Under the Contagious Diseases Acts any woman suspected of engaging in prostitution, in certain designated areas of the UK, could be forced to undergo a medical examination. If found to be infected with venereal disease, she could be held against her will in what was known as a "lock hospital" for up to nine months. It goes without saying, I suppose, that her male clients were not subject to any such interference.
The background to these shameful acts of parliament lay in a conviction among the ruling strata that the reason Britain was doing so badly in battle was that the recruits, found mostly amongst the poorer classes, were in sub-standard physical condition. What could possibly be causing this? Could it be that they were poor? No, obviously not. That had nothing to do with anything. Could it be that they were all riddled with syphilis from going with prostitutes? Ah-ha!
The answer to the problem in 1864 was An Act for the Prevention of Contagious Diseases at certain Naval and Military Stations. (Not the whole answer, evidently, since this was followed by An Act for the better Prevention of Contagious Diseases at certain Naval and Military Stations, which received royal assent on 11th June 1866 and by An Act to amend The Contagious Diseases Act in August 1869.)
A new plainclothes branch of the police was established to enforce the new regulations, which applied at first in army towns and navy ports but gradually extended their reach as bad laws always do. The police could lay a claim of "common prostitution" against any woman in those locations. They were not required to produce any evidence; only to assure the magistrate that they had good cause to believe the accusation. At this, the court would order the victim to undergo a physical examination. If she refused, she could be sent to prison.
Countless women, sex workers and not, had their lives ruined by the Acts. But this inhumane, unconstitutional and thoroughly ineffective legislation met its match in the unlikely - and at first reluctant - form of Mrs Josephine Butler.
Born into a landowning Northumbrian family of Liberal grandees in 1828, Josephine Grey grew up to marry an academic, George Butler, who was described by the historian JA Froude as "the most variously gifted man in body and mind that I ever knew," which sound promising qualities in a husband.
Active Christianity, Liberalism and social justice were powerful driving forces for both of them, but it was a moment of tragedy that changed Josephine's life, in particular: in 1864 their young daughter fell to her death in an accident at home. Josephine later recalled that she "became possessed with an irresistible urge to go forth and find some pain keener than my own, to meet with people more unhappy than myself."
She took up social work among prisoners, prostitutes and inmates of the workhouse, she and George opening their home to many desperate women. Josephine even set up a small factory where "fallen women" and "friendless girls" could find decent work. Her political campaigning - for sexual equality, social reform and anti-slavery - developed out of her charitable activities, as she came to believe that systemic change was needed to bring about a more Christian society.
When she was urged to take up leadership of the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts, she hesitated for many weeks. She and George had already experienced social ostracism for supporting the Union side in the American Civil War. His career suffered from disapproval of the couple's political and religious principles. Josephine and George feared the consequences if she was to champion a cause so offensive to respectable opinion. But in the end, they decided they had no choice other than to answer what they saw as God's call.
Travelling thousands of miles to address scores of meetings, Josephine became the public face of the quaintly-named Ladies' National Association. She turned out to be a mesmerising speaker; indeed, judging by contemporary reactions, she was a charismatic in the purest sense of the word. One female follower described her as a "A woman Christ to save us from our despair." An MP, on hearing Josephine speak, noted that "I cannot give you an idea of the effect produced except by saying that the spirit of God was there."
It wasn't only her passionate oratory which fascinated audiences; she was considered beautiful and beautifully turned out, and men and women alike found her physical presence electrifying. A reminiscence of the poet John Addington Symonds brings things rather down to earth when he writes that, on witnessing her speak, his "sexual equipment swelled."
Working-class audiences were naturally receptive to her message, because it was the women of their communities who were being persecuted by the aggressive and indiscriminate policing of the Acts. But such was Josephine Butler's aura that even middle-class listeners felt able to overcome their squeamishness and support her cause.
Plenty opposed the repeal movement, of course, and its prominent supporters often faced violence. On one occasion, Josephine was woken in the night by a mob smashing the windows of the hotel she was staying in and threatening to burn it down. By standing candidates against Liberals who supported the Acts, the Ladies' Association reaped the furious hatred of Liberal supporters who accused them of splitting the vote to the benefit of the Tories.
The Acts were finally repealed in 1886. Victory came at a price, one which Josephine was well aware of. Her campaign had been based on liberalism (the state should respect the rights of its citizens) and feminism (the law should not treat women worse than men), as well as a widely-held suspicion that any regulation of prostitution was a step towards European-style legalisation of brothels.
But some others' opposition was motivated by puritanical moralism and a loathing of sex itself. Josephine looked on in horror, but probably not surprise, as some of those who had fought the Contagious Diseases laws now pressed for much harsher persecution of prostitutes, and anyone engaged in unacceptable sexual practices. The purity leagues which now flourished turned their attention to informing on homosexuals and getting birth control literature banned.
Her own achievements, however, proved more important and longer-lasting. Women had been politically involved for centuries, but mainly at street level; Josephine Butler established, for the first time and to the confusion of the established powers, that they could also organise politically. She gave popular currency to the feminist demand that women should have sovereignty over their own bodies. And she left in ruins the convention that women must never publicly acknowledge the existence of sex.
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Sources:
Great Victorian lives: an era in obituaries (Times Books, 2007)
The petticoat rebellion by Marian Ramelson (Lawrence & Wishart, 1967)
Lady Constance Lytton by Lyndsey Jenkins (Biteback Publishing, 2015)
History Today 6 June 1996
https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/mistaken-identity-elizabeth-burley-and-the-contagious-diseases-acts/
https://saintolave.com/index.php/2024/07/10/talk-given-by-bishop-of-london-rt-revd-sarah-mullally/
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/WHIRIB19070415.2.2