Old Drybones quenching a Flame (c.1785), British Museum, London. Attributed to William Holland as publisher by Tim Clayton in his recent book on James Gillray

The creation of the Society for the Suppression of Vice (SSV) in 1802 heralded the beginning of an unprecedented campaign of legal harassment against the members of London’s print-selling community. Concerned by the harm its members felt were being inflicted on the society by the proliferation of pornographic images, the SSV employed agents tasked with securing the arrest and prosecution of those who dealt in what contemporaries typically referred to as “indecent prints.” Around half a dozen print-sellers were arrested and charged on the basis of evidence supplied by the Society, with all receiving prison terms ranging from six months to two years in duration and some also being subjected to a turn in the public pillory for good measure. But the campaign proved damaging to the moralists, with revelations about the use of paid informers and the dubious tactics they employed exposing the SSV to criticism and provoking a schism amongst its members. Further activity was quietly suspended in the spring of 1803, and it would be several years before the Society felt confident enough to unleash its solicitors on a print-seller again. To those us with an interest in eighteenth-century prints, the events of 1802-03 are noteworthy for what they reveal about the illicit trade in printed pornography, which was closely associated with the world of graphic satire and caricature. They also indicate that the taming of contemporary print culture which is typically associated with the rise of the middle-class preoccupation with outward displays of propriety and respectability from the 1820s, had been prevalent in London society for at least a generation before that. [1]

The SSV was formed in London in March 1802 by religious conservatives who had grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress which had been made by an earlier society dedicated to the enforcement of the 1787 proclamation against immorality and vice. That group had predominantly been an aristocratic society, concerned about irreligious behaviour but content to limit its activities to lobbying politicians, judges and magistrates in favour of new laws and tougher sentences. In contrast, the men and women of the SSV were principally drawn from the ranks of the middling classes and the benches of London’s evangelical chapels and they sought to wage a more active war against God’s enemies in the metropolis. [2] Chief amongst those enemies were those who had “…raised into existence a pestilent swarm of BLASPHMOUS, LICENTIOUS AND OBSCENE BOOKS AND PRINTS which are insinuating their way into the recess of private life to the destruction of all purity of sentiment, and all correctness of principles.” [3] Pornography was regarded as being particularly dangerous because of the beguiling effect it was thought to have on women and young people, as one of the Society’s representatives explained:


When a robber commits his depredations on the property of people on the highway, there is an end to it… Here, however, is a constant course of life, a regular profession of debauching the minds and morals of youth of every description. God only knows how many may grow up to be men and women, having their principles and habits corrupted and tainted by these seeds of vice, so early implemented in them! Women who have nothing so great as virtue to recommend them, and who would otherwise retain it unsullied, being thus early debauched, are liable to be led into every species of iniquity. [4]


There was also a political dimension to the SSV’s outlook and its no coincidence that John Reeve and other members of the Association for Preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers were amongst its founding members. Loose morals, they feared, would lead to loose politics and any activity that encouraged the poor to deviate from a Christian message of austerity and obedience was regarded as a potential backdoor for republican revolution. [5]

The course of events that unfolded in 1802-03 is broadly as follows: the first arrest to be openly attributed to the SSV was that of Thomas Gainer, an itinerant trader who was condemned at the Middlesex sessions in September 1802. Gainer was accused of selling a quantity of indecent books and prints to a man named Robert Gray, who admitted under cross-examination that he was a paid agent of the SSV. [6] John Harris was snared by Gray and jailed on similar charges a month later. He had kept a stall that stood against the wall of the Privy Garden in Whitehall for many years and ostensibly dealt in song-sheets and “funny” prints but was also commonly known to stock pornographic material [7]. However, the revelation of Gray’s status caused unease which was reflected in a decision by the Court of King’s Bench to refer another a case back to the magistrates on the grounds that “the defence… rests upon the character of Gray, who is the Informer, and probably the only witness on this occasion” and was therefore regarded as circumspect. [8]

Initially undeterred, the Society pressed magistrates to proceed with the prosecution of Baptista Bertazzi, another itinerant printseller who had crossed paths with Robert Gray, the following month. The case proved to be something of a disaster as it brough fresh revelations about Gray’s unsavoury past as government informer and further allegations of entrapment and even the suggestion that Gray was bribing the police. The jury had little choice but to return a guilty verdict – Bertazzi having admitted that he’d sold pornography – but recommended that the court show mercy on account of his having been induced to procure the offending items by someone with a financial interest in securing his arrest. [9] Outraged at this display of clemency and the signals it might send, the SSV lodged an appeal with the Court of King’s Bench. The appeal was heard before Lord Ellenborough in February 1803. Ellenborough was an arch-conservative and may even have been colluding with the members of the Society’s executive committee at the time. He duly returned the harshest possible verdict – two years imprisonment, including time in the pillory – but the apparent victory also marked a tacit moment of retreat for the forces of morality. [10]

The appeal against the jury’s verdict in the Bertazzi case was heard on the same day as the Society also presented evidence against the print-seller Ann Aitken. Ann was the wife of James Aitken, a former publisher of James Gillray’s and the owner of print-shop near Leicester Square, who had been jailed for selling obscene material in June 1802. [11] Poverty forced Ann to persist in the trade and in early 1803 she unwittingly sold an explicit drawing to a member of the SSV who was posing a customer. The case was the first to appear before a court in months in which Robert Gray did not feature and it probably marks the point at which the Society severed its connection with this unsavoury individual. Gray himself was later said to have been found guilty of fraud and transported to Australia. [12]

By now the members of the Society were in open disagreement with one another, with the evangelicals in particular growing ever more vocal in their criticism about the use of subterfuge and other forms of deceit to entice individuals to incriminate themselves. Furthermore, they were alarmed by the publicity the trials had attracted and concerned that this would have the counterproductive effect of advertising pornographic material to the public. In contrast, the majority of the members of the SSV’s executive committee seemed to have remained unrepentant in the view that indecent prints were a menace to society and that the ends justified the means. Nevertheless, they were clearly chastened by their experience and did not consider bringing charges against a print-seller again until December 1806. Even then, their solicitor felt the need to use his opening statement to launch a pre-emptive defence of the Society’s record, claiming that they’d been unfairly characterised as “wild fanatics, who were promoting the very purposes which it was their object to suppress.” [13]

So what does this episode tell us about the trade in indecent prints and why is it relevant to those of us with an interest in the caricatures of this period? To answer the latter question first; it’s relevant because in many cases caricatures and humorous prints were sold alongside sexually explicit material. James and Ann Aitken published and sold prints by Gillray, Isaac Cruikshank and William Dent at the front of their shop, but also kept a backroom into which customers could be ushered to peruse more risqué material in privacy. They were by no means an exception either, with their being reasonably compelling evidence to suggest that William Holland S.W. Fores were amongst the other leading caricature publishers of the day who also dabbled in pornography. Their motivation for doing so was straight-forwardly commercial, as one observer of the trade made clear: “….without seeking much about [one can find] half a dozen opulent book and printsellers have several hundreds of pounds invested in this sort of property the great profit upon which, from the secrecy of the sale, induces them to run the hazard”. [14] The failure to pursue the individuals responsible for publishing these prints was one of the chief criticisms levelled at the SSV during 1802-03, with even friendly newspaper editorials stating that “… “We wish that the Society would exert themselves in suppressing similar infamous publications with some of the more opulent Vendors in the West End of the Town.” [15] In fact it was later suggested that Gray had gathered evidence implicating a number of other print-shop owners in the production and sale of pornography but that these cases had been hushed up in exchange for a £20 donation to the SSV. [16]

The trials reveal somethings about the otherwise obscure world occupied by the network of small retailers, supplied from the backdoors of London’s print-shops who sold prints on London’s streets. Many of them seem to have been marginal figures – immigrants, the disabled, women – whose career options were limited by their status and with lives characterised by extreme levels of poverty. Indeed, was poverty that made them such easy targets, as they could not afford to exercise the same level of discretion as a more affluent trader would when faced with a stranger who was offering money in exchange for the opportunity to obtain illicit material. Their outsider status also made them easier to prosecute, with Thomas Gainer’s jury being advised to discount the testimony of three witnesses who’d appeared to corroborate his alibi on the basis that they were “Italians and Foreigners”, while a previous conviction for homosexuality was used to brand Harris as an “incorrigible” deserving of the most severe punishment. [17]

We also learn something about the cultural practices that surrounded the sale of indecent prints. Even if the places and individuals involved in the trade in pornography was regarded as something of an open secret amongst Londoners, such prints were never freely offered for sale and always masked behind other types of prints and the use of euphemistic language. Harris for example, would sound potential customers out by gauging their reaction to his dirty jokes, before enquiring if they wished to purchase some “funny prints” or “novelties” and then leading them behind the Banqueting House where a transaction could be concluded privately. [18] Bertazzi was said – perhaps somewhat implausibly – to have maintained an even more elaborate routine. He would ask customers if they were interested in any “game” pictures “upon which he produced some game birds, such as peasants; and then, if they said that was not the sort [they were looking for], he at length exhibited these representations of the most obscene sensuality.” [19]

The question of who bought these prints is more difficult to answer. Robert Gray said that Gainer, Harris and Bertazzi’s customers included seemingly respectable women, servant girls, school children and the proprietors of several finishing schools. However, he failed to produce a shred to evidence to substantiate these claims and they were almost certainly a fantasy concocted to prejudice a jury in the hopes of securing a guilty verdict. Given the over-abundance of female nudity on display in the erotic prints that survive from this era, their relentless focus on male gratification and the inflated prices they commanded, it seems far more likely that their principle audience was made up of middle and upper class men, similar to those who made up the majority of the SSV’s members. There is perhaps therefore more than a ring of truth to the claim made by a later critic of the Society who observed that there was “A noted picture-shop of York-street, Covent Garden, [which] sells abundance of these articles by the vehicle of women of the town, whose nightly attendance at taverns and the play houses enables them to deal largely in this way with the gentlemen.” [20]

References

  1. V. Gatrell, City of Laughter. Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London, (London, 2006), pp. 417-34.
  2. M. J. D. Roberts, The Society for the Suppression of Vice and Its Early Critics, 1802-1812, The Historical Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Mar., 1983), pp. 159-176.
  3. An address to the public, from the Society for the Suppression of Vice, (London, 1803), p.43.
  4. Bury & Norwich Post, 27th October 1802, p.4.
  5. Roberts, ibid, pp. 164-5.
  6. Morning Herald, 21st September 1802, p.3, London Chronicle, 21st September 1802, p.5, and True Briton, 22nd September 1802, p.4.
  7. Mirror of the Times, 16th October 1802, p.4., London Chronicle, 23rd October 1802, p.6., Morning Post 23rd October 1802, p.3, Sun 28th October 1802, p.4, and True Briton, 23rd October 1802, p.3.
  8. Sun, 28th October 1802, p.4.
  9. True Briton, 1st December 1802, pp.3-4.
  10. Oracle and Daily Advertiser, 21st February 1803, p.3. Ellenborough met with members of the SSV’s executive committee prior to their general meeting in February 1805 and offered them advice on the legality of using subterfuge to secure evidence which could be used as the basis for an arrest. It’s not inconceivable that he may have been in touch with the Society two years earlier, particularly given his obvious and outspoken support for their cause. See British Press, 21st February 1805 p. 3. For a more detailed summary of the Bertazzi case see my earlier post on the subject: https://theprintshopwindow.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/bertazzi-versus-the-king-censoring-graphic-prints/
  11. The circumstances surrounding James Aitken’s arrest in June 1802 were similar to those of Gainer, Bertazzi and other victims of Robert Gray’s. – the prosecution’s case rested entirely on the testimony of a “gentleman” who claimed to have visited Aitken’s shop to buy a plan of the Paddington Canal, only to be offered obscene material by Aitken’s wife, Ann, who was serving behind the counter. He was then said to have been “induced” – whether by his conscience or a third party is unclear – to return to the shop a few days later, purchase the book and present it to the magistrate. Aitken would have been a likely target for Gray and the SSV, having previously been convicted for selling obscene material and therefore known to be dealing in that branch of the print-trade. However, the truth of the matter is obscured by the vague nature of the accounts of the trial which appeared in the press. General Evening Post, 3rd July 1802, p.2., Oracle and the Daily Advertiser 11th June 1802, p3. and Morning Herald 2nd July 1802, p.3.
  12. Oracle and Daily Advertiser, 21st February 1803, p.3 and Star 21st February 1803, p.4. The claim the Gray was transported was made in The Scourge, May 1811 pp. 377-9.
  13. See the account of the Society’s general meeting which appears in British Press 21st October 1805, p.3. Morning Chronicle, 6th December 1806, p.3. Edward Rich was prosecuted by the SSV for “selling certain scandalous and obscene books, distinguished by beastly and indecent prints, at a stall close by the Admiralty.” Notably, he prosecuted on the basis of evidence provided by four members of the SSV’s executive committee, suggesting that the idea of employing professional spies had been permanently abandoned. British Press, 19th December 1806. p.3.
  14. The Scourge, May 1811 pp. 377-9. The involvement of Holland and Gillray in the production and sale of indecent prints is covered in Tim Clayton, James Gillray A Revolution in Satire, (London, 2022) pp. 88 – 93. Fores’s involvement in the trade was revealed in the testimony one of his shopmen gave before a civil court in 1802. When asked if a customer order a complete set of Fores’s prints would receive any obscene items, the employee replied that would be the case “unless an exception were made”. Morning Post, 17th February 1802, p. 3. Fores’s son Richard was later found guilty of selling indecent prints and jailed. See Gatrell, pp.537-8.
  15. Oracle and Daily Advertiser, 24th August 1802, p.3.
  16. Scourge, ibid.
  17. Gainer and Bertazzi were identified as Italians by the press. The surnames of the three men charged on evidence supplied by Robert Gray in October 1802 who the Court of King’s Bench declined to prosecute – Baptucci, Cantelope and Aldrick – suggest that at least two of them were very likely to have been Italian immigrants too. For the characterisations of Gainer see Sun, 21st September 1802, p.2. and for Harris see Mirror of the Times, 16th October 1802, p.4.
  18. Sun, 28th October 1802, p.4.
  19. True Briton, 1st December 1802, pp.3-4.
  20. Scourge, ibid.