Jane Douglas commonly known as Mother Douglas, was a brothel

Brothel

Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...

-keeper in mid-18th century London. Known at the time as The Empress of the Bawds, her house in Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

 attracted customers from the higher echelons of society.

Early career

Mother Douglas was born around 1700 to a well-to-do Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 family named Marinet. She had three sisters and at least one brother, but nothing more is known of the family. By the time she was 17 she was already working as a prostitute

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

 in London under the name Douglas. She worked out of a house in St James's, Piccadilly and was praised by John Gay

John Gay

John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...

 as "that inimitable Courtesan". She was on intimate terms with many influential people, both men and women, but had a particularly close friendship with John Williams (later 1st Earl FitzWilliam

Earl FitzWilliam

Earl Fitzwilliam was a title in both the Peerage of Ireland and the Peerage of Great Britain held by the head of the Fitzwilliam family. This family claim descent from William the Conqueror. The Fitzwilliams acquired extensive holdings in South Yorkshire, largely through strategic alliances through...

). At some point she took possession of the St. James's house and began to work as a procuress, choosing girls for their elegance, pleasant manners and sexual expertise.

Covent Garden

By 1735 she had moved to Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

, home to many of the famous brothels of the time. She took a house in the Little Piazza, to the east of the main piazza on the corner of Russell Street, that had recently been vacated by Betty Careless

Betty Careless

Betty Careless or Betsy Careless was a notorious prostitute and later bagnio-owner in 18th-century London. Probably born Elizabeth Carless , she adapted her name to better suit her profession...

. As she had done in St James's, she decorated the house in opulent style and hired liveried servants to wait on her customers. The Covent Garden location meant that customers were plentiful. It also had the advantage of being close to the theatres: these supplied a continual flow of beautiful, but poor, actresses—who would supplement their incomes by working for Douglas. The customers coming from the many drinking dens and bagnio

Bagnio

A Bagnio was originally a bath or bath-house.The term was then used to name the prison for hostages in Istanbul, which was near the bath-house, and thereafter all the slave prisons in the Ottoman Empire and the Barbary regencies...

s that surrounded the square were often drunk and rowdy. This led to disturbances at the house, and occasional raids and arrests.

In 1741 Douglas moved to the opposite side of the square into the vacant King's Head. This house was much larger with a garden and running water supplied to the basement. Douglas made further improvements, installing a drain and cesspool, extending the supply of water, and renovating the roof, chimneys and staircases. This house was decorated to the highest standards with fine furniture, china and glass and expensive paintings adorning the walls. She added a restaurant with liveried waiters to serve the guests. As well as paying high prices to enjoy the luxurious surroundings and hand-picked girls of her establishment, her patrons were able to take advantage of condom

Condom

A condom is a barrier device most commonly used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy and spreading sexually transmitted diseases . It is put on a man's erect penis and physically blocks ejaculated semen from entering the body of a sexual partner...

s manufactured by Jacobs in the Strand

Strand, London

Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. The street is just over three-quarters of a mile long. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length...

, presented in a silk bag and with a hefty mark up. For those suffering from syphilis

Syphilis

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...

, she supplied Dr. Jean Misaubin's pillule.

According to the Nocturnal Revels

Nocturnal Revels

Nocturnal Revels is a 1779 two-volume book about prostitution in 18th-century London.The title page introduces the book as "the history of King's-Place and other modern nunneries", written by a "monk of the Order of St Francis"...

, her customers included "Prince, Peers and men of the Highest Rank". Prince William, Duke of Cumberland was a frequent visitor and presented her with some silver plate. William Hogarth

William Hogarth

William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...

 often sketched in her house and featured her praying from the window of her house in The March of the Guards to Finchley

The March of the Guards to Finchley

The March of the Guards to Finchley, also known as The March to Finchley or The March of the Guards, is a 1750 oil-on-canvas painting by English artist William Hogarth, owned by the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children since 1750 and now housed at the Foundling Museum...

and again in Enthusiasm Delineated. Her house was also popular with army officers on leave and the captains of the East Indiamen.

She attempted to maintain an honest house, discharging girls if they were caught stealing, but from time to time she fell foul of the Society for the Reformation of Manners

Society for the Reformation of Manners

The Society for the Reformation of Manners was founded in the Tower Hamlets area of London in 1691. Its espoused aims were the suppression of profanity, immorality, and other lewd activities in general, and of brothels and prostitution in particular....

, in the person of Sir John Gonson

John Gonson

Sir John Gonson was a British judge for nearly 50 years in the early 18th century, serving as a Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the City of Westminster...

 and his anti-vice patrols, and was arrested. On most of these occasions she escaped with a fine, or by bribery escaped punishment completely, but she did once or twice have to spend time in prison.

Decline and death

Around 1746, her fortunes took a turn for the worse. Her house fell out of fashion with high society and a lower class of customer began to patronise the establishment. Douglas herself became pregnant; the child was thought to be Lord Fitzwilliam's and was the subject of much debate, although Rear Admiral Charles Holmes

Charles Holmes (Royal Navy officer)

Charles Holmes was a Rear admiral in the British Navy during the Seven Years War, and was Wolfe's third-in-command during the capture of Quebec in 1759...

, another of Douglas's lovers, later turned out to be the father. Douglas's health was beginning to fail too.

By 1759 she was unable to continue business and the lease on the King's Head passed to a relative, Amelia Douglas. She was described as "much bloated by Drink and Debauch...her Legs swelled out of shape...suffering great discomfort". She died on 10 June 1761 leaving a considerable estate. The contents of her house were sold off by her friend, the auctioneer, Abraham Langford

Abraham Langford

Abraham Langford was an English auctioneer and playwright.-Life:He was born in the parish of St Paul, Covent Garden. As a young man he wrote for the stage, and was responsible, according to the Biographia Dramatica, for an 'entertainment' called 'The Judgement of Paris,' which was produced in 1730...

. Although there was a genuine Mother Cole, Douglas supposedly forms the prototype for Mother Cole in John Cleland's

John Cleland

John Cleland was an English novelist most famous and infamous as the author of Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure....

 Fanny Hill

Fanny Hill

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is an erotic novel by John Cleland first published in England in 1748...

and together with Langford those of Mrs. Cole and Mr. Smirk in Samuel Foote's

Samuel Foote

Samuel Foote was a British dramatist, actor and theatre manager from Cornwall.-Early life:Born into a well-to-do family, Foote was baptized in Truro, Cornwall on 27 January 1720. His father, John Foote, held several public positions, including mayor of Truro, Member of Parliament representing...

The Mirror.