ABSTRACT

One hundred years ago, 18 districts in England and Wales were still subjected to a system of regulated prostitution similar, in essence, to those systems of police-controlled and registered prostitution widely employed throughout continental Europe in the nineteenth century and still, in part, surviving in the twentieth. The United Kingdom’s flirtation with regulation lasted only from 1864, when the first of the Contagious Diseases Acts was enacted, to 1886 when the system was abolished. The object had ostensibly been to protect members of the armed forces from the consequences of venereal disease, and the government from the resulting financial penalties and loss of manpower. The method employed was to identify prostitutes and submit them to examination by designated official doctors; if they were found to be diseased they were detained in hospitals for specified periods. To implement the Acts a specialised police force and purpose-built Lock wards were provided. 1