The association for moral and social hygiene: Abolitionism and prostitution law in Britain (1915-1959)

Women's History Review

Volumn 17, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 207-223

  Laite, Julia Ann ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 51249132819     PISSN: 09612025     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09612020701707209     Document Type: Review

References (80)

1. For histories of post-1885 regulated prostitution and abolitionism in continental Europe, see Laurie Bernstein (1995) Sonia's Daughters: prostitutes and their regulation in imperial Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press)
2. Natalia Gerodetti (2004) 'Lay Experts': women's social purity groups and the politics of sexuality in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Switzerland, Women's History Review, 13(4), pp. 585-610
3. Mary Gibson (1986) Prostitution and the State in Italy, 1860-1915 (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press)
4. For histories of post-1885 regulated prostitution and abolitionism in Britain and its colonies, see Philip Howell (2004) Race, Space and the Regulation of Prostitution in Colonial Hong Kong, Urban History, 31(2), pp. 229-248
5. Philip Howell (2004) Sexuality, Sovereignty and Space: law, government and the geography of prostitution in colonial Gibraltar, Social History, 29(4), pp. 444-464
6. Philip Howell (2000) A Private Contagious Diseases Act: prostitution and public space in Victorian Cambridge, Journal of Historical Geography, 26(3), pp. 376-402
7. and Philippa Levine (2003) Prostitution, Race and Politics: policing venereal disease in the British Empire (London: Routledge)
8. See also Anne Summers (2006) Which Women? What Europe? Josephine Butler and the International Abolitionist Federation, History Workshop Journal, 62, pp. 214-231
9. Lucy Bland (1995) Banishing the Beast: English feminism and sexual morality,1885-1914 (London: Penguin)
10. Edward J. Bristow (1977) Vice and Vigilance: purity movements in Britain since 1700 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan)
11. Sheila Jeffreys (1985) The Spinster and Her Enemies: feminism and sexuality, 1880-1930 (London: Pandora)
12. Frank Mort (2000) Dangerous Sexualities: medico-moral politics in England since 1830 (London: Routledge)
13. Judith R. Walkowitz (1980) Prostitution and Victorian Society: women, class and the state (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
14. Judith R. Walkowitz (1980) The Politics of Prostitution, Signs, 6(1), pp. 123-135
15. Judith R. Walkowitz (1982) Male Vice and Feminist Virtue: feminism and the politics of prostitution in nineteenth century Britain, History Workshop Journal, 13, pp. 79-93
16. Paula Bartley (2000) Prostitution: prevention and reform in England, 1860-1914 (London: Routledge)
17. Francis Finnegan (2001) Do Penance or Perish: a study of Magdelene asylums in Ireland (Kilkenny: Congrave Press)
18. Linda Mahood (1990) The Magdalenes: prostitution in the nineteenth century (London: Routledge)
19. Mort, Dangerous Sexualities
20. Bland, Banishing the Beast
21. Jeffreys, The Spinster and Her Enemies
22. Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society
23. Walkowitz, 'The Politics of Prostitution'
24. Walkowitz, 'Male Vice and Feminist Virtue'
25. Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics, p. 141
26. Barbara Caine (1992) Victorian Feminists (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
27. Susan Kingsley Kent (1993) Making Peace: the reconstruction of gender in interwar Britain (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
28. Olive Banks (1993) The Politics of British Feminism, 1918-1970 (Aldershot: Edward Elgar), p. 61
29. Harold L. Smith (1990) British Feminism in the 1920s, in H. L. Smith (Ed. ) British Feminism in the Twentieth Century (Aldershot: Edward Elgar), pp. 47-65
30. Paul McHugh (1980) Prostitution and Victorian Social Reform (London: Croom Helm)
31. Association for Moral and Social Hygiene Annual Reports, 1917 and 1930-1931
32. Reports in The Times, Thursday, 29 October 1908, p. 10, Issue 38790, col D
33. Alison Neilans' testimony at the Old Bailey, The Women's Freedom League 'Bulletin' (31 July 1942), pp. 18-19
34. Olive Banks (1990) The Biographical Dictionary of British Feminists (Brighton: Wheatsheaf)
35. Alison Neilans (1912) Solicitation and the Law, The Vote, 6(132)
36. See, for instance, Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (1920) The State and Sexual Morality (London: George Allen & Unwin)
37. For the support of the organizations affiliated with the National Council of Women, see, for instance, the AMSH Twelfth Annual Report, 1926-1927, 14-15 and Alison Neilans' Testimony before the Street Offences Committee, HO 326/7
38. For cross-campaigns with the Open Door Council and others, see for instance, The Times Saturday, 31 July 1926, p. 8, Issue 44338, col A
39. Editorial (1917) 'British Troops in France,' The Shield, 1(7), pp. 393-397
40. 'Maisons Tolerées in France', Association for Moral and Social Hygiene Files, London, The Women's Library, 3AMS/B/07/18; The Times, Thursday 7 February 1918, p. 3, col E
41. For attempts to define 'amateur prostitution', see The Joint Select Committee on the Criminal Law Amendment Act and the Sexual Offences Act, 1918 and 1920 (London: HMSO); Testimony of Miss Costin, 27 January 1919, Committee of Enquiry into the State of Sexual Morality, London, The Women's Library, 3AMS/B/09/01
42. The bills also called for the criminalization of the transmission of venereal disease, alongside a number of other clauses for the sexual protection of young girls. The Joint Select Committee on the Criminal Law Amendment Act and the Sexual Offences Act, 1918 and 1920 (London: HMSO)
43. 'In his latter years', read the obituary, 'he took a point of view in which Abolitionists could not see eye to eye with him concerning compulsory rescue of girls under 18, and penalizing the buying and selling of sexual relations'. They did, however, also report that their relationship with the NVA remained 'cordial'. Editorial, The Shield, December-January 1919-1920, p. 223
44. Catherine Lee has found that the solicitation laws remained extremely important to prostitution control even in those areas to which the CD Acts applied before their repeal in 1886: Catherine Lee (2007) Policing Prostitution in Kent, 1860-1880, paper presented at the Social History Society Annual Conference, University of Exeter, 31 March-2 April 2007
45. This had grown from a 42% average in the thirty years before the war, largely due to the urbanization of prostitution and the particular policing policies of the Metropolitan Police force; The Judicial Statistics of England and Wales, Criminal Statistics, 1893-1930
46. Stefan Petrow (1994) Policing Morals: the Metropolitan Police and the Home Office, 1870-1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
47. Julia Laite (2008) Taking Nellie Johnson's Fingerprints: prostitution and legal identity in early twentieth century London, History Workshop Journal, 65
48. This included advocating that solicitation be made an offence for men as well as women. See, for instance, Alexander Coote's testimony on behalf of the National Vigilance Association to the Royal Commission on the Duties of the Metropolitan Police, 1906 (London, HMSO, 1907) and his testimony on behalf of the NVA on 7 April 1919 to the Committee of Enquiry into the State of Sexual Morality, London, The Women's Library, 3AMS/B/09/01
49. Helen Wilson (1918) 'Law, Morality and Justice,' The Shield, 2(1), p. 15
50. Stansfeld's 'touchstones' speech, as cited in Association for Moral and Social Hygiene, Second Annual Report, 1917, p. 8
51. Helen Wilson (1919) Principles of the International Abolitionist Federation - the single standard, The Shield, 2(2), p. 95
52. Mary Gordon (1922) Penal Discipline (London: George Routledge & Sons)
53. Chrystal Macmillan (1917) Should the Term Common Prostitute Be Abolished from the Statutes? The Shield, 1(4), p. 215
54. Wilson, 'Principles of the International Abolitionist Federation', p. 97
55. F. W. Pethick Lawrence (1917) The Police Court: abuses of the present system, The Shield, 1(7), p. 436
56. For an examination of women's entry into the legal professions see James C. Albisetti (2000) Portia Ante Portas: women and the legal profession in Europe, ca. 1870-1925, Journal of Social History, 33(4), pp. 825-857 and
57. Louise Jackson (2006) Women Police: gender, welfare and surveillance in the twentieth century (Manchester: Manchester University Press)
58. Constance Tite (1916) Women Police Notes, The Shield, 1(1), pp. 49-51
59. The Times, Tuesday 29 April 1919, p. 16, Issue 42086, col G
60. The AMSH articulated frequent critiques of the philosophies and policies of traditional rescue work. See, for instance, Constance Tite (1916) Is Rescue Work a Failure? The Shield, 1(3), pp. 167-176
61. George William Johnson (1921) The Injustice of the Solicitation Laws, The Shield, 3(5) pp. 207-208
62. G. W. Johnson & B. Leppington (1921) Should Prostitution be a Crime? The Shield, 3(3), p. 138
63. Partial transcript of the Street Offences Deputation to Stanley Baldwin, 19 April 1929, 'Committee on Street Offences 1928-1929', London, The Women's Library, 3AMS/B/04/10
64. Editorial (1919) The Shield, 2(2), p. 68
65. AMSH, The State and Sexual Morality, p. 34
66. Public Places (Order) Bill, Bill 212, 8 July 1925, House of Commons Papers (London: HMSO)
67. Martin Pugh (2004) Astor , Nancy Witcher, Viscountess Astor (1879-1964), in H. C. G. Matthew & Brian Harrison (Eds) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press); online edn ed. Lawrence Goldman. http://www. oxforddnb. com/view/article/30489 (accessed 31 May 2007)
68. (1925) Reprinting of Viscountess Astor's speech in the House of Commons, The Shield, 4(6), pp. 229-230
69. Hugh Macmillan, K. C. (1928) Report of the Street Offences Committee (London: HMSO)
70. Helen Wilson (1920) The International Abolitionist Federation in 1920, The Shield, 3(1), p. 23
71. Louise E. Acres (1943) Alison Neilans - an appreciation, The Shield (Supplement, April 1943), p. 12
72. Anonymous (1943) In Memoriam: Alison Neilans, The Shield (Supplement, April), p. 5
73. For more on Butler, see Ian Gilmour (2004) Butler, Richard Austen [Rab], Baron Butler of Saffron Walden (1902-1982), in H. C. G. Matthew & Brian Harrison (Eds) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press); online edn ed. Lawrence Goldman. http://www. oxforddnb. com/ view/article/30886 (accessed 9 May 2007)
74. The Times, Friday 15 July 1955, p. 5, col A
75. The Times, Thursday 30 January 1958, p. 4, col E
76. The Times, Tuesday 27 January 1959, p. 8, col E
77. Helen J. Self (2003) Prostitution, Women and the Misuse of the Law: the fallen daughters of Eve (London: Frank Cass)
78. http://www. allwomencount. net/EWC%20Sex%20Workers/SexWorkIndex. htm; Self, Prostitution, Women, and the Misuse of the Law
79. Home Office, 'Paying the Price: a Consultation Paper on Prostitution', July 2004. http:// www. homeoffice. gov. uk/documents/cons-paying-the-price/ paying-the-price. pdf?view=Binary
80. Home Office, 'A Coordinated Prostitution Strategy and Summary of Responses to Paying the Price', January 2006, http://www. homeoffice. gov. uk/ documents/cons-paying-the-price/ProstitutionStrategy. pdf?view=Binary