A Dress Lodger

Dress lodgers were prostitutes who were kept in permanent 'debt' to a madam/pimp for the cost of a dress which the procurer 'loaned' to them, often their only garment, without which they could not leave the house - a form of sex slavery. They were sent out on the streets to pick up men, and carefully watched, in case they ran.

‘Mrs. Barrett had two dress lodgers (who gave up their infamous earnings to her) when I resided with her. Mrs. Barrett used to say to them at night, “Come, girls, the sooner you get out, the more chance you will have.” Mrs. Barrett had all the money they produced; if they were backward to go out, she would threaten them, and sometimes beat them. She would call 3l. 10s. a bad week’s work; a great number of boys under the age of 15 would come to the house, mostly on Sunday evenings. They were encouraged to do so. About the latter end of last December one of her dress lodgers left, and the same night Mrs. Barnett told me to get my bonnet and shawl and accompany her and Mrs. Phillips, her aunt, who keeps a house of the same description, over London-bridge. Near the Town-hall we met Charlotte Waller. We went out to look for honest girls. Mrs. Barnett said, ‘My dear, where are you going?’ She said she was looking for her father, and had travelled 112 miles, and could not find her parent. Mrs. Barrett said she hoped she was a good girl, that I was her servant, and that she wanted another to nurse her children and inquired if she would go home with her. The girl appeared surprised, but after a little consideration went along with us. When we got home, the girl appeared astonished at the house, and Phillips and Barnett talked together in the Hebrew language. I was then told to take her up stairs to bed, and by my mistress’s order I brought her clothes down, and the next morning took up a light dress, which she at first refused to wear, as she said she was in mourning; but on my telling her my mistress never allowed her servants to wear their own clothes, she consented. She had some money about her, which I took to my mistress, by her order. The girl had a bundle when we met her, which Barnett took, and I don’t know what came of it. The girl appeared surprised that she was not set out to work. The next night Barnett took her out, and they returned with a stout gentleman, between whom and Mrs. Barnett some conversation took place. Liquor was sent for, and Charlotte Waller was forced to drink; she was then sent up stairs ... I heard a shriek and went up stairs; the stout man was there with Miss Waller, who said ‘You are a witness to my murder’. My mistress called me down and scolded me, saying that I had no business there. The man went away out at the back door. After this Miss Waller was compelled to receive the visits of some man every night. Mr. Barnett was always watching her. I thought, if she was a virtuous girl, she was a great fool. On the following Sunday she was ill, and could not go out. Mrs. Barnett got her a bottle of physic, and brought home some boys. Waller was forced to go out afterwards but walked with great difficulty. On Tuesday, she said she would not go out any longer, she would sit on the steps of a door and die, before she would pursue such a horrible course of life any longer. Mrs. Barnett abused her, and she said she should not skulk there again, although she was very ill, and people remarked, ‘God help the poor creature, where did she come from?’ When she could scarcely move about, Mrs. Barnett used to abuse her dreadfully. Waller was a quiet inoffensive girl. I knew that Phillips and Barnett had agreed to divide her earnings, because they were both together when she was picked up and decoyed to Coburg-street. She often lamented her situation to me. She was sent to the hospital and died there.’

11 March 1835 Times

'London Brothels'

LONDON BROTHELS

In our writings under this head, we wish it to be clearly understood that we are not the advocates of vice and profligacy. Our sketches are intended to serve a great moral purpose; and we shall endeavour to say nothing to offend the most fastidious.

    It has been calculated by the society for the prevention of juvenile prostitution, that, exclusive of the city, there are 1500 brothels in the metropolis, and we may presume this census only includes the houses of a public description, and principally in low neighbourhoods. The objects of this association, at once recommend themselves to the consideration of the humane and benevolent. As good wine needs no bush, so the cause of real philanthropy needs little comment at the hands of a public writer. It is not liekly that we should find amongst the 1500 houses many of the private aristocratical nunneries with which the west end abounds. In the most stylish streets where, from appearances, you would imagine, that none but the patrician hosts hold sway, we find, emblazoned in the Court Guide, the names and residences of the common prostitutes of ton. Jermyn-street, Cleveland-row, Bury-street, St. James’s Place, Piccadilly, Regent-street, and other streets in St. James’s may be mentioned as places where they are located. Again, in the fashionable purlieus of Portman-square, the ‘birds of paradise’ nestle in flocks, supported in splendour and luxury, in open defiance of popular prejudice and parochial interference. Somerset-street, Hereford-street, Connaught-terrace, Seymour-street, Berkeley-street, are all alike favoured in the season by the visits of the ‘terrestrial feathered race.’ That they are birds of passage is evident from the fact of their migrating with the rest of the elite of town, either to watering places or inland cities of amusement, as soon as the west-end of London assumes a dull appearance. In York-street, Baker-street, we find a brothel kept positively, for the sole accommodation of a noble duke, and he far advanced in years. Of this house, and some others, we shall treat more fully, under the head of Sketches of Courtezans in the future numbers of The Town. We shall, goodnaturedly, set forth the pecadilloes of his grace, and his fair hair’d inamorato; for we quarrel not with gallantry, and war not with the fair, however frail they may be. Still we can safely promise our readers much amusement at the expensive of his graceless grace.

    Lord Viscount Gage lately presided at a meeting of the society we have alluded to. His lordship concluded by stating that they had met to oppose the great Moloch which has impressed the foulest blot on a civilized community; the abandonment of thousands upon thousands of poor innocent female children to hopeless infamy and vice. We know not if the noble duke, so creditably mentioned, has enrolled his name amongst the list of subscribers to this laudable institution; perhaps his grace thinks it better to have a interview with the poor deluded creatures, and in private bestow that charity and advice, which would appear like ostentation to offer in public.

    The private brothels of the aristocracy seldom contain more than three women; the lady of the house, or lady abbess, generally occupies the parlours; Lord Squander keeps a lady on the first floor; and the second is rented by a damsel of doubtfl age, possessing the relics of great personal attraction, who piques herself upon her small ancle, &c., and whose friend does the mysterious, calls himself Mr. James, and is designated by his mistress as “my city man”. The soubriquet of “city man” is sometimes, however, changed for “my strawberry friend;” for, if the gentleman happens to have a penchant for that fruit, or any other, he gets baptized accordingly. In like manner, if he has ever, in the plenitude of his liberality, purchased half a dozen pair of silk stockings, for a new year’s gift for the lady, he immediately becomes “my stocking man;” so he is named according to his deeds or predilections.

    We do not mean to assert that these ladies, living thus privately, are constant to their respective protectors; it is the nature of women to this class to be faithless. The lady abbess in the parlours has got a good friend who pays her rent; the receipts of her house are not inconsiderable, considering it all let; still there are rumours than an old gentleman in black, with short inexpressibles, wearing powder and a pig-tail, is occasionally seen knocking at the door; and the big, broad-shouldered fellow from the barracks, who enters the house by the area steps, it is faintly conjectured, is not old Sarah the cook’s ‘cousin’; in fact, the boy that cleans the knives and shoes, upon one occasion, made a communication to Lord Squander’s lady, about the mysterious appearance of a pair of trooper’s boots, that occasionally obtruded themselves upon his notice to be cleaned; that he could not find the master for them, unless, as was faintly conjectured by the boy, he “vos in missus’s bed-room”. Lord Squander’s lady is sometimes seen riding out, in the cab of Lord Squander’s friend; and the top-sawyer  in the second floor, once a week regularly dresses herlsef as a respectable scullion, and is watched to an introducing-house kept by old Madame Somebody, in some street near to such a square.

The Town, June 10 1837