Poverty and Prostitution in York

Poverty and Prostitution is a study of 1,400 prostitutes and brothel-keepers operating in a Victorian cathedral city over a half century. It is based on the unique and systematic use of detailed evidence from such sources as the weekly newspaper reports of magistrates´ court proceedings, workhouse records, Quarter Sessions Lists and material relating to the local refuge for ´Fallen Women´. The book also draws on the city´s wealth of slum clearance records and on the evidence from the census enumerators´ notebooks. Dr Finnegan examines the social and geographical origins of the prostitutes and their associates. The conclusions reached challenge existing interpretations of the subject and show that far from being a healthy and comparatively harmless activity which could be abandoned with ease, the Victorian street-walker´s career was generally tragic and brief, overshadowed by poverty and characterized throughout by desperation, drunkenness, frequent prison sentences and disease. In addition to considering York´s recorded prostitute community as a whole, the book is illustrated throughout with the histories of individual women, and contains fascinating photographic material.