Whipping Tom: Difference between revisions
No edit summary |
m alignment between caption and quote |
||
(46 intermediate revisions by 18 users not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{Short description|Three 17th- and 18th-century perverts}} |
|||
{{Redirect|Thomas Wallis|the British architect|Wallis, Gilbert and Partners|the former Archdeacon of Merioneth|Wallis Thomas}} |
|||
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} |
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} |
||
{{for|the annual event in Leicester|Leicester's Whipping Toms}} |
|||
[[File:Whipping Tom.jpg |
[[File:Whipping Tom.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|"Whipping Tom" and "Skipping Ione" (Joan), c. 1681{{efn|It is not known whom "Skipping Ione" represents, and there are no other references to her; it is likely that she was invented by the artist as a partner for Whipping Tom.{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=307}}}}|alt=Drawing of a man and woman, each holding a three-tailed whip]] |
||
"'''Whipping Tom'''" was the nickname given to |
"'''Whipping Tom'''" was the nickname given to attackers involved in three episodes of [[sexual assault]]s in London and the nearby village of [[Hackney (parish)|Hackney]]. In all three, women walking alone were attacked and their buttocks thrashed, sometimes leading to serious injuries and—in one case—[[miscarriage]] and death. |
||
While there is some evidence that |
While there is some evidence that the first attacker in around 1672 was nicknamed "Whipping Tom" and carried out such attacks on women, the earliest recorded attacker of this nature was active in central London in 1681. He would approach unaccompanied women in alleys and courtyards at the east side of [[City of London|the city]], bend them over his knee, lift their dress and spank them on the buttocks before fleeing. The speed of his attacks and disappearances led many to think he had supernatural powers. The inability of the authorities to apprehend the offender caused complaints about the ineffectiveness of London's [[Watchman (law enforcement)#Watchmen in England|watchmen]], and prompted [[vigilante]] patrols in the affected areas. A local [[haberdasher]] and his accomplice were captured and imprisoned for the attacks. |
||
A |
A third attacker nicknamed "Whipping Tom" was active in late 1712 in Hackney, then a village outside London. This attacker would approach lone women and beat them on their buttocks with a birch rod, violently enough to draw blood. Around 70 attacks were carried out before a local man named Thomas Wallis was captured and confessed to the attacks. He was sentenced to imprisonment for one year, during which he was to be [[birched]] twice a week by two maids. He was also to be stood in the pillory five times during the year and on his release made to [[run the gauntlet]] through two hundred women. |
||
==1681== |
|||
==Earlier Whipping Toms== |
|||
[[File:Whipping-Tom, imagined in 1684.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=One man holds down a woman while another is about to thrash her; various others are looking on in alarm|Whipping-Tom, imagined in 1684{{sfn|"Whipping-Tom Turn'd Citizen: or, The Crack's Terror", 1864}}]] |
|||
Although no record exists of any similar attacks prior to 1681 or of the nickname "Whipping Tom" existing prior to this date, a publication of 1681 mentions "the Generation of that Whipping Tom, that about Nine years since proved such an Enemy to the Milk-wenches Bums", implying that a similar attacker with the same nickname had operated in or around 1672. |
|||
The Whipping Tom of 1681 was active in the warren of small courtyards around [[Fleet Street]], the [[Strand, London|Strand]], [[Fetter Lane]] and [[Holborn]], where he would wait after dark for unaccompanied women.{{sfn|Bondeson|2005|p=201}}{{sfn|Shoemaker|2004|p=277}} It was reported that he approached his victims, "seize[ed] upon such as he can conveniently light on, and turning them up as nimble as an eel, ... [made] their Butt ends cry Spanko; and then ... vanished".{{sfn|"Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", 1681|p=1}}{{efn|Rather than his victims' "Butt ends cry[ing] Spanko", sources have subsequently described Whipping Tom as the one shouting "Spanko!".{{sfn|Hamerton|2023|p=204}}{{sfn|Bartholomew|Weatherhead|2024|p=167}}}} His probable first attack was in New Street on a maid servant: |
|||
⚫ | <blockquote>... who being sent out to look for her master, as she was turning a corner, perceived a tall black man standing up against the wall, as if he had been making water, but she had not passed far, but with great speed and violence seized her, and in a trice, laying her across his knee, took up her linen, and laid so hard up-on her backside, as made her cry out most piteously for help, the which he no sooner perceiving to approach (as she declares) then he vanished.{{sfn|"Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", 1681|pp=1–2}}</blockquote> |
||
==Whipping Tom of 1681== |
|||
⚫ | |||
The Whipping Tom of 1681 was active in the warren of small courtyards between [[Fleet Street]], [[Strand, London|Strand]] and [[Holborn]].{{sfn|Bondeson|2000|p=201}} He would wait in the narrow and dimly lit alleys and courtyards.{{sfn|Shoemaker|2004|p=276}} After approaching an unaccompanied woman, he would grab her strongly, lift her dress, and slap her buttocks repeatedly with his hand before fleeing.{{sfn|Toulalan|2007|p=107}} He would sometimes accompany his attacks by shouting "Spanko!"{{sfn|Bondeson|2000|p=201}} |
|||
The description of a "tall black man" is possibly a reference to his clothing (including wearing a black mask),{{sfn|Inglis|2009}}{{sfn|Bartholomew|Weatherhead|2024|p=166}} or the practice of referring to [[the Devil]] as a "black man", rather than Whipping Tom's ethnicity.{{sfn|Toulalan|2007|p=108}} The historian Sarah Toulalan observes that the description of the attack is ambiguous: he "laid so hard up-on her backside" could be either construed as spanking or sodomy.{{sfn|Toulalan|2007|p=108}}{{efn|The original wording is presented as "lay'd so hard-up".{{sfn|"Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", 1681|p=2}}}} |
|||
⚫ | |||
⚫ | For his attacks, Whipping Tom would often use his bare hand, although he would occasionally use a rod.{{sfn|Bondeson|2005|p=202}} He attacked a large number of women, and some of his victims were left badly injured by the attacks.{{sfn|Loth|1931|p=312}}{{sfn|Luttrell|1857|p=157}} One pregnant woman who was attacked but not spanked was so scared that she [[miscarried]] and died a week later.{{sfn|Bartholomew|Weatherhead|2024|p=167}} His victims would report that their assailant would appear, carry out his attacks and vanish with speed; because of his ability to seemingly disappear, some people attributed him with supernatural powers.{{sfnm|1a1=Bondeson|1y=2005|1p=202|2a1=Shoemaker|2y=2004|2p=280|3a1=Hirschfeld|3y=1935|3p=331}} |
||
There was a great public outcry in response to the attacks, which prompted complaints about the ineffectiveness of London's policing arrangements at the time.{{sfn|Burg|1995|p=23}} Women would carry "[[penknife|penknives]], sharp [[Sewing needle|bodkins]], [[scissors]] and the like",{{sfn|Shoemaker|2004|p=279}} and male [[vigilante]]s would dress in women's clothing and patrol the areas he was known to operate.{{sfn|Shoemaker|2004|p=280}} |
|||
The attacks caused public consternation and demands for his capture.{{sfn|Burg|1995|p=23}} Patrols of [[vigilantes]] tried to capture him but failed, and some men would dress in women's clothing in an attempt to capture him; none succeeded, nor did the [[Watchman (law enforcement)#Watchmen in England|watchmen]] who patrolled London's streets.{{sfnm|1a1=Bartholomew|1a2=Weatherhead|1y=2024|1p=167|2a1=Shoemaker|2y=2004|2p=280}} While many women did not go out after dark, others would "go armed with [[penknives]], sharp [[Sewing needle|bodkins]], scissors and the like",{{sfn|"Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", 1681|p=2}}{{sfn|Shoemaker|2004|p=279}} although one woman who was attacked and spanked stated that her assailant was wearing armour.{{sfn|Bartholomew|Weatherhead|2024|p=167}} |
|||
A [[haberdasher]] from Holborn and an accomplice were captured in late 1681 and tried for the attacks,{{sfn|Luttrell|1857|p=156}} although no record now exists of the trial or of their identities.{{sfn|Burg|1995|p=23}} In 1681, ''Whipping Tom Brought to Light and Exposed to View'', an anonymously written book about the attacks, was released.{{sfn|Bondeson|2000|p=202}} |
|||
The historian and [[diary|diarist]] [[Narcissus Luttrell]] reported that there were two assailants imprisoned for the offences; one was a [[haberdasher]] from Holborn.{{sfn|Luttrell|1857|p=157}} Although most sources describe there being two assailants, a letter in 1681 from Lady Anne Stowe to [[Catherine Manners, Duchess of Rutland]], describes "a company of men, they say fifty or more, which are called Whipping Tom".{{sfn|Amussen|1995|p=219}} |
|||
==Whipping Tom of 1712== |
|||
Between 10 October and 1 December 1712 a string of further attacks took place in fields near [[Hackney (parish)|Hackney]]. This attacker, also nicknamed "Whipping Tom",{{sfn|Toulalan|2007|p=108}} would approach lone women and beat them with "a Great Rodd of Birch".{{sfn|Ashton|1937|p=72}} Around 70 women were assaulted before a local man named Thomas Wallis was captured and confessed to the attacks.{{sfn|Toulalan|2007|p=108}}{{sfn|Ashton|1937|p=72}} According to Wallis, he was "resolved to be Revenged on all the women he could come at after that manner, for the sake of one Perjur'd Female, who had been Barbarously False to him".{{sfn|Ashton|1937|p=72}} He claimed that his plan was to attack a hundred women before Christmas, cease the attacks during the [[Twelve Days of Christmas]], then resume the attacks in the new year.{{sfn|Ashton|1937|p=72}} |
|||
[[File:Whipping Tom, imagined in c.1679.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=One man holds a woman up, with her skirts raised; a second man is about to thrash her with a branch|Whipping Tom, imagined in {{circa|1679}}{{sfn|"Whipping Tom, or, The Deceitfull Kinsman", c. 1679}}]] |
|||
==See also== |
|||
In 1681 an anonymously written short history of the events, "Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", was published. This is available in the [[British Library]] along with several contemporary pamphlets and poems about the events.{{sfn|Bondeson|2005|p=202}} The work focuses on the lewd aspects of the story,{{sfn|Bartholomew|Weatherhead|2024|p=167}} and the academic [[David Savran]] classifies the work as one of the many pornographic pieces published during the [[Stuart Restoration]].{{sfn|Savran|1998|p=19}} The broadsheet referred to "the generation of that Whipping Tom, that about nine years since proved such an enemy to the milk-wenches bums";{{sfn|"Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", 1681}} this likely refers to an attacker under the name "Whipping Tom" who had been operating in or around 1672, according to several sources.{{efn|These include Malcolm Jones, a historian specialising in folklore and folklife;{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=306}} and the psychologist [[Robert Bartholomew]] and philosopher Paul Weatherhead.{{sfn|Bartholomew|Weatherhead|2024|p=167}}}} |
|||
*[[London Monster]] |
|||
*[[Spring-heeled Jack]] |
|||
==1712 recurrence== |
|||
[[File:1754 Map of London Tirion, marked to show the actions of two Whipping Toms.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|alt=see caption|London and its environs showing (circled in the city) the area in which the 1681 Whipping Tom was active; circuled in the top right is where the Hackney Whipping Tom of 1712 was active]] |
|||
Between 10 October and 1 December 1712 a string of further attacks took place in fields near [[Hackney (parish)|Hackney]], at that time a village {{convert|3|mi|spell=in}} northeast of London. A local man, Thomas Wallis, attacked lone women, raising their skirts and beating them "with a great rod of birch, that the blood ran down their tender bodies in a sad and dreadful manner".{{sfn|Ashton|1968|p=302}}{{sfn|"The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom", 1740}}{{sfn|Newcourt|1708|p=617}} He was arrested after seventy women had been attacked; his [[indictment]] was composed of: |
|||
<blockquote>... three sheets of paper of very wicked actions, not only of taking up the women's coats and viewing their nakedness, and exposing many a pretty female's backside to the extremity of the wind and rainy weather; but even then in a violent and unmerciful way, lashed their tender buttocks, hips and thighs.{{sfn|"The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom", 1740}}</blockquote> |
|||
He pleaded [[Not guilty (plea)|not guilty]] and said that all women "deserved ten times more than either whip or rod could possibly afford them".{{sfn|"The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom", 1740}}{{sfn|Hamerton|2023|pp=204–205}} Hamerton describes Wallis's explanation as "a form of misogynistic revenge" after Wallis said that he was "resolved to be revenged on all the women he could come at after that manner, for the sake of one perjured female, who had been barbarously false to him".{{sfn|Ashton|1968|p=302}}{{sfn|Hamerton|2023|p=205}} He claimed that his plan was to attack a hundred women before [[Christmas Day]], cease the attacks during the [[Twelve Days of Christmas]], then resume the attacks in the New Year.{{sfn|Ashton|1968|p=302}} |
|||
The report of the Wallis's activities and trial are from the report "The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom"; Toulalan identifies the document as "Humorous narrative ... combined with sexually explicit and titillating detail, providing both erotic and comic entertainment".{{sfn|Toulalan|2007|p=108}} As an example of this, Toulalan highlights the description of one attack: |
|||
<blockquote>Mary Sutten the milkmaid of Hackney also deposed that when the prisoner whipped her backside in a ditch near Shoulder of Mutton Fields, to prevent her crying out, he stuffed his handkerchief into her mouth, and would have thrust something else into another place, had not the watchmen come happily to her assistance.{{sfn|"The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom", 1740}}{{sfn|Toulalan|2007|p=108}}</blockquote> |
|||
The historian Lucy Inglis—while calling Wallis "a dangerous deviant"—identifies that his "attacks began with a spanking but soon evolved into serious sexual assault".{{sfn|Inglis|2009}} He was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for one year at [[Bridewell Prison]], where he was to be [[birched]] twice a week by two maids "till the blood on his back comes in six places".{{sfn|"The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom", 1740}} He was also to be stood in the pillory: once each at the [[Royal Exchange, London|Royal Exchange]] and [[Temple Bar, London|Temple Bar]] and three times at St Margaret's Hill in [[Southwark]]. When he was released from prison, he was to [[run the gauntlet]] through "200 maids, wives and widows in [[Cheapside]]".{{sfn|"The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom", 1740}}{{sfn|Cawthorne|2006|p=209}} |
|||
The legal scholar Christopher Hamerton considers that the reason Whipping Tom's history gained notoriety at a time when sexualised violence was common, was due to the "very deviance that provided the engaging factor".{{sfn|Hamerton|2023|p=205}} As examples, he cites the violent attacks in London that ended in 1712 by the gang known as the [[Mohocks]], as well as the [[sexual assault]]s by [[Francis Charteris (rake)|Francis Charteris]]—nicknamed "The Rape-Master General"—and later serious attacks in 1761 by the group the Young Bloods and in the 1780s by [[Lascar]] seamen. Hamerton also considers that there were some who saw Whipping Tom as a moral crusader, providing a form of [[social justice]] against dissolute women.{{sfn|Hamerton|2023|p=205}} |
|||
==Notes and references== |
==Notes and references== |
||
⚫ | |||
{{Reflist|group=n}} |
|||
⚫ | |||
{{Reflist|colwidth=25em}} |
|||
⚫ | |||
;Bibliography |
|||
{{notes}} |
|||
⚫ | |||
{{reflist}} |
|||
===Sources=== |
|||
{{refbegin}} |
{{refbegin}} |
||
*{{citation|last=Ashton|first=John|title=Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne|volume=2|year=1937|publisher=Chatto & Windus|location=London}} |
|||
====Books==== |
|||
*{{citation|last=Bondeson|first=Jan|title=The London Monster|edition=3rd|year=2000|publisher=Tempus Publishing|location=Stroud|isbn=0-7524-3327-X}} |
|||
* {{cite book|last1=Amussen|first1=Susan Dwyer|editor1-last=Amussen|editor1-first=Susan Dwyer|editor2-last=Kishlansky|editor2-first=Mark A.|editor2-link=Mark Kishlansky|title=Political Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern Europe|date=1995|publisher=Manchester University Press|location=Manchester|isbn=978-0-7190-4695-7|pages=213-233|chapter='The Part of a Christian Man': The Cultural Politics of Manhood in Early Modern England|url=https://archive.org/details/politicalculture0000unse_d5m2/mode/2up}} |
|||
*{{citation|last=Burg|first=Barry Richard|title=Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition|year=1995|publisher=NYU Press|location=New York|isbn=0-8147-1236-3}} |
|||
*{{ |
* {{cite book|last=Ashton|first=John|title=Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne|volume=2|year=1968|url=https://archive.org/details/sociallifeinreig0000john_h1v8/page/n1/mode/2up|publisher=Chatto & Windus|location=London|oclc=2014249}} |
||
* {{cite book|last1=Bartholomew|first1=Robert E.|last2=Weatherhead|first2=Paul|author1-link=Robert Bartholomew|title=Social Panics & Phantom Attackers|date=2024|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=Singapore|isbn=978-9-8197-4271-4|doi=10.1007/978-981-97-4272-1}} |
|||
⚫ | |||
*{{ |
* {{cite book|last=Bondeson|first=Jan|author-link=Jan Bondeson|title=The London Monster|url=https://archive.org/details/londonmonsterter0000bond/mode/2up|year=2005|publisher=Tempus Publishing|location=Stroud|isbn=978-0-7524-3327-1}} |
||
*{{ |
* {{cite book|last=Burg|first=Barry Richard|title=Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition|year=1995|url=https://archive.org/details/sodomypiratetra00burg|publisher=New York University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-8147-1073-9}} |
||
* {{cite book|last1=Cawthorne|first1=Nigel|author1-link=Nigel Cawthorne|title=The Amorous Antics of Old England|date=2006|publisher=Portrait|location=London|isbn=978-0-7499-5100-9|url=https://archive.org/details/amorousanticsofo0000cawt/mode/2up}} |
|||
{{refend}} |
|||
* {{cite book|last1=Hamerton|first1=Christopher|title=Devilry, Deviance and Public Sphere: The Social Discovery of Moral Panic in Eighteenth Century London|date=2023|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=Cham|isbn=978-3-0311-4882-8|doi=10.1007/978-3-031-14883-5}} |
|||
* {{cite book|last1=Hirschfeld|first1=Magnus|author1-link=Magnus Hirschfeld|title=Sexual Anomalies: The Origin, Nature and Treatment of Sexual Disorders|date=1935|publisher=Emerson|location=New York|url=https://archive.org/details/B20442233/mode/2up|oclc=1185732198}} |
|||
* {{cite book|last1=Jones|first1=Malcolm|title=The Print in Early Modern England: An Historical Oversight|date=2010|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven, Connecticut|isbn=978-0-3001-3697-5|url=https://archive.org/details/printinearlymode0000jone/mode/2up}} |
|||
* {{cite book|last=Loth|first=David|title=Royal Charles: Ruler and Rake|year=1931|url=https://archive.org/details/royalcharlesrule0000davi|publisher=G. Routledge & Sons|location=London|oclc=15434360}} |
|||
⚫ | * {{cite book|last=Luttrell|first=Narcissus|authorlink=Narcissus Luttrell|title=A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714|volume=1|year=1857|url=https://archive.org/details/abriefhistorica01luttgoog/mode/2up|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|oclc=1103563517}} |
||
* {{cite book|last1=Newcourt|first1=Richard|author1-link=Richard Newcourt (historian)|title=Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense: An Ecclesiastical Parochial History of the Diocese of London|date=1708|publisher=Benjamin Motte|location=London|oclc=2666263|url=https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_repertorium-ecclesiastic_newcourt-richard_1708_1/mode/2up}} |
|||
* {{cite book|last1=Savran|first1=David|author1-link=David Savran|title=Taking it Like a Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Contemporary American Culture|date=1998|publisher=Princeton University Press|location=Princeton, New Jersey|isbn=978-0-6910-5876-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/takingitlikemanw0000savr_c6e8/mode/2up}} |
|||
* {{cite book|last=Shoemaker|first=Robert Brink|title=The London Mob: Violence and Disorder in Eighteenth-Century England|year=2004|url=https://archive.org/details/londonmobviolenc0000shoe|publisher=Hambledon and London|location=London|isbn=978-1-8528-5373-0}} |
|||
* {{cite book|last=Toulalan|first=Sarah|title=Imagining Sex: Pornography and Bodies in Seventeenth-Century England|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-1992-0914-9}} |
|||
====Pamphlets==== |
|||
* {{cite web|title=The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom|url=https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-tryal-examination-a_wallis-thomas_1740|date=1740|publisher=A Hawkins|location=London|oclc=181833022|ref={{sfnRef|"The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom", 1740}}}} |
|||
* {{cite web|title=Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View|url=https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_whipping-tom-brought-to-_1681/mode/2up|publisher=Edward Brooks|location=London|date=1681|oclc=503996003|ref={{sfnRef|"Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", 1681}}}} |
|||
* {{cite web|title=Whipping Tom, or, The Deceitfull Kinsman|date=c. 1679|url=https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/21949/image|publisher=F. Cole, T. Vere, J. Wright, F Clark, W Thackery and T. Passenger|location=London|oclc=798386886|ref={{sfnRef|"Whipping Tom, or, The Deceitfull Kinsman", c. 1679}}}} |
|||
* {{cite web|title=Whipping-Tom Turn'd Citizen: or, The Crack's Terror|url=https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_whipping-tom-turnd-citi_1684/page/n1/mode/2up|publisher=P. Brooksby|location=London|oclc=180713796|date=1684|ref={{sfnRef|"Whipping-Tom Turn'd Citizen: or, The Crack's Terror", 1864}}}} |
|||
====Websites==== |
|||
* {{cite web|last1=Inglis|first1=Lucy|title=Whipping Tom, The Crack's Terror|date=5 November 2009|url=https://www.georgianlondon.com/post/49463366624/whipping-tom-the-cracks-terror|website=Georgian London|access-date=2 January 2025|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170503074941/https://www.georgianlondon.com/post/49463366624/whipping-tom-the-cracks-terror|archive-date=3 May 2017}} <!-- Inglis is a published author. See https://web.archive.org/web/20170518054217/http://georgianlondon.com/about for details of the reliability of her site --> |
|||
{{Refend}} |
|||
[[Category:London crime history]] |
[[Category:London crime history]] |
||
[[Category:Sex crimes in England]] |
[[Category:Sex crimes in England]] |
||
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]] |
|||
[[Category:17th-century English criminals]] |
|||
[[Category:18th-century English criminals]] |
Revision as of 22:09, 9 January 2025
"Whipping Tom" was the nickname given to attackers involved in three episodes of sexual assaults in London and the nearby village of Hackney. In all three, women walking alone were attacked and their buttocks thrashed, sometimes leading to serious injuries and—in one case—miscarriage and death.
While there is some evidence that the first attacker in around 1672 was nicknamed "Whipping Tom" and carried out such attacks on women, the earliest recorded attacker of this nature was active in central London in 1681. He would approach unaccompanied women in alleys and courtyards at the east side of the city, bend them over his knee, lift their dress and spank them on the buttocks before fleeing. The speed of his attacks and disappearances led many to think he had supernatural powers. The inability of the authorities to apprehend the offender caused complaints about the ineffectiveness of London's watchmen, and prompted vigilante patrols in the affected areas. A local haberdasher and his accomplice were captured and imprisoned for the attacks.
A third attacker nicknamed "Whipping Tom" was active in late 1712 in Hackney, then a village outside London. This attacker would approach lone women and beat them on their buttocks with a birch rod, violently enough to draw blood. Around 70 attacks were carried out before a local man named Thomas Wallis was captured and confessed to the attacks. He was sentenced to imprisonment for one year, during which he was to be birched twice a week by two maids. He was also to be stood in the pillory five times during the year and on his release made to run the gauntlet through two hundred women.
1681
The Whipping Tom of 1681 was active in the warren of small courtyards around Fleet Street, the Strand, Fetter Lane and Holborn, where he would wait after dark for unaccompanied women.[3][4] It was reported that he approached his victims, "seize[ed] upon such as he can conveniently light on, and turning them up as nimble as an eel, ... [made] their Butt ends cry Spanko; and then ... vanished".[5][b] His probable first attack was in New Street on a maid servant:
... who being sent out to look for her master, as she was turning a corner, perceived a tall black man standing up against the wall, as if he had been making water, but she had not passed far, but with great speed and violence seized her, and in a trice, laying her across his knee, took up her linen, and laid so hard up-on her backside, as made her cry out most piteously for help, the which he no sooner perceiving to approach (as she declares) then he vanished.[8]
The description of a "tall black man" is possibly a reference to his clothing (including wearing a black mask),[9][10] or the practice of referring to the Devil as a "black man", rather than Whipping Tom's ethnicity.[11] The historian Sarah Toulalan observes that the description of the attack is ambiguous: he "laid so hard up-on her backside" could be either construed as spanking or sodomy.[11][c]
For his attacks, Whipping Tom would often use his bare hand, although he would occasionally use a rod.[13] He attacked a large number of women, and some of his victims were left badly injured by the attacks.[14][15] One pregnant woman who was attacked but not spanked was so scared that she miscarried and died a week later.[7] His victims would report that their assailant would appear, carry out his attacks and vanish with speed; because of his ability to seemingly disappear, some people attributed him with supernatural powers.[16]
The attacks caused public consternation and demands for his capture.[17] Patrols of vigilantes tried to capture him but failed, and some men would dress in women's clothing in an attempt to capture him; none succeeded, nor did the watchmen who patrolled London's streets.[18] While many women did not go out after dark, others would "go armed with penknives, sharp bodkins, scissors and the like",[12][19] although one woman who was attacked and spanked stated that her assailant was wearing armour.[7]
The historian and diarist Narcissus Luttrell reported that there were two assailants imprisoned for the offences; one was a haberdasher from Holborn.[15] Although most sources describe there being two assailants, a letter in 1681 from Lady Anne Stowe to Catherine Manners, Duchess of Rutland, describes "a company of men, they say fifty or more, which are called Whipping Tom".[20]
In 1681 an anonymously written short history of the events, "Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", was published. This is available in the British Library along with several contemporary pamphlets and poems about the events.[13] The work focuses on the lewd aspects of the story,[7] and the academic David Savran classifies the work as one of the many pornographic pieces published during the Stuart Restoration.[22] The broadsheet referred to "the generation of that Whipping Tom, that about nine years since proved such an enemy to the milk-wenches bums";[23] this likely refers to an attacker under the name "Whipping Tom" who had been operating in or around 1672, according to several sources.[d]
1712 recurrence
Between 10 October and 1 December 1712 a string of further attacks took place in fields near Hackney, at that time a village three miles (4.8 km) northeast of London. A local man, Thomas Wallis, attacked lone women, raising their skirts and beating them "with a great rod of birch, that the blood ran down their tender bodies in a sad and dreadful manner".[25][26][27] He was arrested after seventy women had been attacked; his indictment was composed of:
... three sheets of paper of very wicked actions, not only of taking up the women's coats and viewing their nakedness, and exposing many a pretty female's backside to the extremity of the wind and rainy weather; but even then in a violent and unmerciful way, lashed their tender buttocks, hips and thighs.[26]
He pleaded not guilty and said that all women "deserved ten times more than either whip or rod could possibly afford them".[26][28] Hamerton describes Wallis's explanation as "a form of misogynistic revenge" after Wallis said that he was "resolved to be revenged on all the women he could come at after that manner, for the sake of one perjured female, who had been barbarously false to him".[25][29] He claimed that his plan was to attack a hundred women before Christmas Day, cease the attacks during the Twelve Days of Christmas, then resume the attacks in the New Year.[25]
The report of the Wallis's activities and trial are from the report "The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom"; Toulalan identifies the document as "Humorous narrative ... combined with sexually explicit and titillating detail, providing both erotic and comic entertainment".[11] As an example of this, Toulalan highlights the description of one attack:
Mary Sutten the milkmaid of Hackney also deposed that when the prisoner whipped her backside in a ditch near Shoulder of Mutton Fields, to prevent her crying out, he stuffed his handkerchief into her mouth, and would have thrust something else into another place, had not the watchmen come happily to her assistance.[26][11]
The historian Lucy Inglis—while calling Wallis "a dangerous deviant"—identifies that his "attacks began with a spanking but soon evolved into serious sexual assault".[9] He was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for one year at Bridewell Prison, where he was to be birched twice a week by two maids "till the blood on his back comes in six places".[26] He was also to be stood in the pillory: once each at the Royal Exchange and Temple Bar and three times at St Margaret's Hill in Southwark. When he was released from prison, he was to run the gauntlet through "200 maids, wives and widows in Cheapside".[26][30]
The legal scholar Christopher Hamerton considers that the reason Whipping Tom's history gained notoriety at a time when sexualised violence was common, was due to the "very deviance that provided the engaging factor".[29] As examples, he cites the violent attacks in London that ended in 1712 by the gang known as the Mohocks, as well as the sexual assaults by Francis Charteris—nicknamed "The Rape-Master General"—and later serious attacks in 1761 by the group the Young Bloods and in the 1780s by Lascar seamen. Hamerton also considers that there were some who saw Whipping Tom as a moral crusader, providing a form of social justice against dissolute women.[29]
Notes and references
Notes
- ^ It is not known whom "Skipping Ione" represents, and there are no other references to her; it is likely that she was invented by the artist as a partner for Whipping Tom.[1]
- ^ Rather than his victims' "Butt ends cry[ing] Spanko", sources have subsequently described Whipping Tom as the one shouting "Spanko!".[6][7]
- ^ The original wording is presented as "lay'd so hard-up".[12]
- ^ These include Malcolm Jones, a historian specialising in folklore and folklife;[24] and the psychologist Robert Bartholomew and philosopher Paul Weatherhead.[7]
References
- ^ Jones 2010, p. 307.
- ^ "Whipping-Tom Turn'd Citizen: or, The Crack's Terror", 1864.
- ^ Bondeson 2005, p. 201.
- ^ Shoemaker 2004, p. 277.
- ^ "Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", 1681, p. 1.
- ^ Hamerton 2023, p. 204.
- ^ a b c d e Bartholomew & Weatherhead 2024, p. 167.
- ^ "Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", 1681, pp. 1–2.
- ^ a b Inglis 2009.
- ^ Bartholomew & Weatherhead 2024, p. 166.
- ^ a b c d Toulalan 2007, p. 108.
- ^ a b "Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", 1681, p. 2.
- ^ a b Bondeson 2005, p. 202.
- ^ Loth 1931, p. 312.
- ^ a b Luttrell 1857, p. 157.
- ^ Bondeson 2005, p. 202; Shoemaker 2004, p. 280; Hirschfeld 1935, p. 331.
- ^ Burg 1995, p. 23.
- ^ Bartholomew & Weatherhead 2024, p. 167; Shoemaker 2004, p. 280.
- ^ Shoemaker 2004, p. 279.
- ^ Amussen 1995, p. 219.
- ^ "Whipping Tom, or, The Deceitfull Kinsman", c. 1679.
- ^ Savran 1998, p. 19.
- ^ "Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View", 1681.
- ^ Jones 2010, p. 306.
- ^ a b c Ashton 1968, p. 302.
- ^ a b c d e f "The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom", 1740.
- ^ Newcourt 1708, p. 617.
- ^ Hamerton 2023, pp. 204–205.
- ^ a b c Hamerton 2023, p. 205.
- ^ Cawthorne 2006, p. 209.
Sources
Books
- Amussen, Susan Dwyer (1995). "'The Part of a Christian Man': The Cultural Politics of Manhood in Early Modern England". In Amussen, Susan Dwyer; Kishlansky, Mark A. (eds.). Political Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 213–233. ISBN 978-0-7190-4695-7.
- Ashton, John (1968). Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne. Vol. 2. London: Chatto & Windus. OCLC 2014249.
- Bartholomew, Robert E.; Weatherhead, Paul (2024). Social Panics & Phantom Attackers. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-981-97-4272-1. ISBN 978-9-8197-4271-4.
- Bondeson, Jan (2005). The London Monster. Stroud: Tempus Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7524-3327-1.
- Burg, Barry Richard (1995). Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-1073-9.
- Cawthorne, Nigel (2006). The Amorous Antics of Old England. London: Portrait. ISBN 978-0-7499-5100-9.
- Hamerton, Christopher (2023). Devilry, Deviance and Public Sphere: The Social Discovery of Moral Panic in Eighteenth Century London. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-14883-5. ISBN 978-3-0311-4882-8.
- Hirschfeld, Magnus (1935). Sexual Anomalies: The Origin, Nature and Treatment of Sexual Disorders. New York: Emerson. OCLC 1185732198.
- Jones, Malcolm (2010). The Print in Early Modern England: An Historical Oversight. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-3001-3697-5.
- Loth, David (1931). Royal Charles: Ruler and Rake. London: G. Routledge & Sons. OCLC 15434360.
- Luttrell, Narcissus (1857). A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. OCLC 1103563517.
- Newcourt, Richard (1708). Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense: An Ecclesiastical Parochial History of the Diocese of London. London: Benjamin Motte. OCLC 2666263.
- Savran, David (1998). Taking it Like a Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Contemporary American Culture. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-6910-5876-4.
- Shoemaker, Robert Brink (2004). The London Mob: Violence and Disorder in Eighteenth-Century England. London: Hambledon and London. ISBN 978-1-8528-5373-0.
- Toulalan, Sarah (2007). Imagining Sex: Pornography and Bodies in Seventeenth-Century England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1992-0914-9.
Pamphlets
- "The Tryal, Examination and Conviction; of Thomas Wallis, Vulgarly Called Whipping Tom". London: A Hawkins. 1740. OCLC 181833022.
- "Whipping Tom Brought to Light, and Exposed to View". London: Edward Brooks. 1681. OCLC 503996003.
- "Whipping Tom, or, The Deceitfull Kinsman". London: F. Cole, T. Vere, J. Wright, F Clark, W Thackery and T. Passenger. c. 1679. OCLC 798386886.
- "Whipping-Tom Turn'd Citizen: or, The Crack's Terror". London: P. Brooksby. 1684. OCLC 180713796.
Websites
- Inglis, Lucy (5 November 2009). "Whipping Tom, The Crack's Terror". Georgian London. Archived from the original on 3 May 2017. Retrieved 2 January 2025.