Opposition to the Societies

'A Reforming Constable', 1765. © Westminster Archives Centre.

"Punishing vices in the poor, which are daily practis'd by the rich, seems to me to be setting our Constitution with the wrong end upward, and making men criminals because they want money." (Daniel Defoe, 1704: quoted by Wheatley in Hogarth's London, 1909.)

This was Defoe's criticism of the Societies for the Reformation of Manners, which seems to echo a general concern with the organisations; Trumbach has asserted that, in the majority of cases, "reforming activity was directed primarily at those lower on the social scale"(1998, p.91), and as a result the societies were often accused of hypocrisy; above is a satirical pamphlet which demonstrates the hypocratic view of the reformers. There is dispute among historians over the impact of the arrests of prostitutes' clients by the society; Trumbach estimates “at least six hundred men arrested for being with a prostitute in the three London jurisdictions...[between] 1720-1729”(1998, p.156), the vast majority being of middling social status. In terms of impact, Jennine Hurl-Eamon would argue that Trumbach has underplayed the significance of these arrests, and that “by calling for the arrest of middle-class men...the societies were clearly policing their own class as well as the poor”(Policing Male Heterosexuality, 2004, p.2). She argues that these arrests reflected the newer notion that men, particularly men of higher social standing, should have control over their sexuality. This overturns the early-modern sense that men were the victims of feminine sexual predators. She asserts that, at the time of the campaign, “prostitutes themselves were more often considered to be helpless victims, rather than the seductive predators of earlier times.”(2004, p.3) This is reflected in A Harlot's Progress by the treatment of Moll Hackabout; as the viewer follows her journey from innocence to corruption, influenced by characters such as the notorious Mother Needham, her character is often portrayed to be a victim of unfortunate circumstances.


Plate 1: Young Moll approached by the bawd 'Mother Needham'.

It could therefore be argued that A Harlot's Progress shows the Societies in a disapproving light for the harsh punishments inflicted by Gonson on the 'helpless victim' Moll Hackabout. But the unpopularity of the reforming societies stretched to more than just an artistic level; they recieved opposition from below, (hinted at by the stick drawing in Plate 4), and also from the middle classes for disrupting their debauchery; informers were frequently attacked on the streets. Hurl-Eamon argues that, as well as indicating disapproval, “the violence against the campaigns also shows the very real curb they represented to men’s activity”(2004, p.3), suggesting that the campaigns made a strong impact on the behaviour and attitudes of men in the early eighteenth century. However, I would argue that although the punishments may have acted as a preventative for immoral behaviour in public, the scorn and widespread disrespect for the societies indicates that they had little real influence on the attitudes of contemporaries.