Gin Lane, 1751

	William Hogarth (1697-1764) Engraving (FA201258)

From 1690 onwards the British government had encouraged the distilling industry since it supported grain prices and encouraged trade, but without regulation or quality control. The gin trade became increasingly unmanageable and the government attempted to check sales, in 1729 by issuing excise licences and imposing duty and in 1736 by trying to suppress sales altogether. This proved unenforceable and the Act of 1743 made sales legal again but subject to heavy duty. By 1750 gin was sold by unlicensed barbers, carpenters, chandlers, tailors, weavers etc. In addition most operated as receivers of stolen goods and centres for prostitution. The production and consumption of cheap gin threatened the very fabric of society and after 1751, when the earlier acts were more rigorously applied, the crisis began to abate.

Hogarth published Gin Lane and its companion print, 'Beer Street' on 14-16 February 1751 (costing 1 shilling each), at the height of the Gin Craze. 'Beer Street' represents good humour, health and prosperity, the positive side of alcohol consumption, at a time when it was safer to drink beer than water. In 'Gin Lane' all is chaos brutality and poverty. Set in the London parish of St Giles where one in four addresses sold gin, the only businesses to thrive in the crumbling city are the gin shop, the pawnshop and the undertakers. In the foreground is a horrifying image of an inebriated mother taking snuff while her baby falls into the abyss. This was inspired by the shocking case of Judith Dufour who, in 1734, fetched her two-year old child from the workhouse where it had been 'new-clothed' for the afternoon. She strangled it, left its body in a ditch in Bethnal Green and sold its clothes to buy gin.

The Harlot in the Bridewell Prison, beating hemp, 1732

	William Hogarth (1697-1764) Engraved for 'A Harlots Progress' Plate 4 (FA201245)

The Bridewell Palace was built for Henry VIII on the site of St Bride's Inn, on the banks of the Fleet River in London. In 1553 Edward VI handed over the palace to the City of London to house homeless children and to punish disorderly women. The Bridewell became a prison, hospital and workrooms and became the model for similarly named institutions throughout the country. The Harlot, Moll Hackabout, is named after the scandalous fictional heroine of Defoe's 'Moll Flanders' and Kate Hackabout, a notorious prostitute and sister to a highwayman. She was the protagonist for a series of six paintings of 1731 (now lost). Having arrived as an innocent in London Moll is lured into prostitution, loses her rich protector and is arrested.

In the Bridewell 'house of correction' Moll is seen beating hemp for ships' ropes and hangman's nooses alongside other prisoners who include a male card-sharp. The gaoler raises his switch, urging the exhausted woman to work harder while his wife is about to steal her fine clothes. Behind her a man stands with his wrists in the pillory, the punishment for refusing to work. In the background is a stick-man graffiti portrait of John Gonson, a British judge noted for his enthusiasm for raiding brothels (he had arrested Kate Hackabout) and passing harsh sentences.

The Rake in the Fleet Prison, for debt, 1735

	William Hogarth (1697-1764) Engraved for 'A Rake's Progress' Plate 7 (FA201285)

Between 1707 and 1708 Richard Hogarth's Latin-speaking coffeehouse failed and he and his family were confined for debt in the Black and White Court of the Fleet Prison. Richard, primarily a publisher of Greek and Latin texts, was left without employment; the family kept afloat thanks to the sale of his extensive library and his wife Anne's home remedies. He was finally released in 1712 thanks to an Act of Parliament but the experience left its mark on the young William. He was able to illustrate some of the many abuses of the penal system in this episode from 'A Rake's Progress' The eight paintings in the series are at the Sir John Soane Museum in London.

Tom Rakewell, the Rake, has gambled away two fortunes, the second from his one-eyed hag of a wife who shouts into his right ear. The gaoler stands behind him reminding him to pay an extortionate rent for his cell while anther prison employee demands payment for a mug of beer. On the table lies Tom's rejected play. On the left Sarah Young, his faithful lover, who has come to visit him with their child, faints. She is caught by another prisoner, a dishevelled bearded man with a paper in his pocket marked 'Debts'. Another paper inscribed, 'Being a New Scheme for paying ye Debts of ye Nation by T:L: now a prisoner in the Fleet' has fallen to the ground.

Sale of a Wife in Smithfield Market

	Finucane (no details) Engraving, published by Laurie & Whittle, London, 1797 (FA208416)

Scenes like this extraordinary event, where a wife is being touted for sale at Smithfield (the London meat and livestock market) for half a guinea, actually happened. Among poor folk women were regarded as their husband's property and this bizarre ritual was sometimes the easiest way of ending a dysfunctional marriage. Husbands could be brutal drunkards and wives harridans. The inscription says,
'..tho her Horns bent Wisible, yet he that buys her will soon feel their sharpness..' There are newspaper reports of such auctions, the closest in date being a note in 'The Times' for 19 September 1797, 'an hostlers wife, in the country, lately fetched twenty-five guineas'. At such a sale in Edinburgh on 16 July, 1828 Mary Mackintosh's honour was upheld by hundreds of local women who stoned the male participants. At another, more poignant, event in Thirsk on 26 July 1855 William and Mary Marshall had been happily married for 16 years before 'his infirmities' (at 80 he was 45 years her senior) led him to free her from their bond.

The most famous fictional incident takes place in the opening chapter of Thomas Hardy's 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' published nearly a century later in1886. Hardy justified the use of the plot device by affirming that he had evidence of several instances. He had heard of a case in Portland, Dorset and in 24 March 1833 The 'Observer' published an extract from the 'Blackburn Gazette',
'Sale of a Wife - a grinder named Calton sold his wife publicly in the market place, Stockport last Monday week. She was purchased by a shop-mate of the husband for a gallon of beer. The fair one, who had a halter round her neck, seemed quite agreeable'.