A History of Sex Work in Edinburgh
Sex Work in Society A History of Sex Work in Edinburgh
As syphilis spreads across Scotland, an Act is passed in Edinburgh giving
uninfected ‘whoremasters and harlots’ the opportunity to confess their
conversion to a new way of life, or face public punishments ranging from
branding to death.
Allan Ramsay published his
first collection of poetry,
many of which were written
in Scots about life in Edinburgh, including the
drinking dens and brothels of the Old Town. One
of his finest poems is Lucky Spence’s Last Advice,
about the final words of an infamous brothel
keeper, advising her “loving Lasses” on how best
to rob and exploit their patrons.
“When he’s asleep, then dive and catch
His ready Cash, his Rings or Watch;
And gin he likes to light his Match
at your Spunk-Box,
Ne’er stand to let the fumbling Wratch
een take the Pox.”
James Boswell, an Edinburgh
Advocate and close friend of
David Hume and Adam
Smith, begins keeping his Edinburgh Journals, in
which he writes frankly about his copious drinking
binges and visits to the city’s many brothels.
“When I returned to town, I was a good deal
intoxicated, ranged the streets, and having met
with a comely, fresh-looking girl, madly ventured
to lie with her on the north brae of the castle hill.
I told my dear wife immediately.”
Ranger’s Impartial List of the
Ladies of Pleasure, a
directory of brothels and
prostitutes in Edinburgh is published by James Tytler, a surgeon, hot air balloonist, editor of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, biographer of Robert Burns and incorrigible drunk.
The vaults under the Old Town begin to flood and are abandoned by the
numerous businesses and workshops that had been established there. The
area is soon taken over by criminals evading justice, the poor with no
where else to go, and those looking to take advantage of them. Soon the Cowgate area became
a notorious red light district with countless brothels and pubs.
The Edinburgh Magdalen Asylum opens in the Canongate, originally as a
half-way house for women coming out of prison. After four years it
officially becomes a refuge for women who want to leave prostitution. It is
a sharply segregated place, with women who had been ‘out on the town’ kept away from those
of ‘a better order’. Women were kept in solitary confinement for the first three months, “to
eradicate the taint of moral contagion”; after that their heads were shaved and they were
admitted to the Asylum. There they were bullied, tortured, beaten by the staff, harassed by the
locals and generally crushed into a pathetic and demoralised shadow of their former selves.
1560
1721
1767
1775
1795
1797
Sex Work in Society A History of Sex Work in Edinburgh
Mary Patterson is discharged from the Edinburgh Magdalen Asylum on the
8th of April, after 18 months incarceration. One day later she is murdered
by Burke and Hare.
Dr William Tait takes
over the Edinburgh
Magdalen Asylum. He
argues that the atmosphere of violence and
the location caused depression and a loss of
self-respect among the women. The Asylum
moves to a rural location in Dalry, where it
remains for over 100 years.
Dr William Tait
publishes Magdalenism,
an account of sex work
in Edinburgh at the time. Most of the women
in the city’s 200 public brothels were in their
late teens; some were as young as nine or
ten. He describes three classes of brothels:
the first for noblemen, merchants and military officers; the second for businessmen, clerks and
theologians; and the third for soldiers, sailors and country folk.
The Burgh Police (Scotland) Act allows women to be prosecuted in the
police courts for ‘being a common prostitute or streetwalker’.
The Macmillan Committee on Street Offences commends the law in
Scotland relating to female street prostitution, particularly that women
were only charged in court as a ‘common prostitute’ after surveillance and
several cautions.
The Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act allows girls and young
women, whose sexual promiscuity is thought to lead to a life of
prostitution, to be forced to be routinely examined for veneral disease in
remand homes or schools.
Dora Noyce opens her “YMCA with extras” at 17
Danube Street which continues as an Edinburgh
institution for almost 30 years. She was known to
quip that while her busiest time was during the Edinburgh Festival, the
two weeks of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland came a
close second.
The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act gives courts
the power to remand sexual offenders, including
prostitutes, for a medical examination. Within a
few years it became common practice for so-called ‘habitual
prostitutes’ to be regularly remanded in custody for venereal disease
treatment, whether or not they had symptoms.
The Edinburgh Magdalen Asylum in Dalry closes on November 11th. The
building is now known as Springwell House Social Work Centre.
1828
1840
1842
1892
1927
1950
1946
Copyright Kim Naylor 2009
1937
1949
Sex Work in Society A History of Sex Work in Edinburgh
A virtual tolerance zone already operates in Leith; despite the notoriety of
‘pick-up’ spots like the Deep Sea Fish and Chips and the Imperial Hotel,
Princes Street and the surrounding area account for 90% of the
prosecutions for solicitation in Edinburgh.
The first Traverse Theatre opens in the Lawnmarket, in a former doss
house and brothel known as Kelly’s Paradise and Hell’s Kitchen.
The Civic Government (Scotland) Act comes into force, which makes it
illegal for a sex worker to solicit or loiter for the purposes of prostitution. It
does not, however, make prostitution itself illegal. The Act also gives local
councils the power to issue licenses for public entertainment. Edinburgh Council begins granting
entertainment licenses to massage parlours and saunas, becoming the first city in the UK to
effectively decriminalise brothels.
The tolerance zone in Leith’s Coburg street begins, with police turning a
blind eye to solitication and loitering offences and (eventually)
organisations such as Shiva, the Centenary Project and SCOT-PEP offering
services to sex workers.
SCOT-PEP is officially established, after a year of providing unofficial
services in the guise of a Edinburgh University research project. For a full
history of SCOT-PEP, see the Advocacy Section.
The Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act is passed, again leaving
sex work itself legal but making many other aspects of indoor sex work
illegal.
The SCOT-PEP drop-in
centre in Coburg
Street opens, with
GUM clinic, counselling, addiction and ‘New
Futures’ services offered.
The Coburg Street
tolerance zone comes
to an end after
increasing pressure from local residents.
Councillor Phil Attridge comments: “I don’t
have any sympathy for those people who
bought property in the Coburg Street area
because they knew prostitution had been
tolerated there for almost 25 years.” A
new zone, on Salamander Street, lasts for
three months before outrage from local
residents forces the police to abandon the
scheme.
1955
1963
1982
1985
1995
1998
1989
2001
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