The Last of the Great London Courtesans?
July 19, 2010 –
Well that was the title of the piece, but dont be too sure ;) I have another post about Catherine Walters but I liked this one too. Now I reside in London, I shall have to pay a visit to the past residences of these wonderful ladies. I think the assumption of the demise of the Courtesan is because of modern society’s looser morals, media intrusion and the reduction of power of the aristocracy. Powerful men still and will always exisit and one could argue that they are the new aristocracy. Like I say, dont be too sure about the demise of the Courtesan, the most discreet of ladies may still enjoy the same status even though they dont necessarily bed royalty, may I be so bold?
English prostitutes probably suffered most in the nineteenth century, which not only criminalised them but also patronised them. Earlier centuries accepted the role of the honest whore with more equanimity. In the nineteeth century only one sort of ‘lady’ could live within the vague bounds of of respectability – the sort who slept with kings and princes. If the king insisited that his mistress be allowed to accompany him to country houses, the theatre and other social engagements then everyone had to be polite to her. Lower down the social scale a mistress would be completely ostracised in a society that expected respectable women to be so delicate that it was as much as they could do to lie on a sofa all day long complaining about headaches.
But in the thick of all this hypocrisy we can still espy the mighty creature that is Catherine Walters (1839-1920), tales of whose extraordinary exploits filled the air of Victorian and Edwardian London . Mrs Walters – whose nickname was Skittles – is also proof that the power of personality can overcome almost any obstacle.
She was known as Skittle for reasons no one can now discover – it may have been that she started work in Skittle Alley, Liverpool, but she was a great beauty in her youth as well as being part of a line of professional courtesans stretching back to Nell Gwynn and beyond.
What is most remarkable about Skittles is that she lived through an age which was probably the most moralistic – even if hypocritically s0 – in British history. The Victorian obsession with purity and chastity except within marriage combined with the absolute rule of respectability meant that any middle – or working-class woman suspected of sexual irregularity (as the Victorian newspapers might have put it) would be shunned by everyone, but as always there was one rule for the majority and an entitirely different rule for the elite.
Because Mrs Walters was the paid mistress of a number of members of the aristocracy and royalty she had to be received into society if her various partners insisted on it. But even without aristocratic patronage the decidedly eccentric Skittles would have arrived anyway. She was in many respects immune to the rules that applied to most people simply because she did not give a fig about them. She was the mistress of the Duke of Devonshire and the Marquis of Hartington among others and insisted on the finest clothes and carriages – finer even it was said than the wives of her lovers. Stories about her are legion. She loved horses and hunting and once when out with the Quorn in Leicestershire she had caught up with leaders of the field throughout. The master of hounds ventured to compliment her on the fine flushed colour of her cheeks. ‘That’s nothing’ she replied ‘You should see the colour of my ruddy arse!’
She reached the height of her fame in 1861 when any rumour that she might be driving in the park on a Sunday would lead to huge crowds assembling to catch a glimpse of her. She lived for many years at No 15 South Street, Mayfair – the house is still there – and in old age was pushed in her wheelchair through Hyde Park by none other than Lord Kitchener.
I love the sound of Ms Walters, what a gal. It reminds me a lot of the other ladies I know in this business; gutsy, honest, clever, witty and fun. Ladies, I salute you x
