London Prostitutes, c. 1660 January 2, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
The Wandring Whore was a mysterious late seventeenth-century English dialogue between a number of ladies of the night, which was published in five numbers 1660-1661. It is titillating stuff and, after some back and forth between these bawds, each edition included a list of London prostitutes. Of course the publisher did not approve. God forbid! Indeed, he noted on the first page how the publication was a warning not an enabler: ‘farewel and beware’ (see above). But this is difficult to square with the fact that each number of the WW effectively advertised early modern cockney escorts and often their addresses. Beach has previously enjoyed himself with the wonderfully colourful names of medieval prostitutes and thought he might celebrate here these ‘whores of yore’. This is just perhaps five percent of all those listed, but hopefully it will be enough to give a taste of this bizarre half-hidden industry in the capital, a mere decade after the end of the English civil war, with Cromwell trying to institute the worst of heaven on earth.
Bess Country
Black Betty
Butter and Eggs
Cock Birch
Dutch Whore
Green Mall, alias Joan Godfrey
Grizel Conference alias Wood
Mother Daniel
Mrs Bulls Daughters
Mrs Clark-two Crack’d Brain’d Whores
Mrs Flower Pocky
Mrs Sherley the Younger
Mrs Watson, an Orange Seller
Nan Love
Nan Saucy
Peg the Seaman’s Wife
Pocky Pug Nasty
Queen of Morocco
Sugar C…. [sic]
Toothless Betty
Ursula Bunny
Other early modern prostitute’s names: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com Beach is not a brothel haunter but confesses that he would be intrigued to see Pocky Pug Nasty from a distance, preferably from a very long distance…
