Elizabeth Needham
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Elizabeth Needham (also known as Mother Needham) was a notorious English procuress and brothel-keeper of 18th century London, who appeared in the first of William Hogarth's series of satirical etchings, A Harlot's Progress.
Nothing is known of her early life, but by the time she was middle-aged she was renowned in London as the keeper of a brothel in Park Place, St. James. Hogarth described her as a "handsome old Procuress...well dressed in silk", but mentions "patches on her face" and in his picture her face is seen to be pock-marked. She went by a number of aliases: Bird, Howard, Blewitt and Trent. She was apparently ruthless with the girls who worked for her. They were forced to hire their dresses from her, and, if they were unable to pay the exorbitant rentals, she would force them to take more customers or have them committed to debtors' prison until they met her demands (a scheme John Cleland's heroine falls prey to in Fanny Hill). Once they were too old or too ill, she threw them out.[1]
She procured her girls from many sources (even, it appears, from auctions), but particularly targeted girls 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".[1]
Chief among her customers were Colonel Francis Charteris and his cousin the Duke of Wharton - Charteris is lounging in the doorway behind Needham in Hogarth's picture.[1] Her well-connected clientele may have allowed her to escape arrest, and the first time she 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 houshold. Daily Journal, Tuesday 21 July 1724.[2]
Her punishment on this occasion is not recorded, but in September, while she was still incarcerated, 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. On 29 April 1731, she 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 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.[1] She was taken out, but died on 3 May 1731, the day before she was due to stand in the pillory for the second time. In 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.[2] Hogarth was still at work on A Harlot's Progress when she died, so she never saw herself immortalised.[3]
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d Fergus Linnane (2003). London - The Wicked City: A Thousand Years of Prostitution and Vice. Robson Books Ltd, 109-111. ISBN 978-1861056191.
- ^ a b c Rictor Norton. Mother Needham. Retrieved on 09 January 2007.
- ^ Neil McWilliam. A Harlot's Progress. Hogarth's Realm. Retrieved on 09 January 2007.
