In the space of a few months in 1730 and 1731, the artist William Hogarth created the most immediately popular fictional images the English-speaking world had ever seen. First, he hit upon the idea of a series of six paintings showing the life-cycle of a London prostitute: from her innocent, fresh-faced arrival in town and […]

No person or persons whatsoever, shall at any time print or cause to be imprinted, any book or pamphlet whatsoever [without prior certification by a government censor] that there is nothing in that book or books contained, that is contrary to Christian faith. . . to good life, or good manners. A Decree of Starre-Chamber, […]

The emergence of sexual philanthropies helped establish a new model for the treatment of all kinds of criminals and social misfits. Until the 1770s, most convicts were sentenced to a few weeks of hard labour, bound over, transported, or hanged. Imprisonment as such was not widely used. But the later eighteenth century saw a great […]

We have seen how far, and with what success, sexual charities tried to reaffirm traditional Christian principles of personal responsibility for sin and redemption. The public philanthropy of the later eighteenth century also helped to develop new ideas. In particular, it undermined the idea that all acts of unchastity were inherently and equally culp­able, and […]

Few traces have survived of life in these places before the nineteenth century. Their buildings have long vanished. All the manuscripts of the London Magdalen House have been destroyed. A single ledger is all that survives from the Lambeth Asylum. Our only way in is through the admissions books of the third main charity, the […]

The appeal of the philanthropic approach went far beyond its prom­ise of social improvement. Vanity, fashion, and self-interest were also important motives. Networks of family, friendship, and business, for example, were crucial to the success of every public charity. Between them, the eight men who founded the Magdalen held five director­ships of the Russia Company, […]

A more enduring argument was that charity was the best way of turning orphan girls and prostitutes into economically productive members of society. This consideration, too, had long antecedents. Forced labour in houses of correction had been introduced in Tudor times as a means of accustoming the idle and the dissolute to eco­nomic as well […]

Philanthropy promised to deliver three kinds of benefit: spiritual, demographic, and economic. Its methods were evidently novel. But the arguments for it were strikingly similar to those that had tradi­tionally underpinned punishment. The most fundamental motive of both, for example, was to rescue sinners from damnation. Unlike other hospitals, boasted the support­ers of the Magdalen, […]

From the 1750s onwards, the rescue and rehabilitation of prostitutes became a major social concern. Huge efforts were poured into the foundation and operation of asylums, workhouses, and other chari­ties for fallen women, girls at risk of seduction, and other actual or potential victims of male lust. We have already noticed several of the main […]

Keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongueof a strange woman. . . For by means of a whorish woman aman is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress willhunt for the precious life. The Holy Bible (1611 edn), Proverbs 6.24 and 26 Instead of condemning. . . reason, […]