Inspired by an ancestor’s diary, Dorset-based historian Mike Rendell took a deep dive into the Georgian era to find out more about England’s most celebrated courtesan.
During lockdown I got bored. So, I decided to write about my favourite topic – everyday life in Georgian England. Before I knew it, I had written three books. A Dark History of Gin revealed how this spirit, brought to our shores when the Dutch-born William of Orange became king, led to the gin craze in 18th-century London. The Grand Tour explores the raucous educational tours of Europe taken in the 18th and early 19th centuries. This was in effect a rite of passage for members of the aristocracy who were ‘given the keys to Europe’ by their indulgent parents. It was a sort of gap year for toffs – but often lasted years. And, these well-travelled young gentlemen, and their fathers, would have certainly have been familiar with the topic of my other book, Georgian Harlots and Whores: Fame, Fashion and Fortune.
My interest in the Georgians started some years ago when I read one of my ancestor’s diaries in which he describes how he ‘Went to the bagnio’. What was a bagnio? What did he do there? Was it respectable? The answer is probably not. Originally the name for a Turkish style bath house, by the mid-18th century bagnio meant a knocking shop – a house divided into numerous bedrooms which could be hired by the hour, in other words a brothel. And there were hundreds of them around Covent Garden, which was at the heart of the London sex trade in the Georgian period.
It was this discovery about my ancestor’s social life that inspired Georgian Harlots and Whores: Fame, Fashion and Fortune. It explores the lives and loves of England’s most celebrated courtesans at the height of their fame - fun-loving party girls who were the Toasts of the Town.
These women occupied a pinnacle of success which others of their sex could only dream of: they had wealth and influence, attended the best balls, finest dinners, and latest theatrical productions, and they mixed freely with royalty and the nobility. Their scurrilous exploits were eagerly reported in the newspapers of the day, many were little more than gossip columns. The women were often given colourful nicknames such as The Bird of Paradise (Gertrude Mahon) and Dally the Tall (Grace Dalrymple Elliott), while others were given bird names to describe their elaborate plumage – The Goldfinch, The Blackbird, and The Wagtail, for example.
These days we are used to the idea of ‘influencers’ on social media – people who have thousands and sometimes millions of followers, hanging on their every word about what to wear, how to apply make-up, how to style their hair and so on. Back in the 18th century the equivalent of these influencers were the courtesans. They were the fashion icons of their day and dressed to impress. Aspirational figures, often dripping with expensive jewellery and wearing the latest fashions from Paris.
The leading courtesans were keen to have their portraits painted, and renowned artists such as Sir Joshua Reynolds were happy to oblige, often painting the same sitter on half a dozen or more occasions. The portrait of a famous whore would hang alongside the picture of a duchess, given equal billing and prominence at the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. Then a mezzotint copy would be engraved, and mass-produced prints sold for a few pence each. Up and down the country, walls would be adorned with prints of these 18th century glamour girls – the first pin-ups. Women appreciated them as fashion plates, men liked them because they had the chance to gaze on a beautiful woman, the likes of which they could never afford. Some even cut out the likeness of the most famous courtesans of the day to place inside the case of their pocket watch.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the 18th century idea of ‘a beauty’ was somewhat different to ours. Some, like Fanny Murray, had distinctly lop-sided features. She compensated for that by wearing her hats at a jaunty angle – sparking off a fashion for headwear worn to one side. Seduced at the age of 12, while working as a flower girl on the steps of Bath Abbey, Fanny was saved from complete ruin by being taken on as the mistress of the ageing roue Beau Nash, Master of Ceremonies at Bath Assembly Rooms. He gave Fanny a veneer of polish and good manners, enabling her to head for London where she quickly became pre-eminent in her field.
One of Fanny’s contemporaries was Kitty Fisher. A girl who lived life to the full, she partied hard, and died young at just 25. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted several portraits of Kitty Fisher including one where she posed as Cleopatra Dissolving the Pearl (1759), which was subsequent reproduced as a print and sold in its thousands. Described by a contemporary as ‘the wickedest little whore that ever lived’ Kitty met Casanova when he visited London in 1763. He described the encounter saying that he had met ‘… the illustrious Kitty Fisher, who was just beginning to be fashionable. She was magnificently dressed, and it is no exaggeration to say that she had on diamonds worth five hundred thousand francs.’
To say that these painted ladies were aspirational figures was an understatement – people admired them to the point of hero worship. And remember, for many women there were no proper job opportunities. Women were generally given very limited education, were barred from attending university, could not get into any of the professions and generally ended up either in the so-called needle trades (tailoring, hat-making etc) or as household servants. Imagine you were a milliner, getting by on a few guineas a year, then watching a girl of the same age dash by in a coach and four, bedecked in fine silks and adorned with pearls and diamonds. It would certainly get you thinking about your career choice.
And the money to be made by those at the peak of their ‘career’ was astonishing. When the Prince of Wales decided to take a young (married) actress as his lover, the girl in question played hard to get. By the time Mary Robinson agreed to be the prince’s lover he had given her a bond in the sum of £20,000, payable when she was 21, a sort of signing-on fee; the equivalent of a couple of million pounds today! He subsequently tried to renege on the deal. Mary was not the only one to discover that royal lovers were not always the most generous admirers.
The high-class courtesan was one of a rare group of females who made it to the top of the pile in what was very much a man’s world. They were the ultimate entrepreneurs. Whatever you think of their morals, they used what they had - their looks, their sex appeal, their love of a good time – to make themselves an incredible amount of money in a short time. Some died young. Many succumbed to disease, or never quite reached the pinnacle of fame. But for those who made it, the rewards were extraordinary for this high-stake gamble.
I great example of this, and one of my favourite courtesans, is Elizabeth Armistead. She had a glittering career and lived to the age of 91. She never attempted to kiss and tell and was clearly adored by everyone she met. Her ‘conquests’ included princes, dukes, earls and captains of industry – and through her ‘hard work’ she acquired several houses in Mayfair. For a decade she was the most famous courtesan of the era. Then she fell in love with one of the most rakish politicians of the period - Charles James Fox. Renowned for his womanising, gambling and prodigious drinking, he was the Beast to her Beauty. Fortunately, they both fell head-over-heels for each other. Elizabeth sold her investment properties to pay off his debts, and they set up home together near Chertsey where she introduced him to the delights of gardening and country walks. She gave up her former calling altogether and eventually married Fox, outliving him, in comfortable retirement, by more than three decades.
So, did any of these famous courtesans make their way to Dorset? I like to imagine the scene when Weymouth started to become a popular royal retreat. In 1789 King George III seemed to be recovering from a bout of the mental illness which would subsequently force him to hand over control to his son as Prince Regent. The King took the advice of a Doctor Crane from Weymouth, author of a pamphlet entitled Cursory Observations on Sea-Bathing; he advocated taking the sea air and regular dips in the briny. So, the King came to Weymouth, and enjoyed it so much that he came down year after year, until 1805.
Not only would he bring his family, friends and a retinue of servants, but the government of the day would also have to wend its way down to the Dorset coast in order to receive instructions from the monarch. The King generally stayed at Gloucester House, off Weymouth’s Esplanade, which belonged to his brother the Duke of Gloucester. The rest of the entourage, including visiting ministers such as William Pitt, the Prime Minister, stayed in adjoining properties, bringing wealth and prosperity to the area. This was before Brighton, further east on the Sussex coast, hit its stride as THE seaside town to be seen in.
Back in the 1790s Weymouth was a fashionable resort and with royalty as well as the great and the good in residence, the leading prostitutes of the day would come down from London and stay here for weeks at a time, hoping to ply their trade amongst the politicians and court hangers-on eager to ‘play away from home’. It must have been an extraordinary sight, with these colourful ladies – the groupies of their day - dressed in their finery, parading along the seafront trying to catch the eye of the visiting gentry. One wonders what the locals must have made of it all?
Mike’s books Georgian Harlots & Whores: Fame Fashion and Fortune and A Dark History of Gin are published at £20 by Pen & Sword books pen-and-sword.co.uk
