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.

The Golden Cross: Last Pub Standing

1849 map, Golden Cross, or Shield & Newcastle Tavern, marked with yellow arrow

1892 The view towards The Golden Cross in the same direction as the yellow arrow on the map above. Note the golden crosses in the upstairs windows.

I get shivers when I drink in The Golden Cross.

Why? Because I've spent two years writing 'Notorious: Charlotte Street and the Lane' and The Golden Cross is the only survivor from that time, the only building left standing where the people I've written about drank, sang, laughed, stole and lost their tempers. The Golden Cross is all that remains of these heady years. 

Gone from Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane are The Cornish Arms, The Navigators, The Lame Chicken, The Noah's Ark, The Flying Eagle, The Dinas Arms, The King's Head, The Farmer's Arms, The Crown, The Britannia Inn, The Pembrokeshire Arms, The Newport & Pembroke, The Albion, The Somerset House, The Gloucester House, The Ship Inn, The Six Bells, The Caledonian, The Irishman's Glory, The Welsh Harp, The Sailor's Return, The Jolly Sailor, The Seven Stars, The Red Lion, The Excavators Arms, The Wild Wave, The Ocean Wave, The Golden Swan, The Three Crowns, The Castle Inn, The Globe Inn, The Custom House Hotel, The Ship & Pilot, The Ship Afloat, The New York Tavern, The New London, The Hibernian, The Great Eastern, The Green Fields of Erin, The Amber Bar, The Richards Arms and The Coal Hole. These people were thirsty back then...

People have been drinking beer on this site since at least 1846, that's 171 years of constant drinking! The pub's been called The Golden Cross since 1860 (wikipedia, and everyone else says it was 1863 but this date is wrong). It was rebuilt in 1904 so technically it's not the same Golden Cross but hey, we can't be too picky. In the same way the interior of the Custom House at the other end of Whitmore Lane was gutted in the 1980's and only the facade remains. 

This post will tell the early history of The Golden Cross. It's part of a series on two notorious streets in Cardiff, more can be found here.
The photo above of the 'Whitmore Lane Crossing' dates from a time when Charlotte Street and the old housing on Whitmore Lane had already been demolished a decade earlier. The crowded street scene, with it's sailors, police and local women still harks back to those times though. When this photo was taken Whitmore Lane had been renamed 'Custom House Street' twenty years earlier in an effort to whitewash it's iniquitous history.

Technically The Golden Cross was on Bute Street, but it is often referred to as part of Whitmore Lane. The longer half of it's frontage was along Whitmore Lane and the front door was on the corner of Whitmore Lane and Bute Street.

The Shield & Newcastle

The history starts in November 1846 with the pub called 'The Shield and Newcastle'. It was run by John Platt and his wife Ann. As it was on a street notorious for brothels and prostitution it's hardly surprising that Mr & Mrs Platt would get on the wrong side of some of the sex-workers there. In November 1846 John got a mouth full of curses from the experienced Mary Freeman. In June 1847 Ann Platt has a run in with Rachel Holiday. Rachel Holiday was a prostitute, her two sisters were also prostitutes, and she was going out with Harry Kickup, a thug from Cornwall who features heavily in my 'Notorious' book. After Rachel had been drinking she started to smash the glasses and then hit Ann Platt over the head with a jug:

Not the first, or the last, blood to be spilt in the pub.
The next month in July 1847 John Platt was getting assaulted by one of my Notorious women Kesiah Jones. Kesiah came out of gaol in the morning then went to his pub:

The location given here of the pub on Lewis Street must be incorrect as elsewhere Mary Griffith is recorded as working for John Platt at the Shields and Newcastle.
In September 1847 a milkman parked his cart too close to the windows of the Shields. Ann went out first to try to tip his milk cart over, the milkman shoved her back so John came out he beat him up. Meanwhile the donkey ran off:

On Boxing Day 1847, which was also a Sunday, John Platt was in trouble for being open. A mixture of soldiers, locals and 'girls of the town' including 'Plymouth Eliza' and Ann Perkins (who went on to run a brothel) were drinking in the Shields, which was the usual clientele on Whitmore Lane.
Ann Platt died in the summer of 1849, when the pub was called 'Newcastle Tavern' and John moved to Lewis Street to run a pub there- where he is by the 1851 census.

The Castle Inn

The pub then passed into the hands of Daniel Francis. Daniel lived at 40 Charlotte Street, which was spitting distance from The Shields and Newcastle, there he had run The Jolly Sailor beerhouse from 1842 until 1852.
In 1852 Daniel had dropped 'The Shields' part of the name and the pub was called 'New Castle Tavern'. This name further evolved into the 'Castle Inn' by 1855. It seems to have been a quiet place, supplying spirits to Whitmore Lane and staying out of trouble, until a man almost burnt to death there in 1856:

In February 1859 John Thomas had bought The Castle Inn. He was already the owner of The Griffin Inn on St Mary Street and a theatre in town.

The Castle Inn was the nearest place for the inhabitants of Whitmore Lane to buy spirits. There's a reference in March 1859 to two of Harry Kickup's prostitutes, Ellen Myers and Ann White, going to 'Thomas' gin shop' inbetween drinking at the beerhouses. They picked up a man at the gin shop and then beat the shit out of him afterwards.
Then in July 1859 The Castle Inn was undergoing a re-fit when a horrible accident occurred:

The fact that you could die from a broken leg goes to show the tough conditions at the time!

The Golden Cross

That death came at the same time as the death of The Castle Inn. The Golden Cross was born by March 1860 when John Thomas had the licence officially transferred from Daniel Francis into his name:

We are also fortunate to have a plan of the bar at The Golden Cross, probably the result of this fatal 1859 refit. It is housed in the Glamorgan Archives and was produced for a unused redevelopment of the pub planned in 1899. This is the only floor plan extant of any pub on Whitmore Lane or Charlotte Street:

The top right door is still the way into The Golden Cross today. Note the spiral staircase in the middle of the pub leading to the second floor living quarters. Also there are no ladies toilets. These weren't installed until 1943! (I assume they used the one marked behind the bar next to the outside area). Daniel Francis wouldn't have had to walk far to work either when he owned it as 40 Charlotte Street is top left of the plan.
John Thomas is running The Golden Cross but not living there as the 1861 census shows a bar manager Catherine Bevan and a servant Margaret Crowley or Crowline living there:

Although John Thomas is there when a man tries to pay for beer with fake money:

Catherine Bevan and John Thomas were probably behind the bar when the notorious prostitute Irish Meg went there for a drink in 1861 soon after she'd made a mint in a brothel robbery:

Margaret Crowley was still working there in 1863 with fellow barmaid Emily Price when the notorious thief Stephen Anderson, alias 'Mouse', popped in to The Golden Cross for a drink in 1863, it cost him four years of his life.

My favourite incident is also from 1863 when Billy Shortlegs, a Whitmore Lane bully and boatman who had lost his lower limbs, kicked off in The Golden Cross big style:

An important aspect of The Golden Cross was that it was a licensed public house. That meant it could sell spirits as well as beer- the majority of the 15 or so beerhouses on Whitmore Lane and Charlotte Street at this time were restricted to beer. These two prostitutes enjoy a glass of gin in 1864 then steal one of the glasses....

Selling spirits brought in the customers but it also came with a problem- licensed houses had to be behaved or their licenses would be revoked by the council (the beerhouses didn't have the same problem as they were regulated by Customs & Excise- who weren't fussy about morals). So although The Golden Cross has it's fair share of drunken fights and thefts it is highly unlikely it would have been a brothel in the 1860's as is claimed by some. It would have soon lost it's license and anyhow there were already about 10 brothels open at any given time at the other end of Whitmore Lane and on Charlotte Street.
Theft of items from The Golden Cross was a constant problem with so much poverty around. Stealing and pawning a glass could get you enough cash for a bed for the night. On a cold January day in 1864 three glasses got a young lad a bed for two months in gaol, then two years at reformatory school:

Harry Kickup was drinking in The Golden Cross, where his ex-wife had assaulted the landlady 17 years previously, in 1864. This time he was the victim of violence:

Thomas Yarwood, son of Mary the Cripple, was drinking in The Golden Cross in December 1864 and he claimed he was assaulted by PC Evans when he went out:

The problem with this claim is that Thomas Yarwood and Jack Matthews were both notorious brothel keepers and PC Evans was the policeman responsible for prosecuting the brothels.
The location of The Golden Cross at the intersection of Whitmore Lane, full of brothels, and Bute Street, full of sailors, meant that it was a good place for the working girls to take their marks for drinks, though they would then go on to a brothel. Here Emma Fry and Mary Ann Lee entertain at the end of 1863:

In 1868 the police were called to throw out John Daley, a local rough, who was making trouble (transcription below):

"At 12 Saturday night last found prisoner in the Golden Cross very drunk and riotous and threatening to split our heads- he refused to go out- we were requested by the barmaid and he refused to go we put him out and he struck Lewis (another PC) on the arm with a pewter cup- at the Police Station he kicked me in the privates. 30 shillings and costs or 21 days hard labour."
In 1869 it all got too much for one policeman. With a sick wife and child at home he had to have some shut eye supported by The Golden Cross:

There are plenty more incidents recorded for the years following 1869 - mainly assaults involving sailors, labourers and 'ladies of the pave' and petty thefts but I'll leave those for another time.

The Golden Cross is now a grade II listed building and it's survival is one of those happy accidents of history- it's fancy exterior and interior tiling being it's main saving grace. Nothing survives around it and like Whitmore Lane this end of Bute Street was renamed 'Hayes Bridge Road' and completely demolished in the late 1900's to whitewash the previous connotations of supposed sin.
The Golden Cross is now an island amidst a sea of traffic, glass and concrete and work has started on building Wales' tallest building just across the road from it on the other side of Whitmore Lane. But still, this fine, friendly pub remains- a stones throw from the city centre with some excellent internal and external features together with wet beer and good company and I would heartily recommend a visit.

So when I sit in the corner of The Golden Cross I know I am drinking where Harry Kickup, Irish Meg, Mouse, Thomas Yarwood, Billy Shortlegs and most probably all the other people I'm writing about once drank and it makes me happy that it's still there.

References:

1849 O'Rourke's Map is copyright Cardiff Libraries.
Photograph is 1892 by William Booth. National Library of Wales ID7202/DF000948
GRO PSCBO/1 C.P. Phillips v Mary Freeman 30th November 1846.
GRO PSCBO/1/3 Ann Platt v Rachel Holyday 14th June 1847.
Kesiah Jones: Monmouthshire Merlin 1847 July 31st.
Milkman: Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian 1847 September 18th p.2.
Boxing Day: GRO PSCBO/1/5 J.B. Stockdale vs John Platt 3rd January 1848.

Castle Inn
Name evolving: See Trade Directories for 1849, 1852, 1855
Harry Kickup's girls: see PSCBO/1/23 Henry Tonkin Warren 18th March 1859.
Sewerage: MM April 26 1856 p.3.
Lodger burning: CMG April 5th 1856 p.5.
Police drinking: CMG September 19th 1857 p.7.
License: CMG 1859 February 26th 1859 p.4.
Man death: CMG 1859 July 30th p.5.

Golden Cross
License: CMG March 10th 1860 p.6.
Census 1861 RG9/4033 F60 p3 Cardiff St Mary.
Women's Toilets: Plans are at Glamorgan Archives BC/S/1/34541
2 rebuilds were proposed in 1899 and 1901: Glamorgan Archives BC/S/1/13888 (1899) BC/S/1/14650 (1901) but were never realised.
Irish Meg: CMG April 20th 1861 p.6.
Bad Coin: 1861 Cardiff Times December 13th p.6.
Stephen Anderson MM October 31st 1863 p.2.
William Charles CMG September 18th 1863 p.7.
Girls stealing glass: Cardiff News March 4th 1864 p.3. Theft was a problem- a spoon stolen in 1863 (CMG November 20th p.8.) Three tankards also in the same year (Cardiff Times May 1st p.5.)
Reformatory school: 1864 CMG January 8th p.7.
Henry Warren: Cardiff New April 1st 1864 p.4.
Yarwood: CMG December 16th 1864 p.3.
Emma Fry CT January 1st 1864 p.6.
John Daley: PSCBO/1/50 John Daley 31st August 1868.
Policeman sleeping: Cardiff Times November 6th 1869 p.8.

The PSCBO/1 references are from the Glamorgan Record Office.
Newspaper images from the wonderful Welsh Newspapers Online. 

'Swaggering Gait': Pimps of Victorian Cardiff

'Has a swaggering gait, blotched face and dimpled chin' so reads the description of Lemuel Anderson, a bully of Charlotte Street in 1850. This post looks at the role of the bully, or pimp, in Cardiff from 1839-1851.
Lemuel was typical of the Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane bully (the older term for pimp). He was a 21 year old, born in Bristol where he had already been flogged in gaol as a child. As a teenager he had several minor scrapes with the law linked with his poverty, including washing naked in the canal feeder and stealing a goose and a bucket.

Early teenage crime was a feature of most bullies lives. Lemuel was also involved in petty crime with other young men on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane. In 1849 he was out breaking lamps with his brother, James Loynes (who had grown up in a brothel) and Dan Ryan (who went on to be a bully and a thief for the next fifteen years).
When these lads were rounded up and put into the police cells they turned on the police station windows: 

1849 December 22nd Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.4.

In 1851 Lemuel was the bully of Mary Ann Powell, a prostitute from Newport. He had her name tattooed on his arm and she had his name tattooed on hers. These young lovers both robbed a man at the notorious Noah's Ark brothel by hitting him over the head with a poker while he slept:

1850 August 8th Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.2.

They both got hefty transportation sentences for this attack.
The bully was a staple figure on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane. They were tough men with a propensity for violence like 19 year old Daniel Beddoe:

1849 September 8th Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.4.

The worst bullies were not linked to a single prostitute and instead terrorised any woman who had earned money like John Thomas:

1847 March 27th Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.2.

Ann Anthony, the woman he kicked and threw the pint glass at was pregnant.
Many of the bullies of Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane were also boatmen on the Glamorganshire Canal that went past Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane. See my separate post about the criminal uses of the canal here. The dual tasks of boatman and bully seemed to suit these men- I suppose the odd hours they did on the boats meant they could bully when they were not barging.

1846 October 10th Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.3.

The bully also mirrored the prostitutes in terms of age and longevity of service in the role, most lasting a few years, generally from 18-25 years of age, before they either moved into less stressful and more settled occupations (one of them became a fishmonger!) or were imprisoned for long terms (such as Punch who died on a prison hulk in 1854).
There are exceptions to this rule such as William Bennett was still bullying on Whitmore Lane in 1848 at the age of 43. Like Lemuel usually the bullies were partnered with specific prostitutes and lived with them:

1856 March 15th Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.8.

The bully was not always just a delinquent however. Some bullies had relationships with prostitutes that lasted many years and some gravitated towards more of a gangster role.
Davey Rees and Ann Green first worked together in the China slum of Merthyr Tydfil in 1851. They came to Cardiff soon after and ran The Cornish Arms at 38 Charlotte Street, staying together until 1856. This was a step-up from the bully/prostitute role as Davey and Ann could now get rent money from the other girls in the house, have a base to fence stolen goods and also sell beer. A similar arrangement existed with Harry Kickup and Rachel Holiday who ran The King's Head at 30 Charlotte Street. Rachel had been a prostitute for years and their relationship, though starting as a bully/prostitute role, lasted for eleven years until she died.

The bullies were often the primary thieves in the partnership, the woman brought in the victim so the bully could steal their money and valuables. Here a man picks up 17 year old Kesiah Jones from the doorway of Mrs Prothero's brothel in 1839 and they go 'to talk' down the street. In the shadows there's a surprise waiting in the form of Liverpool Dick:

1839 March 9th Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.2. 'Maria' Jones is an error.

Richard Edwards alias 'Liverpool Dick' got 15 years transportation for this theft, Kesiah was released. This was what usually ended the bullies career-  they stole the money so they did the time.
The bully shadowed the girls on the streets and inside the brothels and beerhouses. Here Frank Clark helps one of his girls Ann Lewis take a purse from a ship master in 1851:

1851 October 25th Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.2.

The bully would also intimidate the victim after the theft like here where Mary Tremain and Catherine Atkins alias 'Kitty Pig Eyes' robbed a mark:

1849 November 2nd The Principality p.5.

The beerhouses and brothels on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane often had resident bullies that were hired by the landlady or brothel keeper- they did all of the above jobs for all the women in the house, sort of a bouncer role. Bill Jones is house bully here at the Noah's Ark on Charlotte Street in 1851:

HO107/2455 F537 p.26

William Evans was house bully at Cora Clark's brothel on Whitmore Lane in 1851 and one of her girls was Kitty Pig's Eyes (also see above):

HO107/2455 F257 p.2.

Mary Prothero's brothel has her grandson James Loynes (erroneously written as Thomas Loynes here) as her bully:


HO107/2455 F267 p.23.

Where the brothel owners were men, as in the case of the brothers Bill and Ned Llewellyn, they also acted as bully for the women in their house.

1846 August 8th Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.2.

Ned would stand outside his brothel door smoking and keeping an eye out for his women most nights, or patrol the streets looking out for them. When he saw they were in trouble- it didn't matter if the girls were getting aggro from drunken seamen or being taken in by the police- he'd pounce:

1851 August 2nd Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.3.

This was by no means the rule however and some brothels such as Mary Wright's (The Quiet Brothel), which was in business for over 15 years, is never recorded as having a bully. Not all of the prostitutes kept bullies either, they often worked for themselves or from the safety of an established brothel but the bully was often hard to avoid:

1850 October 5th Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.3.

Given the bullies propensity for extreme violence it is worth pointing out that only two people died from bully assaults, in 1847 and 1851. Of course there were plenty more broken bones, popped out eyeballs, cracked ribs and bruises but cholera, smallpox, consumption and other diseases linked with poverty were the main killers on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane. You were more in danger from the water and the air around you than you were from any bully.

The life stories of Ned Llewellyn, Davey Rees, Ann Green, Kitty Pigs Eyes, Kesiah Jones, Cora Clark, and Mrs Prothero are all in my upcoming book Notorious, about thirty years on these two streets. To read about the book see here.

All images are from the excellent Welsh Newspapers Online site run by the National Library of Wales. This article in its current form is copyright Anthony Rhys 2017.