¹ Ingram, Martin, “Reformation of Manners in Early Modern England,” in The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England, ed. Griffiths, Paul, Fox, Adam, and Hindle, Steve (Basingstoke, 1996), 47–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² The indispensable pioneering studies of the early societies are Portus, Garnet V., Caritas Anglicana (London, 1912)Google Scholar; Bahlman, Dudley W. R., The Moral Revolution of 1688 (New Haven, CT, 1957)Google Scholar; and Craig, A. G., “The Movement for the Reformation of Manners, 1688–1715” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1980)Google Scholar.

³ The societies’ activities against sodomy, which began in the later 1690s, are described in Trumbach, Randolph, “London's Sodomites: Homosexual Behavior and Western Culture in the 18th Century,” Journal of Social History 11 (1977): 1–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Craig, “Movement for the Reformation of Manners,” 162–77; Bray, Alan, Homosexuality in Renaissance England (London, 1982), chap. 4Google Scholar; Norton, Rictor, Mother Clap's Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England, 1700–1830 (London, 1992), chaps. 2–8Google Scholar. It is hoped that Professor Trumbach's forthcoming book on same-sex relations in eighteenth-century London will provide a more detailed account of their scope and significance.

⁴ Thomas, Keith, “The Puritans and Adultery: The Act of 1650 Reconsidered,” in Puritans and Revolutionaries, ed. Pennington, Donald and Thomas, Keith (Oxford, 1978), 257–82Google Scholar; Ingram, Martin, Church Courts, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1987)Google Scholar.

⁵ Though an invaluable start was made by Shoemaker, Robert B., Prosecution and Punishment: Petty Crime and the Law in London and Rural Middlesex, ca. 1660–1725 (Cambridge, 1991), chap. 9Google Scholar, and “Reforming the City: The Reformation of Manners Campaign in London, 1690–1738,” in Stilling the Grumbling Hive: The Response to Social and Economic Problems in England, 1689–1750, ed. Davison, Lee, Hitchcock, Tim, Keirn, Tim, and Shoemaker, Robert B. (Stroud, 1992), 99–120Google Scholar. Some suggestive material is also included in Trumbach, Randolph, Sex and the Gender Revolution, vol. 1, Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London (Chicago, 1998), chaps. 3–4Google Scholar; Hurl-Eamon, Jennine, “Policing Male Heterosexuality: The Reformation of Manners Societies’ Campaign against the Brothels in Westminster, 1690–1720,” Journal of Social History 37 (2004): 1017–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The account in Isaacs, Tina Beth, “Moral Crime, Moral Reform, and the State in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Study of Piety and Politics” (PhD diss., University of Rochester, NY, 1979), chap. 5Google Scholar, is unfortunately vitiated by an imperfect grasp of legal procedure.

⁶ On these themes, see esp., Duffy, Eamon, “Primitive Christianity Revived: Religious Renewal in Augustan England,” Studies in Church History 14 (1977): 287–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Isaacs, Tina, “The Anglican Hierarchy and the Reformation of Manners, 1688–1738,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 30 (1982): 391–411CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Andrew, Donna T., Philanthropy and Police: London Charity in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton, NJ, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davison, Hitchcock, Keirn, and Shoemaker, Stilling the Grumbling Hive, esp. chaps. 5–7; Rose, Craig, “Providence, Protestant Union, and Godly Reformation in the 1690s,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 3 (1993): 151–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walsh, John, Haydon, Colin, and Taylor, Stephen, eds., The Church of England, ca. 1689–1833 (Cambridge, 1993), chaps. 5, 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Claydon, Tony, William III and the Godly Reformation (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar.

⁷ In a few parts of the country, some ecclesiastical jurisdiction over fornication and bastardy was maintained until the middle decades of the eighteenth century. The available evidence is helpfully surveyed in Outhwaite, R. B., The Rise and Fall of the English Ecclesiastical Courts, 1500–1860 (Cambridge, 2007), chap. 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which I am grateful to have been able to read in typescript.

⁸ Some Proposals Offered to Publick Consideration, before the Opening of Parliament (London, 1685), 2Google Scholar; Journals of the House of Commons (CJ), 8:630, 9:592–93, 687; A Letter to a Member of Parliament with Two Discourses Enclosed (n.p., 1675), 5–6. Compare A Proclamation against Vicious, Debauch’d, and Prophane Persons (London, 30 May 1660); By the Maior (London, 23 December 1672); By the Mayor (London, 17 November 1676); By the Mayor (London, 31 January 1679); By the Major (London, 29 November 1679); By the King, a Proclamation (London, 29 June 1688); Vertue's Triumph at the Suppression of Vice (London, 1688), 5–8.

⁹ [Wood, Thomas], A New Institute of the Imperial or Civil Law (London, 1704), 264Google Scholar; Hull, Isabel V., Sexuality, State, and Civil Society in Germany, 1700–1815 (London, 1996), 65, 72–75, 78–79Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Israel, Jonathan I., The Dutch Republic (Oxford, 1995), 690–99Google Scholar.

¹¹ See The Book of the General Laws and Libertyes Concerning the Inhabitants of the Massachusets (Cambridge, MA, 1660), 8, 33Google Scholar; Severall Laws and Orders Made at the General Courts (n.p., 1665), 1; Acts and Laws … Of the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay (London, 1724), 11, 70Google Scholar; Acts and Laws … of Connecticut (Boston, 1702), 4, 63–64Google Scholar.

¹² A Collection of all the Acts … relating to the Clergy and Ecclesiastical Affairs within the Kingdom of Scotland (London, 1693), 25Google Scholar; Luttrell, Narcissus, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1857), 2:81, 120Google Scholar; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, 1124–1707, 12 vols. (Edinburgh, 1814–75), 2:539, 3:25–26, 213, 6 (pt. 2):152–53, 7:310–11, 8:99, 9:198Google Scholar.

¹³ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, 9:198, 327–28, 387–88, 10:65, 279. Compare ibid., 10:67; A Collection of Some Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland … for Suppressing of Vice (Edinburgh, 1714)Google Scholar; The Acts of the Town Council of … Edinburgh, for Suppressing of Vice … made since the Happy Revolution (Edinburgh, 1742), 105–9, 121–25, 143–45Google Scholar.

¹⁴ See Stephens, Edward, A Specimen of a Declaration against Debauchery, Tendered to the Consideration of His Highness the Prince of Orange, and of the Present Convention of the Nation (n.p., [1689]), A Caveat against Flattery (London, 1689), 28–32, 35–36Google Scholar, The True English Government (London, 1689), 7–8Google Scholar, and Of Humiliation (n.p., [1689]), 4–6; Claydon, William III and the Godly Revolution, 49–50, 57.

¹⁵ His Majesties Letter to the Lord Bishop of London (London, 1689Google Scholar; actual pub. 1690), 4.

¹⁶ [Stephens, Edward], A Plain Relation of the Late Action at Sea (London, 1690), 29Google Scholar.

¹⁷ An Act for the more Effectual Restraining and Suppressing of Divers Notorious Sins, and Reformation of the Manners of the People of this Nation (appended to [Stephens], Plain Relation), 5.

¹⁸ [Stephens], Plain Relation, 30.

¹⁹ Act for the … Suppressing of Divers Notorious Sins, 6–7.

²⁰ One critic, who noted in passing that Stephens's publication was “much talk’d-of,” conceded that the proposals against adultery and fornication were unobjectionable, “The Penalty's just, tho’ severe; the Methods of Prosecution very adviseable and prudent”: Some Modest Reflections Upon Mr Stephens's late Book (London, 1691), 1, 26Google Scholar. Compare [Jones, W.], Ecclesia Reviviscens (London, 1691), 9Google Scholar; Cruickshanks, Eveline, Handley, Stuart, and Hayton, D. W., eds., The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1690–1715, 5 vols. (Cambridge, 2002), 4:231Google Scholar.

²¹ Act for the … Suppressing of Divers Notorious Sins, 5. This was the norm in civil law and had also been advocated during the Interregnum as a means of strengthening the 1650 Adultery Act: [Wood], New Institute, 261–62; T[aylor], D[aniel], Certain Queries (London, 1651), 9–10Google Scholar.

²² Luttrell, Historical Relation, 4:349, 354–55; Oldmixon, John, The History of England (London, 1735), 175Google Scholar. Compare An Abstract of the Laws Already in Force against Profaneness, Immorality & Blasphemy … with the Laws and Ordinances … from 1640 to 1656 (London, 1698)Google Scholar; and [Defoe, Daniel], The Poor Man's Plea (London, 1698), 30Google Scholar, whose reference to branding, transportation, or hanging for adultery and fornication perhaps reflects current proposals in Parliament. At some point during the bill's amendment, the clauses against sexual immorality were dropped, and ultimately it passed as the 1698 Blasphemy Act (9 Wm. III c. 35): CJ, 12:132, 134, 142, 147, 151, 154–55, 160, 168, 169, 176–77, 183, 258, 269, 276, 280, 284–85, 295.

²³ “A Bill for the more effectual Suppressing of Vice and Immorality,” Lambeth Palace Library, London, MS 640:497–99; Hayton, D. W., ed., Debates in the House of Commons, 1697–1699, Camden Miscellany 29 (London, 1987), 373–75Google Scholar.

²⁴ Horwitz, Henry, Parliament, Policy, and Politics in the Reign of William III (Manchester, 1977), 256Google Scholar.

²⁵ Hayton, David, “Moral Reform and Country Politics in the Late Seventeenth-Century House of Commons,” Past and Present, no. 128 (1990): 48–91, here 59–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cruickshanks, Handley, and Hayton, House of Commons, 1690–1715, 5:139.

²⁶ Hayton, “Moral Reform and Country Politics.”

²⁷ CJ, 12:368, 387, 401–2, 466, 468–69, 484, 494; Luttrell, Historical Relation, 4:468, 471–72, 478, 481; Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC), The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland, 10 vols. (London, 1891–1931), 3:602Google Scholar.

²⁸ See Reasons Humbly Offered to the Members of Both Houses of Parliament, For Passing the Bill against Vice and Immorality [London?, 1699]Google Scholar; [Bray, Thomas], Reasons for the Passing of the Bill for the more Effectual Suppressing Vice & Immorality (London, 1699), two editionsGoogle Scholar; “A True Narrative or Memorial Representing the Rise, Progress and Issue of Dr Bray's Missionary Undertaking” (1705), University of Maryland Archives, Thomas Bray Collection, box 30, fol. 24v. For poetic allusions, see [Garth, Samuel], The Dispensary (London, 1699), 73Google Scholar; [Ward, Edward], The Weekly Comedy, no. 2 (10–17 May 1699)Google Scholar; Defoe, Daniel, “An Encomium upon a Parliament,” in Poems on Affairs of State, 7 vols., ed. Ellis, F. H. (New Haven, CT, 1963–75), 6:56, lines 76–85Google Scholar.

²⁹ Meriton, George, Immorality, Debauchery, and Profaneness (London, 1698), 105Google Scholar; Bellers, John, Essays About the Poor (London, 1699), 16Google Scholar. Compare Reasons Humbly Offered, 1.

³⁰ Portus, Caritas Anglicana, 125n; Hayton, D. W., ed., The Parliamentary Diary of Sir Richard Cocks, 1698–1702 (Oxford, 1996), xxxi, 9–10Google Scholar; Conjugium Languens (London, 1700), 19, 24–26Google Scholar; CJ, 16:532, 536, 544; McClure, Edmund, ed., A Chapter in English Church History: Being the Minutes of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge … 1698–1704 (London, 1888), 319Google Scholar; Bray, Thomas, For God, or for Satan (London, 1709), 28Google Scholar.

³¹ F. W., , A Letter to a Bishop from a Minister of his Diocess (London, 1691), 15–16Google Scholar; [Woodward, Josiah], An Account of the Societies for Reformation of Manners (London, 1699), 2–3Google Scholar; Disney, John, A Second Essay upon the Execution of the Laws (London, 1710)Google Scholar, preface; A Representation of the State of the Societies for Reformation of Manners (London, 1715), 4–5Google Scholar.

³² Dabhoiwala, Faramerz, “Sex, Social Relations, and the Law in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century London,” in Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society, ed. Braddick, Michael J. and Walter, John (Cambridge, 2001), 85–101, here 91–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³³ Ibid., 92.

³⁴ Barry, Jonathan and Morgan, Kenneth, eds., Reformation and Revival in Eighteenth-Century Bristol (Bristol, 1994), 22–23Google Scholar.

³⁵ A Help to a National Reformation (London, 1700), sig. [C4r]Google Scholar.

³⁶ Smalbroke, Richard, Reformation Necessary to Prevent our Ruine (London, 1728), 21Google Scholar.

³⁷ Welch, Saunders, A Proposal to Render Effectual a Plan (London, 1758), 8Google Scholar; cf. Wood, Thomas, An Institute of the Laws of England (London, 1720), 686Google Scholar; Fielding, Henry, A Charge Delivered to the Grand Jury … of Westminster (London, 1749), 44–45, 48–50Google Scholar; [Samuel Glasse], The Magistrate's Assistant (Gloucester, 1784), 179Google Scholar.

³⁸ A Complete Collection of State-Trials, 6 vols., 2nd ed. (London, 1730), 1:ixGoogle Scholar.

³⁹ See, e.g., The Third Charge of Whitlocke Bulstrode (London, 1723), 10–11Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Corporation of London Records Office (CLRO), Lord Mayor's Charge Books, vol. 5, 16 September and 23 December 1730. Compare A Report of all the Cases Determined by Sir John Holt (London, 1738), 598Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., 147 (1857): 1854.

⁴² Quoted in Pritchard, Stephen, The History of Deal (Deal, 1864), 159Google Scholar.

⁴³ Portus, Caritas Anglicana, 109; McClure, Chapter in English Church History, 71.

⁴⁴ McClure, Chapter in English Church History, quote on 350; [Woodward], Account of the Societies, 23–26, and An Account of the Progress of the Reformation of Manners, 14th ed. (London, 1706), 3–18Google Scholar; Portus, Caritas Anglicana, 125–27, 141–55; Bahlman, Moral Revolution, 38–39; Barnard, T. C., “Reforming Irish Manners: The Religious Societies in Dublin during the 1690s,” Historical Journal 35 (1992): 805–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barry and Morgan, Reformation and Revival. Although usually explicitly modeled on the metropolitan societies and guided by their published propaganda, these various rural, provincial, and overseas societies evidently differed from them in important respects. Only the Dublin and Bristol groups have yet been studied in any detail: the others warrant further investigation.

⁴⁵ Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1885–1901)Google Scholar, s.v. “Thomas Tenison”; de Beer, E. S., ed., The Diary of John Evelyn, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1955), 5:7–8Google Scholar; Henri, and van der Zee, Barbara, William and Mary (London, 1973), 387–88Google Scholar; Bahlman, Moral Revolution, 23–27.

⁴⁶ Petition of the inhabitants of St. Martin in the Fields, London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), MJ/SP/1689/08/10; Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment, 238, which unfortunately confuses Tenison with John Tillotson and presumes that Robert Fielding, JP, was a new appointment to the bench, although he had been active for some years before the revolution: see, e.g., LMA, WJ/SR/1703, house of correction calendar (March 1687); The National Archives: Public Record Office (TNA: PRO), KB 10/4 (Hilary 1687), certiorari (cert.) 43 (an indictment initially brought in 1686).

⁴⁷ By the Mayor (London, 19 November 1689). The consequences are visible in Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives, Beckenham, Kent: Court Books of the Governors of Bridewell and Bethlem Hospitals (BCB), vol. 16.

⁴⁸ Antimoixeia: or, the Honest and Joynt-Design of the Tower Hamblets for the General Suppression of Bawdy-Houses (London, 18 June 1691)Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ “The Agreement of the Tower Hamlets Society … for the legall suppressing of debauchery and prophaness in the Citys of London and Westminster and all the parishes adjacent both in the Counties of Middlesex and Surry,” Edinburgh University Library (EUL), MS Laing III.394: 447–71, quotes on 447, 465–66.

⁵⁰ The interpretation presented in this article differs significantly from that offered by the fullest previous account, Craig, “Movement for the Reformation of Manners,” chaps. 2–4, and most importantly regarding the date of the society's foundation, its connection with the earlier Tower Hamlets initiative, its relationship to the wider movement, and its modus operandi. It is based primarily on the extant legal records of all metropolitan jurisdictions (particularly for the years 1693, 1703, 1713, 1723, 1735, 1748, and 1758); EUL, MS Laing III.394; Bodleian Library, Oxford (Bodl.), MSS Rawlinson D. 129, D. 1396–1404; Antimoixeia; [Stephens, Edward], An Admonition to the Magistrates of England [London, 1689]Google Scholar, The Beginning and Progress of a Needful and Hopeful Reformation (London, 1691)Google Scholar, and A Seasonable and Necessary Admonition [London, 1701]Google Scholar; [Fowler, Edward], A Vindication of an Undertaking of Certain Gentlemen (London, 1692)Google Scholar; Proposals for a National Reformation of Manners (London, 1694)Google Scholar; Woodward, Josiah, An Earnest Admonition to All (London, 1697)Google Scholar, An Account of the Rise and Progress of the Religious Societies (London, 1698)Google Scholar, and Account of the Societies; and the societies’ annual published Black Lists and Accounts of prosecutions.

⁵¹ The first Black Roll, of sexual offenders prosecuted by the society in 1693 (with a supplement for January 1694), was printed in Proposals for a National Reformation, 34–35. This list of names was very erratically arranged and contained many errors, duplications, and omissions (as appears from comparison with the legal records). The Black Lists that followed were much more carefully produced accounts. The first (published in 1696) listed offenders punished during 1695, though no copy of it now survives. Within a few years these broadsheets included precise figures for recidivists, as well as the grand total since Christmas 1695. The extant editions are A Black List (London, 1698); A Sixth Black List [London, 1701]; A Seventh Black List ([London], 1702)Google Scholar; The Eighth Black List ([London], 1703)Google Scholar; The Tenth Black List ([London], 1705)Google Scholar; The Eleventh Black List ([London], 1706)Google Scholar; The Thirteenth Black List ([London], 1708)Google Scholar.

⁵² Disney, Second Essay, 48.

⁵³ Antimoixeia.

⁵⁴ Shoemaker, “Reforming the City”; Hunt, Margaret, The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680–1780 (Berkeley, 1996), chap. 4Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ See, e.g., LMA, MJ/SR/1808, indictment (ind.) 45; LMA, MJ/SR/1815, recognizances (recogs.) 143, 170, inds. 28, 68; LMA, MJ/SR/1818, recogs. 65, 153, inds. 46, 51, 85; LMA, MJ/SR/1820, recogs. 183, 233, ind. 51; LMA, MJ/SR/1823, ind. 29 (for which cf. CLRO, SF 397, recog. 36); LMA, MJ/SR/1825, recog. 58, ind. 44; MJ/SBP/8, January–December 1693; TNA: PRO, KB 10/7 (Michaelmas 1693), cert. 29.

⁵⁶ A Short Disswasive from the Sin of Uncleanness (London, 1701)Google Scholar; Some Considerations Offered to such Unhappy Persons as are Guilty of … Uncleanness (London, 1701)Google Scholar; [Woodward, Josiah], A Rebuke to the Sin of Uncleanness (London, 1704)Google Scholar; The Fourteenth Account of the Progress made in Suppressing Prophaneness and Debauchery (London, 1709)Google Scholar. Compare Disney, Second Essay, 207–9.

⁵⁷ [John Dunton], The Night-walker 1, no. 4 (1697), sig. [A3r]. Compare [Woodward], Account of the Societies, 48.

⁵⁸ Proposals for a National Reformation, 18–20; By the Queen, a Proclamation for the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue (18 August 1708); [Woodward], Account of the Societies, 139. Compare Act for the … Suppressing of Divers Notorious Sins, 7. The appointment of paid informers in every presbytery to detect and prosecute vice was also ordered by the Scottish Parliament in 1693 to ensure stricter execution of the secular laws against immorality: see Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, 9:327–28.

⁵⁹ CLRO, SF 391–98; CLRO, SM 63–64; TNA: PRO, KB 10/7; TNA: PRO, KB 29/352.

⁶⁰ Beattie, J. M., “London Juries in the 1690s,” in Twelve Good Men and True: The Criminal Trial Jury in England, 1200–1800, ed. Cockburn, J. S. and Green, Thomas A. (Princeton, NJ, 1988), 214–53Google Scholar, and “London Crime and the Making of the ‘Bloody Code,' 1689–1718,” in Davison, Hitchcock, Keirn, and Shoemaker, Stilling the Grumbling Hive, 49–76, here 60–63.

⁶¹ CLRO, CSP, grand jury presentments of January 1693, July 1693, October 1694, January 1695.

⁶² See, e.g., Proposals for a National Reformation, 2; Gibson, Edmund, The Bishop of London's Pastoral Letter (London, 1728), 2Google Scholar.

⁶³ Proposals for a National Reformation, 24; [Dunton, ], Night-Walker 2, no. 1 (1697): 28Google Scholar; Woodward, Josiah, The Duty of Compassion (London, 1697), vii–viiiGoogle Scholar, and Account of the Societies, 21–23; Bray, For God, 26–29.

⁶⁴ The Fifteenth Account of the Progress Made towards Suppressing Prophaneness and Debauchery (London, 1710)Google Scholar; The Two and Twentieth Account [London, 1717], 1; cf. CLRO, SF 552, 556; CLRO, SM 79 (1713).

⁶⁵ Simpson, William, The Great Benefit of a Good Example (London, 1738), 16–17, 19–21Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ Although during the 1690s there appear to have been rather more prosecutions for swearing and Sabbath breaking. It was claimed in 1700 that since the beginning of the campaign the societies had convicted “more than twenty thousand persons” of these offenses: [Bray, Thomas], A Short Account of the Several Kinds of Societies, set up of late Years [London, 1700], 2Google Scholar. The figures presented in the societies’ annual Accounts for 1708–38 are reproduced in Portus, Caritas Anglicana, app. 5 (though the 1724 figure for keeping bawdy and disorderly houses should be 29; and the total number in 1728 was 778).

⁶⁷ There were approximately 1,150 prosecutions of bawdy houses, prostitutes, and their clients across the metropolis in 1693, while the Black Roll for that year includes about three hundred names: BCB 16:215–310; CLRO, SF 391–98; CLRO, SM 63–64; LMA, MJ/SR/1808, 1810, 1813, 1815, 1818, 1820, 1823, 1825; LMA, MJ/SBB/502–9; LMA, MJ/SBP/8, January–December 1693; LMA, WJ/SR/1807, 1812, 1817, 1822, 1826; TNA: PRO, KB 10/7 (Easter 1693–Trinity 1694); TNA: PRO, KB 29/352; A Psalm of Thanksgiving, to be Sung by the Children of Christ's Hospital (London, 1694)Google Scholar; Proposals for a National Reformation, 34–35.

⁶⁸ The figure of 875 is calculated by multiplying the number of individuals listed (628) by the probable rate of recidivism (1.39). Although no copies survive of the Black List for 1703, these numbers can be surmised from the accounts for 1702 and 1704 (see n. 51 above). The ratio of repeat offenses was very similar in the other years for which accounts survive. The overall total for the year is estimated from BCB 18:128–88; CLRO, SF 472, 476; CLRO, Minutes of the Court of the President and Governors for the Poor of the City of London; LMA, MJ/SR/2005, 2016; LMA, MJ/SBP/9, January–December 1703; LMA, WJ/SR/2008, 2013, 2018, 2023, 2363, 2368; TNA: PRO, KB 10/10 (Hilary 1703); TNA: PRO, KB 10/11 (Easter–Michaelmas 1703); A Psalm of Thanksgiving to be Sung by the Children of Christ's Hospital (London, 1703Google Scholar; actual pub. 1704); Stow, John, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, 6 bks., ed. Strype, John (London, 1720), 1:202Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ See Craig, “Movement for the Reformation of Manners,” 162–77; Bray, Homosexuality in Renaissance England, chap. 4; Norton, Mother Clap's Molly House, chaps. 2–3.

⁷⁰ LMA, MJ/SR/2402, 2407, 2409; LMA, WJ/SR/2008, 2013, 2018, 2023, 2363, 2368, 2378, 2430.

⁷¹ Hunt, Middling Sort, 114; cf. Curtis, T. C. and Speck, W. A., “The Societies for the Reformation of Manners,” Literature and History 3 (1976): 45–64, here 60Google Scholar.

⁷² See, e.g., EUL, MS Laing III.394: 237–40, 447–71, 507–10. On the reform societies’ significance as pioneers of new forms of voluntary civic association, see Clark, Peter, British Clubs and Societies, 1580–1800 (Oxford, 2000), 60–69Google Scholar.

⁷³ [Woodward], Account of the Societies, 11 (his earliest account, written in 1696, spoke of “about Sixty persons”: Earnest Admonition, 173); EUL, MS Laing III.394: 447–71. The quorum for the acting committee was five members, that for the society as a whole, only twelve, and no new members (as opposed to mere subscribers) were to be admitted without the consent of the majority (EUL, MS Laing III.394: 449–50). The constitution of the original initiative had been very similar (Antimoixeia).

⁷⁴ EUL, MS Laing III.394: 465–70, 509–10; Proposals for a National Reformation, 24–25.

⁷⁵ Notable examples, in addition to those described below, include James Jenkins (1692–95); James Cooper (ca. 1694–97); Richard Hemmings, Thomas Jackson, John Holdway, and John Beggarly (1698–99 onward); Jonathan Wright (ca. 1704–16); Philip Cholmondely (ca. 1709 onward); and Edward Vaughan (ca. 1720–23).

⁷⁶ EUL, MS Laing III.394: 49–57, 307–22, 447–64; Craig, “Movement for the Reformation of Manners,” 31–34.

⁷⁷ EUL, MS Laing III.394: 507–10; for its similar levels of expenditure in subsequent years, see Woodward, Earnest Admonition, 175–76, and Account of the Rise, 93.

⁷⁸ EUL, MS Laing III.394: 464.

⁷⁹ [Woodward], Account of the Rise, 76–77. Compare Barry and Morgan, Reformation and Revival, esp. 31.

⁸⁰ Radzinowicz, Leon, A History of English Criminal Law, 5 vols. (London, 1948–86), 2:14Google Scholar, citing Lecky, W. E. H., A History of England in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1921), 3:33Google Scholar; Langford, Paul, A Polite and Commercial People: England, 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1989), 128Google Scholar.

⁸¹ See BCB 12:180–366; BCB 14:191–272; CLRO, SF 206, 207, 211, 288, 292, 347, 351; LMA, WJ/SR/1593, 1599, 1602, 1605, 1703, 1708, 1713, 1718; TNA: PRO, KB 9/918, ind. 24; TNA: PRO, KB 9/919, ind. 28; TNA: PRO, KB 9/920, ind. 66.

⁸² LMA, WJ/SR/1812, 1817, 1822, 1826.

⁸³ Compare Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment, 262–65, 267–70.

⁸⁴ EUL, MS Laing III.394: 424–25.

⁸⁵ See Bodl., MSS Rawlinson D. 1396–1404: ledgers recording many thousands of prosecutions for trading on the Sabbath (and a few hundred cases of tippling, drunkenness, or swearing) between 1704 and 1716, apparently representing the bulk of the campaign's efforts against Sabbath breaking during those years. Most were instigated by a handful of informers, in particular by Jonathan Wright and John Beggarly.

⁸⁶ The fullest exposition of these disincentives, and the arguments deployed to try to overcome them, is Disney, Second Essay.

⁸⁷ EUL, MS Laing III.394: 365, 368; CLRO, SF 441, recog. 73 (April 1699); Bodl., MSS Rawlinson D. 1397, 1401; Bray, Thomas, The Good Fight of Faith (London, 1709), 2, 15–16Google Scholar.

⁸⁸ Antimoixeia; TNA: PRO, KB 10/7 (Easter 1693), cert. 18; LMA, MJ/SR/1820, prosecution (pros.) recog. 43; LMA, MJ/SR/1827, inds. 20, 45; LMA, MJ/SR/1829, ind. 4; LMA, MJ/SR/1837, recog. 183; The Proceedings of … the Old-Bayley (18–20 April 1694), 4; CJ, 11:246, 308; Hardy, W. J., ed., Middlesex County Records: Calendar of the Sessions Books, 1689–1709 (London, 1905), 105, 308, 310Google Scholar.

⁸⁹ See references cited in n. 67 above; EUL, MS Laing III.394: 233–40, 366, 509–10; BCB 16:327, 329, 333, 357, 358, 385, 420, 452, 453, 454, 456; BCB 17:2; CLRO, SF 399, 401, 402, 404, 405, 406, 407, 410, 411; Calendar of Treasury Books (CTB) 1696–1697, 227; CTB 1697–1702, 523; CTB 1704–1705, 417; CLRO, CSP May 1697, deposition of Sir Edward Clarke; CLRO, CSP February 1700, deposition of Bodenham Rewse; LMA, DL/C/156, fols. 237–38; LMA, DL/C/199, fol. 373; LMA, DL/C/255, fols. 366–83 (1715); Guildhall Library, London, MS 9173/57, “Rewse”; Guildhall Library, London, MS 9174/44, “Rewse” (1725); Wales, Tim “Thief-Takers and Their Clients in Later Stuart London,” in Londinopolis: Essays in the Cultural and Social History of Early Modern London, ed. Griffiths, Paul and Jenner, Mark S. R. (Manchester, 2000), 67–84Google Scholar; Beattie, J. M., Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750 (Oxford, 2001), 237–46Google Scholar.

⁹⁰ For this paragraph and the next, see Dabhoiwala, “Sex, Social Relations, and the Law,” 94–97; Beattie, Policing and Punishment, chaps. 3–4, 8; Reynolds, Elaine A., Before the Bobbies: The Night Watch and Police Reform in Metropolitan London, 1720–1830 (Basingstoke, 1998), chaps. 1–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Landau, Norma, “The Trading Justice's Trade,” in her Law, Crime, and English Society, 1660–1830 (Cambridge, 2002), 46–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹¹ The Vices of the Cities of London and Westminster (Dublin, 1751), 14–15Google Scholar; Brewer, John, “The Wilkites and the Law, 1763–1774,” in An Ungovernable People: The English and Their Law in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Brewer, John and Styles, John (London, 1980), 128–71, here 170Google Scholar.

⁹² Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004)Google Scholar, s.v. “William Payne (1717/18–1782)”; Joanna Innes, “William Payne of Bell Yard, Carpenter, ca. 1718–1782: The Life and Times of a London Reforming Constable” (I am most grateful to Ms. Innes for permission to cite this unpublished paper), and “Politics and Morals: The Reformation of Manners Movement in Later Eighteenth-Century England,” in The Transformation of Political Culture: England and Germany in the Late Eighteenth Century, ed. Hellmuth, Eckhart (Oxford, 1990), 57–118Google Scholar; Roberts, M. J. D., Making English Morals: Voluntary Association and Moral Reform in England, 1787–1886 (Cambridge, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As these studies elucidate, the presumptions and priorities of later eighteenth- and nineteenth-century moral reformers were often significantly different. As far as sexual indecency was concerned, for example, the prosecution of obscene literature took on a new prominence in the later eighteenth century, while less importance was attached to punishing prostitutes. Nevertheless, the example of the original reform societies continued to serve as an inspiration to later activists, even as late as the 1880s: see, e.g., Wesley, John, A Sermon Preached before the Society for Reformation of Manners (London, [1763]), 5Google Scholar; Innes, “Politics and Morals,” 72–74; Roberts, Making English Morals, 255.

⁹³ Clark, British Clubs and Societies, 67, 102–3, 434–35.

⁹⁴ Beattie, Policing and Punishment, 376–83, 401–23, and the literature cited therein.

⁹⁵ See esp. Hay, Douglas and Snyder, Francis, eds., Policing and Prosecution in Britain, 1750–1850 (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar; Brooks, Christopher W., Lawyers, Litigation, and English Society since 1450 (London, 1998), esp. chaps. 3–4Google Scholar; Champion, W. A., “Recourse to the Law and the Meaning of the Great Litigation Decline, 1650–1750,” in Communities and Courts in Britain, 1150–1900, ed. Brooks, Christopher and Lobban, Michael (London, 1997), 179–98Google Scholar; Muldrew, Craig, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England (Basingstoke, 1998), chap. 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lemmings, David, ed., The British and their Laws in the Eighteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2005)Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ Bahlman, Moral Revolution, 83–104.

⁹⁷ Yonger, W[illiam], The Nurses Bosome a Sermon … hereunto is added, Iudahs Penance (London, 1617), 54Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ The Athenian Mercury 3, no. 7 (18 August 1691); John Shower, A Sermon Preach’d to the Societies for Reformation (1698), 4. Compare [Woodward], Account of the Societies, 45; Disney, John, An Essay upon the Execution of the Laws, 2nd ed. (London, 1710), 125–27Google Scholar.

⁹⁹ Mainly, it seems, in cases of profanity: see, e.g., EUL, MS Laing III.394: 197–202; Luttrell, Historical Relation, 2:346; HMC, Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland, 3:472; Pritchard, History of Deal, 161; Bahlman, Moral Revolution, 22; Barry and Morgan, Reformation and Revival, 20–21.

¹⁰⁰ Shower, Sermon Preach’d to the Societies, 23–24.

¹⁰¹ [Defoe], Poor Man's Plea, quoting sig. [A], 6. Compare his Reformation of Manners (London, 1702), and More Reformation (London, 1703).

¹⁰² Birch, Charles Eaton, “Defoe and the Edinburgh Society for the Reformation of Manners,” Review of English Studies 16 (1940): 306–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar. When he joined the Edinburgh society in 1707, Defoe was also described as a current member of “the Societies for Reformation in England” (307).

¹⁰³ Hare, Francis, A Sermon Preached to the Societies for Reformation (London, 1731), 23–24Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁴ Fielding, John, A Charge Delivered to the Grand Jury, at … Westminster … April 6th, 1763 (London, 1763), 11Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁵ Roberts, M. J. D., “The Society for the Suppression of Vice and Its Early Critics, 1802–1812,” Historical Journal 26 (1983): 159–76, here 171, 173CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Making English Morals, 50. Outrage at the apparent impunity of aristocratic adulterers did, however, form part of the background to the unsuccessful adultery bills of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: Andrew, Donna T., “‘Adultery à-la-Mode’: Privilege, the Law, and Attitudes to Adultery, 1770–1809,” History 82 (1997): 5–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰⁶ Compare Harrison, Brian, “State Intervention and Moral Reform in Nineteenth-Century England,” in Pressure from Without in Early Victorian England, ed. Hollis, Patricia (London, 1974), 289–322Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁷ Radzinowicz, History of English Criminal Law, 2:138–55; Beresford, M. W., “The Common Informer, the Penal Statutes, and Economic Regulation,” Economic History Review, n.s., 10 (1957): 221–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goldie, Mark, “The Hilton Gang and the Purge of London in the 1680s,” in Politics and the Political Imagination in Later Stuart Britain, ed. Nenner, Howard (Rochester, NY, 1997), 43–73Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁸ Chadwick, Daniel, A Sermon Preached at … Nottingham to the Society for Reformation of Manners (London, 1698), 22–23Google Scholar. Compare Disney, Second Essay, esp. 60–72.

¹⁰⁹ Fourteenth Account.

¹¹⁰ Gibson, Edmund, A Sermon Preached to the Societies for Reformation (London, 1723Google Scholar; actual pub. 1724), 14. Compare Disney, Essay, 103–9, which is notable also for its equivocal denial that the London societies relied on informers who “make a Trade of it, by being rewarded for their Informations, if not directly hired to inform.”

¹¹¹ Ward, Edward, The London Spy Compleat (London, 1703), 362, 366Google Scholar; cf. The Invisible-Observator (London, 1705), 7–8Google Scholar.

¹¹² A Project for the Advancement of Religion (London, 1709), 44Google Scholar; cf. 37–38.

¹¹³ Pix, Mary, The Different Widows: or, Intrigue All-A-Mode (London, [1703]), act 4Google Scholar.

¹¹⁴ Farquhar, George, The Constant Couple (London, 1700), act 2Google Scholar.

¹¹⁵ Baker, Thomas, An Act at Oxford (London, 1704), act 1, sc. 1, act 5, sc. 2Google Scholar. Compare his The Humour of the Age (London, 1701)Google Scholar; Griffin, Benjamine, Love in a Sack (London, 1715)Google Scholar; Bullock, Christopher, The Per-juror (London, 1717)Google Scholar.

¹¹⁶ Compare Shower, Sermon Preach’d to the Societies, 23.

¹¹⁷ Ward, London Spy, 361; Roberts, “Society for the Suppression of Vice,” 169–71.

¹¹⁸ Woodward, Josiah, A Sermon Preach’d … at the Funeral of Mr. John Cooper (London, 1702)Google Scholar; Bray, Good Fight; Malcolm, James Peller, Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century (London, 1808), 258, 277–78Google Scholar.

¹¹⁹ Luttrell, Historical Relation, 6:437, 463, 510, 514; Raymond, Robert, Reports of Cases (London, 1743), 1296–1303Google Scholar; The Tryals of Jeremy Tooley, William Arch, and John Clauson (London, 1732), quotes on 18–19Google Scholar; Cases Determined by Sir John Holt, 485–92 (quotes on 489, 491).

¹²⁰ Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment, 263–65.

¹²¹ For example, Theophilus Eyton in the 1690s (LMA, MJ/SR/1808, 1810, 1813, 1815, 1818, 1820, 1823, 1825; LMA, MJ/SBB/502–9) and John Ellis in the 1710s and 1720s (Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment, 258–59).

¹²² See Dabhoiwala, Faramerz, “Summary Justice in Early Modern London,” English Historical Review 121 (2006): 796–822, here 797–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹²³ James, G. P. R., ed., Letters Illustrative of the Reign of William III, 3 vols. (London, 1841), 2:133–34Google Scholar.

¹²⁴ See Clark, Anna, Women's Silence, Men's Violence: Sexual Assault in England, 1770–1845 (London, 1987), 121–23Google Scholar, and The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (London, 1995), 51–52; Henderson, Tony, Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London (London, 1999), 115–40Google Scholar.

¹²⁵ Tryals of Jeremy Tooley, 29.

¹²⁶ See, e.g., CLRO, Lord Mayor's Charge Books, vol. 5 (1729–30); Guildhall Justice Room Minute Books, vols. 1–3 (1752, 1761–62).

¹²⁷ Battestin, Martin C. and Battestin, Ruthe R., Henry Fielding: A Life (London, 1989), 709Google Scholar; Malcolm, Anecdotes, 116; Henderson, Disorderly Women, 114.

¹²⁸ 3 Geo. IV c. 40 (1822); 5 Geo. IV c. 83 (1824).

¹²⁹ 27 & 28 Vict. c. 85 (1864); 29 & 30 Vict. c. 96 (1866); 32 & 33 Vict. c. 86 (1869); Walkowitz, Judith R., Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State (Cambridge, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³⁰ Estimated from CLRO, SF 206–7, 211; CLRO, SM 36–38; LMA, MJ/SR/1402, 1413; LMA, WJ/SR/1405, 1415; LMA, MJ and WJ/SBB/275, 277, 282–83; LMA, MJ/SBP/6; LMA, WJ/SBP/1; TNA: PRO, KB 9/918–20.

¹³¹ Based on analysis of CLRO, SF 472, 476, 552, 556, 632, 636, 729, 733, 830, 833; CLRO, SM 72, 73, 79, 90, 102, 115; LMA, MJ/SBP/9, 11, 12, 14, 15; LMA, MJ/SR/2630, 2640, 2641, 2894, 2905; LMA, WJ/SR/2008, 2018, 2207, 2216, 2401, 2411, 2632, 2643, 2896, 2907; TNA: PRO, KB 10/10, 10/11, 10/15, 10/18, 10/22, 10/23, 10/28, 10/29, 15/23; Welch, Saunders, Observations on the Office of Constable (London, 1754), 8, 30–32Google Scholar.

¹³² TNA: PRO, KB 10/28 (Hilary 1748), presentments 32, 39; TNA: PRO, KB 10/28 (Easter 1748), presentments 39, 43; TNA: PRO, KB 10/28 (Trinity 1748), presentments 64, 66, 67, cert. 6; TNA: PRO, KB 10/29 (Michaelmas 1748), presentments 53, 54, certs. 10, 11; TNA: PRO, KB 15/23. Obtaining convictions was not necessarily, of course, the only aim of legal action—but their total absence is nevertheless striking.

¹³³ See, e.g., [Cleland, John], The Case of the Unfortunate Bosavern Penlez (London, 1749)Google Scholar; Linebaugh, Peter, “The Tyburn Riot against the Surgeons,” in Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England, ed. Hay, Douglas, Linebaugh, Peter, and Thompson, E. P. (Harmondsworth, 1975), 65–117, here 89–100Google Scholar; Nicholas Rogers, “Confronting the Crime Wave: The Debate over Social Reform and Regulation,” in Davison, Hitchcock, Keirn, and Shoemaker, Stilling the Grumbling Hive, 77–98.

¹³⁴ 25 Geo. II c. 36; deemed “useful and beneficial” and made perpetual by 28 Geo. II c. 19 (1755).

¹³⁵ Welch, Saunders, An Essay on the Office of Constable (London, 1758), 32–33Google Scholar.

¹³⁶ Estimated from CLRO, SF 909, 913; CLRO, SM 125; LMA, MJ/SR/3073, 3081; LMA, MJ/SBB/1147; LMA, MJ/SBP/16; LMA, WJ/SR/3074, 3083; TNA: PRO, KB 10/32 (1758); TNA: PRO, KB 15/24. For Welch's actions, see LMA, MJ/SR/3073, pros. recog. 19, recog. 83; LMA, MJ/SR/3081, recogs. 69, 70, 103; LMA, WJ/SR/3074, pros. recog. Sarah Smart, recogs. 28, 29, 36; LMA, WJ/SR/3083, pros. recogs. Samuel Williams, Margaret Read, recogs. 12, 18, 19, 20, 30, 31, 109, 110.

¹³⁷ A Sermon Preached before the former Societies for Reformation of Manners … Whereunto is Subjoined, A Declaration from the Present Society (London, 1760), 34–36Google Scholar; Downing, George, A Sermon Preached before the Society for Reformation of Manners (London, 1760), 27–28, 34–35Google Scholar; Chandler, Samuel, The Original and Reason of the Institution of the Sabbath (London, 1761), 75Google Scholar (MS correction to the copy in the British Library, pressmark 225.a.25); Wesley, Sermon Preached before the Society for Reformation, 6–11, 27–28, 31; Gentleman's Magazine (23 February 1763); Conder, John, A Sermon Preached before the Society for the Reformation of Manners (London, 1763), 30Google Scholar; Browne, Moses, The Causes that Obstruct the Progress of Reformation (London, 1765), 29–31Google Scholar; An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley's Journal … 1762, to … 1763 (Bristol, 1768), 102 (4 November 1764)Google Scholar; An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley's Journal … 1765, to … 1768 (Bristol, 1771), 28–29 (2 February 1766)Google Scholar; Wilson, George, Reports of Cases (London, 1770), 160–62Google Scholar; Innes, “William Payne.”

¹³⁸ See Dabhoiwala, “Sex, Social Relations, and the Law,” 90.

¹³⁹ Bedford, Arthur, A Sermon Preached to the Societies for Reformation (London, 1734), 18Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁰ See, e.g., Cases Determined by Sir John Holt, 406–7; Raymond, Reports, 562, 699, 1197; Strange, John, Reports of Adjudged Cases (London, 1755), 882Google Scholar; Leach, Thomas, Modern Reports, 12 vols., 5th ed. (London, 1793–96), 5:415–16Google Scholar.

¹⁴¹ Beattie, J. M., Crime and the Courts in England, 1660–1800 (Oxford, 1986), 278–79, 356–76Google Scholar, “Scales of Justice: Defense Counsel and the English Criminal Trial in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” Law and History Review 9 (1991): 221–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Policing and Punishment, 393–401; Langbein, John H., The Origins of Adversary Criminal Trial (Oxford, 2003), chaps. 3–5Google Scholar; Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment, 264. The rising involvement of defense lawyers was especially notable and has been mainly studied in respect of felony trials, in which before the early eighteenth century most defendants had no right to legal representation in court. Although their employment in cases of sexual crime and other misdemeanors had a much longer history, it appears to have undergone a similar expansion at this time.

¹⁴² See, e.g., Burrow, James, Reports of Cases, 5 vols. (London, 1766–80), 5:2684–86Google Scholar; cf. Holloway, Robert, The Rat-Trap (London, [1773]), 70–74Google Scholar.

¹⁴³ Maddox, Isaac, The Love of Our Country Recommended (London, 1737), 9–10Google Scholar; Roberts, “Society for the Suppression of Vice,” 169–70.

¹⁴⁴ As a result of these trends, there were also recurrent proposals to punish brothel keeping summarily (a measure finally introduced by the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act): Fielding, John, Extracts from such of the Penal Laws, as particularly relate to the Peace and Good Order of this Metropolis, 2nd ed. (London, 1762), 67Google Scholar; Malcolm, Anecdotes, 122; Henderson, Disorderly Women, 101–2.

¹⁴⁵ Radzinowicz, History of English Criminal Law, 3:193–203; Stone, Lawrence, Road to Divorce (Oxford, 1990), 257, 287–88, 335–39, 380–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Andrew, “Adultery à-la-Mode.” Compare The Evils of Adultery and Prostitution (London, 1792), 65–70Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁶ Though such litigation attracted considerable attention, the numbers of actions remained comparatively small; in the case of criminal conversation suits, moreover, the real purpose was often simply to facilitate a mutually agreeable divorce, rather than to punish infidelity: Stone, Road to Divorce, 81–95, 231–300.