The Contagious Diseases Acts, 1864-1874

The National Library of Scotland (NLS) is a veritable goldmine of information available to the general public, and its eResources afford the luxury of being able to access much of this information from the comfort of one’s own home. Your writer has made extensive use of this resource by simply entering the word 'Kirkliston' in the library's search engine in the hope that some interesting little nuggets of information might pop up. 

One such search for the word ‘Kirkliston’ in the NLS’s newspaper archives kept landing on petitions for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, parliamentary enactments your writer had never encountered before. Moreover, it seemed strange that respected individuals and public bodies were united in their demands spanning many years for these Acts to be abolished which begged the question: ‘why would any rational person want laws designed to protect the health of the nation scrapped?’ Here is a small selection of such petitions emanating from the good folk of Kirkliston and reported in various newspapers calling for the repeal of the Acts:

 HOUSE OF COMMONS

…two petitions from the inhabitants of Kirkliston in favour of the repeal of The Contagious Diseases Acts…, The Scotsman 1st July 1870

PETITIONS TO PARLIAMENT

… inhabitants of Kirkliston and vicinity, against the Contagious Diseases Acts…, Falkirk Herald 11th April 1872

 HOUSE OF COMMONS – MONDAY, 20th MAY 1878

 …from inhabitants in Kirkliston for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts…, The Scotsman 21st May 1878

…Petition to Parliament “for the reversal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, from inhabitants [of] Kirkliston, from women [in] the neighbourhood, and from [a] public meeting [held] at Kirkliston…, Aberdeen Press and Journal, 2nd July 1879 

As well as these examples, a plethora of other newspaper reports across the length and breadth of the UK appeared expressing similar sentiments. In addition, the clamour emanating from church organisations, politicians and other prominent citizens calling for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was equally strident. Between 1870 and 1885, 17,365 petitions against the Acts bearing 2,606,429 signatures were presented to parliament, and more than 900 meetings were held. But surely, shouldn’t we be wanting to control contagious diseases?  Why then were so many members of the general public wanting to see preventative measures scrapped?  The answer to this conundrum in many ways reflects the conflicting attitudes to disease and virus control that bedevil society to this today, and have done so through the ages.

In Victorian Britain, there was a certain ambiguity in attitudes to female prostitution. On one hand, society looked down with self-righteous condemnation upon women who made their living in this, ‘the oldest profession’, yet there was also a tacit understanding that prostitution was a necessary evil in certain circumstances. In particular, it served the ‘needs’ of military men who were often unmarried, and as homosexuality was a criminal offence, female prostitutes were a ubiquitous presence in Royal Navy ports and military towns, principally in the south of England. Consequently, the incidence of ‘social disease’, ie, venereal disease (VD) and other sexually transmitted diseases was rife amongst military personnel. By 1864, one out of three sick cases in the army were caused by VD. The measures taken to arrest the spread of VD were the source of much controversy, revulsion and condemnation for over 20 years until the Acts were eventually repealed. So why was there such an outpouring of anger over the Contagious Diseases Acts?  

British soldiers of the 19th century

The Act of 1864 stated that women found to be infected with VD could be interned in locked hospitals for up to three months, (a period gradually extended to one year by the 1869 Act) until she was pronounced ‘clean’. These measures were justified by medical and military officials as the most effective method to shield men from venereal disease. Of course, no sanctions were to be applied to men similarly infected which was a blatant example of sexual discrimination. The 1864 Act made it the law for women suspected of prostitution to register with the police and submit to an invasive and sometimes brutal medical examination. It also gave the police the power to determine who was a prostitute, and in some cases perfectly innocent women were so classified resulting in their disgrace within society. Ironically, such unjustly maligned women then found it impossible to gain lawful employment and subsequently turned to prostitution as the only avenue left open to them in order to earn a living.

The brutality of examination and registration

Later additions and amendments to the Acts extended the reach of the authorities to the north of England and the civilian population with the justification that it would further control the spread of VD and stop street disorders caused by it in large cities. Even in Victorian times the discriminatory nature of the Acts was quickly recognised and acknowledged right across society leading to vigorous campaigning and protest movements against the Acts, exemplified by the Kirkliston petitions cited above. These protests gave added momentum to the debate over inequality between men and women and was to lead to women organising themselves and actively campaigning for their rights. Notable early campaigners against the Acts included the philosopher John Stuart Mill, the social theorist and journalist Harriet Martineau, the multi-issue activist Elizabeth Wolstenholme and Florence Nightingale, but it was a lady named Josephine Butler (1828-1906), an English feminist and social reformer who was the prime mover in leading the fight against the Acts.

Josephine Butler, (1828-1906)

Josephine Butler was born into a comparatively wealthy and politically innovative family which went a long way to explain her strong social conscience. In what can only be described as an outstanding and sometimes debilitating lifetime, her various social crusades and campaigns included: women’s suffrage; the abolition of child prostitution; the end of coverture (where a married woman was legally considered to be under her husband’s protection and authority); better education for women; and an end to the trafficking of young women and children into European prostitution. Given her zeal for fighting what we would today regard as outrageous social injustices, it should come as no surprise that the Contagious Diseases Acts would inevitably draw her wrath. 

 

Although sex was never discussed in public in Victorian Britain, especially by women of Butler’s class, she made frequent public speeches about intimate matters. In one of her public letters, she used this testimony of a prostitute to lay bare her own personal anguish at her encounters with men:

“It is from men, only men, from the first to the last that we have to do with! To please a man I did wrong at first, then I was flung about from man to man. Men police lay hands on us. By men we are examined, handled, doctored. In the hospital it is a man again who makes prayer and reads the Bible to us. We are had up before magistrates who are men, and we never get out of the hands of men till we die!”

A woman on trial in a sea of masculinity 

 

In September 1869, at the invitation of Elizabeth Wolstenholme, Butler became president of the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the ContagiousDiseases Acts (LNA), an organisation that, along with the National Associationfor the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts formed in the same year were the two organisations most instrumental in the eventual repeal of the Acts in 1886, but only after a lengthy and bitter struggle. It is worth bearing in mind that in 1876, in opposition to the LNA, the Association for Promoting the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts was established, publishing numerous pamphlets and conducting meetings. Clearly, the abolition of the Contagious Diseases Acts was going to be strongly contested by proponents of the Acts. This prompted Butler to undertake an extensive and personally exhausting programme of 99 meetings across Britain in 1870, with Butler covering 3,700 miles in the process. As women did not gain the right to vote in parliamentary elections until as late as 1918 (and then only some aged over 30) her main target was working-class men who were the most likely cohort to sympathise with her aims. They were appalled at the graphic descriptions of the examinations women were forced to undergo, which Butler called ‘surgical’ or ‘steel rape’. However, not everyone in Butler’s audiences were sympathetic to her anger at the treatment being meted out to women. Various sections of Victorian society were vociferous in their condemnation of a ‘mere woman’ agitating in such a manner, Cow dung was flung at her by pimps, windows in the hotel she was staying were smashed and threats were made to burn down the hotel where she was hosting a meeting.

 

Opposition to the repeal of the Acts even came from quite unexpected quarters. The celebrated Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917), the first woman in Britain to qualify as a physician and surgeon was in favour of an EXTENSION to the CDAs and published a 17-page tract under the banner of the ‘Association for Promoting the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Act…to the Civil Population of the United Kingdom’, which seemed somewhat at odds with her reputation as a suffragist.

 

Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, (1836-1917) and one of her tracts calling for the extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts

 Anderson believed that extension of the Acts would protect family members of those infected with VD. Florence Nightingale, using the name “Justina,” opposed Anderson, with two articles, in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1870 and continued to give support behind-the-scenes to the repeal campaign. 

Butler was to face still more violent protests in 1870 when the LNA fielded a candidate in the Colchester parliamentary by-election. The Liberal candidate Sir Henry Storks was a supporter of the Acts so he was an obvious target for the LNA. During one of her local meetings during the campaign, Butler was chased by a group of brothel owners who did not welcome the threat to their lucrative trade. Although the LNA candidate did not win the by-election, it split the Liberal vote which opened the door for the Conservative candidate to claim victory.

The vociferous opposition to the Acts had obviously caught the attention of the Liberal government, for in 1871, a Royal Commission was set up by the Home Secretary, Henry Bruce, to examine the Acts. Butler’s testimony to the Commission was most compelling, but the Commission’s eventual report was disappointing. It defended the one-sided nature of the Acts saying, "... there is no comparison to be made between prostitutes and the men who consort with them. With the one sex the offence is committed as a matter of gain; with the other it is an irregular indulgence of a natural impulse."  It was more sympathetic to putting an end to the gross ‘steel rapes’ which Butler had so graphically described and was perturbed to hear that many prostitutes were as young as 12, prompting the recommendation that the age of consent be raised from 12 to 14. (In fact, it was only raised to 13 in 1875. It was not until 1885, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of Butler, that the age of consent was raised to 16).

In 1872, yet another Contagious Diseases Bill was proposed that, among other things, the scope of the Acts should be widened to the whole of the UK. Fortunately, the Bill faced too much opposition from MP’s that supported the Acts because it contained clauses that relaxed some of the provisions contained in the existing Acts. Two months after the withdrawal of Bruce's Bill, another opportunity arose for the LNA at a ministerial by-election in Pontefract to make its voice heard. On this occasion, they did not field a candidate, although Butler attended meetings in the town. Once again, dirty tricks came into play as the meeting room floor on one occasion was sprinkled with cayenne pepper rendering speaking difficult. Still determined to disrupt the meeting, after the floor had been cleaned, her opponents set bales of straw alight in a storeroom below, which led to smoke rising through the floorboards. The incumbent Liberal candidate, Hugh Childers, went on to win the by-election, but with a much-reduced majority. In December that year, Butler met the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, when he visited Liverpool College. Although he supported the aims of the LNA, he was politically unable to back the LNA publicly, and had supported Bruce's bill.

Handbill issued prior to a talk during the 1872 Pontefract by-election

William Gladstone was a personal friend of the Butler family and a tacit supporter of Josephine's work. As Prime Minister, Gladstone had the power to nominate candidates to vacant positions within the Church and, in June 1882, he offered Josephine’s husband George Butler the position of canon of Winchester Cathedral which was a timely gift as he and Josephine had spent a large proportion of their income on the LNA and other causes that were a significant drain on their finances. The job also came with a grace and favour home near the cathedral, yet another financial boon, although it prompted Josephine to set up another hostel for women nearby!

Parliamentary opposition to the Acts was now enjoying juggernaut momentum and in 1883, a parliamentary resolution was tabled in the Commons stating: "That this House disapproves of the compulsory examination of women under the Contagious Diseases Acts". MPs voted by a majority of 72 to suspend the inspections and the Acts themselves were suspended in their entirety in 1883. The final abolition of the Acts in 1886 was perhaps something of an anti-climax after all that had gone before. However, the good folk of Kirkliston, along with countless other individuals would have gained immense satisfaction that their petitions against the Acts had at last borne fruit.

A P George
Kirkliston Heritage Society
apgeorge21@gmail.com

SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Alchetron, The Free Social Encylopedia
Birbeck, University of London
JISC Archives Hub
National Library of Scotland
The Lancet
UK Parliament
Wikipedia