Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Elizabeth Needham

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 00:00, 16 July 2007.

[edit] Elizabeth Needham

The most exclusive London brothel-keeper of her day. Little is known about her, but everything that is known is here. Short FAs are a sadly under-represented category, so I hope this can start to redress the balance. Yomangani^talk 00:14, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: I am not a FA reviewer but I can comment but there are some short FA's including Cape Feare, sometimes it's not about the lenghth of an article but the comprehensive of it. The FA criteria says "Comprehensive" means that the article does not neglect major facts and details." and "It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail". So article lenghth is always based on the what the article is. SpecialWindler talk 04:45, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support: I have done small, small amounts here and there with the article. Bawds and bawdy houses are an increasingly important subject in 18th century literary and historical studies, both with New Historicists and various "identity" studies, as well as, of course, historical feminism. Gathering up the sum of what is known on this figure is difficult. Short of having access to an excellent rare book room, the nominator has gathered up all that was possible. As a primary researcher, I know that more was said and written about her, but absolutely none of that is in print or accessible to a researcher not lucky enough to be at the Bodleian and blessed with oceans of vast eternity to do the digging. As an FA, this may well fire the imaginations of serious researchers and provide in one bad, compact form all that we presently know of the lady. Geogre 20:09, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose, not enough footnotes. Erk, wrong speech. More good work Yomangani. Any estimates on her birth year? And after the 1724 arrest, she got back to work immediately, or is there no info on that (it jumps to '28 suddenly)? Otherwise, I think this as comprehensive as can be expected, if this is all the material that's available. (Would Career be better headlined Character or Personality?) It's 9k prose, incidentally, which isn't quite our shortest; I still think we need some process of encouraging these without necessarily a full FAC, if GA is not to do it. Support. Marskell 12:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

  I've changed the title of "Career" to "Character" as it is probably a better fit since most of her career is mentioned in the next sections. Unfortunately I haven't seen a date of birth or even an estimate. All we know is she wasn't young when she became famous, so a birth date well before 1700 is a good guess, but it would be OR to go any closer than you can infer from the article. Info on the 4 years between 24 and 28 is missing. It doesn't mean nothing of interest happened, just that there are no surviving records in the general literature. Yomangani^talk 13:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

During the silent years, she was probably back at work. Given that we still don't have solid reports on the underworld, her absence from court records argues that she was merely thriving. However, those years are somewhat interesting, as they see a kicking off of a major morality sweep in London. (Linked, already, with the Society for the Reformation of Manners and Gonson.) Utgard Loki 16:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'll guess you won't have this info either, but is there any estimate of how much income she might've taken in, or at least what a john would've paid at the time? The one shilling on top of the pillory is interesting—even for the time, it couldn't have been more than a token fine. Marskell 14:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose.
  • Lead
    • should be "an English procuress",/s>
    • wikilink either brothel or bawd; someone with limited English skills may not understand the terms, as they are not used as much (in US English at least) anymore.
    • Her death date should appear in the lead.

      Fixed.

      I meant that it needs to be next to her name (Elizabeth Needham (d 3 May 1731)....)Karanacs 16:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

      Is that some MoS thing? Doesn't really seem necessary and there are already a set of parentheses after her name. Yomangani^talk 17:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

      Yes, it is the standard for biographies. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Dates_of_birth_and_death Karanacs 19:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

      Done now, ugly as is it. Yomangani^talk 22:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Character section
    • Do you have any estimates of when she might have lived? Middle-aged did not necessarily mean the same age-range 300 years ago as it does today. When life expectancies were shorter, you reached middle age sooner. We need some frame of reference in the first paragraph of the main article to tell us when we think she lived. If you can find any kind of citation as to what middle-aged meant at the time it was being used in connection with her, and then include the year that she was referred to as middle-aged, that would help.

      No, see the reply to Marskell above. We are relying on secondary sources, so second-guessing what they mean by middle-aged is OR.

      Fact check: life expectancy was lower in aggregate, but not in particular. "Middle aged" meant then what it meant now. There was high infant mortality, and lower class persons had lower average life spans after adolescence because of machinery being introduced, but the life span for a Londoner was generally then what it is now (generally). Furthermore, Londoners had the concept of "middle age" already and were defining it nearly the way we do. I.e. it's just not true that lower life expectancy (when all live births are computed) equals early death for adults. Utgard Loki 16:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

    • Do you have any sources that connect the Fanny Hill plot to Needham? If not, you need to specify that the plot is similar but we don't know where Cleland got his inspiration.

      No, and since it doesn't claim that the plot is inspired by Needham's activities (and is even in parentheses), I don't think we need the spoonfeeding disclaimer. By adding it we'd imply a possible connection that isn't implied by the sentence as it stands.

      I thought the point of the reference in the article was to show that Needham's methods were famous, not to suggest that a particular person took from her, specifically. In fact, the portrait of the abused girl in Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village (or am I thinking of Gray's Elegy?) shares features broadly. It is the specific innovation of "renting their clothes" that represents Needham's evil genius, and that specific device shows up in Cleland's novel from 1719. It seems like an excellent testimony to infamy. Geogre 18:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

      I am not very familiar with Fanny Hill and did not know when it was published, so I was confused as to whether the article is meaning to imply that she took the practice from the novel or the novel took it from her. If it is just intending to say that the practice is (in)famous, then I think you still need a tad more explanation. Karanacs 16:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

      I don't know that Cleland got the idea from Needham or if Needham was the only bawd that practised this particular wheeze. What we do know is that she did it and Fanny Hill falls for the trick in the novel, which is what the article says. Yomangani^talk 17:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

    • Overall, this section does not fit well in the structure of your article as is. It refers to events that are discussed later in the article. I like that you have quotes from her contemporaries about her, but they also need to be placed in some context instead of just a large paragraph of quotations. See if you can better incorporate them, and also provide the years that these commentaries were written.

      I disagree. There is too little in the chronological sections for incorporating the material there to work well. I prefer to have a general overview of her character first and then some specific events. There are already a lot of quotes in the other sections. Adding the dates was a good point and I've fixed that.

      I'd never heard of Elizabeth Needham before, and I was confused reading the article that we were talking about her personality before I really understood why I was reading about her in the first place. You could leave the descriptions of her in these early paragraphs because that does help to put her in a historical context (she was middle-aged, she was pock-marked). I think all description of her methods should be somewhere in the career section. Karanacs 16:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

      I still disagree. The description of her methods and the views of her from others highlight her character just as Hogarth's description highlights her appearance. The opening sentence of that paragraph tells you who she was and why she was known in the 18th century. Having two lines of physical description and then launching into Charteris, Bond and Sally Salisbury before coming back for a little information on her methods seems to me a worse structure. Yomangani^talk 17:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

  • You have adequately pointed out that her house had a good reputation, but I don't know that you've proved that "Her house was the most exclusive in London." If you can find an actual quotation for this, that might help. Your quote from the Daily Journal implies that her house was one of the most popular, but not the most exclusive.

    That was covered by the citation that followed, but I've duplicated it now to avoid confusion.

  • Do you have any more information about Ann Bond and how she was lured by Needham?

    The rape of Ann Bond is covered in the Charteris article. There are no more details on Needham's interactions with her other than those listed in the article. Detailing her case would, I think, unbalance the article.

    I didn't know anything about Ann Bond or Charteris, and since her name wasn't wikilinked I didn't know if I would be able to find more info. I read the section, and I recommend at least adding in details that Charteris was convicted and sentenced to death due to the rape. That is a rare occurrence and explains better why this incident is noteworthy at all. It should at least contain a similar amount of detail as the paragraph that follows has on Sally Salisbury. Karanacs 16:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

    • I've added a sentence about the rape case. Yomangani^talk 17:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

  • The fact that she was raided doesn't seem to me to have much to do with Sally Salisbury stabbing someone. Even if Salisbury had stabbed someone in Needham's place, she wouldn't necessarily have been raided. A better transition would be good here.

    The rumours that the stabbing of a toff took place in her house would have been more than enough excuse for her premises to be raided.

    It's one of those situations where much of the underworld existed by a system of bribes and "salutory neglect." When a peer, or the relative of a peer, got linked, though, then a whole host of minor officials who were supposed to stop this kind of thing had their livings endangered. From the City under-marshal (such as Charles Hitchen) to the licenser of inns to the justice of the peace -- many people had jurisdiction and were supposed to shut down brothels. No one cared if the wheels were greased, so long as it all went on quietly. N.b. that it is a "riotous" or "notorious" house that could get a place raided, and a famous person getting stabbed would do that, in spades. (We get a fair amount of information about the era, incidentally, from Hitchen's own The Regulator, where he accused Jonathan Wild of doing all the things that Wild (and Hitchen) had done.) Geogre 18:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

    Again, I think this is an instance where you assume that your readers know a lot more about the norms of the era than they do. Someone who hasn't read extensively on this period of London history may not be so sure. Karanacs 16:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

    I think this would be the norm for any era. The phrasing of the sentence surely makes clear it would have been a likely excuse for a raid. "Despite" implies the an expectation that the contrary would normally occur. Or perhaps I'm just missing your point. Yomangani^talk 17:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Need a citation for the fact that someone died in her house, and that in 1728 several of her girls were arrested.

    Fixed

    still no citation there.Karanacs 16:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

    • Don't know what happened there, I probably hit preview and then wandered off. Fixed now (I've been back and checked). Yomangani^talk 17:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

  • citations should go at the end of the sentence instead of in the middle

    No, they should go after punctuation but in relation to what is being cited.

Karanacs 14:49, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for your comments. Yomangani^talk 16:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Reads exceptionally well; interesting; well-sourced. FAs need not be long--for some worthy and interesting topics there are only a few good, reliable sources, or only a handful of writeups in peer-reviewed journals, a phenomenon I know well from my own area of expertise (music before 1600). If this article appears on the main page it would be a credit to Wikipedia. Antandrus (talk) 21:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support per Antandrus. Giano 14:05, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.