ALDERSHOT AND IT'S LOCK HOSPITAL The Ordnance Survey map of Aldershot of 1869 shows a large building on Greenham's Hill facing the Farnborough Road between Pavilion Road and Chetwode Terrace. This is marked as a Lock Hospital The building was originally a police station and was used as such until 186 1. The building was also shown on the Aldershot maps as late as 1888, it later became a W.D. store and was eventually condemned and demolished and no trace remains today. Lock Hospitals were built at the behest of the military authorities who were concerned at the high rate of venereal disease amongst soldiers and sailors. A report in the pages of the "Lancet" in 1859 stated at the need for control over prostitution for at Aldershot for example "the most disgraceful degree of licentiousness prevails in the outskirts of the camp". It claimed that there were 422 admissions to Army hospitals due to venereal disease for every 1,000 men in the Army and urged that special hospitals be established for prostitutes. Doctors saw garrison-town regulations as the first step towards wider medical regulation. Three acts of Parliament (The Contagious Diseases Acts) were passed in 1864, 1866 and 1869 whkich prcvkk:=l fir the perbdic gmital examination of any woman suspected of being a prostitute and living in a town with a large military population. Women who were found to be diseased were forced into special "lock" hospitals until they were cured. Treatment consisted of applications of mercury ointment, which suppressed the symptoms of syphilis but could cause kidney disease, and often caused paihl burning. The treatment was compulsory only for women; to support this double standard, a military doctor said periodic examinations of the soldiers "would destroy the men's self respect". It was also believed that venereal disease could only be passed from women to men and not the other way round. Women who refused treatment could be imprisoned and possibly put to hard labour, whilst those suspected of harbouring a prostitute suspected of being infected could also be arrested. Innocent women as well as practising prostitutes were harassed by these Acts. Since there was no legal definition of a "common prostitute " an accused woman bore the brunt of proving her virtue. The police in garrison towns such as Aldershot were notoriously brutal and could not be prosecuted for false arrest of a woman they considered to be a prostitute so that many innocent but illiterate lower class girls, unaware of their legal rights may have been arrested. One of the main sources of historic records for locating individuals in Aldershot and their occupations are the decennial censuses. The 1861 census, the first one available after the camp was founded in 1854 only lists one prostitute, a 20-year-old from Lancashire who was a prisoner in the police cells on the night of the census (7 April 1861) Respectable females on the census mostly have a blank space where the occupation is listed and there are various lodging houses in the town containing a high occupancy of females between the ages of 16 and 28 whose occupation is "nil" where it might be imagined that the enumerator is trying to tell the reader something with typical Victorian reticence. The Lock hospital does not appear on this census. In 1862 Mis Louisa Daniel1 and her devoted spinster daughter Georgina established a mission hall in Aldershot to save the soldiery from the effects of venereal disease, alcoholism and general immorality. They later extended this work to saving the ''respectable poor" in the town mainly the wives and children of the soldiers who lived "off the strength" in the West End of the town. The 1871 census lists many of these families in the Queens Road and Albert Road areas. However the Daniells' compassion did not extend to the prostitutes and Georgina shared the hard and uncompromising attitude of the military and police authorities towards these "unfortunate females". By 1871 Aldershot's Lock Hospital had been established and the census lists 50 all-female inhabitants whose ages ranged from 16 to 45 years old. Happily for the "fallen women" of Aldershot and other garrison towns, the Daniells' belief that they were beyond redemption (and the unfair and unjust treatment that they received in Lock hospitals established by the CD-Contagious Diseases Acts) was not shared by all middle class women. Social reformers led by Josephine Butler with the support of other distinguished women such as Harriet Martineau and Florence Nightingale organised opposition to the Acts. In 1863 Florence Nightingale had condemned suggestions that prostitutes be inspected by public health or military doctors, because she considered such measures "morally disgusting, unworkable in practice and unsuccessful in results" In 1872 Parliament bowed to "the revolt of the women" and their political allies, and established a Royal Commission to which Josephine Butler was invited to testify. The report recommended an end to the enforced medical examination of the prostitutes but restated the sexual double standard: "There is no comparison between prostitutes and the men who consort with them. With the one sex the offence is committed as a matter of gain, with the other it is an irregular indulgence of a natural impulse" Finally Josephine and her allies triumphed. When the Liberals won the general election in 1880, they suspended and finally abolished the CD Acts in 1886. Therefore in the 1881 Aldershot census the 38 female inhabitants of the Aldershot Lock hospital listed as prostitutes were all in effect prisoners. The birthplaces of these unfortunate females varied from the immediate locality - Sarah Bedford (accompanied by her 2 year old daughter Alice) was from Aldershot, Ann Cole (the oldest inmate at 47), Annie Parker, Elizabeth Warner, Mary Ann Warner and Caroline Blackman from across the county boundary in Farnham, Surrey. At the other end of the geographic scale H.Ellen Williams was from Canada whilst Elizabeth Poore, Mary A.Goodson and Catherine Hathehall were from Ireland. Three of the other patients, Catherine Folett, Alice Thompson and Charlotte Brown were from the garrison towns of Gosport and Portsmouth. Like the 1861 census of 20 years before, these are the only group of women whose occupation is listed as prostitute. However there are various lodging houses in the town, notably in Short Street and Loes Buildings Nelson Street, which contain a large contingent of single females of marriageable age as lodgers who are listed as "no Occupation''. Once again there is one prostitute occupying a cell at the police station in the company of two soldiers, an Army pensioner, a groom, and two labourers. Prostitution did not come to an end when the CD Acts were repealed, but a grossly sexist piece of legislation was abolished. Cases of VD among the home forces were exactly the same in number, &er 22 years of the CD Acts, as they were before - 260 per thousand. Hospitals to treat VD were still needed and Aldershot's Lock Hospital is listed on the 1891 census. The major change though is that the 15 female patients whose ages range fiom 15 to 35 have their occupations listed as "servants, factory hands and dressmakers" not prostitutes. The hospital was now administered by the joint hospital committee for Aldershot Later on local authorities set up clinics to treat both men and women but it was the middle of the twentieth century before antibiotics were discovered to treat VD effectively. Bibliography - works consulted. Cole,H. The story of Aldershot Perkin, J. Victorian Women Phillips, S. lrna Picken, G. Aldershot Past. Journal of Army Historical Research, Blanco, R. "The attempted control of Venereal Disease in the army of Mid-Victorian Britain.