Gin Lane: Thieves and Thief-takers in the Night-Cellars of St Giles

Laura Agustín has been a writer, researcher and critical historian all her life. She has been a Londoner since the 1960s, although she has lived in other towns and countries. Author ofSex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry,she has for many years focused on getting the stories out of women and others marginalised because of being poor, foreign, ‘different’ or doing jobs some folks think are Wrong, in the present and in the past. She spent time with illuminated manuscripts at the British Library looking for clues to how women lived 1000 years ago, and couldn’t stop reading even if she wanted to. She is known asThe Naked Anthropologist.She has qualified as a tour guide in order to take this focus to the streets, where guided history walks rarely talk about the poor except as objects of charity.

The Naked Anthropologist

Thief and escape-artist Jack Sheppard sparred with thief-taker Jonathan Wild in streets thronged with gin-sellers, sex workers and beggars.

Outside Exit 3, Leicester Square Station

The Seven Dials area of St Giles is now pretty, but in the 18th century it was notorious for poverty and crime. With no organised police force, thieves, highwaymen and fences bribed those hired to catch them, meeting in low-down dives where they spoke a secret language called flash. Notoriously corrupt thief-taker Jonathan Wild captured popular thief Jack Sheppard more than once, but Jack made dramatic escapes from prison aided by his sexworker-partner Edgworth Bess.With gin selling at a penny a glass, carousing was full-on in areas called, by outsiders, rookeries, thieves’ kitchens, the Holy Land (because of the Irish presence) and, for Drury Lane’s red-light zone, Little Sodom. A range of middle-class spies, social investigators, reporters and slum-tourists came to look and sometimes join in goings-on they found both appalling and titillating. John Gay portrayed Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild in the characters of Captain MacHeath and Mr Peachum in The Beggar's Opera, London's favourite play throughout the 18th century.Laura Agustín is an historian and writer interested to tell stories of ordinary folks, those not named in history books.

<h3><a href="https://www.lauraagustin.com/" title="https://www.lauraagustin.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The Naked Anthropologist </a>is Laura's longtime blog, focusing now on London history walks with Gender, Sex and Class.</h3>