Damaris Page

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Damaris Page (c. 1610 – 9 October 1669) also known as Damarose Page, was a London brothel keeper, entrepreneur and property developer, one of the most successful and famous prostitutes of her time.[1]

Life and career

Little is known of Page's early life. She was born in

Newgate Gaol.[2][3] After her release she continued her businesses as before, and remained single after the death of James Dry.[2]

Page became rich during the boom years of economic development of the East End of London, offering services as a prostitute to the burgeoning population of seafaring workers of the docks and later through running brothels.

Ratcliffe Highway, north of Wapping, and around in residential areas near the Tower of London, the income from which supported her for the rest of her life.[1][5]

Like other high profile bawds such as Elizabeth Cresswell, Page was almost as famous as the politicians of her time.[4] The subject of Grub Street pamphlets in 1660, characterised as "The Wandring Whore" and the "Crafty Bawd",[1] she may have been one of the inspirations for the character of Moll Flanders (1721), created by Daniel Defoe.[4]

The Whores' Petition
was written to Lady Castlemaine in March 1668 (full text given in file description)

Following the

King James II, was said to favour Page's brothels.[6] She agreed to press-gang the dock worker clientele, further building her fortune. She worked with such officers as Sir William Spragg, and it was said that "as long as Damaris Page lived he was sure he should not lack men".[7] The practice made her deeply unpopular and her house was an early target of the 1668 'Bawdy House Riots' that occurred in March 1668. Samuel Pepys documented the attack on the property of Page "the great bawd of the seamen", "the most Famous Bawd in the Towne."[1][8] She appeared before a local magistrate, Robert Manley, as a victim of the riots who had lost significant property; she was one of the main witnesses brought against Robert Sharpless, a central instigator of the riots. Her evidence was notably given significant weight during the court case, despite being an unmarried woman and a brothel keeper.[9]

Following the riot, Page and Cresswell are listed as the addressers of

The Whores' Petition, sent to Lady Castlemaine, the King's lover, notorious for her own wild promiscuity. Some historians, such as Linnane, infer an active role of the addressers Page and Cresswell in the writing of the document.[10] Others such as Mowry and Turner suggest it is an organ of political ventriloquism on behalf of anonymous, radical dissenters.[11][12]
In an act of brazen public satire, the two brothel owners request that the infamous aristocrat act on the behalf of her 'sisters' and repay the madams for the rebuilding of their brothels, funded by the national tax coffers. They address Castlemaine as a prostitute herself and list the sites of the brothels where her fellows struggle. It is addressed as:

The Poor Whores' Petition to the most splendid, illustrious, serene and eminent Lady of Pleasure the Countess of Castlemayne &c: The humble petition of the undone company of poore distressed whores, bawds, pimps, and panders ... Signed by us, Madam Cresswell and Damaris Page, in the behalf of our sisters and fellow sufferers (in this day of our calamity) in Dog and Bitch Yard, Lukenor’s Lane, Saffron Hill, Moorfields, Chiswell Street, Rosemary Lane, Nightingale Lane, Ratcliffe Highway, Well Close, East Smithfield etc.[13]

Given her great experience in whoring, Lady Castlemaine would, they argued, be able to deeply sympathise with prostitutes across the city.

broadside satires, poems and ballads on the subject through the following year. The historian James Turner terms this event as an example of a new carnivalisation of sexuality in Restoration England, where genuine political attack, satire, street commentary and bawdy theatre came together.[12]

In her last years Page became close to her sister Margaret, to whom she left money in her will.

Marshalsea prison, she fell sick and died. She was buried the following day at St George the Martyr, Southwark.[1] She had amassed a considerable fortune by the time of her death.[2]

Further reading

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Faramerz Dabhoiwala, "Damaris Page" (c. 1610–1669), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, (2004) online edition (subscription only)
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0-307-49059-9
  3. ^ a b c d Portcities profile
  4. ^ a b c Carolyn Turgeon (2001) "Moll Flanders"; World Literature and Its Times: Profiles of Notable Literary Works and the Historic Events That Influenced Them. Gale Publishing. HighBeam Research.
  5. ^ London: A Tale of Two Cities with Dan Cruickshank, BBC4 2012
  6. ^ Montague Summers, ed. (1922) Shakespeare Adaptations, London: Jonathan Cape, p. 263.
  7. ^ Brendon, Piers, "Masters of the waves", The Independent (London, England) 22 April 2005
  8. ^ (Pepys, Diary, 9.132)
  9. ISBN 9780754641575
  10. ^ Linnane (2007) p. 75
  11. ISBN 9780754641575
  12. ^
    ISBN 9780521782791
    .
  13. ^ Imagining Sex: Pornography and Bodies in Seventeenth-Century England (2007) Sarah Toulalan, Oxford University Press p.282
  14. ISBN 9781861059901
    .
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