Julia Laite

"In 1910, sixteen-year-old Lydia Harvey boarded a steamship bound for Buenos Aires amid a global panic about sex trafficking. Pimps, politicians and moral reformers expected her to 'vanish forever into the slims of the underworld.' Instead, she reappeared on the grey streets of Londons Soho, and made a choice that meant she wouldn't be forgotten. Historian Julia Laite traces not only Lydia's life, but the lives of those who shaped her story, who were brought together by one dramatic trial at London's Old Bailey, the flamboyant border-crossing criminals who entrapped her, the detective who tracked them down, the reporter who stoked the scandal and the social worker who made it her life's mission to help young women be heard."--Book jacket.

One Trial, Six Lives and the Dawn of the Twentieth Century

The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey

Samantha Caslin

This critical sourcebook compiles excerpts from the extensive interviews undertaken by the Wolfenden Committee on the subject of prostitution. The Committee is remembered, first and foremost, for recommending the decriminalization of sex between men. However, the other half of its remit—prostitution—has largely been forgotten, despite the fact that prostitution, not homosexuality, was the original impetus behind the Committee’s appointment. If we consider the Committee and its Report from this perspective, its status as both a liberal and permissive endeavour must be called into question. This book captures the controversy, diversity and complexity of opinions surrounding prostitution in this period, and provides critical analysis and context. It restores the question of prostitution to its central place in the history of Britain’sso-called progressive era and challenges the way that the Report and its legacy have been characterized. Crucially, this book highlights the substantial evidence gathered by the Committee on prostitution outside of London, which the Wolfenden Report itself largely disregarded. The excerpts, the reprinted report, and the critical introductions to each chapter are intended to spark important debates amongst students, researchers and the public about the history of sexuality, society and the state in twentieth-century Britain.

Prostitution in Post-war Britain

Wolfenden's Women

'A gripping, unputdownable masterpiece of scholarly historical research and true crime writing.' Hallie Rubenhold, author of the Baillie Gifford prize-winning The Five 'Historical writing does not get any better than this ... Imaginative and compelling, impassioned and powerful, and deeply, deeply moving' Matt Houlbrook, author of Prince of Tricksters and Queer London Lydia Harvey was meant to disappear. She was young and working class; she'd walked the streets, worked in brothels, and had no money of her own. In 1910, politicians, pimps, policemen and moral reformers saw her as just one of many 'girls who disappeared'. But when she took the stand to give testimony at the trial of her traffickers, she ensured she'd never be forgotten. Historian Julia Laite traces Lydia's extraordinary life from her home in New Zealand to the streets of Buenos Aires and safe houses of London. She also reveals the lives of international traffickers Antonio Carvelli and his mysterious wife Marie, the policemen who tracked them down, the journalists who stoked the scandal, and Eilidh MacDougall, who made it her life's mission to help women who'd been abused and disbelieved. Together, they tell an immersive story of crime, travel and sexual exploitation, of lives long overlooked and forgotten by history, and of a world transforming into the 20th century.

Julia Laite

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