ABSTRACT
In Woking Prison 1881, four-times-convicted Eliza Godfrey was informed by letter that her nine-year-old son had died whilst at school in Lambeth. On release from prison, the deaf, widowed, former convict joined her daughter, Sophia, who was working at a brothel in Providence Street. Given some time it would be possible to tell you what her son had died of; if Eliza’s ophthalmic problems ever cleared up; whether mother and daughter stayed in the same trade, or moved on, and out of London; and for how long each of them lived. We could even go further. We could discover if and when Eliza’s daughter (who preferred to be called ‘Sophy’) had children of her own, what they did for a living and whether they ever got into trouble with the police, what they died of, what their children went on to do, and so on, until (with a bit of luck) we could reintroduce Eliza and Sophy’s descendants living today to the details of their progenitors’ difficult lives. Ten years or so ago, uncovering all of this intimate detail might have taken months, even years, but now with the aid of the new digital media, it might take just a day.
