There are several surviving accounts of Rebecca Jarrett’s life, each differing somewhat in its detail of her early experiences. I choose here to acknowledge Rebecca’s account, in recognition of the subjectivity of autobiography, but with a desire not to arrest Rebecca of her autonomy.
These texts shed light on Jarrett’s central involvement in an event that shook the sensibilities of Victorian society but for which her contribution has been marginalised. The ‘Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’ has a famous victim – Eliza Armstrong, and a famous informant – W. T. Stead; but what of Rebecca Jarrett? - who was she? and what was her part in this affair?
Rebecca Jarrett’s birth into a comfortable family located in Pimlico, on 3 March 1846 belied the life that awaited her. In her memoirs, Rebecca recalls that:
‘Cremoine Gardens was my ruin before I was 13’.
In a short few years following her entry into the world, Rebecca’s father left, and her mother, in an effort to feed her alcoholism, began pimping Rebecca in Chelsea’s popular Victorian pleasure park – Cremorne Gardens.
By age 15, Rebecca was cast from home by a brother who had returned from naval service and disapproved of Rebecca’s profession in the sex trade. In search of accommodation elsewhere, Rebecca lived as mistress to a couple of clients in London, and for a brief spell in Derbyshire, before establishing her own residence for which she recruited women to work. Several years in this life took its toll and by her mid-late thirties Rebecca was a ‘poor drunken broken up woman’, suffering from illness and alcoholism. Whilst ‘recuperating’ away from the city, in Northampton, she encountered The Salvation Army who recruited Rebecca to their cause and accompanied her back to London to take refuge in the Army’s first women’s ‘rescue home’.
After a time at 212 Hanbury Street, Whitechapel, as well as a short spell in the London Hospital, Rebecca was sent to Josephine Butler's House of Rest in Winchester. Butler was Secretary for the Ladies National Association for the Abolition of the State Regulation of Vice and for the Promotion of Social Purity and assisted Jarrett in establishing a home to carry out the same care that she had received at Hanbury Street. Rebecca recruited women, this time not for sex work but for salvation.
At this time, Stead was working to expose the trafficking of children for the sex trade in Victorian London. Knowing of Jarrett’s prior involvement in the London sex trade, Butler recommended Jarrett to Stead as an accomplice in his staged procurement of a child. Jarrett describes her involvement in the staging and how she selected a lonely girl (Eliza Armstrong) on the street and paid her mother £2, with a further promise of £3, to take the child away. After Eliza had been taken to a place of safety, Stead began his work.
‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’ was published in the Pall Mall Gazette on 6 July 1885. In his article Stead lays bare Rebecca’s former life and her previous involvement in procuring women and girls for the sex trade. Whilst Rebecca had a far-from-sin-free past Stead acknowledged that her motives in the case were pure, in penance for her former life and in an effort to raise awareness and prevent trafficking of girls in future.
The report produced uproar across London. Jarrett was immediately arrested and taken to the House of Detention in Clerkenwell for purchasing a girl for the prospect of sex work, despite the report stating that this was a staged event with no harm intended for Eliza.
The exposé led to the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which raised the female age of consent from thirteen to sixteen, but the price Jarrett paid was imprisonment. Rebecca stood on trial for her role as ‘procuress’ and ‘abductor’ – so charged as Eliza’s father had not provided permission for Eliza to be taken. For her role, Rebecca was charged with six months’ imprisonment in Millbank Prison while Stead was only awarded three.
Following her prison sentence Rebecca returned to Winchester and continued her rescue work for a time before spending the remainder of her life in the care of Josephine Butler. Rebecca made her final return to East London in 1928 when she was buried in Abney Park Cemetery, age 82.
Whilst Rebecca’s role was pivotal in the success of the ‘Maiden Tribute’ exposé and she paid the highest price for it, her name is not one that has endured in cultural memory. Soon after the trial, Josephine Butler published a defence of Rebecca as the case’s ‘scapegoat’, but this is not a narrative that has received much attention. Undoubtedly Eliza Armstrong deserves her spotlight for her experience and as representative of the fate she escaped. As does Stead, whose moral principles and literary talent spearheaded the endeavour. However, I can’t help but feel that Rebecca’s courage and conviction in providing the essential evidence against the system, which she herself had survived, and which proved to be her unmaking for a second time when imprisoned, demonstrates strength of character and compassion in aiding her fellow sisters, worthy of our remembrance and appreciation.
Author
Chloe Wilson works and volunteers in the heritage sector in London with historical interests primarily in gender and political history. Twitter: @chloevwilson
Sources and Further Reading
Butler, Josephine. ‘Rebecca Jarrett’, [1886] (ebook)
Goodwyn, Helena. Eliza Armstrong – Another Piece of the Puzzle, 2020 https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2020/10/eliza-armstrong-another-piece-of-the-puzzle.html
Jarrett. Rebecca. 'Rebecca Jarrett: Her experiences written by herself', 1924 (Manuscript) (Salvation Army International Heritage Centre)
Jarrett. Rebecca. 'Rebecca Jarrett: Her experiences written by herself' [early 20th century] (Typescript) (Salvation Army International Heritage Centre)
Stead, W.T. ‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’, The Pall Mall Gazette. [6 July 1885] (WT Stead Resource Site). https://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/pmg/tribute/mt1.php#collapse3
Walkowitz, Judith R. ‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’, in: City of dreadful delight : narratives of sexual danger in late-Victorian London, 1992
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/students/modules/hi996/week1/walkowitz_maiden_tribute.pdf
Images courtesy of the London Picture Archive at London Metropolitan Archives