The Oldest Profession

Prostitution was rampant in late Victorian England, and a source of considerable attention for reformers. Prostitutes were generally working class girls drawn to the work for economic reasons. The “respectable” work available to women at the time—in factories, domestic service, and restaurants—was extremely poorly paid, physically exhausting, sometimes dangerous, and generally unpleasant. Sex work, while far from ideal, was relatively lucrative, and often more comfortable.

The range of work varied considerably, from women who picked up the occasional client to make ends meet and supplement their meager earnings, to expensive high end courtesans. Most prostitutes “retired” by age twenty-five, and it was entirely possible for them to later marry (sometimes to men they had met through their work who were above them in social class).

While prostitution was not illegal in Victorian times, England was far less comfortable with the practice than its continental neighbors. The chief of police in Brussels, where Mrs. Warren has one of her houses, was so blasé about prostitution as to recommend that licensed brothels be located in convenient places for the benefit of the customers, while England was the last country in Europe to adopt licensing regulations for prostitutes. The Contagious Diseases Act of 1864 required prostitutes to submit to medical exams, and compulsory treatment in locked wards if they were found to be infected (the same rule did not extend to their customers). Twenty years later, in keeping with its general discomfort with prostitution, England was the first European country to repeal its licensing regulations with the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which also criminalized brothels and the procurement of women to work in prostitution. By 1895 when our production of Mrs. Warren’s Profession takes place, this law was in full force, and while the act of prostitution remained legal most of the activities surrounding it were not and it was seen a serious problem by society.