Chapter 6 – The Contagious Diseases Acts and the Campaign for their Repeal, 1862-86 Flashcards
What were the main causes of prostitution in Victorian Britain?
Little as businesslike as “Swindling Sal” BUT myth to think helpless victim of sedition or rape by middle-class employer. Most in late teens/early 20s; found alternative employment after a few years; settled down, married, became ‘respectable’
ECONOMIC.
1) wc women had little/no education, poorly paid jobs, seasonal work (farm)
2) domestic service paid poorly, plus dressmaking, laundry work, jobs on street. Many worked here, then lost jobs/couldn’t survive with £
3) only alternative to WORKHOUSE: no autonomy, discipline.
4) saw as temporary, part time, tidying themselves till they could work again/live independently
5) HOME and FAMILY circumstances: overcrowding, cruel uncaring alcoholic parents reported by rescue workers as driving factors. Sizeable Number were orphans.
1.Why were the Victorians so worried about the “great social evil”, prostitution?
Moral and health problem, threat to public order and stability
• challenged middle-class view that WOMEN WERE PURE; virgins till married, then passively submit to husbands sexual advances
• Whores or virgins
• contaminate society, threatened institution of marriage & sanctity of family, harmed minds of innocent
• public disorder: prostitutes often visited pubs/public entertainment places
• 1886 living near Clapham Common reported place infested with prostitutes and nightly “disgusting exhibitions of vice” (police found respectable women/couples, few prostitutes discreet)
• clergymen, doctors, evangelical Christians condemned male sexual license: desecrated ‘holy union’
• some saw it a NECESSARY, inescapable evil because men had a “natural” sex drive that could not be satisfied within marriage— DOUBLE STANDARD of VICTORIAN MORALITY; Steinback ds rested on belief “that there were important biological differences between men and women”
2.Why were the Contagious Diseases Acts passed?
Paula Bartley: “Prostitutes were seen as a similar public nuisance to sewage: they should be cleaned, sanitised and made safe for the general public in the same manner as fetid drains”
• Crimean War 1854-6 = catalyst to raise concern about health of military: more casualties in hospitals than battlefield, papers+photos=foul conditions
• After War, army statistical department published annual reports on health of army: shit tonnes of venereal disease- 1864: 1 in 3 cases. Morale & fighting fitness of army at stake. (+ navy- “ship or War”…”every excess of debauchery”— Admiral Hawker. ships @portsmouth couldn’t sail a few weeks later because of it)
• inescapable: needed to be made safer, regulated. Lock hospitals already provided care.
• 1862 Committee of Inquiry: (inc. Nightingale) more hospital care, penalties for men who hid VD
Sir John Liddell (director general of naval medical department) argued for more regulation of prostitutes; cited India, Hong Kong- British soldier prostitutes had compulsory examination— effective.
• little debate in Parliament: some MPs thought they had passed animal Contagious Diseases Bill
• an extension of Victorian public health policy, medical intervention in lives of poor: 1848 Public Health Act (sewage and water), 1853 compulsory smallpox vaccination of babies
3.What was the impact of the Acts on prostitutes and ordinary women?
hypocrisy of double standard: ‘unfortunate’: ‘It did seem hard ma’am, that the Magistrate on the bench who gave the casting vote for my imprisonment had paid me several shillings a day or two before, in the street, to go with him’
- Mercury (pills, ointment, vapour baths); relieved some symptoms, no cure
- Police could arrest women on suspicion, registered and examined; hard for a woman to get off register till left/married
- Many women falsely accused (Mrs. Percy: professional singer, suicide 1875– barred from performing at music halls for refusing examination– complained of police abuse, nothing)
- reports told of ‘instrumental rape’ by men carrying out vaginal inspections (sometimes on innocent); victims of male lust, medical and police tyranny- ‘the victims of male pollution, as women who had been invaded by men’s bodies, men’s laws, and by that “steel penis”, the speculum’
4.What was the role of Elizabeth Wolstenholme in the campaign for the repeal of the Acts?
first organisers of campaign for repeal dismissed as ‘eccentric’ or religious fanatics; wall of ignorance and disbelief- even most welinformed knew not the significance:
1870, Cheltenham: Reverend W. Allen: ‘had no idea until a few weeks ago that the Act can had any application other than to cattle’
One of those who, in mid-1860s, began to campaign for repeal of CDA.
Ardent campaigner for women’s rights.
Considered act highly discriminatory against women; no sanctions against men.
Stoof out against acts, Campaigned for votes for women; when enfranchised, they would be better positioned to secure repeal of such legislation
December 1869 she asked Josephine Butler (worked with to promote women’s higher education) to organise the LNA’s campaign.
5.What was the impact of the Ladies’ National Association?
The Saturday Review: the “shrieking sisterhood”
MP: “We know how to handle any other opposition in the House or in the country, but this is very awkward for us - this revolt of the women. It is quite a new thing; what are we to do…?”
The National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act initially excluded women; LNA far more effective in mobilising support.
General committee of LNA formed, Ladies’ Protest (signed by 124) published in the Daily News:
1) “remove every guaranty of personal security which the law has established and held sacred… absolutely in the power of the police”
2) doesn’t “define clearly an offence which it punishes”
3) “unjust to punish the sex who are the victims of a vice, and leave unpunished the sex who are the main cause”… “liability to arrest, forced surgical examination, and, where this is resisted, imprisonment with hard labour… are punishments of the most degrading kind”
4) “the path of evil is made more easy to our sons… provides convenience”
5) “Because the measures are cruel to the women… further brutalizing even the most abandoned”
6) “Because the disease which these Acts seek to remove has never been removed by any such legislation. The advocates… have utterly failed to show… that these regulations have in any case… diminished disease… or improved the general morality of the country”
CAUSED SENSATION. LNA leaders injected vitality. widespread publicity:
- gov & press astonished by female’s participation, tenacity.
- public not used to women speaking publically, mixed audiences, such issues
6.Why was Josephine Butler’s leadership of the LNA so effective?
1) love of justice from father (abolitionist), deep evangelicism from mother. read about poor.
2) daughter died 1864: work w women of Liverpool workhouse/prostitutes: ‘became possessed with an irresistible urge to go forth and find some pain keener than my own’
3) popular crusade against violence and social injustice
Other leaders affluent, educated, had means and moral commitment. obligation to defend working women. several evangelical. (Olga)
1) Force of her personality: dominate and guide LNA. Gifted speaker, captured public imagination, inspired deep loyalty among co-workers. Magnetic appeal to men and women, even opponents
2) First year: travelled 3700 miles, 99 meetings.
3) Wealth of campaigning experience, like many LNA leaders: women in higher education, colleagues active in moral-force chartism/abolition of slavery.
4) Experienced at working with/rescuing prostitutes: taken several at home in Liverpool, set up ‘House of Rest’ 1866
5) Charismatic: spoke b4 Royal Commission 1871, one member said: “I cannot give you any idea of the effect produced except by saying that the spirit of God was there”
Called for diffusion of ‘home influence’ across society: female philanthropy (‘the independent, individual minitering’) > masculine (‘the organisation, the system planned by men’)
Hostile to social & political elite in LDN, esp military/medical men who advocated regulation
7.Who supported the regional leagues (organised 1872-3) in the campaign for repeal of the CDAs?
1) Press for repeal during parl/local elections; mainly Northern Counties League & Midlands Electoral League. 2) Many Christian denominations.
3) Most regional leaders (like LNA) were middle-class (industrialists, merchants):
‘outsiders’ in opposition to London ‘establishment’ that supported CDA;
active supporters of Liberal Party,
oft. radical Nonconformist.
4) Henry WILSON was most effective (NCL):
* brilliant organiser,
* cultivated the support of the Liberal Party;
* like Butler, criticised National Association as ‘do nothings’-
Bartley calls him ‘a workhouse who provided the backbone to the campaign… deserves as much credit as Butler’
5) Movement not exclusively middle class (1875 Working Men’s National League) BUT
Distinct differences/rivalries between repeal orgs based on class n above all gender: men and women formed separate orgs w different methods.
YET all hated ‘profligate aristocrats’ who dominated gov, medic, military
6) Financial support from a number:
much from Nonconformist (esp. quaker) businessmen and eventually influential trade union leaders, increasing number from medical profession.
8.What were the chief methods of campaigning for the repeal?
1) Petitioning used wisely (women couldn’t influence parliament by voting); 1870-1886; 18,000 petitions, 2.5 million people
2) Public meetings (churches, town halls, working men’s clubs) esp. north/Midlands; agents distributed posters/adverts in paper, then collect signatures
3) CHALLENGING LIBERAL CANDIDATES (demonstrated popular support, embarrassed) at by-elections:
* twice in 1870, repealers opposed Henry Storks (military, implemented regulation in Malta)- ie.
Colchester (autumn), repealers put up placards highlighting a statement Storks made in support of a plan to subject soldiers’ wives to Acts; poem- “tyranny’s worse than disease”- he was defeated
* Butler’s actions increased support BUT chased by a crowd of brothel keepers, another time had flour and shit thrown at her- public opinion outraged, she brave heroine
4) The SHIELD (LNA paper) publicised cases of persecuted women (ie. Percy, huge impact, the matyr revitalised a fading campaign).
Pamphlet: ‘medical lust of handling and dominating women’, ‘police lust of hunting and persecuting women’
5) LNA acknowledged some women chose it, but highlighted it as temporary for destitute; regulation stigmatised them and prevented them finding alternative employment.
9.How important was the role played by James Stansfield in the campaign for repeal?
‘There is no comparison to be made between the prostitute and the men who consort with them. With the one sex the offence is committed as a matter of gain; with the other it is the irregular indulgence of a natural impulse’- Liberal Report
- Private members’ bills regularly introduced but not passed due to lack of Party support (empire, ireland)
- 1874 Liberal defeat relieved James Stansfield of Cabinet duties- lent full support to repeal: high profile & experience meant press took note (The Times concerned he was associated with ‘the hysterical crusade’)
1) Assumed national leadership of movement, made it a more effective pressure group: more electoral leagues, win more working men, more district residents.
2) ‘beat supporters on their own ground’: more ‘facts’ (science stats) collected on venereal disease in military in subjected areas to show Acts failed
3) encouraged formation of National Medical Association 1875; enlist support of doctors
4) 1879 conservative gov responded to lobbying and made another committee of enquiry; 1880, Liberals in power, Stansfield a member– medics testified but a stalemate, no agreed recommendations
5) 1883 Stansfield introduced motion: ‘the House disapproves of the compulsory examination of women under the Contagious Diseases Acts’- Passed 182 : 110; compulsory examinations suspended, Acts made ineffective
10.Why were the Acts finally repealed in 1886?
early 1880s: surging support for repeal.
IN PARLIAMENT: Increasing number of (new, radical) Liberal MPs committed to repeal
OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT: growing support for repeal in working men’s clubs in LDN’s east end & among m.c. women in affluent parts of capital
1) MPs, LNA, Butler, defend ‘outsiders’ from ‘decadent upper classes’; evidence.
IN PARLIAMENT:
1) Henry WILSON (now MP) & fellow campaigners in regional leagues formed political committee of Liberal MPs to push repeal
2) Parliament preoccupied with other business; opposition worn down (constant petitioning, ‘disgusting literature’)
3) Only Parliament could repeal; increasingly supportive body of nonconformist, radical Liberal MPs (Stansfield)- inspired by ‘social gospel’, ‘saving not only the individual but also society’
JOSEPHINE BULTER:
1) most responsible for the success: courage, commitment, passion, persuasion.
2) With LNA colleagues, build support ACROSS class and gender (won support of working men)
3) Walkowitz: she showed a ‘genuine respect and sympathy for working people that was entirely reciprocated’
4) challenged double standard which justified male access to ‘impure’ women; men could contaminate innocent wives
OTHER ORGS & LEADERS made it mass, nationwide:
1) Electoral leagues (esp. north, Midlands) vigorous
2) Henry Wilson important here, & as MP
