Elizabeth Needham (died 3 May 1731), also known as Mother Needham, was an English

procuress Procuring or pandering is the facilitation or provision of a prostitute or other sex worker in the arrangement of a sex act with a customer. A procurer, colloquially called a pimp (if male) or a madam (if female, though the term pimp has still ...

and brothel-keeper of 18th-century London, who has been identified as the bawd greeting Moll Hackabout in the first plate of

William Hogarth William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like ...

's series of satirical etchings, ''

A Harlot's Progress ''A Harlot's Progress'' (also known as ''The Harlot's Progress'') is a series of six paintings (1731, now destroyed) and engravings (1732) by the English artist William Hogarth. The series shows the story of a young woman, M. (Moll or Mary) H ...

''. Although Needham was notorious in London at the time, little is recorded of her life, and no genuine portraits of her survive. Her house was the most exclusive in London and her customers came from the highest strata of fashionable society, but she eventually ran afoul of the moral reformers of the day and died as a result of the severe treatment she received after being sentenced to stand in the pillory.

Character

Nothing is known of Needham's 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. Her house was regarded as the most exclusive in London, superior to those of Covent Garden, even to that of the other notorious bawd of the time,

Mother Wisebourne ] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gesta ...

.Linnane (2003) p.109 She was said to still be attractive in middle-age; 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 syphilis, pock-marked. She went by a number of aliases: Bird, Howard, Blewitt and Trent are among those ascribed to her, although Mother Bird was also the name of another brothel-keeper who was committed to Newgate Prison with Needham in 1724. Needham was apparently ruthless with the girls and women 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 A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, Lucinda"A Histori ...

until they met her demands (a scheme

John Cleland John Cleland (c. 1709, baptised – 23 January 1789) was an English novelist best known for his fictional '' Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure'', whose eroticism led to his arrest. James Boswell called him "a sly, old malcont ...

's heroine falls prey to in ''

Fanny Hill ''Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure''—popularly known as ''Fanny Hill''—is an erotic novel by English novelist John Cleland first published in London in 1748. Written while the author was in debtors' prison in London,Wagner, "Introduction" ...

'' (1748)). Once they were too old or too ill to attract customers, she would throw them out. Needham procured her prostitutes from many sources including the houses of other brothel-keepers, the "Bails" in Covent Garden where homeless girls would sleep rough,

Tom King's Coffee House Tom King's Coffee House (later known as Moll King's Coffee House) was a notorious establishment in Covent Garden, London in the mid-18th century. Open from the time the taverns shut until dawn, it was ostensibly a coffee house, but in reality se ...

, and, it appears, from auctions,Burford p.70 but, as depicted in Hogarth's picture, she particularly targeted girls and women fresh from the country. The essayist

Richard Steele Sir Richard Steele (bap. 12 March 1672 – 1 September 1729) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright, and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine ''The Spectator''. Early life Steele was born in D ...

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 ''The Dunciad'' is a landmark, mock-heroic, narrative poem by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times from 1728 to 1743. The poem celebrates a goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bri ...

'',

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

warns not to "... lard your words with Mother Needham's style".Linnane (2003) p.110 Pope mentions her once more at the end of ''The Dunciad'' (1728), making reference to her foul mouth, and again, alongside other notorious madams of the day, in the last verses of his ''Coronation Epistle'' (which were suppressed in editions of the poem from 1769 until 1954):

For Want of you, we spend our random Wit on The first we find with Needham, Brooks, or Briton.

Henry Fielding Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel ''Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...

refers to her in his ''Pasquin'' (1736) and used Hogarth's representation of her as the model for Mother Punchbowl in ''

The Covent Garden Tragedy ''The Covent-Garden Tragedy'' is a play by Henry Fielding that first appeared on 1 June 1732 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane alongside ''The Old Debauchees''. It is about a love triangle in a brothel involving two prostitutes. While they are po ...

'' (1732).

Mary Davys Mary Davys (1674?–1732) was an Irish novelist and playwright. Early life Davis was born in Ireland: nothing is known about her childhood, including her birth name. Comments by Jonathan Swift, who was at Trinity College Dublin with her hus ...

's bawd in the ''Accomplish'd Rake'' of 1727 is called "Mother N-d-m" and targets young girls fresh from the countryside, just as Needham did.Paulson (1992) p.252

Customers

Chief among her customers were Francis Charteris and his cousin the

Duke of Wharton Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...

—Charteris is lounging in the doorway behind Needham in Hogarth's picture. Ronald Paulson suggests that the model for Moll Hackabout in Hogarth's first scene is Ann Bond, who was lured by Needham and raped by Charteris. Charteris, already known as the "Rape-Master General", was convicted and sentenced to death as a result of the Bond rape, although he was later pardoned. Needham's name was not mentioned during the legal proceedings. Needham may have introduced Charteris to Sally Salisbury around 1708. Salisbury was the pre-eminent prostitute of the day and was kept by Charteris for a short time as mistress at the beginning of her career. When her previous bawd, Mother Wisebourne, died in 1719, she became a member of Needham's household and brought with her a clientele from the highest ranks of society. Salisbury brought further fame to Needham's house by involving another of her girls in the theft of the Earl of Cardigan's clothes. The two women accompanied him to Newmarket where he became drunk, and after putting him to bed at an inn they stole his clothes and jewellery and returned to London. The Earl treated the matter as a joke. Some idea of the reputation of Needham's house can be gathered from one of '' Joe Miller's Jests'', which involves her asking her landlord to wait for his money until

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

and the Convocation sit, at which point she will be able to pay him ten times over, and by a satirical premature obituary, which appeared in the ''London Journal''. The latter describes a will in which she distributes appropriate gifts to her famous clients: "a picture of Sodom and Gomorrah to indorsing D―n; an ounce of Mercuris Dulcis to Beau C―e, of St. Martin's Lane; her estate to the Duke of Wharton; her library to Ned C―; and a receipt to cure a clap to little Quibus". At the time, the figures mentioned would not have been spared their blushes by the omission of their full names, but identifying them now is guesswork. Her well-connected clientele may have allowed her to escape arrest. Despite the popular notion that Sally Salisbury's 1723 stabbing of John Finch, the son of the Duchess of Winchelsea, had taken place in her house (it had actually occurred at the Three Tuns Tavern in Covent Garden), the first time Needham was raided was in 1724: The constables had found "two women in bed with two men of distinction". The men were bound over, but the women were sent to

Tothill Fields Bridewell Tothill Fields Bridewell (also known as Tothill Fields Prison and Westminster Bridewell) was a prison located in the Westminster area of central London between 1618 and 1884. It was named "Bridewell" after the Bridewell Palace, which during the ...

to do hard labour. Needham's punishment on this occasion is not recorded, but it appears that she was still incarcerated in September when 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.

Arrest, conviction and death

In late 1730, Sir John Gonson, a Justice of the Peace and fervent supporter of the

Society for the Reformation of Manners The Society for the Reformation of Manners was founded in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Tower Hamlets area of London in 1691.

, spurred on by the furore surrounding the Charteris rape case, began conducting raids on brothels all over London. By early 1731 he had arrived at St James, where some residents of Park Place reported "a Notorious Disorderly House in that Neighbourhood". In truth, Needham's house was hardly unknown, having served the upper echelons of society for years, but she was arrested by Gonson and committed to the Gatehouse by Justice Railton. On 29 April 1731, Needham 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". On 30 April she was taken to the pillory near Park Place to stand 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. The crowds that had gathered to see her pilloried were so large that one boy fell on an iron fencing rail while trying to get a better look and was killed. Needham was taken from the pillory alive, but died on 3 May 1731, the day before she was due to stand in the pillory (this time at New Palace Yard) for the second time. With 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. The ''

Grub Street Journal ''The Grub-Street Journal'', published from 8 January 1730 to 1738, was a satire on popular journalism and hack-writing as it was conducted in Grub Street in London. It was largely edited by the nonjuror Richard Russel and the botanist John Marty ...

,'' the satirical journal allied with Alexander Pope and others of Hogarth's friends, sardonically reported that the populace "acted very ungratefully, considering how much she had done to oblige them". Her demise was celebrated in a mocking rhyme:

Ye Ladies of Drury, now weep Your voices in howling now raise For Old Mother Needham's laid deep And bitter will be all your Days. She who drest you in Sattins so fine Who trained you up for the Game Who Bail, on occasion would find And keep you from Dolly and Shame Now is laid low in her Grave...

Hogarth was still at work on ''A Harlot's Progress'' when she died, so she never saw herself immortalised. There were other madams ready to step into her shoes, but it was not until Mother Douglas took over the King's Head in Covent Garden in 1741 that a brothel reappeared with a reputation to match that of Needham.Burford p.128

Notes

Citations

References

* * * * * * * *