This article uses a variety of archival material to produce the first critical study of the lives of prostitutes in interwar London. The first section examines the social characteristics that linked many of the women involved in prostitution in the West End. As will be seen, prostitution was, in most cases, a conscious choice by working-class women to improve their lot. Section two builds upon the labour history framework, and explores the social world of the prostitute.
Rather than viewing prostitutes as inhabitants of a nebulous «underworld», the lives of the prostitutes are interpreted in the context of working-class culture. The final section investigates employment conditions involved in prostitution. Taken together, this study into the lives and experience of prostitutes offers a valuable insight into a neglected area of working-class life, suggesting a more nuanced understanding of the social reality of the «underworld».
A version of this paper was presented to the Social History Society conference, Rotterdam, 29 March Any errors in fact or interpretation are entirely my own. A gruesome sight greeted the police: Smith had been strangled with a length of copper insulated wire. Severe head wounds had also been inflicted with the use of a rusty flat iron; that her skull was fractured was obvious by the visible brain matter.
She had been killed at her most vulnerable: lying on her back with her clothes arranged for the purpose of sexual intercourse. There was no sign of a struggle. First, a murder offers the rare opportunity to trace the life history of a prostitute. Despite her «Dutch» soubriquet, Smith lived her life in and around London. Smith was born in , the illegitimate daughter of Kathleen Hind in East Ham. She married Robert Smith in , though the union was not a success. The police pointed out that she had also lived with at least four men, including, as if to stress the inevitability of her career path, a «coloured» man, all of who had lived off her illicit earnings.
She earned the first of eight convictions for soliciting prostitution on 28 March at the tender age of 18 years. By the time of her death, she was well known as a «low sort» of prostitute who frequented the environs of Old Compton Street and the Charing Cross Road. Yet for a «low sort» of prostitute, the examining pathologist noted that she was a well-nourished young lady. Internally, she was healthy too; neither was there any sign of venereal disease, nor was any reference to alcohol consumption made 2.
