Where are all the prostitutes in the census records of London ? In her book, Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women Class and the State , Judith Walkowitz says that a 19th century city like London where prostitution was legal had one prostitute per 36 inhabitants. Based on the London population records, that amounts to about 24, prostitutes. The coded occupations in London data, however, show no signs of prostitutes anywhere.
The coded occupational classification systems seek to inventory occupations of the time period, grouping similar types of work into categories. Despite the usefulness of the streamlined and coded occupational classification, detail is unavoidably lost. Also, classification systems can either overlook or hide certain types of work, particularly activities that are deemed illegal, immoral, or socially undesirable. While prostitution was legal in 19th century England and is currently legal in England , there is no code for them in the official occupational classification systems of the time.
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So, how can we find this hidden class of workers? Historical census data that is no longer restricted by confidentiality requirements is rich with additional detail available in the written strings fields, such as occupation, industry, detailed address, names, and even disability or other characteristics.
Several NAPP data sets include transcribed string fields from the occupation field of the census. A typical occupational coding scheme will include occupational categories. In contrast, data from England and Wales in includes 1. This catch-all category includes matrons, couriers, boot cleaners, and office servants in the NAPP database. These individuals frequently worked in dressmaking and garment industry factories, in addition to engaging in prostitution.
In the later decades of the 19th Century, according to Walkowitz, they were also recruited from the ranks of retail shop girls and waitresses. Census takers visit each house, recording information about the people in the dwelling. Respondents interpret the purpose for the data collection in their own way, leading them to over or under report certain types of activities.
