William Horsford – The Bressons – Jacob Udney – John Minsher – Richard Hilliard – Moses Levy Newton – Mother H’s.
….Continuing the story of Ann King, second wife of Brighton architect, Amon Wilds, and formerly bawd and proprietor of the infamous ‘Mother H’s’ at 13 Brydges Street, Covent Garden.
I spent a long time researching Mother H in an attempt to discover who she was, and what could have led her into such a life. The truth of the matter was so distressing, I felt it could not have been more shocking if it had been written as a work of fiction.
A family named Bresson, originally Spitalfields weavers, were the first to be named in the will as those who were to benefit from annuities. James Charles Bresson, his sons Jonathan and Thomas, his daughter in law, Ruth, and his grandson, Amon Wilds Bresson were all to benefit. James Charles had another son, William, who in 1838 was examined for evidence for a Royal Commission into the “The Condition of the Hand-Loom [i]Parliamentary Papers 1840. Vol 24. pp76-9William, in addition to an account of the Bressons as Spitalfields silk weavers and the decline of the silk trade, also mentioned the Spitalfields cutters of 1769. He described how, in his father’s time, weavers banded together to take direct action against master weavers who under-paid the journeymen, and against journeymen who accepted low wages for producing high-quality luxury silks. The cutters would enter the workshops of the journeymen and cut the silk from the looms, rendering it worthless. Although William Bresson does not name him, he was remembering a particular Irish cutter, William Horsford, who was hanged at Tyburn for his part in one such cutting incident, just before Christmas 1769. Four years later, Anstiss Horsford, the hanged man’s widow, was tried at The Old Bailey for her part in the murder of Daniel Clarke, a weaver who had informed on two other cutters, who were also hanged. Daniel Clarke was stripped half-naked, submerged in a pond and stoned to death by a Spitalfields mob. Two men were executed for the crime, but it appears Anstiss Horsford was reprieved.
It is not known what happened to her after that, but William and Anstiss Horsford had a daughter, Ann, born in 1766, and baptised at Christ Church, Spitalfields, who I believe, grew up to become ‘Mother H’ and the wife of Amon Wilds, architect of Brighton. It is likely that Ann Horsford, a child of three when her father was executed, was subsequently abandoned by her destitute mother. I believe at the age of 9 or 10, she fell into child prostitution, and was ‘taken care of’ by Jacob Udney, a Spitalfields weaver who having fallen on hard times, reinvented himself as a serial housebreaker. Jacob Udney registered a daughter, Sarah Ann Udney, born in Cock Lane, Spitalfields in 1777. Her mother is noted in the ChristChurch register as Mary Ann Udney. If this mother was Ann Horsford, she would have given birth at the age of 11.This is not as improbable as it sounds. In 18thcentury London, child pregnancy was not uncommon. The physical and mental effect on the girls who survived childbirth,was terrible. The physiological damage that they sustained during childbirth often resulted in lifelong disability, which usually meant that any subsequent marriages were not successful. There was a further child, Jacob Thomas Udney, baptised at St Leonard, Shoreditch in 1780, whose mother was recorded as Ann Udney, then 14 years of age, but the boy appears not to have survived. Jacob Udney senior was executed in 1787 for stealing “a table clock, a silver tankard, and a tablespoon” His widow, Ann, now 21, uneducated and scarcely literate, took responsibility for Sarah Ann and probably lived by prostitution.
Ann Udney, widow, married her second husband, John Minsher, at St Botolph Aldgate in 1788. Ann and John settled in Harp Court, Black Horse Court, off Fleet Street. This squalid and very crowded area of London, built along the course of the Fleet River, was dominated by the Fleet Debtors’ Prison. Minsher’s marriage to Ann is likely to have been a business opportunity, as any sex trade facilities offered close to the Fleet Prison would be in demand. John Minsher, like Jacob Udney, led a life of crime. At the age of almost 15, Minsher had been convicted of stealing a bale of raw silk worth £60 and received a three year prison sentence. He escaped from Newgate when the prison was set alight by rioters in June 1780, and was recaptured on 8 November, to finish his sentence in the Poultry Compter. On his release, Minsher married Isabella Brydon at St Leonard’s Shoreditch on 12 May 1783. Isabella was still alive in 1788 when Minsher married Ann Udney, who took him to court for bigamy in 1794, for which he was fined one shilling [about £6 in 2020].
Ann continued her occupancy of 6,Harp Court, and took out insurance with the Sun in 1802 covering: 6, Harp Court; The Bunch of Grapes, Poultry Passage; 20 Old Change; and 5 to 8 Dorset Place, Old St Pancras Church. Her abode is given as ‘near the 11-mile stone, Loughton, Essex.’ She was now in a relationship with Richard Wheatley Hilliard, whom she married in 1807. Hilliard was socially superior to her two previous husbands. He was an elected official in the City of London: ‘The Serjeant at Mace’, being responsible for the apprehension and detention of debtors in the Poultry Compter, and on it’s closure, the Giltspur Compter. Richard Hilliard also took out insurance for The Bunch of Grapes, an establishment just off Cheapside, and close to the Poultry Compter. Despite being an official of the City, Hilliard is likely to also have regarded Ann as a suitable business partner. It is likely that the list of premises insured by Ann were brothels, and most profitable.
Confirmation of this is given by her appearance in court in April 1809. Ann Hilliard and daughter were convicted of keeping a disorderly house at 2 Cavendish Court, owned by Moses Levy, also known as Moses Levy Newton. Ann Hilliard declined to pay the fine of £150, but offered to give evidence against others involved. Moses Levy was a wealthy and respected merchant, and the revelation that he and his wife Judith were reaping the rewards of brothel-keeping were apparently a surprise to the authorities. The profits of the enterprise were quoted in full by the Parliamentary Commission as a daily profit of £6, roughly equivalent to £600 in 2020. Ann retained her links with her friends in Fleet Market. In her will of 1851, she granted annuities of £10 to Charles Jacobs, fruit salesman of 20 Stonecutter Street, Farringdon and £52 a year to Ann Jacobs née Pell, his wife. Ann Jacobs was also granted priority of choice from Ann’s remaining jewellery, and a further £200 after her decease. Also provided for were Mary Elizabeth Roberts née Diggens, wife of Samuel Edward Roberts, floor cloth manufacturer and heraldry painter of Fleet Street. Mary Elizabeth Roberts received an annuity of £104 a year to provide for herself and her son, Amon Wilds Roberts, born at 91 Farringdon Street in 1841. The naming of Amon Wilds Roberts and Ann’s generosity toward Ann Jacobs shows a close and ongoing relationship with these women, who may at one time have been her employees.
It is unsurprising that Ann Hilliard, having disguised her identity by marrying again, to a Samuel King, continued in the same line of business, this time in partnership with Thomas Hodgkins as 13, Brydges Street, Covent Garden.
Sarah Ann Udney, Ann’s daughter, married Charles James Bresson at St Botolph Aldgate in 1807 . Ann Hilliard appeared as a witness to the marriage, and it is useful to compare her signature with that of Ann Wilds in 1834, when 27 years later, at the age of 68, she married Thomas Hunter at St Nicholas, Brighton.
It was as ‘Madam’ of 13 Brydges Street that Ann King achieved notoriety as ‘Mother H’. Her reputation has come down to us thanks to the proliferation of Regency gossip publishers in the form of journalists, cariacaturists and novelists. The story was taken up by Victorian moralists and reformers, and in recent times by chroniclers and historians. They all have used Covent Garden as a source of ready material of sexual excesses of the Regency period.
Renton Nicholson in his autobiography gives us a generous, and probably reasonably accurate assessment of Ann’s character and later life in Brighton:[ii]Renton Nicholson: Rogue’s Progress: The autobiography of ‘Lord Chief Baron Nicholson’. London 1860.
“Mother H retired with an ample fortune more than thirty years ago. She turned religious, married a highly respectable timber merchant [Amon Wilds!] at Brighton, who died and left her money. The last time I saw her was in 1833. She had again tried her luck in the matrimonial lottery, although nearly seventy years of age. He third husband was a serious, calm, respectable Dissenter [Thomas Hunter]. He outlived her.
The establishment, long after she left it, was known as Mother H’s, but with her departed the prestige; yet there was nothing fascinating about her, unless her serpent-like qualities constituted the alluring element. Deformity of mind and feature seemed to struggle for ascendancy; and who shall say which preponderated in that ignominious conflict?”
Who indeed? Having amassed resources from the estate of Thomas Hodgkins, at the expense of the inheritance of his son, and from the estate of her husband, Amon Wilds, at his family’s expense, was she really a reformed character? Her will suggests that she attempted in part to salve her conscience. She was generous to her friends and relations, including relations of Thomas Hunter, her last husband. She also attempted to establish a foundation to provide accommodation for poor widows in Brighton, although this ultimately was rescinded in a codicil. Thomas Hunter himself did not directly inherit the entire estate, but was sufficiently provided for, as long as he did not remarry. One cannot help thinking that this was an unfair condition, although it was one that was so often imposed on widows!
