Prostitution in Victorian England
80,000 working girls in Victorian London?
Note: I cite the sources I used so you can look them up. Any time you see text that is underlined and bold, it is a link to a source.
The population of London grew from about 860,000 in 1801 to 3,300,000 in 1871. Among the residents were a “surplus” of women — there were about 4% more women than men among the population, for a variety of reasons, including soldiers and sailors being sent off to various parts of the British Empire.
Many women in all social classes had to support themselves, which was much harder to do for women to do in Victorian times, particularly if they had children.
In 1791, it was estimated by a police magistrate that there were 50,000 prostitutes in London, which would have meant about one in nine women who lived in the city were prostitutes. However, the word “prostitute” meant something different back then.
Women who were living with men outside of marriage were often considered prostitutes. Yet many women and men cohabitated because society made it clear that men should not marry if they could not support a family. Among the urban poor, therefore, many women who were monogamous but unmarried were categorized as prostitutes.
