Society for the Reformation of Manners

Mary II. Although inspired and fed by the moral excesses of London, branches were set up in towns and cities as far afield as Edinburgh, where Daniel Defoe

MPs) along with the original founders, provided the expertise and financing to enable prosecutions to proceed. The next tier was the "Second Society" which consisted mainly of tradesmen, and whose role it was to suppress vice. Among other methods, the "Second Society" employed a blacklist which they published annually to shame the alleged offenders. Below the tradesmen was the "Association of Constables" who took a more active role in arresting the miscreants who offended the public morality. Finally the fourth layer consisted of informers: a network of "moral guardians" throughout the City of London, with two stewards in each parish, to gather information about moral infractions.^[1] The central committee of "Original Gentlemen" collected the information with a view to passing the information to the local magistrates, so the malefactors could be prosecuted and punished. The society would pay others to bring prosecutions, or bring prosecutions on its own account.^[1]

Quarter Sessions for the City of Westminster for 50 years in the early 18th century. He was noted for his enthusiasm for raiding brothels and for passing harsh sentences, and was depicted twice in William Hogarth's A Harlot's Progress series of paintings and engravings. In around 1770, the society denounced Covent Garden

House of Commons. Jonathan Swift was an early critic of the societies, arguing in his tract A Project for the Advancement of Religion, and the Reformation of Manners (1709), that while the project began with excellent intentions, it had grown into a means of enriching corrupt informers.^[3]

Love For Love (1695) by William Congreve and The Relapse (1696) by John Vanbrugh, signalling the end of the popularity of Restoration comedy

pickpockets to prevent arrest, and leaning on the thieves to make them fence their stolen goods through him. His business may have been undermined by the success of his competitor Jonathan Wild. In 1727, Hitchen was accused of sodomitical practices, and tried for sodomy (a capital offence) and attempted sodomy. He was sentenced to a fine of 20 pounds, to be put in the pillory

George III in 1787, "For the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue, and for the Preventing and Punishing of Vice, Profaneness and Immorality".^{[citation needed}