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² Daily Express, Daily Herald, Daily Mirror, News Chronicle, 15 March 1951; People, 1 July 1951; News of the World, 13 September 1953.

³ Self, Helen J., Prostitution, Women and Misuse of the Law: The Fallen Daughters of Eve (London, 2003), 104Google Scholar; The National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), Home Office (HO) 345/12, CHP/TRANS/1, statement of P. Allen, Home Office assistant under-secretary, Criminal and Police Division, 15 October 1954, 14, q. 133; TNA: PRO, HO 345/12, CHP/TRANS/10, statement of Paul Bennett, Marlborough Street Police Court magistrate, 5 January 1955, 760, q. 1; A. C. Bridge, vicar of Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, to the editor of The Times, 15 October 1958; House of Commons Debates, 5s., vol. 598, comment of R. A. Butler, home secretary, 29 January 1959, col. 1271, and comment of Walter Edwards, MP for Stepney, 29 January 1959, col. 1342.

⁴ TNA: PRO, Records of the Metropolitan Police Office (MEPO) 2/9367, Chief Superintendent “C” minute, 30 October 1952.

⁵ Young, Edwyn, Farrington, H. E., Ramsay, Edith, Paterson, M. C., and Williamson, Joseph, Vice Increase in Stepney (London, 1957)Google Scholar, quotation at 1. Father Joseph Williamson (vicar of St. Paul’s, Dock Street, London Docks), another coauthor, credits Ramsay as being “entirely responsible” for the report (Lambeth Palace Library, Fisher Papers, vol. 239, Williamson to the secretary of the archbishop of Canterbury, 1 [?] May 1960, fols. 213–14).

⁶ Wolfenden, John (chairman of committee), Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (London, 1957), Cmnd. 247.Google Scholar

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⁸ Dench, Geoff, Maltese in London: A Case-Study in the Erosion of Ethnic Consciousness (London, 1975), 92.Google Scholar For a harrowing account of prostitution in the Cable Street area of Stepney, see Worth, Jennifer, Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s (London, 2002), 160–89.Google Scholar

⁹ Public General Acts, 7 and 8 Eliz. II, cap. 57.

¹⁰ White, Jerry, London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People (London, 2001), 312.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ibid., 322. Other studies that adopt the notion of such decline and rise without critical comment include Pugh, Martin, “We Danced All Night”: A Social History of Britain between the Wars (London, 2008), x, 105Google Scholar; Smithies, Edward, Crime in Wartime: A Social History of Crime in World War II (London, 1982), 142Google Scholar; and Thomas, Donald, Villains’ Paradise: Britain's Underworld from the Spivs to the Krays (London, 2005), 265.Google Scholar

¹² In a rare example of dissent, Dominic Sandbrook (White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties [London, 2006], 486) states that there were fewer prostitutes in London during the 1950s than before the war.

¹³ Following on from his journalistic exposés, Duncan Webb continued to write about the Messina brothers in his Crime Is My Business (London, 1953), 128–69Google Scholar, and in his Deadline for Crime (London, 1955), 78–118.Google Scholar Historians who write in this vein include Fergus Linnane (London's Underworld: Three Centuries of Vice and Crime [London, 2003], 245–49, 322–23), Morton, James (Gangland Soho [London, 2008], 123–31)Google Scholar, and Murphy, Robert (Smash and Grab: Gangsters in the London Underworld, 1920–60 [London, 1993], 105–12).Google Scholar

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¹⁵ Self, Prostitution.

¹⁶ Laithe, Julia A., “Taking Nellie Johnson's Fingerprints: Prostitutes and Legal Identity in Early Twentieth-Century London,” History Workshop Journal 65 (Spring 2008): 96–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹⁸ Taylor, Howard, “Forging the Job: A Crisis of ‘Modernization’ or Redundancy for the Police in England and Wales, 1900–39,” British Journal of Criminology 39, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 113–35, 113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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²¹ Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space, trans. Nicholson-Smith, Donald (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar; de Certeau, Michel, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Rendall, Steven (Berkeley, 1984)Google Scholar; Houlbrook, Matt, Queer London: Perils and Pleasures of the Sexual Metropolis, 1918–1957 (Chicago, 2005)Google Scholar; Jackson, Women Police, 80–103, 171–85; Mort, Frank, “Mapping Sexual London: The Wolfenden Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution, 1954–1957,” New Formations 37 (1999): 92–113.Google Scholar

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²⁵ Hacking, Ian, The Social Construction of What? (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 11–14.Google Scholar

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³⁰ Public General Acts, 5. Geo. V., cap. 83.

³¹ TNA: PRO, HO 45/12663, Police Commissioner W. Horwood to the Home Office under-secretary, 4 February 1925. A former clerk at Bow Street Police Court remarked: “I never once … in those days saw the previous conviction proved as required by the law, so that every one of these adjudications as rogue and vagabond was illegal and could have been quashed on certiorari” (Lieck, Albert, Bow Street World [London, 1938], 220Google Scholar).

³² Indeed, men were never viewed as objects for reform in the same way that women were. Official concerns with homosexuality involved anxiety over their behavior as opposed to the commercial nature of the act. Moreover, from a cultural perspective, the use of male prostitutes is classified historically as part of gay male behavior. See Bartley, Paula, Prostitution: Prevention and Reform in England, 1860–1914 (London, 2000), 25Google Scholar; Henderson, Disorderly Women, 3; and Jeffreys, Sheila, The Idea of Prostitution (Melbourne, 1997), 92.Google Scholar The policing of gay male practices is covered in Houlbrook, Queer London.

³³ Inwood, Stephen, “Policing London's Morals: The Metropolitan Police and Popular Culture, 1829–50,” London Journal 15, no. 2 (1990): 129–67, 130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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³⁶ Weinberger, Barbara, The Best Police in the World: An Oral History of English Policing from the 1930s to the 1960s (Aldershot, 1995), 161–64.Google Scholar

³⁷ Brogden, On Mersey Beat, 36, 88.

³⁸ Dixon, From Prohibition to Regulation, 227. For examples of hostile policing, see Cohen, Phil, “Policing the Working-Class City,” in Capitalism and the Rule of Law: From Deviancy Theory to Marxism, ed. Fine, Bob, Kinsey, Richard, Lea, John, and Young, Jock (London, 1979), 118–36, 121–23Google Scholar; Lopian, Jonathan B., “Crime, Police and Punishment, 1918–29: Metropolitan Experiences, Perceptions and Policies” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 1986), 37Google Scholar; and White, Jerry, Campbell Bunk: The Worst Street in North London between the Wars, 2nd ed. (London, 2003), 114–21.Google Scholar

³⁹ Taylor, “Forging the Job,” 113–35.

⁴⁰ Taylor, Howard, “Rationing Crime: The Political Economy of Criminal Statistics since the 1850s,” Economic History Review 51 (August 1998): 569–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁴² Benson, Catherine and Matthews, Roger, “Police and Prostitution: Vice Squads in Britain,” in Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry, ed. Weitzer, Ronald (New York, 2000), 246.Google Scholar

⁴³ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/5843, Superintendent “C” return, 8 March 1926.

⁴⁴ Godfrey, Barry, “Changing Prosecution Practices and Their Impact on Crime Figures, 1857–1940,” British Journal of Criminology 48, no. 2 (March 2008): 171–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an example of these practices in the interwar years, see Metropolitan Police Historical Collection (MPHC), Charlton, Edward Lyscom, “London Policeman” (unpublished, ca. late 1970s), 87–88.

⁴⁵ Bartley, Prostitution, 162; Storch, Robert D., “Police Control of Street Prostitution in Late Victorian London: A Study in the Contexts of Police Action,” in Police and Society, ed. Bayley, David H. (Beverley Hills, CA, 1977), 49–72.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Petrow, Stefan, Policing Morals: The Metropolitan Police and the Home Office, 1870–1914 (Oxford, 1994), 146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁷ RCPM (Reports of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis), Parliamentary Papers, 1900–1914.

⁴⁸ Bartley, Prostitution, 164–65.

⁴⁹ White, London, 314.

⁵⁰ Among contemporary “experts,” there was a consensus over such decline. Expert testimonial to the street offenses committee is the best example of this: TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 15, evidence of Mr Robbens of the Howard League for Penal Reform, 2 March 1928, 21, q. 7324; TNA: PRO, SOC 1, evidence of Sir Ernley Blackwell, Home Office assistant under-secretary (legal), 17 November 1927, 47, q. 347; TNA: PRO, SOC 12, evidence of Alison Neilans, AMSH (Association for Moral and Social Hygiene) secretary, 17 February 1928, 43, q. 6170. The standard work on the subject is Rolfe's, Sybil Neville “Sex-Delinquency,” in New Survey of London Life and Labour, vol. 9, Life and Leisure, ed. Smith, Hubert Llewellyn (London, 1935), 288–89, 295, 300.Google Scholar Her argument has been accepted by pioneering historians in the field of sex and sexuality. Seminal works include Walkowitz, Judith R., Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State (Cambridge, 1980), 212Google Scholar; and Weeks, Jeffrey, Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800 (London, 1981), 207–8, 219–20.Google Scholar

⁵¹ See, e.g., Engel, Arthur J., “‘Immoral Intentions’: The University of Oxford and the Problem of Prostitution, 1827–1914,” Victorian Studies 23, no. 1 (Autumn 1979): 79–107, 103–4.Google Scholar

⁵² Lopian, “Crime, Police and Punishment,” 114.

⁵³ TNA: PRO, HO 45/21766, prosecutions for soliciting, 4 July 1929.

⁵⁴ MPHC, reports of the superintendent of “E” Division to the commissioner, 1875–86.

⁵⁵ Mannheim, Hermann, Social Aspects of Crime in England between the Wars (London, 1940), 164.Google Scholar For an analysis of the decline in alcohol consumption, see Dingle, Anthony E., “Drink and Working-Class Living Standards in Britain, 1870–1914,” Economic History Review 25, no. 4 (November 1972): 608–22.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ TNA: PRO, HO 326/7, SOC 7, evidence of Chief Inspector Mears, 21 December 1927, 1, 23, qq. 3050, 3329–32.

⁵⁷ TNA: PRO, HO 326/7, SOC 6, evidence of Superintendent Morton, 20 December 1927, 63, qq. 2873, 2877–78.

⁵⁸ Jackson, Women Police, 172.

⁵⁹ City of Westminster Archives Centre (CWA), minutes of the watch committee, 1935–37, meetings of 17 January 1935 and 14 February 1935.

⁶⁰ See Dixon, From Prohibition to Regulation, 243; and Laithe, “Taking Nellie Johnson's Fingerprints,” 101.

⁶¹ London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), Bow Street Police Court Registers, PS/BOW/A1/83–8 (1922), 170–76 (1937); LMA, Marlborough Street Police Court Registers, PS/MS/A1/53–8 (1922), 154–61 (1937).

⁶² TNA: PRO, HO 345/12 CHP/TRANS/2, evidence of Police Commissioner Sir John Nott-Bower, 8 November 1954, 5, qq. 228–29.

⁶³ Fitch, Herbert T., Traitors Within: The Adventures of Detective Inspector Herbert T. Fitch (London, 1933), 228Google Scholar; Thorp, Arthur, Calling Scotland Yard: Being the Casebook of Chief Superintendent Arthur Thorp (London, 1954), 105Google Scholar; Cherrill, Frederick, Cherrill of the Yard (London, 1954), 131Google Scholar; Higgins, Robert, In the Name of the Law (London, 1958), 111–22Google Scholar; Savage, Percy, Savage of Scotland Yard: The Thrilling Autobiography of Ex-Superintendent Percy Savage (London, 1934), 134Google Scholar; Sharpe, Frederick D., Sharpe of the Flying Squad (London, 1938), 108Google Scholar; Cornish, George W., Cornish of the Yard: His Reminiscences and Cases (London, 1935), 243Google Scholar; Fabian, Robert, London after Dark: An Intimate Record of Night Life in London, and a Selection of Crime Stories from the Case Book of Ex-Superintendent Robert Fabian (London, 1954), 12Google Scholar; Harvey, Sydney C., London Policeman: Being Opinions, Sentiments, and Experiences of an Ordinary London Policeman (London, 1958), 40Google Scholar; Wyles, Lilian, A Woman at Scotland Yard: Reflections on the Struggles and Achievements of Thirty Years in the Metropolitan Police (London, 1952), 67.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 13, evidence of Morton, 18 February 1928, 11, q. 6608–9; SOC 12, evidence of Neilans, 82, q. 6479.

⁶⁵ Winter, James, London's Teeming Streets, 1830–1914 (London, 1993), 113.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Reading University Library (RUL), Astor Papers, MS 1416/1/1/555, Lankester to Astor, 20 July 1925.

⁶⁷ Best, William C. F., “C” or St. James’s: A History of Policing in the West End of London, 1829 to 1984 (Kingston-upon-Thames, 1985), 28.Google ScholarPubMed

⁶⁸ TNA: PRO, HO 326/7, SOC 6, evidence of Horwood, 20 December 1927, 19, 46, qq. 2421, 2715.

⁶⁹ Waddington, P. A. J., “Police (Canteen) Sub-Culture: An Appreciation,” British Journal of Criminology 39, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 297–309, 293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷⁰ Jennings, Humphrey and Madge, Charles, eds., May the Twelfth: Mass-Observation Day-Survey (London, 1937), 96.Google Scholar

⁷¹ For the maintenance of public order on the streets as a ritual, Weinberger, see, The Best Police in the World, 164–67.Google Scholar A first-hand account of serious corruption in the policing of street betting is in Daley, Harry, This Small Cloud: A Personal Memoir (London, 1986), 92–95.Google Scholar

⁷² Weinberger, The Best Police in the World, 168. See also Jackson, Women Police, 175, and observations from the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene: Women's Library, London Metropolitan University (WL), 3/AMS, box 45, minutes of the executive committee of the AMSH (MEC), 12 June and 17 July 1934, for suggestions that named prostitutes were arrested on a regular and fixed basis.

⁷³ Daley, This Small Cloud, 149.

⁷⁴ TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 13, Morton evidence, 18 February 1928, 8–9, qq. 6572–94; SOC 17, evidence of A. H. Lieck, chief clerk, Marlborough Street Police Court, 9 March 1928, 16, q. 8101.

⁷⁵ RCPM, 1922, Cmd. 1904 (1923); RCPM, 1928, Cmd. 3335 (1929).

⁷⁶ TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 6, evidence of Horwood, 20 December 1927, 35, q. 2582.

⁷⁷ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Assistant Commissioner A, J. F. C. Carter minute, 3 December 1938.

⁷⁸ Ibid., Superintendent “C” to DAC 1, 30 November 1938.

⁷⁹ LMA, Bow Street Police Court Registers, PS/BOW/A1/83–88 (1922), 170–76 (1937); Marlborough Street Police Court Registers, PS/MS/A1/53–58 (1922), 154–61 (1937).

⁸⁰ TNA: PRO, MEPO 10/9, County of London Sessions, 10 November 1922.

⁸¹ RCPM, 1922, 9.

⁸² RCPM, 1923, Cmd. 2189 (1924), 21.

⁸³ Report of the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedures, Cmd. 3297 (1929); RCPM, 1928, 9.

⁸⁴ Emsley, Clive, “Sergeant Goddard: The Story of a Rotten Apple or a Diseased Orchard?” in Crime and Culture: An Historical Perspective, ed. Srebnick, Amy G. and Lévy, René (Aldershot, 2005), 85–104.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ RCPM, 1931, Cmd. 4137 (1932), 43.

⁸⁶ RCPM, 1929, Cmd. 3600 (1930), 8.

⁸⁷ Houlbrook, Queer London, 32.

⁸⁸ TNA: PRO, HO 45/21766, minute, 31 October 1930 (signature illegible); and Amendments to General Orders 7, 7 May 1930, 485–86, paras. 19–33. For the background to the passing of this amendment, see TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/3231, F. A. Newsam to Byng passing on concerns that Parliament wishes to hear the views of the commissioner, 23 April 1929; Deputy Commissioner C. Royds, memorandum prohibiting the employment of plain clothed officers, 17 June 1929; and Laurie to all superintendents, 24 January 1934.

⁸⁹ TNA: MEPO 2/3231, Inspector J. Still to Sub-Divisional Inspector P. Hemphrey “E” Division, 30 January 1929; Conser to Concannon, 31 January 1929; and Still to Hemphrey, 31 January 1929.

⁹⁰ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Carter minute, 3 December 1938; TNA: PRO, HO 45/24902, Deputy Assistant Commissioner C, Ronald Howe, minute, 24 February 1939.

⁹¹ CWA, minutes of the watch committee, 1935–37, meeting 3 October 1935.

⁹² CWA, minutes of the watch committee, 1938–39, meeting of 19 January 1939. Letters of complaint were sent to the Council by J. C. Durran, Brettenham House, Lancaster Place, 9 December 1938; Messrs Nicholson, Freeland, and Shepherd and 18 signatories on a petition by residents and ratepayers, 14 December 1938; and directors of the Third Church of Christ Scientist, 21 December 1938.

⁹³ WL, 3/AMS, box 46, MEC, 13 June 1939.

⁹⁴ LMA, Bow Street Police Court Registers, PS/BOW/A1/ 170–176 (1937); Marlborough Street Police Court Registers, PS/MS/A1/154–61 (1937).

⁹⁵ News of the World, 4 October 1936; John Bull, 17 October 1936.

⁹⁶ MPHC, Secret Foreign Prostitutes and Associates Album (the album was produced in 1936; for creation of this document, see TNA: PRO, MEPO 3/988); LMA, Bow Street Police Court Registers, PS/BOW/A1/170–6 (1937); Marlborough Street Police Court Registers, PS/MS/A1/154–61 (1937).

⁹⁷ Slater, “Pimps, Police and Filles de Joie.”

⁹⁸ Daley, This Small Cloud, 166–67; MPHC, “Anecdotes: Memoirs of Charles James Hanslow” (unpublished, 1986), 10, 14, 40. Brogden notes that, with prostitution,“convictions were easy, as a means of keeping your streets clean and of filling the unwritten quota of arrests” (On the Mersey Beat, 127).

⁹⁹ TNA: PRO, MEPO 3/2138, Superintendent Cole, “C” Division, to ACA, 27 August 1942.

¹⁰⁰ Sharpe, Sharpe of the Flying Squad, 321.

¹⁰¹ The Jewish Museum, London, Oral History of the West End Project, tape no. 370.

¹⁰² LMA, Bow Street Police Court Registers, PS/BOW/A1/83–88 (1922), 170–176 (1937); Marlborough Street Police Court Registers, PS/MS/A1/53–8 (1922), 154–61 (1937).

¹⁰³ CWA, London County Council, London Statistics (1918–35).

¹⁰⁴ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Carter minute, 3 December 1938; all the figures from 1937 in this minute were added at a later date.

¹⁰⁵ Jenkins, Phillip and Potter, G. W., “Before the Krays: Organized Crime in London, 1920–60,” Criminal Justice History 9 (1988): 209–30Google Scholar; Storch, “Police Control of Street Prostitution,” 66.

¹⁰⁶ Laithe, “Taking Nellie Johnson's Fingerprints,” 111–12.

¹⁰⁷ Slater, Stefan A., “Street Sex for Sale in Soho, 1918–39: Experiences, Representations and Attempts at Control” (PhD diss., University of London, 2007), 35–74.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ RUL, MS 1416/1/1/1545, notes, interview with Sir Philip Game, 17 June 1937, and Neilans to Lady Astor, 15 July 1937.

¹⁰⁹ Gilfoyle, Timothy J., City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790–1920 (New York, 1992), 120.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Carter minute, 3 December 1938; and Game to F. A. Newsam, 6 December 1938.

¹¹¹ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Carter minute, 3 December 1938.

¹¹² Sharpe, Sharpe of the Flying Squad, 108.

¹¹³ Scott, George Ryley, A History of Prostitution from Antiquity to the Present Day (London, 1936), 128.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ LMA, A/PMC/68 [?]—bottom of letter cut off—to the Rev. Prebendary R. W. Beresford-Peirse, Rural Dean of Paddington, 23 July 1938. Such was the concern that the London Public Morality Council pursued the issue (Howard M. Tyrer, secretary to the LPMC, to the bishop of London, 23 May 1939, London Metropolitan Archives).

¹¹⁵ MPHC, “D” Division Register of Special Observation upon Suspected Brothels, or Houses used for Habitual Prostitution, 45–58. Only four of the thirty-four requests came from Marylebone Council; the rest originated from Paddington.

¹¹⁶ Evening Standard, 11 May 1939.

¹¹⁷ Houlbrook, Matt, “Towards a Historical Geography of Sexuality,” Journal of Urban History 27, no. 4 (May 2001): 497–504, 501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹¹⁹ LMA, Tower Bridge Police Court Registers, PS/TOW/A1/149–52 (1922) and 193–96 (1937); Westminster Police Court Registers, PS/WES/A1/108–12 (1922) and 164–69 (1923). The figure for 1922 is underestimated as the court book dealing with charges for January and the first half of March at Westminster police court is unfit for inspection.

¹²⁰ Gosling and Warner, Shame of a City, 19–20.

¹²¹ Charles Booth, Life and Labour of the People of London. Final Volume, Notes on Social Influences and Conclusion (London, 1902), 137.Google Scholar For further elaboration on “situational” policing, see Hobbs, Dick, “A Piece of Business: The Moral Economy of Detective Work in the East End of London,” British Journal of Sociology 42, no. 4 (December 1991): 597–608.Google Scholar

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¹²³ LMA, Old Street Police Court Registers, PS/OLD/A1/75–79 (1927).

¹²⁴ TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 3, evidence of Cairns, 1 December 1927, 66–67, q. 1511.

¹²⁵ Police estimates of the extent of prostitutes in the mid-Victorian East End are to be found in Hemyng, Bracebridge, “Prostitution in London,” in London Labour and the London Poor, vol. 4, Those That Will Not Work, ed. Mayhew, Henry (1862; London, 1967), 266.Google Scholar For an insightful social history of the life of Jewish prostitutes, see Marks, Lara, “Race, Class and Gender: The Experience of Jewish Prostitutes and other Jewish Women in the East End of London at the Turn of the Century,” in Women, Migration and Empire, ed. Grant, Joan (Stoke-on-Trent, 1996), 31–50.Google Scholar A firsthand testimony to the improvement in social conditions and the decline in criminal activities in this district is to be found in Wensley, Frederick P., Detective Days: The Record of Forty-Two Years’ Service in the Criminal Investigation Department (London, 1931), 290–91.Google Scholar

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¹²⁸ LMA, Old Street Police Court Registers, PS/OLD/A1/51–54 (1920), 57–60 (1922); Thames Police Court Registers, PS/TH/A1/149–54 (1920), 157–61 (1922). The number of women still involved in prostitution is underestimated since the figures do not account for arrests by other police divisions within the bounds of these two courts, especially “G” and “K” (Bow). Nor do the figures take into account arrests for disorderly offenses.

¹²⁹ For a discussion of the relationship of prostitutes to their wider community, see Slater, Stefan A., “Prostitutes and Popular History: Notes on the Underworld,” Crime, Histoire and Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies 13, no. 1 (2009): 25–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹³³ T. Faulkner was superintendent at “H” Division from 17 June 1921 to 5 April 1928 (MPHC, Book 1048, “List of Superintendents of ‘H’ Division from Sept. 1829”).

¹³⁴ Waddy, Henry T., The Police Court and Its Work (London, 1925), 188.Google Scholar

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¹³⁶ Samuel, Raphael, ed., East End Underworld: Chapters in the Life of Arthur Harding (London, 1981), 109–11.Google Scholar Willy Goldman mentioned that the area around the Whitechapel Road was infamous for prostitution and illicit sex (East End My Cradle: Portrait of an Environment [1940; London, 1988], 66–67).

¹³⁷ White, Jerry, Rothschild Buildings: Life in an East End Tenement Block, 1887–1920 (London, 1980), 123–24.Google Scholar

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¹⁴⁰ Green, Joseph, A Social History of the Jewish East End in London, 1914–1939: A Study in Life, Labour and Liturgy (Lewiston, NY, 1991), 101Google Scholar; White, London, 191.

¹⁴¹ Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, SA/BSH/A.2/5, box 5, British Social Hygiene Council, Executive Committee minutes, 2 November 1921.

¹⁴² THLHL, Metropolitan Borough of Stepney, Minutes of the Proceedings of the Council, 1917–39.

¹⁴³ London Library, Montefiore Pamphlets, M 600, Report of the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women for the Year 1930 (1931), 47.

¹⁴⁴ LMA, Old Street Police Court Registers, PS/OLD/A1/106–10 (1937); Thames Police Court Registers, PS/TH/A1/202–7 (1937).

¹⁴⁵ Forbes, Ian, Squad Man (London, 1973), 8.Google Scholar Police reorganization of divisional boundaries led to the transfer of the Commercial Street area from “H” to “G” Division (MPHC, Police Orders, 30 May 1933, 509–10).

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¹⁴⁹ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/9715, memorandum on the Young report, no. 2B, n.d., 1957; and Superintendent Starkey, Leman Street, to Chief Superintendent, 26 June 1958, and Starkey to Superintendent, 6 April 1959.

¹⁵⁰ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/9713, Chief Superintendent “C” to Commander 1, 24 August 1954; and Superintendent Newstead to Deputy Commander, 23 August 1954.

¹⁵¹ Sandbrook, Dominic, Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles (London, 2005), 442–53Google Scholar; RCPM 1956, Cmnd. 222 (1957), 7; RCPM 1957, Cmnd. 487 (1958), 7. For a consideration of crime in the East End during the interwar years and the impact of economic and social changes on the environment in the area in the postwar years, see Hood, R. and Joyce, K., “Three Generations: Oral Testimonies on Crime and Social Change in London's East End,” British Journal of Criminology 39, no. 1 (Winter, 1999): 136–60, esp. 146–51.Google Scholar

¹⁵² Brown, Alyson and Barrett, David, Knowledge of Evil: Child Prostitution and Child Sex Abuse in Twentieth-Century England (Cullompton, 2002), 133–35.Google Scholar See the comments by Miss J. M. L. Watson, secretary to the Diocesan Council for Moral Welfare, at the London Diocesan Conference: The Times, 2 June 1959.

¹⁵³ Bland, Lucy, McCabe, T., and Mort, Frank, “Sexuality and Reproduction: Three ‘Official’ Instances,” in Ideology and Cultural Production, ed. Barrett, Michele, Corrigan, Philip, Kuhn, Annette, and Wolff, Janet (London, 1979), 78–111Google Scholar; Rose, Sonya O., “Sex, Citizenship and the Nation in World War II Britain,” American Historical Review 103, no. 4 (October 1998): 1147–76.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁴ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/9713, notes of conference on prostitution held in the Deputy Commissioner's Office, 4 August 1954.

¹⁵⁵ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Commander A to commissioner, 14 September 1957.

¹⁵⁶ Self, Prostitution, 75–77.

¹⁵⁷ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/9713, corres. 46/43/17, divisional arrests for prostitution, from 1947 to June 1954.

¹⁵⁸ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Commander A to ACA, 10 February 1948 and 31 January 1949; ACA minute, 7 March 1949; ACA to Commander A, 1 February 1949; “Commanders Conference,” 14 June 1949. By 1958, over 10,000 out of 12,000 constables in the Metropolitan Police had been recruited since the war. The commissioner noted that “it is only now beginning to acquire once more a substantial backbone of experienced men” (RCPM, 1958, Cmnd. 800 [1959], 15).

¹⁵⁹ TNA: PRO, HO 345/12 CHP/TRANS/5, evidence of PC 570 Anderson, 8 November 1954, 14, q. 494.

¹⁶⁰ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/9713, Sub-Divisional Inspector's Office memo, 3 July 1948; TNA, PRO, HO 345/12 CHP/TRANS/2, evidence of Nott-Bower, 8 November 1954, 33–34, q. 310.

¹⁶¹ TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/9367, Chief Superintendent “C” minute, 30 October 1952.

¹⁶² TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 2, evidence of H.L., cancellor, Marlborough Street magistrate, 18 November 1927, 59, q. 988.

¹⁶³ Neville Rolfe, “Sex-Delinquency,” 299.

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¹⁶⁶ Cook, Hera, The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception, 1800–1975 (Oxford, 2004), 102.Google Scholar

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¹⁶⁸ In November 1955, the Daily Mail published a number of articles highlighting the state of corruption stemming from policing brothels, gaming, and prostitution. Sources that touch upon the Daily Mail corruption stories include Morton, Gangland Soho, 132–35; Kelland, Gilbert, Crime in London (London, 1986), 49Google Scholar; and RCMP, 1955, Cmnd. 9786 (1956), 7–8.

¹⁶⁹ Bartley, Prostitution, 155–69; Davidson, “The Sexual State,” 520.

¹⁷⁰ Corbin, Alain, Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France after 1850, trans. Sheridan, Alan (Cambridge, MA, 1990), 340–43Google Scholar; Gilfoyle, City of Eros, 307–14.

¹⁷¹ Newburn, Tim, Permission and Regulation: Law and Morals in Post-war Britain (London, 1992), 161.Google Scholar

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¹⁷⁵ Mort, “Mapping Sexual London,” 113.