The Origin of 'Tiger Bay' in Cardiff.

Following on from my blog post that uncovered the reason why the red light district of Merthyr Tydfil was nicknamed 'China' (found here) in the 1840's I thought I'd do a post on 'Tiger Bay' in Cardiff. 

Although I'm not claiming to have uncovered anything particularly original I think the 'Tiger' part of the Tiger Bay name has been obscured over the years and I'll like to speak up on behalf of the Tigers.  

My main area of expertise is the first 'red-light' area of Cardiff on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane, which was active from the 1830's until the 1870's. Bute Street took over this mantle from the 1870's onwards and this street was at the centre of Tiger Bay. See this description from 1870: 

The 'debased women' referred to were sex workers and Bute Street, where the sailors would invariably walk along when they got to Cardiff, was where the women would look for trade. 

London's Tiger Bay

There's a few dodgy explanations of the origin of Cardiff's 'Tiger Bay' floating round on the internet including references to dangerous tides and waves that looked like tigers. None of these have any evidence behind them and thankfully the Wikipedia article on Cardiff's Tiger Bay explains the origin of the name:

'The name "Tiger Bay" was applied in popular literature and slang (especially that of sailors) to any dock or seaside neighbourhood which shared a similar notoriety for danger.'

This is the origin of the term and if we go to London in the 1860's we find that 'Tiger Bay' was used as another name for Bluegate Fields, a slum area that existed just north of the old east London docks. It's the place where Dorian Gray goes to smoke opium in the famous novel and was part of St George's-in-the-East parish. 

This description from 1865 deserves to be read in full: 

TIGER BAY

This portion of thief-London, which has lately been made somewhat prominent by newspaper allusions and descriptive articles respecting a few of its inhabitants, is generally associated in the public mind with dangerous ruffianism and unscrupulous crime. This is, in a sense, true enough; but he who goes to Tiger Bay in the expectation of meeting with roaring, riotous vice, or in fear of sudden and desperate robbery, would altogether mistake the place. It is true that the unsuspecting wayfarer going through some of these dark alleys might be suddenly pounced upon by a couple of ruffians and be robbed and half stifled, but it is not this sort of crime which gives its name to Tiger Bay. 
The tigers are, for the most part, quiet in their lairs; slinking, watchful, crouching, cruel beasts, who wait there, sharpening their claws, and looking with hungry eyes for the prey that their treacherous she-cats bring down. Jack (the sailor) is their prey chiefly; they half live on him, and he knows it, and so upon these shallows, where he is lured to his destruction, he has bestowed the name of Tiger Bay; for to him the tiger, - as a land animal, to cope with which he is unequal, is more expressive than the shark who meets him on a more congenial element, and therefore, - "Tiger Bay."

The dwelling-place of the ruffian and the thief- Tiger Bay is not named after these, but takes its name from the brothels and those who keep them - the harpies and harlots who deal with drugged liquor, and the slinking bullies who come, like foul beasts, about the prey.

The man who wrote this spent time in the area (he even tried to get out of his head in one of the opium dens there) so he knew the community first hand.

So the 'treacherous she-cats' or the Tigers of London's Tiger Bay were the sex workers who, occasionally, robbed unwary sailors. 

Cardiff's Tiger Bay

Back to Cardiff. As the dock traffic increased and more and more sailors came to the town throughout the 1860's and 1870's, the area around Bute Street served their thirst for drink and women. It became even more prominent when the brothels of Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane were bought up or shut down by 1869. There were many drinking houses, brothels and prostitutes active on and around Bute Street. Here's a letter to the Western Mail in 1878:

The sailors, many of whom would have been familiar with London docks, brought the 'Tiger Bay' slang name with them to this part of Wales to describe exactly the same thing as in London. 

As far as I can make out 'Tiger Bay' was first used to describe Cardiff's docks in the 1880's. The first reference I can find in Welsh Newspapers online from the National Library of Wales is a tongue in cheek letter from 1882 in which the writer, who is clearly living in Cardiff, signs himself off as:

"John Snob, Captain, Salvation Army.

The Barracks, Tiger Bay."

But it takes another three years to 1885 to find a proper use of the phrase in an article entitled "The New Criminal Law at Cardiff" which describes how the Head Constable of Cardiff had evicted all the sex workers from the brothels. Here the newspaper has to explain the phrase "Tiger Bay" to its readers:

'The houses formerly occupied by the girls are spread over a number of streets running off Bute Road (Bute Street), the district being locally known as "Tiger Bay." The "bay" is not a nice place to look at, and its inhabitants are not the most refined people on the face of the earth. They consist principally of dock labourers, members of the seafaring community, boarding-house keepers, and females of uncertain virtue. Squalor reigns everywhere, rows are frequent, and on the whole it may be said that the "bay" is a very desirable place- to live out of it.'

So begins the use of 'Tiger Bay'. After 1885 "Tiger Bay" is used to describe the area around Bute Street, usually when the article is about crime. 

An article on a murder in 1887 re-enforces the idea that Tiger Bay was a name given by the sailors. The 'rough locality, known amongst seafaring men as "Tiger Bay"':

Because the press love a good nickname 'Tiger Bay' was used with increasing frequency: 

This from 1886:

And this from 1888 at the height of the Ripper craze in London: 

The 1890's saw a marked increase in references to Tiger Bay, especially when the articles were about drunkenness, prostitution and crime, and also especially crime committed by black and ethnic minorities, such as this 'zulu' case: 

The 'Tiger Bay' name stuck, although I doubt in the beginning whether the locals used it to describe where they lived- they would more likely use Butetown or Cardiff Docks. It was more of an derogatory 'outsider' term to be savoured by newspaper readers sat in their suburbs.

Now, and rightly so, Tiger Bay is synonymous with it's multi-cultural history but the original Tigers of Cardiff's Tiger Bay were the Victorian sex-workers who earned their living in the streets around Bute Street and the name is derived from a previous use in London's East End.   

This post is dedicated to Neil Sinclair who recently passed away. His contribution to the history of Tiger Bay is immense. See his 2013 book The Tiger Bay Story for more information about this unique place and community. 

References:

'Women Tearing each others hair' and 'A By Street by Night' are from an article on the Salvation Army in Tiger Bay from Evening Express October 13th 1893 p.3.
Wikipedia entry for Tiger Bay. Here.
Bluegate Fields wikipedia page is here.
Tiger Bay 1865 description from The Pauper, The Thief and the Convict by Thomas Archer from the wonderful Victorian London website link here. A description of a visit to the London Tiger Bay can be found here.
1882 description of area off Radcliffe Highway link here.
Bute Street Nuisance Western Mail 1878 August 13th p.4.
1882 John Snob letter is in Western Mail 8th December 1882. p.4.
1885 first description Cardiff Times November 7th 1885. Interestingly a counter was included in an editorial of the same week, it reads thus:

'In connection with the subject, I may mention that I have had some more letters as to the character of Tiger Bay. I presume they are from sensitive residents, and for their satisfaction I have great pleasure in saying to them that there is really no need for them to be under a misapprehension as to the general belief of the respectability of many of the inhabitants of the district. It is hardly the Belgravia (a posh area of London) of Cardiff perhaps, but neither is it all bad. Everybody is quite aware of this, and there is no need for the respectable part of the inhabitants to think that they have been classed with the disreputable.' South Wales Daily News 6th November 1885 p.2.

Rough Locality South Wales Echo 18th August 1887 p.2.
Peeps Behind the Scenes: Western Mail 15th May 1886 p.4.
Jack: South Wales Daily News 8th October 1888.
Zulu: Weekly Mail 3rd April 1897 p.2.

The True Origin of the 'China' nickname for Merthyr's Prostitute District.

China in Merthyr Tydfil was the most notorious area of prostitution and criminality in Victorian Wales.
The problem is no-one knows why it was nicknamed 'China'. As this blog is about my love of dodgy districts in Victorian Wales I'm very pleased to have finally solved this mystery.

Pontystorehouse in yellow, China in red.

Most recently Joe England's excellent new book 'Merthyr: The Crucible of Modern Wales', says:

'Where the name China came from is unknown but it probably came from an imaginative journalist who saw the district as mysterious and dangerous. From the early 1840's Britain was involved in 'Opium Wars' with China.' 

Keith Strange says as the Victorians became aware of the real country's 'strange culture and customs' they named another 'alien' society, namely Merthyr's underworld, after the same thing.

All the historians who have written about China, better scholars than I, have no idea how the name started.

I can reveal, I believe for the first time in over 180 years, that China in Merthyr was not named due a vague imagined link to a 'mysterious' and 'strange' culture but something more local and specific.

It was named after the exploits of a 55 year old God-fearing tee-totalling zealous missionary Wesleyan called Walter Watkins, commonly known as 'Father Watkins.'

Here's how I know:

'China' was, pre-1843, known as 'The Cellars', 'The Cellary', or Pontystorehouse. This was it's official name until the 1890's and it appears on the census as 'The Cellars'.

This area was already notorious as a sex-work and brothel area since the 1820's and it was where prostitutes and their bullies (pimps) congregated. Thus in January 1841 reports like this appeared in the newspapers:

Pontystorehouse was technically on the other side of the river to The Cellars but they were both old areas dating from the 1790's when the Glamorganshire canal terminated nearby. Warehouses and houses sprung up around this canal head giving it the name Pontystorehouse which translates as 'Bridge of the Warehouse'. (It's worth noting here that the opposite end of the Glamorganshire Canal in Cardiff was where Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane were located.)

On the 11th June 1842 this report appeared in the newspaper, relating the case of Mary Davies, alias 'Mary Strap':

It exhorted the religious community to cleanse the 'vast storehouse of evil' in Pontystorehouse (nice play on words!)

Now the Wesleyans were already holding Tea Parties in Merthyr Tydfil, as this report from January 1843 shows:

And lo and behold less than a year later in April 1843 we read that they had turned their attentions to the Cellars:

Cleaning the Augean Stables was one of the 12 tasks of Hercules as the stables were so massively full of cow shit. Again they are referring to how society saw the Cellars.

So at the start of April 1843 the Wesleyans set about 'cleaning' the Pontstorehouse Cellars  by holding religious meetings there. They're not named in this article- but, as you will soon see, I'm pretty sure I know who their leader was.

A month later the newspaper was congratulating them on their success, they had rescued one of the 'nymphs' (prostitutes) from the Cellars. Well, they had encouraged her to go back home anyway.

Five months after this and for the first time ever The Cellars and Pontstorehouse are referred to as 'China' in an important article on the bully Benjamin Richards alias 'Benny Blackstone' and some of his cronies, including Edward 'Ned' Hudson:

This article goes all out calling Blackstone 'Emperor of China' but then using the old term 'Pontstorehouse Cellars' to clarify where it was talking about. Something must have happened before October 1843 that influenced the name change to China.

We have to then wait until February 1845 to hear the name China again in a report about Edward 'Ned' Hudson running a foot race and this is where it all nicely clicks into place:

The reporter here obviously knows his stuff. So what happened? A Father Watkins- who happened to be a massive advocate of temperance (i.e. not drinking) went into the Cellars and preached to the prostitutes and bullies every Sunday morning. Now it just happens that Father Watkins also ran the Canton Tea Shop on High Street in Merthyr, and presumably part of this efforts involved exhorting the prostitutes and bullies to drink Chinese tea instead- and this at a time when tea was a big novelty and not the widely used drink it is today.

Hence the preacher who ran the Canton Tea Shop was the cause of the name 'Little China', or more correctly 'China Fach' - the majority of The Cellars being Welsh speaking at this time. After 1845 the name China is used frequently, as is 'The Celestial City' and references to the Emperor and Empress of China.

I'm pretty confident that Father Watkins was the main man among the Wesleyans who went to China to preach in April 1843- though the 1845 article does not give dates it is written less than two years after the 'preaching' event.

If you doubt this explanation here is some more information on Father Watkins and his zeal for  temperance movements, the bible generally and mission work:

Firstly the dates all match up. In July 1843 at a meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Merthyr Father Watkins 'declared that his love to the bible society reached to his head and his pocket, and he laid on the table the sum of five guineas as his subscription.' (a large amount of cash at the time!)

In August 1843- four months after 'The Wesleyans' were in the Cellars preaching and two months before the first known use of the name 'China' his Canton Tea Rooms were obviously established as they were advertised in the newspaper:

The article explaining Father Watkins' reason for going into the Cellars mentions drunkenness and Father Watkins hated alcohol with a vengeance. In December 1843 Father Watkins was elected the chair of the Merthyr Teetotallers where at a meeting of a thousand people he 'in his usual style (which meant he'd been doing this before) fired at once against the demon intemperance':

So was Father Watkins a Wesleyan? Well in December 1845 at the death of a well known Wesleyan minster Walter Watkins testified that he had known him for forty years. In 1851 Walter presented a watch at a Wesleyan friends party and, by the by, that report gives the names of Walter Watkins and then Father Watkins in the same report- so it's definitely the same man. 

Father Watkins kept up his anti drink crusade all of his life. In April 1846 Mr Walter Watkins presided at the Merthyr Temperance meeting and was described as 'that veteran teetotaller'.

In August 1848 he chaired lectures by a famous teetotaller and was described as 'that staunch teetotaller.'

He even tried to convert the great ironmaster Sir John Josiah Guest:

1849 he was again supporting the British and Foreign Bible Society, he was part of the Early Closing Association (i.e. the closing of pubs!) and he was taking contributions for the Temperance Conference for Wales at Swansea.

You get the idea, this guy was hardcore anti-drink and pro-missionary work- exactly what he was doing at The Cellars.

He sold his grocery business in 1850 but kept the Canton Tea Warehouse and continued his involvement in all of his religious and temperance societies, for example at a meeting of the London Missionary Society he 'opened the proceedings in a speech replete with a zeal for missions.' 

Father Watkins died aged 66 on the 22nd December 1854.

So - I can confirm here once and for all that the worst area for prostitution and vice in Wales is named after Father Watkins- a sincere man with a 'hatred of drunkenness' whose speeches were full of 'fiery and riotous declamation'.

Father Watkins obviously liked tea very much, it was his occupation and his drink of choice, so his association with temperance and The Canton Tea Rooms gave The Cellars the nickname 'China Fach' after the Spring of 1843 when he brought his fiery missionary zeal to the prostitutes and bullies. The community obviously remembered him well.
This report about 'Lovely Mary Ann' in 1846 shows the 'China Fach' name beginning to embed in the consciousness of the locals:

I'm sure the connotations with China as a mysterious and 'otherly' land helped the name to stick but let's all raise a teacup to remember Father Watkins. I'm really pleased I have uncovered his story and put a mystery to rest. 

References:

Merthyr: The Crucible of Modern Wales, Parthain, 2017.
Keith Strange 'In Search of the Celestial Empire Llafur Vol3 No1 1980
THE 'CONQUERING OF CHINA': CRIME IN AN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY, 1842-64 David Jones and Alan Bainbridge in Llafur Vol2 No 4 1979.
Age is from death in 1854, the Census 1851 Merthyr Tydfil HO107/2458 f.553 p.12 puts him younger.
William Row report: Glamorgan Monmouth and Brecon Gazette and Merthyr Guardian January 1841, I have unfortunately not recorded the exact date...
Mary Davies: Monmouthshire Merlin 11 June 1842 p.3.
1841 sentencing The Cambrian 10 July 1841 p.4. and for release from custody HO13 Home Office: Correspondence and Warrants Piece 78 p.238
Augean Stables: CMBGMG 29 April 1853 p.2.
Benjamin Richards: CMBGMG 21 October 1843 p.3.
Explanation report MM 22 February 1845 p.3.
History of Tea
Bible Society report The Cambrian 15 July 1843 p.2.
Canton Tea advert GMBGMG 12 August 1843 p.2.
Merthyr Teetotallers MM 30 December 1843 p.3.
Death of Rev John Davies The Cambrian 26 December 1845 p.3. Watch presentation CMGGMBG 29 March 1851 p.3.
Veteran Teetollar MM 18 April 1846 p.3.
Staunch Teetotaller CMGGMBG 26 August 1848 p.3.
Guest: Merthyr Telegraph 26 January 1856 p.2.
Bible Meeting The Principality 30 March 1849 p.8. Early Closing Association The Principality 29 June 1849 p.5. Temperance Conference The Principality 20 July 1849 p.1. Warm manner CMGGMBG 31 July 1852 p.3.
Selling Canton Tea Warehouse The Principality 21 June 1850 p.4. Missions The Welshman 17 October 1851 p.3.
Death in The Welshman 1 December 1854 p.3. Obituary CMGGMBG 1 December 1854 p.3.
Mary Ann Morgans The Welshman 3 July 1846 p.3.

Kiss My Bloody Arse: Swearing in Victorian Cardiff

I'm writing a creative history of the lives of prostitutes, brothel keepers, pimps, thieves and sailors who were congregated together as a community in Cardiff for over a generation.

My book is littered with swear words but after a conversation about swearing in Victorian times on twitter with Jonathan Green (@MisterSlang and an expert on historical swearing) and Helen Rogers (@helenrogers19c and writing a creative history about prison boys at Yarmouth) I wondered what was the historical evidence for this.

Firstly the people in my book MUST have sworn. I know you should never assume things but come on, you've got the roughest streets in Cardiff full of the roughest career criminals mixed in with boat loads of sailors and copious amounts of alcohol and opium.

The question is what language did they use?

The newspapers, one of my main sources of information, hardly published swear words. You get a lot of this:

They mainly describe it as violent language, bad language, disgusting language or obscene language.

But Jonathan Green made a good point in saying that the policemen who heard this may have had different notions of bad language to us, so perhaps a 'bloody' or a 'damn' would be disgusting or obscene to them.

I was finding some sort of grading of severity in the newspaper reports though. If you read between the lines when it's just 'bad language':

That's maybe different to when a policeman says:

Or 'most obscene':

Luckily Glamorgan Archives have the original Petty Sessions books (PSCBO/1 series)- they record witness statements so they are a little more instructive on the issue of swearing. The police, who were the ones charging the prostitutes, pimps and thieves, often didn't want to repeat the actual words in court but thankfully some did.

The language starts of pretty tame in the 1840's and 50's but luckily this changed in the 1860's and the court transcriber Mr Rees was kind enough to write down a LOAD of the really bad swear words that the police reported.

So here goes:

'Violent Language'

This is pretty simple and involves threats against the body or person, such as:

'The prisoner said he would send a bloody injection down my throat' January 6 1848
'Unless she came out she would rip her guts open' May 20 1852

'You bloody thing, I'll blow your brains out' (says man with brace of pistols) Aug 7 1852
'He said he would have my brains about my feet and have my bloody guts out' said the Notorious Jack Matthews to his ex-landlady October 10 1852.
'She said she would have his liver out' Feb 24 1853

Bugger

Pretty normal in heated arguments, often written as b___r as opposed to bloody which was b___y.

'You b___r' July 7 1851

'strike the bugger' October 13 1851

'Baker halload out to Jenkins Strike the Bugger' June 7 1852

'You are the b___r that took the tobacco from me' July 29 1852

Bloody

Again, like bugger, pretty standard fare:

'There's the b__y theif, kill the b___r' March 20 1851

'push that bloody lamp away from me' brothel owner to a policeman July 31 1851

Whore

There must have been a lot of suspected whores in Cardiff as this is is used a lot. Over a three month period in 1852 we have:

'I called you a whore's son' May 27 

'I heard him call her a whore' June 1 

'He said come here you bloody whore'  June 1 

'There goes Vachell's (the mayors) whore' June 7 

'Bloody whore' July 12

'He called me a whore' July 22

Most of these insults were not directed at prostitutes, though they could be, for instance when Hannah Goodwin was attacked and called a 'bloody whore' in December 1850 and when Jane Williams was called the same in July 1851. One neighbourly argument in October 1852 had this nice snippet in it:

'I did not say that she was a Whore and go to Whitmore Lane' 

Bitch

Not as prevalent as whore but still frequently used:

Defendant called me a lousy Irish b____' May 27 1852
'He called her a bitch' June 1 1852

'Some person said, you damned bitch' Sept 16 1852

'She said to her sister to look at me standing in my door the stinking Bitch' October 5 1852
'call your black bitch of a sister in' February 17 1853

Of course some liked to make use of as many words as possible in a sentence:

'He said you damn bloody curmudgeon bitch, I'll kick your brains out' April 6 1848

Shit

There's not a lot of shit to be honest, just one so far:

'Defendant called me a bloody shit' April 18 1853

Slut

There's not a lot of sluts either. Here Hannah Thomas says she 'did not strike her, I called her a nasty dirty slut' in an argument with Eliza Withers on Adelaide Street in September 1859:

Prick

Only one prick so far, a man saying 'across my bloody prick you bugger' in April 1861. 

Fuck

Finally, after many thousands of police court pages, Mr Rees the court transcriber in 1860 actually gave me evidence of fuck being used. Barbara Jenkins, a notorious prostitute, was on Whitmore Lane telling passers-by 'to go fuck themselves'. I thought I'd never find evidence of this word, but it's there and this proves it was in use as part of the 'most filthy language' often described.

I've found lots more fucks all from prostitutes, two on Whitmore Lane, one on Charlotte Street.
The Whitmore Lane prostitute Ellen Cochlin in September 1861 telling a policeman:

 'Come on you bloody fuck.'

Mary McCarthy on Bute Street in October 1861 telling a customer:

'I don't care whether you come home and fuck me or not'

and Frances Rogers aged 39 and 'a notorious brothel keeper' arguing with some other women on Whitmore Lane in 1862:

'called ____ a bloody fucking cow'

Ellen Hall in May 1862 said:

'she fucked about with black men and had black bastards'

Margaret Jones, a Whitmore Lane lady, was on Charlotte Street arguing with some other girls in June the same year. She called them:

'bloody fucking cow' & would fight 'any of the buggers'.

In March 1863 Jane Lewis on Bute Street said to the policeman who was going to arrest her:

'You bloody fucking bugger'

Ann Harris in October 1863:

'Bloody fucking cows and buggers'

Kate Barry in November 1863:

'She was telling women to go and fuck their mothers'

Cunt

Quite possibly the worse word. After almost giving up on the court transcriber or the police repeating this word in an official sphere I hit gold. On the 6th January PC Cambridge reported on the arrest of Mary Lewis the night before:

'Saw prisoner on Bute Road- some sailors passed. She used most disgusting language. She told sailors to kiss her cunt'

What's interesting to me is that the word is not used as an insult but as an invitation to the act.

Disgusting Language: Bad to the Bone

On August 26 1852 two prostitutes were up for using disgusting language. Mary Davies and Margaret Sully, who lodged on Whitmore Lane, were:

'On the pavement of Bute Street stopping sailors. Sully was making use of the most filthy language to the sailors. After I took Sully into custody Davies then made use of disgusting language as loud as she could holloa after me. I saw Sully place her hand on a sailor's privates and make use of disgusting language.'

In the same vein in October Martha Jones was stopping several parties on Bute Street and:

'taking hold of them in an indecent manner' 

I don't think they were asking them round for a cup of tea. It's unfortunate that it does not repeat the actual words used but it gives some context to the phrase 'disgusting'.
I'm sure 'bloody, bugger, bitch and whore' were thought of as disgusting but I think there was more to it, for example when the police brought in the prostitute Elizabeth Williams:

'she said she would be damned if I should go any further. She used disgusting language.'

In September 1852 Emma Hiscocks (who the year before was in the brothel at 31 Charlotte Street) was told to move on by a copper at the end of Charlotte Street:

"She began abusing us and made use of the most indecent language. She rose up her clothes behind and said kiss my b___y  arse."

Here we have some of the language, but I don't think it's all of it. Unfortunately the police don't seem to have liked repeating anything too rude or obscene in court.
The prostitute Eleanor Hughes ended a bad week in March 1853 by being thrown out of a pub:

'When outside she pulled up her clothes and made use of bad language in the streets'

In a similar vein Ellen Fry, who had been in Cardiff for six weeks from Bridgwater, was described in the newspaper and the Petty Sessions records as using 'very filthy and disgusting language' on Bute Street. When the policeman took her to task for it she:

'she pulled up her clothes and whipped her backside to me.'

Matilda Brown went one better in 1863. When told to move on by the policeman she:

'She said she would when she pulled off her drawers- she pulled them off and told me to kiss her arse'

A sexual use of bugger is recorded in March 1863. The prostitute Jemima Daley tells the arresting copper:

'I asked her to go home. She said she would see me buggered first.'

So if people are using bloody, bugger, bitch, whore, slut and threatening to rip each other's guts out in their disputes it it possible that in the 'dens of iniquity' of Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane this, and much stronger language with a high sexual element was being used.

But also we do have to be wary of modernising these attitudes, In the policeman's witness statement for the arrest of Margaret Young in January 1860 the policeman says 'she used very obscene language' and unusually quantifies this by saying 'The words she used were 'bloody- bugger'' so this was this policeman's sense of obscene.
The experienced PC Samuel Sheppard had this to say about Swansea Sue on Whitmore Lane in July 1854:

'She was making use of the most filthy and beastly language I ever heard.'

I just wish he'd told us what it was!

References available. 

Article is copyright Anthony Rhys 2017. 

The Quiet Brothel: Mary Ann Wright

Mrs Wright's brothel in Red, Custom House in Blue, Golden Cross in Yellow

My book Notorious covers the life stories of thirty people who made a living from prostitution, theft and violence in 19th century Cardiff. I can write their stories, or at least what we know about them, from the records that survive. A large part of those records are court and crime records.

But what of the ones that didn't get caught? Crime history is often the story of the bad ones, i.e. the ones that got caught. The good ones we know nothing about.

One history that remains hidden for ever is the brothel of Mary Ann Wright. The other established brothels from this time have a wealth of newspaper and court records written about them. See my post on 31 Charlotte Street as a case in point- this brothel lasted 15 years.

Mary Ann's brothel ran for at least 24 years on Whitmore Lane but the records are quiet, very quiet. After four years of searching this is all I have on Mary Ann Wright and her brothel.

Mary Ann Wright, together with Mrs Prothero, was one of the earliest brothel keepers that I know of on Whitmore Lane. The first we hear of her is in 1837 when Superintendent Stockdale was ordered to prosecute a 'Hannah Wright- Widow' for keeping a Disorderly House.

I don't know if he succeeded as the newspapers have recorded nothing. Her brothel on Whitmore Lane appears on the 1841 census:

Mary Wright is already 50. 'Lodging house keeper' is a polite euphemism for brothel keeper and the census writer has written 'single woman' for each of the women living there, again, another euphemism for prostitute. 

Mary has six girls: Catherine Davies, Mary Morgan, Ann Evans, Fanny Bancha, Mary William and Ann Cheguin.  

Mary Morgan was possibly arrested just before this census in March 1841:

Mary Williams was arrested for being a 'common and disorderly prostitute' in August 1842 and was described as 'an old offender' when she was arrested for drunk and disorderly in November 1844. 

Ann Cheguin soon after the census conceived a son. He died on the 20th March 1842 of 'convulsions' aged three weeks, although she had moved to the slum court of Stanley Street by then. Similarly Catherine Davies and Fanny Bancha I haven't been able to trace further and Ann Evans is too common a name to say if any report on her is the same one.

There is one enigmatic record of an 'Ann Wright v Geo Davies PC' on the 10th February 1845 entry of Superintendent Stockdale's log book- but no information is given apart from the names. I know George Davies was on the Custom House Beat at this time- and the Custom House was on Whitmore Lane. What Ann was charging the constable with we will never know. It seems unrelated to the charge above it against The Tennis Court landlord.

Mary Ann Wright herself is not mentioned until 1848 when there are two incidents. In June the boatman Thomas Miles broke a door and assaulted Mrs Wright. Lots of the boatmen were bullies or pimps and he is probably here breaking into Mrs Wright's brothel. 

June 16th 1848

Then two months later 'Mary Anne Wright' is called to give evidence when the bully Henry Wood was charged with assaulting a sailor on Whitmore Lane:

September 2nd 1848

In 1851 Mary A Wright, now aged 77, is again listed on the census running a brothel at 47 Whitmore Lane, this end of the street was near to the Custom House where the sailors got paid off (probable location marked on red in map at start of blog).

She is listed with Mary Ann Howells, Mary Ann Jones, Ann Williams and Ann Atkins.

Mary Ann Jones is very probably 'Cockatoo' who was already an experienced prostitute from Newport who worked there from 1843 to the start of 1847. She'd moved to Whitmore Lane by August 1847. 

Ann Atkins, another of Mrs Wright's women from the 1851 census was given a week for being drunk and disorderly on Whitmore Lane in November of the same year. A year later she was involved in a brothel theft, possibly at Mrs Wright's brothel, but not necessarily as the women moved houses very often:

Mary Ann Howell in 1853 was assaulting a beerhouse landlord on Charlotte Street and the fourth woman listed, Ann Williams, is problematic as there were at least two with the same name working Whitmore Lane at the time, this report from July 1851 is probably her though:

July 12th 1851

Mrs Wright isn't mentioned again in the records until the summer of 1855 when Ellen Jones, described as 'powerful looking' beats a navvy on Whitmore Lane then breaks Mrs Wright's windows. The breaking of windows was common by prostitutes when they felt wronged:

June 30th 1855

Then there's another blank of five years until Mrs Mary Ann Wright dies from heart disease and bronchitis on the 15th February 1860 after running her brothel for two decades (I like to think she passed away in the night after her last St Valentine's Day). She was aged 80, a phenomenal age at the time.

The informant of the death was yet another Mary Ann- Mary Ann Thomas. This Mary Ann was described as 'good-looking' in the newspaper reports of her arrest a few months after the death of her madam. Interestingly Mary Ann Thomas only appears in the police records in the months after the death of Mrs Wright. She's arrested for drunk and disorderly charges in May, July, August and October 1860 and also in March 1861.

May 12th 1860

Mrs Mary Ann Wright was buried February 17th at St Johns aged 80.

And that's it. Apart from three references, the two in 1848 and the one in 1855 this is all I can find that reference Mrs Wright's brothel. Obviously there are quite a few references to the girls who were working in her brothel, especially the 1851 batch, but that doesn't mean they were working for Mrs Wright when they were arrested in the years before or after 1851. 

Compared to Mrs Prothero's brothel- which was active around the same time from 1836-1856- and had many, many mentions in the newspapers Mary Ann Wright's brothel was extremely quiet. 

Why was it so quiet? I suspect three possible reasons.

One: Mary kept a tight ship. She seems to have employed 'careful' women to work there who didn't get into a lot of trouble, Mary Ann Jones, Fanny Bancha and Ann Cheguin being examples. Believe me there were plenty of loud, heavy drinking women who weren't afraid to steal from their marks and fight back when required.

Two: She died in the same month that saw the first round of crackdowns on the brothels in 1860. I suspect no matter how careful she was she would have come under the radar of the police and private individuals who began systematically prosecuting the brothels of Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane from February 1860 onwards.

Three: For me this is the main reason. There was no beerhouse linked financially or physically to her brothel. Drink, especially late at night, brought trouble and the joint beerhouse/brothels and brothels supplied by beerhouses were much more rowdy places.

Overall I think that Mrs Wright's brothel catered for the sailors who were spending more than one night with the women. They would lodge there while they waited for their ship to load or unload or they waited for a berth on a new ship. There is some evidence for these short term relationships in the other brothels but in the main the other brothels seemed to have been 'walk-in' night by night places.
I suspect Mrs Wright's place catered for regular sailors and that's why there was little trouble there- brothels themselves were not illegal before 1860 and so as long as it was quiet the law would have left it alone.

Mary Ann Wright was careful enough to avoid trouble and attention from the law. It can't have been an easy task and she must have negotiated her every day life with skill, resilience and forethought. Unfortunately for us her successful business model means we know very little about her.

References available. 

Article is copyright A Rhys 2018.
Newspaper images appear courtesy of Wales Newspapers Online and Glamorgan Record Office.

Mary No-Nose: Cardiff Prostitute Nicknames

Cranky & Bristol Ann have a fight in 1841.

Nicknames were common throughout Wales as lots of people had the same first names or surnames. For the same reason they were also used a lot among the criminal fraternity, although perhaps their use also hid real names from the ears of authority. This post looks at the nicknames of Cardiff prostitutes working on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane in the 1840's to the 1860's.
There's no doubt they were in common use among the inhabitants as they are often recounted in witness statements. They were definitely not given by officials or outsiders. They were used so much that people would be unaware of their real names, like this example from 1847 on Whitmore Lane:

Geography

Many of the nicknames just identified the women by where they came from:

Kitty Pen Bont: Catherine Williams was from Bridgend (Penybont). She's the earliest reference to a working girl and was arrested at Mr Barnes pub in 1833 after stealing a watch from a punter with her bully.

Chepstow Mary: Eliza Davies worked on Charlotte Street in 1841.

Swansea Sue: Living on King Street, Swansea in 1841, Susan Davies moved to work on Charlotte Street and the Lane in 1848. In 1851 she was working in Ned Llewellyn's brothel on Whitmore Lane:

She worked as a prostitute until the early 1860's.

Welsh Kate: Also sometimes 'Welsh Kit'. Catherine Thomas worked on Whitmore Lane from 1841 to 1846. She hung around with Catherine Atkins- see below- so the nickname was handy to differentiate between the two Catherines, although Catherine Atkins was Welsh too!

Welsh Meg: Though not sure why Louisa Winstone was called Meg but she was obviously Welsh! Active on Whitmore Lane in 1852. 

The Great Westerns: I think this is a geographical reference. Mary Williams and Eliza Thomas were the Great Westerns in 1842.
Irish Kate: Charlotte Thompson in an unusually late reference to a nickname in 1871.
Irish Mary Ann: Mary Ann Hill in 1842. 

Irish Joanna: Joanna Mahoney worked the Lane from 1842 to 1844.

Irish Meg: Margaret Sullivan/John worked on Charlotte Street and the Lane for at least 23 years from 1851 until 1874. Not to be confused with Irish Mag who was Margaret Keyhole. At times Meg was a very successful thief:

She's one of the people in my Notorious book.

Bristol Ann: Ann Daniels worked on Whitmore Lane 1841-4.
Bristol Annie: Ann Daw stabbed a sailor she was co-habiting with in 1861 on Frederica Street.

Bristol Eliza: See the blogpost 'The Whore and the Mayoress' to read about Bristol Eliza.

Blackwood: Blackwood is a town in the county of Caerphilly. Ann Thomas worked the Lane from around 1846-7 and she was friends with Catherine Atkins (see below).

Abergavenny Poll: Hannah Goodwin, from Abergavenny, was active 1850-8 until she got seven years for a brothel theft and ended up in Brixton prison. She flitted between Cardiff and the China slum in Merthyr.

Ann Pendarren: From either Penderyn near Merthyr Tydfil or Penydarren in Merthyr Tydfil Ann Llewellyn hit it big at the lodging house of William Pimm in 1861:

Plymouth Eliza: I've not traced her real name, nickname is only known from a police court witness statement from January 1848.

Plymouth Ann: Mary Ann Jones ran a brothel for many years on Mill Lane and dies in April 1853.
Bristol Lizzy: Again, not traced her real name, one mention in a police report from The Royal Standard pub on Bute Street in 1859. Not the same as Bristol Eliza above as she died in 1851.
English Mary: Not many of the prostitutes were English so Mary stood out in this way. Evidence again comes from The Royal Standard Police report. It could be Mary Ann Huntley or Mary Ann Bailey for example, there's a few to choose from who were picked up from this time.
Nailsey Poll: Nailsea is a town southwest of Bristol. Real name unknown as it's in a list of prostitutes found in a Bute Street pub in 1861.

Physical Descriptions

Big Jane: Jane Thomas worked on Whitmore Lane in 1841 and was in the China slum in Merthyr by 1847. She wasn't too big to be threatened with the stocks in 1841:

Mary Fat: Mary Jones worked on Whitmore Lane in 1844-1846.
Betsey Bounce: I assume this is a physical characteristic, it could also refer to stealing. She assaulted Jane Thomas, probably 'Jane Fine-Talk' in 1842 with another prostitute and her real name is not given.

Mary the Cripple: Though always a brothel keeper rather than a prostitute Mary the Cripple was disabled since birth and started off in Newport. Read more about her Newport life here. Her sister Catherine Hughes was known as 'Long Kit' or 'Katty', her daughter Elizabeth Jenkins was known as 'Bets the Cripple', 'Betty Yarwood' and 'Cripple Junior' and her other daughter Ann Yarwood was 'The Young Cripple', though the name is not reported after she moved to Cardiff in 1853.

Rosy: Ann Lucas who came to Cardiff from Bideford in 1852 was rosy. 

Kitty Pigs Eyes: Catherine Atkins from Cardiff had this rather unfortunate nickname. She worked from 1844 to 1853. Here she is ashaming policemen. Kitty is one of my Notorious people.

Sarah Nips: Sarah Clarke was a prostitute working in the China area of Merthyr until the autumn of 1849 when she came to Charlotte Street. She stayed working in the sex-trade there for the next twenty years, running brothels and pubs. She was running the brothel that Kitty Pigs' Eyes was working in by 1851. Her nickname was not reported in the papers in Cardiff so she perhaps left it behind in Merthyr (though there were very close links between China and Whitmore Lane). The Nips nickname could be sexual or from 'nipper' a term for someone small.

Curley: Probably refers to the hair of Sophia Evans, active in 1852. 

Gummy: or Gummay was the nickname of Eliza Cartwright active in both China and Whitmore Lane 1847-1853. 

Carrots: The probably ginger-haired Ann Moore started prostitution in Newport in 1852 when she was aged just 14. She moved to Charlotte Street at the start of 1854 and was working in Jenny Piano's brothel at 16 Whitmore Lane in 1861. You can read more about her on the blog about Jenny Piano.

Little Jenny: She was listed as one of the women in The Argyle Rooms on Bute Road in 1861. 

Characteristics

Cranky: Mary Rees was obviously a bit moody! She worked on Whitmore Lane in 1841-8.
Mary No-Nose: Maybe Cranky had an accident as Mary No-Nose was a Mary Rees too in 1842.
Betsy Fine-Talk: Elizabeth Lewis obviously had the gift of the gab in 1842.
Jane Fine-Talk: Jane Thomas also had the gift of the gab in 1842.

Miss Molly Crankey: Mary Brewer was also moody in the early 1840's!
Mrs Fillpots: Maria Meyrick moved to Charlotte Street from the Friar's Fields area of Newport in 1845 after she was severely assaulted by her pimp. Mrs Fillpots was a character in a 1837 comedy play 'Women's Whims' which may have been shown at Newport. Mrs Fillpots is the landlady of a pub in the play. It obviously refers to Maria's heavy drinking.

The Grenadier: Mary Lawson was from Cheshire and tall and heavily built, Grenadiers in the army had to be tall- hence the nickname. She worked Whitmore Lane from 1846 until 1856 and appears in the book.

The Little Punch: Ann Owens was five foot and a half inch tall. She also had a mean punch by the sounds of it. She started her life in prostitution aged just 12 in Swansea and moved to Charlotte Street and the Lane in 1850. in 1851 she was working for Mrs Prothero in her brothel along with the Grenadier:

More about The Little Punch can be found in my blog about prostitute tattoes here.
Nicknames were sometimes reported in official prison records, like in Millbank Prison in 1865 where Ann Morgan is alias Owens alias Punch:

Random

Cockatoo: Mary Ann Jones was a prostitute and brothel keeper who started in Newport in 1843 and moved to Charlotte Street in 1851. She worked there until she got a 14 year sentence for theft. God only knows how she got the nickname of Cockatoo, perhaps a sexual reference.

Jenny Piano: Jane Roberts was active on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane 1848 until 1864. There's a blog post about her life here. I think the most obvious reason for the nickname is she played the piano in the pubs.

Topsy: The nickname of Gwenllian Hughes, active around 1853 on Charlotte Street. I'm not sure why!

All for Love: Eliza Thomas was obviously committed to her job in 1847.

Sancta Maria: This is the only example I have of a woman's nickname changing over time. In Newport Bridget Kelly worked the Friar's Fields area from 1839 and was known as Sancta Maria, I thought she was an Irish Roman Catholic but she was a Protestant, so I'm unsure of why the nickname stuck.  When she moved to Cardiff in 1846 she became known as Sandy Maria and then Saucy Maria, references to her hair colour and her occupation! 

The historian is chained by their sources. It's a sad fact for this book that the Newport and Merthyr press were more likely to give nicknames in their newspaper reports of criminal trials than the Cardiff press. Cardiff was slow to report it's court cases and there are hundreds of newspapers from the 1840's that give a paragraph of court cases from places like Neath, Merthyr and Swansea but nothing at all from Cardiff. The reporting of nicknames was more common in the 1840's, declined through the 1850's and was rare in the 1860's. Newport papers in the 1840's obviously sent a reporter to the courts who often gave highly descriptive reports of it's criminals and their speech, like this one of 'Mrs Fillpots' from 1843:

I love the 'And thank ye, sir' at the end.
Sandy Maria, Kitty Pigs' Eyes, Irish Meg, The Little Punch, Mary the Cripple, Mrs Fillpots, Sarah Nips and The Grenadier are all main people in my upcoming book 'Notorious:Cardiff' about thirty years on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane 1841-1870.

References available. 
Article is copyright Anthony Rhys 2017.