The Price of Everything — how much things really cost in history

No 2. Sex

In 1762 James Boswell, aged 22 and recently arrived in London, writes in his journal: “I went to Love’s and drank tea. I had now been some time in town without female sport. I determined to have nothing to do with whores, as my health was of great consequence to me.

“I went to a girl with whom I had an intrigue at Edinburgh, but my affection cooling, I had left her. I knew she was come up. I waited on her and tried to obtain my former favours, but in vain. She would by no means listen.

“I was really unhappy for want of women. I thought it hard to be in such a place without them. I picked up a girl in the Strand; went into a court with intention to enjoy her in armour [wearing a sheath]. But she had none. I toyed with her. She wondered at my size, and said if I ever took a girl’s maidenhead, I would make her squeak.

“I gave her a shilling [5p, £90], and had command enough of myself to go without touching her. I afterward trembled at the danger I had escaped. I resolved to wait cheerfully till I got some safe girl or was liked by some woman of fashion.”

In 1860 Arthur Munby observed in his diary: “Going in to a shop to buy some photographs the shopman, who was also a photographer, brought out by the way of temptation various portraits of nude and semi-nude women, which he himself had taken.

“I enquired what manner of women they were, who were willing to have pictures of their naked bodies taken, and sold to strangers at 2/- each [10p, £70]; of course they are virtually prostitutes? ‘Not at all, Sir!’ cries the worthy photographer, indignant: ‘this one’ (holding up a stark naked figure) ‘is herself an artist, and was a governess. No, No – they wouldn’t do anything of that: a girl has no need to go on the streets when she can earn five or six pounds [£3,500 to £4,200] a week, by this sort of thing and sitting to the Academy!’

“Nearly £300 [£200,000] a year to be earned by simply sitting in a chair without any clothes on; no wonder such a trade is preferred to the hard and self-accusing life of a prostitute! Nevertheless, one would say on the whole that these delicate gradations of female modesty are somewhat inexplicable to the coarser masculine mind.”

In 1897 Arnold Bennett noted in his journal: “At a City branch of a certain bank yesterday morning two golden-haired girls, with large feathered hats, presented a piece of paper bearing a penny [£1.70] stamp and the words ‘Please pay the bearer £2 10/- [£1,000]. Henry T. Davies’.

“The cashier consulted his books and had to inform the ladies that Henry T Davies had no account there. ‘I don’t know about that,’ said one of them, ‘ but he slept with me last night, and he gave me this paper because he hadn’t any cash. Didn’t he, Clara?’ ‘Yes,’ said Clara, ‘that he did, and I went out this morning to buy the stamp for him.’ The cashier commiserated with them, but they were not to be comforted.”

In 1924 Evelyn Waugh, then an Oxford undergraduate, wrote in his diary: “Chris Hollis turned up in the morning and told me a good story. Mr Justice Phillmore was trying a sodomy case and brooded greatly whether his judgement had been right. He went to consult Lord Birkenhead [the former Lord Chancellor]. ‘Excuse me, my lord, but could you tell me — What do you think you ought to give a man who allows himself to be buggered?’ ‘Oh 30s or £2 [£260 or £340] — anything you happen to have on you.’”

Note on values: If one asks what a monetary value in the past is “worth” today, there is no one correct answer. A sum of money in the past would have been valued in different ways by different people and under different contexts. Here the intention is to find out how “affordable” items would seem to the average person of the time, so figures are converted using the average earnings index provided by the Office of National Statistics.