Poverty/Prostitution York

This is a study of 1,400 prostitutes and brothel-keepers operating in a Victorian cathedral city over a half century.

Frances Finnegan (Author)

9780521033374, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 January 2007

244 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.372 kg

Poverty and Prostitution is a study of 1,400 prostitutes and brothel-keepers operating in a Victorian cathedral city over a half century. It is based on the unique and systematic use of detailed evidence from such sources as the weekly newspaper reports of magistrates' court proceedings, workhouse records, Quarter Sessions Lists and material relating to the local refuge for 'Fallen Women'. The book also draws on the city's wealth of slum clearance records and on the evidence from the census enumerators' notebooks. Dr Finnegan examines the social and geographical origins of the prostitutes and their associates. The conclusions reached challenge existing interpretations of the subject and show that far from being a healthy and comparatively harmless activity which could be abandoned with ease, the Victorian street-walker's career was generally tragic and brief, overshadowed by poverty and characterized throughout by desperation, drunkenness, frequent prison sentences and disease. In addition to considering York's recorded prostitute community as a whole, the book is illustrated throughout with the histories of individual women, and contains fascinating photographic material.

List of illustrations
Preface
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. Houses and haunts
3. The prostitutes and brothel-keepers
4. The clients
5. Drink, destitution and disease
6. Rescue and reform
Conclusion
Notes
bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1]