Selected biographies
Elizabeth Needham (died 3 May 1731), also known as Mother Needham, was an English procuress and brothel-keeper of 18th-century London, who has been identified as the bawd greeting Moll Hackabout in the first plate of William Hogarth's series of satirical etchings, A Harlot's Progress. Although Needham was notorious in London at the time, little is recorded of her life, and no genuine portraits of her survive. Her house was the most exclusive in London and her customers came from the highest strata of fashionable society, but she eventually ran afoul of the moral reformers of the day and died as a result of the severe treatment she received after being sentenced to stand in the pillory. (read more ...)
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John Rykener, also known as Eleanor (fl. 1394), was a 14th-century transvestite sex worker arrested in December 1394 for performing a sex act with another man, John Britby, in London's Cheapside. Although historians tentatively link Rykener to a prisoner of the same name, the only known facts of his life come from interrogation made by the mayor of London. Rykener was questioned on two offences: prostitution and sodomy. Prostitutes were not usually arrested in London during this period, while sodomy was an offence against morality rather than common law, and so pursued in ecclesiastical courts. There is no evidence that Rykener was prosecuted for either crime. Rykener said that he was introduced to sexual contact with men by Elizabeth Brouderer, a London embroideress who dressed him as a woman and may have acted as his procurer. (read more ...)
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Natasha Falle (born 1973) is a Canadian professor at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario, Canada who was forcibly prostituted from the ages of 15 to 27 and now opposes prostitution in Canada. Falle grew up in a middle-class home and, when her parents divorced, her new single-parent home became unsafe, and Falle ran away from home. At the age of 15, Falle became involved in the sex industry in Calgary, Alberta.
Falle's pimp kept her falsely imprisoned and trafficked her across the country. He married her and tortured her, breaking several of her bones and burning her body. In order to cope with the trauma of prostitution and violence, Falle became dependent on cocaine and almost died. (read more ...)
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Elizabeth Cresswell (c. 1625 – c. 1698), also known as Mother Creswell and Madam Cresswell of Clerkenwell, was one of the most successful prostitutes and brothel keepers of the English seventeenth century. Starting with houses in Bartholomew Close, in the City of London and St Leonard's, Shoreditch, she built a widespread network of brothels across London, supplied with girls and women from across England. Her employees included the wives of soldiers pressed into service for Charles II and gentlewomen who had supported the Cavalier cause during the English Civil War and had since fallen on hard times. Her bawdy houses were favoured by King Charles and his court as well as powerful figures in government and city guilds. This position gave her a measure of immunity from prosecution and added to her profile as a caricature of iniquity and corruption. (read more ...)
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Catherine Walters, also known as "Skittles" (13 June 1839 – 5 August 1920), was a fashion trendsetter and one of the last of the great courtesans of Victorian London. Walters' benefactors are rumoured to have included intellectuals, leaders of political parties, aristocrats and a member of the British Royal Family.
During her life as a courtesan, her discretion and loyalty to her benefactors became the focal point of her career. There were many rumours about her being involved with certain wealthy men of the time, but she never confirmed or denied these rumours. This gave her great weight in the courtesan lifestyle, and made her a sought-after companion. It also gave long life to her career, and helped her to retire a wealthy woman of society around 1890. (read more...)
Esther Lachmann (French pronunciation: [ɛstɛʁ laʃman]; 7 May 1819 – 21 January 1884), generally known as La Païva (French: [la paiva]), was the most famous of 19th-century French courtesans. A notable investor and architecture patron, and a collector of jewels, she had a personality so hard-bitten that she was described as the "one great courtesan who appears to have had no redeeming feature". Count Horace de Viel-Castel, a society chronicler, called her "the queen of kept women, the sovereign of her race".
Rising from modest circumstances in her native Russia to becoming one of the most infamous women in mid-19th-century France to marrying one of Europe's richest men, Lachmann maintained a noted literary salon out of Hôtel de la Païva, her luxurious mansion at 25 avenue des Champs-Elysées in Paris. (read more...)
Margaretha Geertruida "Margreet" MacLeod (née Zelle; 7 August 1876 – 15 October 1917), better known by the stage name Mata Hari (/ˈmɑːtə ˈhɑːri/), was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I and executed by firing squad in France.
Margaretha Zelle was born 7 August 1876, in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. She was the eldest of four children of Adam Zelle (2 October 1840 – 13 March 1910) and his first wife Antje van der Meulen (21 April 1842 – 9 May 1891). She had three brothers. Her father owned a hat shop, made successful investments in the oil industry, and became affluent enough to give Margaretha a lavish early childhood that included exclusive schools until the age of 13. (read more...)
Peter William Coonan (born Peter William Sutcliffe; 2 June 1946) is an English serial killer who was dubbed the "Yorkshire Ripper" by the press. In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others.
Sutcliffe initially attacked women and girls in residential areas but seems to have moved to red light districts because he was attracted by the vulnerability of prostitutes. Sutcliffe had allegedly regularly used the services of prostitutes in Leeds and Bradford. When interviewed by authorities, he claimed that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. Sutcliffe carried out murders over five years, during which time some members of the public were especially shocked by the murders of women who were not prostitutes. (read more...)
Ashley Rae Maika DiPietro (born Ashley Youmans; April 30, 1985) better known by the stage name Ashley Alexandra Dupré, is a former call girl. She has worked as a sex columnist for the New York Post, and as a singer. She became a public figure when it was disclosed that she was the woman at the center of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. In that capacity, she was known as Kristen, the name she used as a call girl.
On February 13, 2008, Dupré travelled by Amtrak from New York's Pennsylvania Station to Washington, D.C., for an assignation at the Mayflower Hotel with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. The arrangements had been made by phone between Spitzer and a booker at Emperors Club VIP. (read more...)
Mary Jane Kelly (c. 1863 – 9 November 1888), also known as Marie Jeanette Kelly, Fair Emma, Ginger, Dark Mary, and Black Mary, is widely believed to be the final victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated several women in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to early November 1888. She was about 25 years old, and living in poverty at the time of her death.
Compared with other Ripper victims, Kelly's origins are obscure and undocumented, and much of it is possibly embellished. Kelly may have herself fabricated many details of her early life as there is no corroborating documentary evidence, but there is no evidence to the contrary either. (read more...)
Sally Salisbury (c.1692 – 1724), real name Sarah Pridden and also known as Sarah Priddon, was a celebrated prostitute in early 18th-century London. She was the lover of many notable members of society, and socialised with many others. In 1722 she stabbed and wounded a client. As a result, she was sentenced to one year's imprisonment. She was sent to Newgate Prison to serve her sentence but died in prison after only nine months.
She was born around 1690–1692 and given the name Sarah Pridden. Her father was a bricklayer. At the age of nine she was apprenticed to a seamstress in Aldgate. After losing a valuable piece of lace she ran away and took to life on the streets of the slum district of St Giles. (read more...)
Aileen Carol Wuornos Pralle (/ˈwɔːrnoʊs/; born Aileen Carol Pittman; February 29, 1956 – October 9, 2002) was an American serial killer who murdered seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990 by shooting them at point-blank range. Wuornos claimed that her victims had either raped or attempted to rape her while she was working as a prostitute, and that all of the homicides were committed in self-defense. She was convicted and sentenced to death for six of the murders and was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002.
The 2003 film Monster starred Charlize Theron as Wuornos. It chronicles Wuornos' story from childhood until her first murder conviction. The film earned Theron an Academy Award for Best Actress. (read more...)
Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949), also known as the Green River Killer, is an American serial killer. He was initially convicted of 48 separate murders. As part of his plea bargain, another conviction was added, bringing the total number of convictions to 49, making him the most prolific serial killer in United States history according to confirmed murders. He killed myriad teenage girls and women in the state of Washington during the 1980s and 1990s.
Most of Ridgway's victims were alleged to be sex workers and other women in vulnerable circumstances, including underage runaways. The press gave him his nickname after the first five victims were found in the Green River before his identity was known. (read more...)
Ellis Alfred Swearengen (July 8, 1845 – November 15, 1904) was an American pimp and entertainment entrepreneur who ran the Gem Theater, a notorious brothel, in Deadwood, South Dakota, for 22 years during the late 19th century.
Swearengen originally owned and operated a canvas-and-lumber saloon in Deadwood known as the Cricket, which featured gambling and hosted prizefights. Shortly after, he closed it down and opened a larger saloon known as the Gem Theater. The Gem functioned as a saloon, dance hall and brothel. Swearengen lured desperate young women to Deadwood, then forced them into prostitution through a combination of bullying and physical brutality committed by himself and his henchmen. Calamity Jane, who was one of his first dancers at the Gem, procured 10 girls from Sidney, Nebraska, for him on one occasion. (read more...)
Belle Cora (1827? –1862), also known as Arabella Ryan, was a successful Madam of the Barbary Coast during the mid-nineteenth century. She rose to public attention in 1855 when her lover, Charles Cora, killed US Marshall William H. Richardson. The fight between Charles and Richardson started at the American Theatre. Richardson's wife complained that Belle Cora, a well-known parlor house owner, and Charles Cora, a frequent gambler were seated in the same balcony as her. She stated that they should be in the general admission pit seats rather than the more expensive areas reserved for more respectable guests. As a result, Richardson went to ask the manager of the theatre to remove the couple, but the manager refused saying that they were regular customers of the first balcony. (read more...)
Catherine "Kate" Eddowes (14 April 1842 – 30 September 1888) was one of the victims in the Whitechapel murders. She was the second person killed in the early hours of Sunday 30 September 1888, a night which already had seen the murder of Elizabeth Stride less than an hour earlier. These two murders are commonly referred to as the "double event" and have been attributed to an unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.
Eddowes, also known as "Kate Conway" and "Kate Kelly" after her two successive common-law husbands, was born in Graisley Green, Wolverhampton on 14 April 1842. Her parents, tinplate worker George Eddowes and his wife Catherine (née Evans), had 11 other children. The family moved to London a year after her birth, but she later returned to Wolverhampton to work as a tinplate stamper. (read more...)
Andrêsa do Nascimento (1859–1927) was a courtesan and celebrated society figure in fin de siècle Lisbon. She was better known as Preta Fernanda (literally: Black Fernanda) and Fernanda do Vale (her nom de plume). She was, perhaps, the best known black citizen of the city in that period.
Nascimento was born to poor parents in a small village near Ribeira da Barca on the island of Santiago in Cape Verde, probably in 1859. Cape Verde, a volcanic archipelago off the west coast of Africa, was a Portuguese colony and a nexus for the Atlantic slave trade. Although slavery was abolished in Portugal, it was only selectively abolished in Cape Verde in 1857 with complete abolition in 1878. It is possible, therefore, that one or both of Nascimento's parents were enslaved when she was born or had been enslaved. (read more...)
Laura Bell McDaniel (November 27, 1861–January 1918) was an American madam and brothel owner in Colorado City, now called Old Colorado City, and Cripple Creek during the late 19th century and early 20th century. She was also known the "Courtesan of Colorado City" and "Queen of the Colorado City Tenderloin". She had entered the profession after being left with an infant daughter. McDaniel maintained a close relationship with her mother and family over her career and she sent her daughter to boarding school. Her clients were among the wealthy citizens of the Colorado Springs area and she was said to have the "most spectacular [house] in town", managed by a number of servants. Although she was encouraged to leave town by citizens and law enforcement, she continued to operate her business until her death. (read more...)
Nellie Cameron (1910–1953), known as "The Kiss of Death Girl", was a notorious Sydney prostitute in the 1920s and 1930s, who was featured extensively in the 2011 Australian television mini-series Underbelly: Razor. Cameron was associated with the cocaine-fuelled ravages of the razor gang violence of that era, commonly associated with her contemporaries, Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh, both criminal entrepreneurs who controlled much of Sydney's illegal sex industry and Sly-grog distribution during that period. Nellie Cameron received 73 criminal convictions during her life of crime, mainly for soliciting and vagrancy, and had the distinction of becoming the first woman in Australia to be convicted of consorting with criminals.
Ellen (Nellie) Katherine Kelly was born in the inner city Sydney suburb of Waterloo in 1910, the youngest child of Colin Kelly and Lillian Kelly (née Ruddock). (read more...)
Sarah A. Bowman (c. 1813 – December 22, 1866) was an American innkeeper, restaurateur, and madam. Nicknamed "The Great Western", she gained fame, and the title "Heroine of Fort Brown", as a camp follower of Zachary Taylor's army during the Mexican–American War. Following the war she operated an inn in Franklin, Texas (now El Paso) before settling near Arizona City (now Yuma, Arizona). Over the course of her life she was married multiple times, often without legal record or the blessing of a priest, and was known at various times by the names Boginnis, Bourdette, Bourget, Bourjette, Borginnis, Davis, Bowman, and possibly Foyle.
Bowman is believed to have been born Sarah Knight sometime between 1812 and 1813 (the 1860 census indicates her birth may have occurred as late as 1818 in either Tennessee or Clay County, Missouri. (read more...)