Elizabeth Needham
Elizabeth Needham (died 3 May 1731), also known as Mother Needham, was an English procuress and brothel-keeper of 18th-century London, who has been identified as the bawd greeting Moll Hackabout in the first plate of William Hogarth's series of satirical etchings, A Harlot's Progress. Although Needham was notorious in London at the time, little is recorded of her life, and no genuine portraits of her survive. Her house was the most exclusive in London and her customers came from the highest strata of fashionable society, but she eventually ran afoul of the moral reformers of the day and died as a result of the severe treatment she received after being sentenced to stand in the pillory.
Character
Nothing is known of Needham's early life, but by the time she was middle-aged she was renowned in London as the keeper of a
Needham procured her prostitutes from many sources including the houses of other brothel-keepers, the "Bails" in Covent Garden where homeless girls would sleep rough, Tom King's Coffee House, and, it appears, from auctions,[3] but, as depicted in Hogarth's picture, she particularly targeted girls and women fresh from the country. The essayist Richard Steele found her pitching to a newly arrived girl when he went to meet a wagon bringing him items from the countryside. He described her as "artful", and it seems that she was friendly and engaging with her potential employees, revealing her vicious character only when they were under her roof; in The Dunciad, Alexander Pope warns not to "... lard your words with Mother Needham's style".[4] Pope mentions her once more at the end of The Dunciad (1728), making reference to her foul mouth, and again, alongside other notorious madams of the day, in the last verses of his Coronation Epistle (which were suppressed in editions of the poem from 1769 until 1954):
For Want of you, we spend our random Wit on
The first we find with Needham, Brooks, or Briton.[5]
Customers
Chief among her customers were Francis Charteris and his cousin the Duke of Wharton—Charteris is lounging in the doorway behind Needham in Hogarth's picture.[4] Ronald Paulson suggests that the model for Moll Hackabout in Hogarth's first scene is Ann Bond, who was lured by Needham and raped by Charteris.[8] Charteris, already known as the "Rape-Master General", was convicted and sentenced to death as a result of the Bond rape, although he was later pardoned. Needham's name was not mentioned during the legal proceedings.
Needham may have introduced Charteris to Sally Salisbury around 1708.[9] Salisbury was the pre-eminent prostitute of the day and was kept by Charteris for a short time as mistress at the beginning of her career. When her previous bawd, Mother Wisebourne, died in 1719, she became a member of Needham's household and brought with her a clientele from the highest ranks of society.[10] Salisbury brought further fame to Needham's house by involving another of her girls in the theft of the Earl of Cardigan's clothes. The two women accompanied him to Newmarket where he became drunk, and after putting him to bed at an inn they stole his clothes and jewellery and returned to London. The Earl treated the matter as a joke.[11]
Some idea of the reputation of Needham's house can be gathered from one of
Her well-connected clientele may have allowed her to escape arrest. Despite the popular notion that Sally Salisbury's 1723 stabbing of John Finch, the son of the Duchess of Winchelsea, had taken place in her house (it had actually occurred at the Three Tuns Tavern in Covent Garden),[1][13] the first time Needham was raided was in 1724:
Yesterday morning the celebrated Mother Needham and Mother Bird, two eminent conservators of the Game of the Kingdom, were committed to Newgate; their houses being disturb'd the night before by the Constables, who disengaged the Gentlemen and Ladies to a great number, and carried them to the Round-House. This being the first time Mrs Needham ever received publick correction, since her being at the head of venal affairs in this town, 'tis thought will be the ruin of her household. Daily Journal, Tuesday 21 July 1724.[2]
The constables had found "two women in bed with two men of distinction". The men were bound over, but the women were sent to Tothill Fields Bridewell to do hard labour.[14] Needham's punishment on this occasion is not recorded, but it appears that she was still incarcerated in September when her house burned down, killing one of the inhabitants, Captain Barbute, a French officer. In 1728, several of her girls were arrested, but she appears to have escaped punishment.[2]
Arrest, conviction and death
In late 1730,
On 29 April 1731, Needham was convicted of keeping a disorderly house, fined one shilling, and sentenced to stand twice in the pillory, and "to find sureties for her good behaviour for 3 years".[2] On 30 April she was taken to the pillory near Park Place to stand for the first time. Perhaps because of her connections, she was allowed to lie face down in front of the pillory and a number of guards were paid to protect her. Despite this she received such a pelting that it was thought likely she would die before her punishment was completed.[4] The crowds that had gathered to see her pilloried were so large that one boy fell on an iron fencing rail while trying to get a better look and was killed.[3]
Needham was taken from the pillory alive, but died on 3 May 1731, the day before she was due to stand in the pillory (this time at New Palace Yard) for the second time. With her last words she apparently expressed great fear at having to stand in the pillory again after the severe punishment she had received the first time.[15] The Grub Street Journal, the satirical journal allied with Alexander Pope and others of Hogarth's friends, sardonically reported that the populace "acted very ungratefully, considering how much she had done to oblige them".[2] Her demise was celebrated in a mocking rhyme:
Ye Ladies of Drury, now weep
Your voices in howling now raise
For Old Mother Needham's laid deep
And bitter will be all your Days.
She who drest you in Sattins so fine
Who trained you up for the Game
Who Bail, on occasion would find
And keep you from Dolly[a] and Shame
Now is laid low in her Grave...[3]
Hogarth was still at work on A Harlot's Progress when she died, so she never saw herself immortalised.[16] There were other madams ready to step into her shoes, but it was not until Mother Douglas took over the King's Head in Covent Garden in 1741 that a brothel reappeared with a reputation to match that of Needham.[17]
See also
Notes
- Bridewell or another of the prisons, hence to be saved from Dolly meant avoiding prison.[18][19] The Oxford English Dictionarysays Dolly was used at the time for "A drab, slattern, useless woman." Both of the senses could be employed here.
Citations
- ^ a b c d Linnane (2003) p.109
- ^ a b c d e f "Early Eighteenth-Century Newspaper Reports: A Sourcebook, "Mother Needham"". Rictor Norton. 20 April 2002. Retrieved 7 June 2007.
- ^ a b c Burford p.70
- ^ a b c d Linnane (2003) p.110
- JSTOR 511941.
- ^ Paulson (2000) p.89
- ^ a b c Paulson (1992) p.252
- ^ Paulson (2000) p.313
- ^ Burford p.47
- ^ Linnane (2003) p.102
- ^ Burford p.50
- ^ Joe Miller (attrib.) (1790). John Motley (ed.). Joe Miller's Jests. London: William Lane. p. 144.
- ^ "The Newgate Calendar: Sarah Priddon". Retrieved 7 June 2007.
- ^ Moore p.112
- ^ Paulson (2003) p.98
- ^ Neil McWilliam. "A Harlot's Progress". Hogarth's Realm. Retrieved 9 January 2007.
- ^ Burford p.128
- ^ Grose. M.
- ^ "Jack Withrington". The Newgate Calendar. Retrieved 22 June 2007.
References
- Burford, E.J. (1986). Wits, Wenchers and Wantons – London's Low Life: Covent Garden in the Eighteenth Century. Hale. p. 260. ISBN 0-7090-2629-3.
- Grose, Francis (1788). A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. J. Hooper. p. 248.
- Linnane, Fergus (2003). London - The Wicked City: A Thousand Years of Prostitution and Vice. Robson Books Ltd. p. 256. ISBN 978-1-86105-619-1.
- Miller, Joe (attrib.) (1790) [1739]. John Mottley (ed.). Joe Miller's Jests. London: William Lane. p. 144.
- Moore, Lucy (2000). The Thieves' Opera. Harvest Books. p. 304. ISBN 0-15-600640-5.
- Paulson, Ronald (1992). Hogarth: The Modern Moral Subject, 1697-1732 Vol 1. Lutterworth Press. p. 444. ISBN 0-7188-2854-2.
- Paulson, Ronald (2000). The Life of Henry Fielding. Blackwell Publishing Limited. p. 416. ISBN 0-631-19146-1.
- Paulson, Ronald (2003). Hogarth's Harlot: Sacred Parody in Enlightenment England. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 448. ISBN 0-8018-7391-6.
Further reading
- Linnane, Fergus (2005). London's Underworld: Three Centuries of Vice and Crime. Robson Books. p. 372. ISBN 1-86105-742-3.