The Short Life of Dolly Kelly

This is Dorothy Kelly, known to her friends as Dolly. She is 23 in this photograph. It is in the same style as small passport sized photographs that were popular in the Edwardian era. Note the lovely heart dangling from a choker. 

We start Dolly's story at the very start of the 20th century when she's 18. She was working as a waitress in The Philharmonic Restaurant on St Mary Street, Cardiff. 

Dorothy worked there alongside 9 other young waitresses and barmaids and a male cook and porter. 

The Philharmonic was, and still is, a large public house on one of Cardiff's main streets. It served food, held boxing matches, ping pong competitions, luncheons and also had a shooting range. The staff would have lived either in the top rooms seen in this 1890 photo, or probably rooms on the opposite side at the back. 

Copyright Cardiff Public Libraries.

We don't know if Dolly enjoyed or hated her job. It must have been something of an adventure living in the centre of a bustling Cardiff with a host of young women of the same age. 

Dorothy's life took her away from waiting on customers. Four years later, for reasons we will never know, she had 6 convictions to her name, was a 'well-known character' and was trashing her mother's house. 

After breaking one of her mother's chairs on a policeman Dotty picked up her seventh conviction.

Two months after this Dolly was working in a brothel on Cowbridge Road in Cardiff and using an alias of 'Mrs Munro' as she 'rented a room' from a Mr and Mrs Cheen.

Brothels in Edwardian Cardiff that were away from the dock area were often 'pop ups'. Someone would rent a house, take in some women, and when the neighbours complained or the police got suspicious it would shut down and move somewhere else. Dolly seemed to work here with another girl called Dotty Evans. 

When Dolly became ill she went to Cardiff infirmary for a few weeks to recover. On her return to the brothel Dolly found that not only had the owners been jailed for brothel keeping but the woman they had left in charge- Dotty- had also got herself jailed. 

Dolly blagged a neighbour who let her into the empty house. She found the keys on the kitchen table and another young prostitute called Rose Saunders joined her. They lived there for a fortnight until bailiffs came knocking about rent arrears and took some of the furniture to pay for it.
Dolly and Rose soon left in a cab and took a train to London Paddington. With her was a large trunk that she had stolen from the brothel. It contained the Gibby's possessions and when Dolly got to London she seemed to forget about it and it stayed gathering dust in a cloak room at the station. 

In January the next year the trunk and then Dorothy were tracked down and she was taken back to Cardiff by the police. The photograph at the start of this article was taken and the newspapers reported the strange headline 'Story of a Trunk'

Story of a Trunk, Remarkable charge at Cardiff, Case against Paddington Girl Breaks Down.

The Gibby's didn't get much sympathy in the court. Their brothel had been robbed while they were in prison for keeping it in the first place and Dorothy was set free. 

Not all of Dolly's court appearances appear in the newspapers. By the early 1900's they had stopped reporting every court case, choosing only to cherry pick the most interesting, so we don't know the full history of what Dolly was being arrested for. What is clear is that to her contemporaries she was notorious.

Proof of this comes in a paternity court case held a month after the trunk incident. A young woman called Isabelle was suing a young man called Sam claiming he was the father of their child (they had had sex in a cave in Penarth and on Llandaff Fields). As the young man's solicitor tried to fling as much mud as possible at Isabelle, one of his questions to her was 

'Were some of your friends woman of ill-fame? Dorothy Kelly?' 

In court Dolly's very reputation was used as a slander.  

Dolly Kelly returned to London in the months after her court case. She didn't live to see out the end of the year.

Written in the margin of the police photographic register of 1906 is the horrible note:

'Found drowned at foreshore of River Thames at Lambeth on 22nd November 1906.'

I ordered her death certificate, which is listed under 'Dolly Kelly' but it did not give much more information. 

There was an inquest on the 26th November but I have found no reports of this in the newspapers. Her address is given as unknown and she is of 'no occupation'. The only other piece of information on the certificate is the exact location that Dolly's body was found- Nelson's Wharf, Lambeth. 

I think her body was either identified by someone with only a fleeting acquaintance with her, someone who only knew her as 'Dolly Kelly', or she had something on her body that identified her name, like a letter from her mother. 

The Lambeth police must have spread the name around other police departments to find out who she was and of course the Cardiff police were well aware of Dolly's existence. 

Her drowning could be an accident, a suicide or a murder. The only thing we are certain of is the sad ending of a young woman.

As a postscript Dotty Evans, the young woman who had shared the brothel with Dolly, attempted suicide in the Canton Police Station in July of the same year. She had been arrested for being very drunk and disorderly and assaulting a policeman. In the cells she tied a garter around her neck and fell unconscious. She was only revived 20 minutes after she was discovered and in court the next day said 'Yes, I'll do it again if I get the chance, I am tired of my life.'

Dolly's Prisoner Details can be found at Glamorgan Record Office DCONC/3/2/1
Newpaper images are from Welsh Newspapers Online from National Library of Wales.
Image of Philharmonic Restaurant is copyright Cardiff Libraries. 

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.

The Twelve Day Death of Eliza Lewis

This one is perhaps one of the darkest stories I have come across in my research and it involved two Charlotte Street women.

First we have to go back to 1863 when a house was found ablaze in the morning:

The arsonist was found to be a girl called Elizabeth Tregall and she was brought before the court on the Saturday:

Elizabeth would spend the next two nights in a cell at the police station on St Mary Street. She was back in court on the Monday:

So they let her off an arson charge but she got three months hard labour for vagrancy, probably in  Cardiff Gaol. 

However the original Police Court records of this case paint a different picture. Elizabeth Tregall only looked 15 years old because she was emaciated and malnourished. She was actually in her early twenties. PC Surcombe states:

"She has no employment, she said her husband was at sea" 

Also Sergeant Glass states:

"I have known prisoner 5 or 6 months. She is married but her husband has left her and she has been on the town . She has no home and nowhere to sleep. I see her wonder round the streets every night."(This description means she was homeless rather than working as a prostitute)

While in Cardiff Gaol Eliza would have met Adeliade Paine, Annie Yarwood and Mary Murphy, all experienced brothel keepers from Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane who were also there at this time. Also there was Sue Walker, in for smashing the windows of her old brothel on Charlotte Street and Catherine Mitchell, a prostitute in for stopping men and using foul language.  

So if Elizabeth wasn't familiar with prostitution in Cardiff before gaol she certainly would have known all about it by the time she left. 

Cut to a year later and an Elizabeth Lewis (bear with me on the name) is up for soliciting on Bute Street:

"Three sailors were coming up. Prisoner caught hold of one between the legs and behaved in a very disorderly way."

Then next year our Elizabeth resurfaces as Eliza on Charlotte Street in April 1865:

It reads:

"At 12:30 on Sat night saw prisoner drunk in Charlotte St. She was hollering and shouting- she is a prostitute. 7 days Hard Labour"

So Eliza was back in gaol. She was picked up again the next month:

"Last night at one o'clock saw defendant in Nelson Street drunk and behaving in a very riotous manner using obscene language. She is a prostitute. Cautioned."

Things then came to a dramatic conclusion in February 1866 and is evidence of the name change:

The other newspaper report gives more information but not the alias:

See my other blog post on the Glamorganshire Canal for more background on how common this was. This lock on the junction canal still exists today.

The body they had pulled from the canal was badly decomposed and so Elizabeth Lewis/Tregall was pronounced dead at the inquest and a death certificate was issued for her. She was hurriedly buried at Cathays Cemetary. 

The thing is the body wasn't Eliza. For twelve days Eliza Lewis was walking dead and buried on the streets of Cardiff.

Ten days later the lock gates on the junction canal were not shutting properly. The workman overseeing the lock used his grappling hooks to remove the blockage. He pulled up the mutilated corpse of a baby girl. The sixth month old was wearing clothes from Cardiff Workhouse:

This led to enquiries being made at the workhouse and soon enough the mistake was realised.

The woman's body wasn't Eliza but Mary Wheelan who had taken her daughter Catherine out of the workhouse on Sunday to go to chapel. Mary had possibly slit her baby's throat before she hugged her daughter and jumped into the canal. I think the doctor is sparing the dead mother here in his sudden change of mind about the cut- is it not doubtful that two huge lock gates could make a clean cut from ear to ear of a six month old baby?

Mary Wheelan herself had probably worked as a prostitute on Charlotte Street as she was assaulted there by a bully in June 1865, two months before she gave birth to Catherine in the workhouse. 

Of course it is possible she fell in by accident, the Junction Canal ran under Bute Street, but it seems probable this was a suicide.

Why she committed suicide and murdered her child we will never know but post-natal depression, desperation and despair must have lain at the root of the cause.

Interestingly it seems that the deaths of Mary and Catherine were not registered officially, even though Eliza's incorrect death was. The Burial Register at Cathays was also not altered so the grave is still named as Elizabeth Lewis, there is no indication her daughters body was buried with her. Surely this is the result of some highly insensitive bureaucratic oversight after the inquest. 

As for Eliza Lewis being dead did not stop her:

That is from the July after she was recorded as dead in February.

In November of the same year Eliza was stripping clothes lines along Bute Street:

Eliza was sentenced to a year in gaol for this offence. 

There the trail goes cold for Eliza. I can't be sure when she died or if she remarried as the name Elizabeth Lewis is so common, she certainly did not carry on as Elizabeth Tregall. 

References
Fire: Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian 29th May 1863 p.8.
Saturday Court and Monday court are the same reference.
Police Court is Glamorgan Record Office PSCBO/1/39 Elizabeth Tregall 23rd May 1863. The other women in Cardiff gaol are also from this record in May and June 1863. I can find no record of any Tregall living in Cardiff in this time, or any marriage between a Tregall and an Elizabeth either, though it is highly likely they are from Cornwall.
Catching hold of sailors is PSCBO/1/42 Elizabeth Lewis 4th June 1864
Prostitution charges PSCBO/1/44 Eliza Lewis 24th April and 17th May 1865.
Inquest on Eliza Lewis MM 10 February 1866 p.8. and Cardiff Times 9 February 1866 p.5. Death Certificate is March quarter 1866 Cardiff 11a 164. Cathays Cemetary plot K929.
Mary Wheelan inquest Cardiff Times 23 February 1866 p.5. Her daughter is Catherine Wheelan see birth Cardiff Sept Quart 11a 259.
Mary Wheelan on Charlotte Street is Cardiff Times 9 June 1865 p.7. and PSCBO/1/45 Thomas Davies 7th June 1865. Strangely Thomas Davies alias Clark was sentenced to a year imprisonment at the New Year Assizes in 1866 for theft of meat from Bute Street- he could be the bully that Eliza Tregall was supposedly bereaving when it was thought she had committed suicide.
Eliza tea can theft: CT 20 July 1866 p.8.
Eliza clothes theft: CT 2 November 1866 p.6. and trial CT 12 January 1867 p.8

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.

Four Tattooed Cardiff Prostitutes of the 1850's

Tattoos of Ann Owens, 1853.

Four of the prostitutes who worked on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane were definitely tattooed. I've found this out from prison and transportation records when the women received long sentences.

Three were transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1850 and 1851 and one served very long prison sentences in 1853 and 1856. What they reveal is that they were not tattooed with pictures but with the people they regarded as important in their lives.

This blog contains offshoots from my research into Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane in Cardiff, two very bad streets for my book 'Notorious'. See my earlier blog posts for an overview.

Maria 'Merry' Meyrick.

Maria Meyrick was a Cardiff girl who started her life of prostitution in the Friar's Fields slum of Newport. Her transportation description gives her tattoos as follows:

Maria Meyrick's convict description from the Anna Maria, 1851

She has six sets of initials, three on the lower right arm and three on the lower left arm.

Initial tattoos are extremely common from this time and it seems most who were tattooed first had their initials done, I suspect this was done among the sailing community for identification of their body if found drowned.

Maria's tattoos can be divided into family on the right and partners on the left.

Right Arm:

JC: Unknown

MM: Maria Meyrick

DM: Her mother Dianne Meyrick

Maria was in contact with her mother until she was transported. The JC may be another relation or a lover but I can't find any evidence if that is so.

Left Arm:

GJ: This is George Jenkins, a boyfriend from Friar's Fields- see below.

RW: I don't know this one.

AD: This is Alec the Devil, aka Alexander Thomas- see below.

Of course you would have to ask Maria Meyrick for definite if these deductions are correct, but they fit the people that she was hanging around with in the years leading up to her transportation sentence. Here's the backing up evidence:

GJ is definitely George Jenkins. Why so definite? well, for a start there's documentary evidence that they were a couple in Newport:

George Jenkins assaulted Maria Meyrick very badly and was sentenced to fifteen years penal servitude for it in August 1845. By December he was on his way to Australia and he died there ten years later. If Maria Meyrick regretted having his initials tattooed on her arm, George Jenkins probably did as well, on his right arm he had his own initials, and on his left arm he had MM.

RW: I've not been able to find any likely candidates for RW. 

AD: Alexander Thomas was with Maria Meyrick on the night of the 1847 murder in Whitmore Lane. His nickname was Alec the Devil, and I think she was in a relationship with him. He was transported for fifteen years for his main part in the murder (he kicked a middle aged man to death by rupturing his groin and bowels). Maria got 18 months in Cardiff Gaol, which is possibly where she got the tattoo.

Maria herself was sentenced to 7 years transportation in December 1850 for another brothel robbery. She travelled on the Anna Maria to Van Diemen's Land in October 1851.

Mary Ann Powhill

Mary Ann was transported with Merry Meyrick on the Anna Maria in October 1851. She was another Whitmore Lane prostitute. Interestingly her sister had been transported over ten years earlier in 1839 for a prostitute theft from Whitmore Lane as well.

Mary Ann's tattoos are thus:

She has MP LA inside her lower left arm and TW MAP on the upper right arm.

One arm is easy to interpret- The LA is for Lemuel Anderson, a bully of Whitmore Lane who started his criminal career stealing ducks in 1848. Read more about Lemuel and the bullies here.

Mary Ann and Lemuel were arrested together in 1851 when they hit a man over the head with a poker while he slept in a brothel- they netted over £15 so they hot footed it to Newport to spend the money- one of the gang was so drunk when they arrested her they couldn't bring her back to Cardiff until she sobered up the next day.

After this robbery Mary Ann Powhill got seven years along with Lemuel Anderson, though Lemuel stayed in this country as it seems only women were needed in the new world.

I've also got Lemuel's tattoos from his conviction records- and he had MA.POWELL LEM ANDERSON tattooed on himself too with a heart on the right arm and LA MAP on his left arm. He also has lots of pictures, which the women seemed to avoid.

Mary Ann Powell's other initials- TW MAP on her right arm are intriguing. I can't find any likely partner reference for TW. There is a Mary Powell on the 1841 census as a servant to Thomas Wedlake, a coal merchant and councillor in her home town of Newport- though her age is a bit out. I can't find any reference to Mary's mother and father Andrew on the census so perhaps this was her father figure? He died in 1843 and perhaps then she turned to prostitution?

Bridget Kelly, Alias Sancta Maria, Sandy Maria & Saucy Maria.

We've already met Bridget Kelly above, she was part of the Whitmore Lane murder in 1847 and got an 18 month sentence along with Maria Meyrick. When she stole seven pairs of stockings from a street hawker in 1849 she was sentenced to be transported for seven years. She went to Van Diemen's Land on the Aurora which left on April 22 1851.

Bridget Kelly Aurora ship listing April 1851

I don't have the original document for her tattoos but she was described like this:

On her right arm is JB. It's not hard to work out who this is as the 1841 census shows:

Bridget Kelly was a prostitute in the notorious Friar's Fields area of Newport from 1839-1844 and James Bevan is living with her as her bully.

Ann Owens, Alias 'Little Punch'.

Ann Owens started her life of prostitution and theft in Swansea when she was aged just 12. She went to prison for long sentences twice, once in 1853 and again in 1857. This is lucky (for us) as it allows us to see how her tattoos changed over that three year period.

Ann Owen's description from Swansea Gaol, April 8th 1853.

In 1853 she has JL and JAMES LOYN on her right arm. This is James Loynes/Lyons/Lion, grandson of the brothel owner Mrs Prothero where Ann Owens worked in the 1850's. James Loynes worked there as a bully and they courted a little while in early 1851. They enjoyed beating up the neighbours.

James Loynes didn't return the favour, his only tattoo is his own initials!

James Loynes description from Cardiff Gaol, 1851

Ann's relationship with James Loynes didn't last long as he was going out with another girl from the brothel a few months later when he was imprisoned for life for killing a sailor in his step-fathers pub. 

On Ann's left arm is CO, very probably her sister Catherine Owens, also a prostitute who worked in the same brothel as Ann.

1852 May 15th

The MK initial is a bit more awkward to research but I think it's either Michael Keefe or Michael Kelly, both itinerant Irish labourers around at the time (Bridget Kelly above had a brother called Michael).

Ann Owens was released from Brixton on license on March 10th 1856. By August of the same year she had re-offended. Ann had gone to the notorious China area of Merthyr Tydfil and committed a brothel theft there. She got a ten year sentence this time so her tattoos were described again: 

Ann Owen's description from Swansea Gaol, 24th March 1857

Considering James Loynes had a child with another woman it seems that Ann has tried to get rid of James Loyn from her body as the transcriber writes 'James Lloyd' instead of 'Loyn' and the JL has now turned into an EE- for Edward Evans that she has in full on the left arm. Edward Evans was a boatman in Merthyr Tydfil who, funnily enough, was in court on the same day that Ann got her ten year sentence. He had stolen some mutton with a group of boatmen and got a year in Swansea Gaol. Boatmen were often also bullies, the canal led from China down to Whitmore Lane and the boatmen mixed in the beerhouses and brothels at either end. In the five months that she was free in Merthyr Ann must have had a relationship with him.

Edward Evans Oct 18th 1856

John Cody, tattooed on Ann's right arm, is not hard to find, he committed a brothel robbery in July 1856 and got a year in prison for it. It is another case of a bully for a boyfriend for Ann.

The 'Angelina' tattoo is the most poignant of them all. Ann gave birth to Angelina Owens in Millbank prison and Angelina died a year later. 

This very small three women case study shows that the prostitutes recorded the names of the people that were important to them on their bodies. In the case of Ann Owens and Angelina her tattoo was probably the only thing she had to remember her by.

Since writing this blog I've read the great book 'Convict Tattooes' by Simon Barnard (Text Publishing Australia, 2016). With the convicts that he studied he came to the same conclusion- 90% of his tattooed women had initials or names as their tattooes. Though I'd disagree with the scholar he quotes as saying that initials on prostitutes were often of their clients, and ones on men were often of prostitutes they frequented. As this article proves it was much more nuanced than that- the men and women were partners and lovers not just clients.  

References available. 

Article is copyright Anthony Rhys 2017.