Tag: immorality

But is art? Photography in the dock in 1880

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Photography was still a fairly new science in 1880. The world’s first photograph was possibly that made in 1826 using Joseph Nicephore Niepce’s ‘Heliograph’. In 1835 Niepce collaborated with Louis Daguerre to create the first practical application (the ‘daguerrotype’) that, in 1839, led to the very first ‘selfie’ by Robert Cornelius. Improvements followed in 1871 (with dry plate photography) and then in the mid 1880s with the invention of the earliest ‘box’ portable camera.

It seems that along with the self-portrait early adopters of photography quickly recognized the commercial potential of a technology that could make multiple reproductions of popular images.

As many of us probably do when we visit an art gallery early photographers realized that taking photos of artworks could be profitable if cheap prints of them could then be sold. Even better if those prints were of human nudes.

It is not surprising perhaps that one of the early uses of photography was in the creation of more realistic pornography (or ‘erotica’ if you prefer a less judgmental term).

I’m sure Charles Newbold would have argued that his collection of photographic images were a form of art. Sadly for him he couldn’t, as in November 1880 he was locked up in Coldbath Fields prison serving a three-month sentence for ‘selling photographs of an immoral nature’.

While his son occupied his days in hard labour his father George found himself up before the magistrate at Marlborough Street Police court on a very similar charge. He was summoned to answer as to why a series of photographic images that had been seized by the police should not be destroyed.

His lawyer, Mr Geoghegan, argued that the images – which were taken from works of art – were not offensive and were in fact very useful for students of art to learn from. This was one of the first ways in which daguerreotypes had been used – to reproduce famous artworks in a form that students could learn from. These could black and white or coloured, like the shown here (right). Nude_woman_in_colored_daguerreotype_by_Félix-Jacques_Moulin

Coloured daguerreotype by Félix-Jacques Moulin, c.1851-1854

The police – represented by Mr St John Wontner – argued that they were obscene and constituted an assault on public morals. The Newbold brothers owned a shop where the materials were on sale, located in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.

The justice, Mr Mansfield decided that he needed to see the pictures for himself if he was to determine how ‘immoral’ they were. He adjourned the case to make his investigations.

George Newbold was an established sporting photographer in the 1860s. Based at 303 and 304 The Strand, Newbold seems to have specialized in taking images of boxers for them to use as their carte de visites, and the V&A has several of these. However, George died in 1865 and the business passed to his brother Charles, and his two sons (George Francis and Charles).  It is possible then that Charles and his sons  had branched out into more ‘racy’ photos by early 1880s, but perhaps they were simply providing a legitimate service for artists short of live models.

In 1880 Charles junior (at 19) was listed as a ‘porter’ in his prison record, which hardly suggests that he was a successful photographic artist. His father was also in prison by August 1882 where his record states that he was a bookseller. His crime? Tried at the Middlesex Quarter sessions and convicted of:

‘maliciously and scandalously selling and uttering to frank froest, in an open and public shop, certain lewd and obscene photographic prints’.

His sentence? 18 months imprisonment. He was 50 and so would have been in his 30s in the 1860s when he was taking shots of boxers and others. It seems a shame that the relatives of a such  a talented artist as George Newbold  should find themselves locked up for selling ‘dirty pictures’. But perhaps that reflected the reality that photography was not an easy profession to make a living from in the late 1800s. And, of course, that there was (and still is) money to be made from erotica.

[from The Illustrated Police News, Saturday, November 6, 1880]

The ‘modern Babylon’ exposed: pornography in an age of prudery

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Holywell Street, central London, late 1800s 

One of the things ‘we think we know’ about the Victorians is that they were very prudish and straight-laced, even going to the bizarre lengths of covering up their piano legs so as not to shock or titillate. This view of the age is sometimes confirmed by depictions of a sour faced Queen Victoria proclaiming: ‘we are not amused’.

The reality is that the Victorians were hardly much less lascivious and fun-loving than their Georgian predecessors. Perhaps the emphasis on family (best epitomized by Royal Family) and the work of Samuel Smiles in setting out so-called ‘Victorian values’, combined with a post war desire to look back  to the past to make comparisons with the present, have skewed our views.

Anyone strolling around London in the 1800s would have seen plenty of evidence that the Victorians liked to enjoy themselves.  This age saw the rise of the musical theatre, the novel and popular newspapers; it witnessed the invention of the railways, cheap travel and the weekend excursion. Here too was the Great Exhibition, great ceremonial pageants, and military parades. And with all of this (largely) wholesome entertainment came vice at a level the Georgians could only have imagined.

The invention of photography offered new opportunities for pornography and the increasingly economic cost of printing and distribution made the printed vice trade even more profitable. This was not lost on the ‘moral majority’; those that railed against vice and crime. London became the ‘modern Babylon’; a sink of iniquity and place where domestic missionaries sought new converts in the dark alleys of Whitechapel and Southwark. In Holywell Street, off the Strand, there was a roaring trade in indecent literature to suit every taste.

In 1841, early in the young queen’s reign, a barrister representing the Society for the Suppression of Vice appeared at the Guildhall Police court in the City to apply for a warrant against a local bookseller. St Paul’s Churchyard (close by Wren’s cathedral) had long been associated with the print trade, and with obscene publications and prostitution to boot.

Mr Clarkson, the barrister, explained that officers from the Society wanted to draw the magistrate’s attention to the fact that this bookseller (at this point unnamed) was displaying ‘five indecent little pamphlets in his window’. Under the terms of the Vagrancy Act he had tried to summons the man to court but this had been ignored, now he wanted a warrant which carried more force (since it was executed by a policeman).

The lawyer argued that the act ‘1 and 2 Victoria, c.38’ (the Vagrancy Act) declared that anyone exposing to view obscene images was liable to be dealt with as a ‘rouge and a vagabond’ and so was punishable by a fine or, if unable to pay, imprisonment. This toughened up the previous act of George IV (5 Geo. IV. c.83. 1824) and he wanted to use it.

Alderman Copeland was in the chair at Guildhall that day and Mr Clarkson handed over some of the obscene pamphlets in question. These had titles such as ‘The Wanton Widow’, ‘The Petticoat Pensioner’ and ‘Venus in the Cloister’*.

UnknownI suspect by modern standards of indecency they were pretty mild but in a society where ‘nakedness’ often meant that someone was dressed only in their undergarments, and where a glimpse of ankle was evidence of a woman’s immoral character, the alderman was suitable disgusted. He issued the warrant and the barrister rushed off to find an officer to execute it.

[from The Morning Chronicle, Friday, August 20, 1841]

*You can still find this today. Published in 1683 as Vénus dans le cloître, ou la Religieuse en chemise, it is a work of erotic fiction as the illustration above shows. .

Jealousy, divorce and vitriol throwing in late Victorian Paddington

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Divorce was a not at all an easy thing to obtain in the nineteenth century. This meant that many couples either stayed together long after relationships had broken down or separated to live with someone else, but were then unable to remarry. For women this was a particular problem as it was harder for them to be seen as ‘respectable’ if they lived, unmarried, with a man. It was even worse should they have children by him, and that, in age before effective contraception, was fairly likely.

The breakdown of any relationship is traumatic and rarely entirely mutual so there is almost always an ‘injured party’. This sometimes leads today to long drawn out divorce cases, to jealousies, feuds, and even violence. So I imagine this might have been even worse in a society where divorce was much rarer than it is today. In the Victorian period then, there was much more scope for long lasting jealousies between jilted and abandoned wives and husbands and their new paramours.

This was the situation that Margaret White, a 44 year-old shopkeeper found herself in in March 1886. Margaret was married but her husband had left her 11 years previously, complaining about her ‘immorality’.  This may have referred to an affair or simply her behaviour (perhaps her drinking and staying out late in the evening). Of course it may have been a false accusation, we have no proof that Mrs White was in any way ‘immoral’.

Whether White left his wife for another woman in 1875 or not by 1886 he was living with Rose Simpson in her rooms at Burlington News in Paddington. Margaret had discovered this and on more than one occasion in 1886 she had confronted Rose and, supposedly threatened her. On the 3 March she had visited the property and called on Rose.

When she opened the door she allegedly produced  a small bottle which she claimed contained ‘vitriol’ (acid) and said she would throw it in the face of her rival if she ever stepped out of the house. She then stood outside for three hours while Rose cowered inside.

As this was the culmination of a series of threats to her, Rose decided to go to law to get protection or redress. On 13 March Margaret was brought, by warrant, to the Marylebone Police court to answer a charge of threatening her husband’s lover with an acid attack. Margaret pleaded not guilty and claimed that she’d never threatened Rose. She did admit that she had met her husband at open of their daughter’s house, by accident not design, and that he had told her he would never go back to her. This may have prompted her to  confront Rose but she steadfastly rejected claims that she had produced a bottle or vitriol or had ever ‘had anything to do with it’ in her life.

Rose Simpson, perhaps persuaded by her husband,  told Mr Cooke that she didn’t want to press charges and would be content so long as her rival was bound over to keep the peace towards her. She merely wanted, she said, for the threatening behavour to stop. The magistrate agreed, noting that there was no evidence that Margaret ever owned let alone threatened to throw acid at her. He accepted Mrs White’s sureties of £20 for six months but warned her that she faced a month in prison if there was any further intimidation of Ms Simpson.  Throughout this case involving his previous and his current object of affection, Mr. White was nowhere to be seen.

Acid throwing was not unusual in the 1800s and has resurfaced in modern Britain, as this report from the Guardian in February 2017 shows. If you would like to read more about this disturbing phenomena I can suggest no better source than Dr Katherine Watson at Oxford Brookes University.

[from The Standard, Monday, March 15, 1886]

A clash of beliefs as religion and the Music hall collide in the East End

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For a change of scene today’s case comes not from the Police courts but from the High Courts of Justice on the Strand. It was a civil case, brought by the owners of William Lusby’s Music Hall, in the Mile End Road, who were represented by Mr Ince QC.

The complaint here was that a local preacher named Charrington had been attempting to prevent people going into the Hall because he believed the entertainments there were immoral and unsuitable. Charrington, accompanied by a number of his acolytes, was in the habit of ‘parading in front of [the hall], and intercepting persons going in by handing them leaflets and warning them that by going in to that place they were going straight to perdition’ [to hell in other words].

‘If any one wanted to go to perdition they could do so without paying sixpence’, they added.

The leaflets were fairly graphic and pictured ‘an unfortunate man walking along between an angel and a devil’. The message was pretty clear and not at all good for business.

Not content with the leaflets the priest and his followers serenaded the visitors with a stream of poetic verse which blamed the venue for:

Sowing the seed of a lingering pain,

Sowing the seed of a maddened brain,

Sowing the seed of a tarnished name,

Sowing the seed of eternal shame,

and asked the question:

Oh! What shall the harvest be?

Having presented the case Mr Ince produced a number of affidavits signed by local people to testify that the area around the Hall was peaceful and the only disturbance caused were those orchestrated by Carrington and his followers. The High Court also heard an allegation that those women that refused to take one of the preacher’s leaflets were labeled as prostitutes and as a result, ‘many respectable women’ were staying away.

In defence of his client, Charrington’s barrister declared that the preacher was well meaning and was trying to ‘do good’ in an area that needed it. Lusby’s was ‘in the worst part of Tower Hamlets’ where there were severe problems with poverty, alcoholism and prostitution. However, he conceded that his client had acted against the interests of the proprietors and would (mostly) desist.

Mr Ince wanted Charrington to give ‘an undertaking not to address the people going to and from within ten houses on each side of the hall’. Mr Romer (QC for Charrington) agreed that his client would not stand right outside, but refused to agree to much more. This was accepted without prejudice, with the proprietors reserving the right to return to court if there was any breach of the agreement.

The presiding judge summed up the arrangement (to the amusement of those present) by suggesting ‘that Mr Charrington would take to keep away from the mouth of the pit’.

William Lusby had bought the hall in 1868 when it was a pub called The Eagle. Lusby refurbished it as a Music Hall and opened his ‘Summer and Winter Palace’ in April 1877. It could take an audience of up to 5,000 people who could watch a variety of acts popular at the time. Moral reformers generally hated the music hall, seeing them as a places where alcohol was served, crude jokes were told, and risqué dancing took place. There were also close associations between the music halls and prostitution.

Lusbys1883Poster

A year after Lusby opened his Hall he sold it to Crowder and Payne (the plaintiffs in the case we’ve heard). In January 1884, just six months after the case, the hall burned down and rebuilt, opening as the Paragon Theatre in May 1885. It served the area for many years afterwards and most of the stars of the Victorian and Edwardian music hall performed there including Dan Leno, Little Tich, and Daisy Le Row.

So, unlike Wilton’s near Cable Street, it survived the attempts of reformers to close it down and it was only the coming of the moving picture that finally brought its long run to an end. Even that was not a disaster for the premises, as the Paragon changed its name to the Mile End Empire and started to show films. That building was demolished in 1938 and a new ‘picture palace’ (The Empire Cinema) opened in June 1939 on the eve of the Second World War. The Empire survived the war, and later years of neglect and still exists as the Genesis Cinema today.

[from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper , Sunday, July 15, 1883]