‍PIONEER: William Thomas Stead

‍THE two men desperately clung to the side of the life raft under the pitch black, night sky. Their feet were swollen in the freezing moonless waters of the North Atlantic as they fought to stay awake.

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‍But finally they were too tired and eyewitnesses said they couldn’t hold on any longer. They floated away to die within minutes of each other.

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‍It  was the night of April 14-15, 1912, and in the background the RMS Titanic was going down. Those two passengers were one of the richest men in the world, American business magnate John Jacob Astor and British investigative newspaper editor, William Thomas Stead, said to be “the most famous journalist in the British Empire”.

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‍This is why …

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‍“All those who are squeamish, or prudish, and all those who prefer to live in a fool's paradise of imaginary innocence and purity, selfishly oblivious to the horrible realities which torment those whose lives are passed in the London inferno, will do well NOT to read the Pall Mall Gazette on Monday!”

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‍These were the words pioneering Gazette editor Stead wrote on July 4, 1885. He was about to launch a major series on child prostitution that would shock even the dark side of the Victorian flesh trade on the streets of London.

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‍It was strangely headlined: The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, one of the most successful and powerful pieces of scandal journalism of the 19th century and in many ways eclipsed the Rotherham sex abuse cases of today.

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‍Stead and his team had spent a month putting together a secret dossier of young girls being abused in the city’s vice emporiums. The four-part series revealed in lurid detail girls as young as 11 being chloroformed and raped while unconscious; gang rape and mothers selling their school daughters to brothels.

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‍The first instalment took up six pages and Stead used eye-catching subheads like: The Violation of Virgins; The Confessions of a Brothel-Keeper, Girls Were Bought and Ruined; Female Children Were Strapped Down and English Virgins sold to Europe’s Vice Palaces.

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‍Stead (a former editor of the Northern Echo in Darlington) wrote: “Once a young girl gets into a house, she is almost helpless and may be ravished with comparative safety.”

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‍Screams don’t last long; he was told by one brothel keeper. But what is the point of screaming in a quiet bedroom? The utmost limit of howling or excessively violent screaming, such as a man or woman would make if murder was being attempted, is only two minutes, and the limit of screaming of any kind is only five.”

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‍One of the scores of madams who spoke to Stead told of a girl rendered unconscious beforehand, and when she wakes, given the choice to continue or be homeless.

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‍She said: “I engaged one to be my little maid at the lodgings where I was staying. The next day I took her to London and her mother never saw her again. What became of her? A gentleman paid me £13 for the first of her.

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‍“She was asleep when he did it — sound asleep. To tell the truth, she was drugged. It is often done. I gave the maid a drowse — a mixture of laudanum and something else. They lie almost as if dead, and the girl never knows what has happened till morning.”

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‍And then? “Oh! Then she cries a great deal from the pain, but she must now do as the others do. No one will take her in. Nine out of 10 girls who are usually under 15, give up all hope after a week and become an attraction of the house.”

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‍Stead’s story led directly to the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 which raised the age of consent for girls from 13 to 16.

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‍His new journalism was believed to have paved the way for the modern tabloid in Britain and he was on the Titanic to take part in a peace congress at the request of President William Taft.

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‍During his last hours on board that night he regaled diners with anecdotes about life in journalism through the 11-course meal. After the ship hit the iceberg, he helped women and children into the lifeboats and gave his own life jacket to one of them.

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‍(William Stead, July 5, 1849 – April 15, 1912)

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‍AFFAIRS: Bette Davis, left, and Joan Crawford 

‍What the Hollywood cameras didn’t see

‍RUMMAGING through some old features from Vanity Fair, I came across a wonderful piece on feuding stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, who it is no secret slept their way to the top of Hollywood in the 1940s and Fifties.

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‍They both collected husbands like autographs and made no secret of their affairs. As Davis once said: “I liked sex in a way that was considered unbecoming for a woman of my time. It was both a physical and emotional need. It had advantages in the pleasure it brought me, but it also made me a victim — dependent.”

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‍The feature highlights some wonderful anecdotes about those stars of yesteryear. While filming the Hollywood romantic drama Daisy Kenyon in 1947 with Henry Fonda, Crawford got the costume department to create a red-sequin jock strap, which the actress wrapped in a box and presented to her co-star.

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‍Fonda didn’t acknowledge the gift until he was carrying Crawford up the stairs in one scene. The actress leaned over and whispered in his ear that she would model it to him in private.

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‍“I nearly dropped her,” Fonda said later.

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‍But Davis had her own romantic moment with Fonda too, if you could call it that. In 1927, Fonda and a teenaged Davis met one evening to discuss their new film, Jezebel. Fonda recalled that while alone with her sitting in a quiet corner of a garden, he leaned in and gave her “a peck on the lips”.

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‍Days later, Davis sent him a letter that read, “I’ve told Mother about our lovely experience together in the moonlight. She will announce the engagement when we get home.”

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‍Fonda recalled: “Holy shit . . . one kiss and I’m engaged. That’s how naive I was. And that’s what a devil Bette Davis could be at 17. For years, whenever I saw her, I’d give her a wide berth.”

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‍While married to first husband Ham Nelson, Davis met and carried on an affair with billionaire playboy Howard Hughes and helped him beat impotence, teaching him to overcome his problems in the bedroom.

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‍But her husband hired a private detective to bug the couple’s Beverly Hills home and blackmailed both by threatening to give the Press the recording— which proved Davis’s adultery and Hughes’s impotence.

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‍Hughes paid Nelson $70,000 to destroy the recording and Davis took out a loan to repay him. In a gentlemanly gesture, Hughes sent Davis a red rose every September on the anniversary of the recording.

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‍Meanwhile Crawford was at it at well … having a quickie with Clark Gable in Miami’s Coconut Grove.

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‍Joan’s friend, writer Adela St. Johns, caught the duo in a bout of hanky-panky behind a bandstand, a few feet away from their spouses Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Ria Langham.

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‍Adela described the philandering scene in a memoir: “Gable’s wife and Crawford’s husband were sitting out front at a table. I was stunned when I found the two lovers stuck to each other. Clark had his back to me, and she had her legs wrapped around him, in a position that only a supple dancer like her could assume. I yelled something stupid at them. They straightened themselves out and adjusted their clothes and left.”

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‍THE STREET OF HANGING SHAME

‍AN English priest had the bad luck to find his way to Fleet Steet … and the gallows at corner of Fetter Lane. Christopher Bales, 26, fell foul of Richard Topcliffe, a cruel torturer at the height of his powers, hunting Catholics for Elizabeth I in 1590.

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‍His interrogations took place either in the Tower of London, Bridewell prison, or his own house in Westminster because he liked to take his work home at weekends. His methods included sleep deprivation, thumb screws and hanging a prisoner by the hands in manacles for six hours.

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‍One defiant priest angered Topcliffe so much, that when he was finally hanged, his heart was cut out and thrown onto a fire while he was still alive.

‍The Archbishop of Canterbury was told that Topcliffe would describe his fantasies of having sex with Elizabeth I to his victims as he tortured them  and he was finally removed from office.

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‍A large crowd gathered in Fleet Street for the Bales hanging where a placard above him said: “For treason and favouring foreign invasion!” As he went up the ladder, he told the crowd his only treason was his priesthood.

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‍On the same day a man named Nicholas Horner was executed by Topcliffe in Smithfield, for making Bales a jerkin to keep him warm on the run.

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‍BETTYMANIA COMES TO TOWN

‍CHILD ACTOR: William Betty

‍CROWDS lined the roads to watch him pass; troops were called to control theatre audiences, women fainted or tried to tear at his clothes, and he was ruthlessly merchandised with products from cups to dolls. No, not Beatlemania but Bettymania.

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‍In 1804 a young actor named William Betty, was headlined by the Press as “The greatest thespian in the world.” His arrival in London aged 13 provoked a deluge of press coverage.

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‍The Daily Advertiser’s headline: ‘Arrived yesterday – Young Roscius! The Wonder of the Age’ was typical. Roscius was a legendary child actor in Rome who died in 62 BC.

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‍His first appearance on stage was at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden and Prime Minister William Pitt adjourned the House of Commons early so that members could attend Betty’s debut as Hamlet. The Prince of Wales led fashionable society in idolising him.

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‍Outside the doors of the theatre that first night, guards were hired to handle the anxious crowd waiting to get a glimpse of the child sensation. Constables stood inside the theatre, ready to crush any chaos. Once the doors were open, people flooded inside to find seats, creating mayhem.

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‍A newspaper report said: “The shrieks and screams of choking, trampled people were terrible. Fights for places raged; constables were beaten back; the boxes were invaded. It was so hot that men all but lifeless were lifted and dragged into the lobbies which had windows.”

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‍Betty achieved his greatest success in roles such as Young Norval, Romeo and Hamlet, where he portrayed youth and innocence. Critics hailed his Hamlet as being superior to legendary actor David Garrick’s.

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‍The youthful roles Betty played enabled him to wear costumes and make-up that emphasised his beauty. His father traded on this by allowing select men of fashion into his dressing room to watch him change. A publicity advert for him said: ‘I’ve a wondrous rod in pickle … and a pretty little Bum to tickle.’

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‍For two years, Master Betty was fashion’s favourite. People followed his dress colours and outfits. He was taken to see actress Lady Hamilton in her celebrated ‘Attitudes’, a form of live performance where she would transform into various figures depicted in classical sculptures or paintings.

‍When she pecked his cheek, he is reputed to have told her, ‘I’m too old to be kissed, like a child now Ma’am.’

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‍Betty’s fate was sealed shortly before his 15th birthday. His novelty value had worn off and other young stars emerged. Infant prodigies became boring. As his career went downhill, he disappeared from the scene for a while and attempted suicide twice. He returned to the stage in later life. But his career was largely over.

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‍TERRY MANNERS

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‍21 April 2025

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