. Among them is this engraving of Miss S—t—n. At the time this work was executed she may have been one of Charlotte’s Arlington Street ‘bevy of beauties’, mentioned by William Hickey.

24 Canons Park, 1782. Canons (or Cannons) as it looked shortly before Dennis purchased it. One of the estate’s selling points included a particularly spacious stable block and adjoining pasture land suitable for horses.

25 The yard of the Fleet Prison,
c
.1749. Although an established prison for centuries, by the Georgian era ‘the Fleet’ had become known as a reformatory for debtors. In spite of the comparative freedoms enjoyed by those held within its walls, prisoners were still subjected to unsanitary living conditions, disease and starvation, as well as the brutality of gaolers and fellow inmates.

26 Covent Garden (eastward view), 1786. Covent Garden as John Harrison might have known it in his later years. The Shakespear’s Head is located at the north-eastern corner of the colonnade. By this period, the area’s brothels had begun to fall out of favour with the more fashionable pleasure-seekers.