Polly Jones
Polly Jones (also known as Polly Kennedy and Mary Sturgess) | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Polly Kennedy by Thomas Watson after Joshua Reynolds 1770-1772 (Yale Center for British Art, B1970.3.175) | |
| Born | probably Polly Jones London, England |
| Died | Possibly 1781 London, England |
| Occupation | Courtesan |
Polly Jones (also known as Polly Kennedy and Mary Sturgess) was an 18th-century English courtesan.
Polly Jones is often confused with her contemporary Kitty Kennedy and with another Polly Kennedy from a decade earlier - the courtesan who shared lodgings with Nancy Dawson in the 1750s.
Early Life
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In the memoirs that she published in 1790, the retired courtesan Ann Sheldon repeated Polly Jones' own account of her upbringing and recruitment as a prostitute by Elizabeth Mitchell:
In the course of her conversation, [Polly] gave me the following sketch of her history. Her father and mother were hawking pedlars, who sold wooden ware and cabbage nets about the streets, while Polly attended them with her moving shop of watercress, and common herbage. In this situation she happened to attract the notice of Mrs. Mitchell, a well known inhabitant of King's Place. That good lady, hacknied in the arts of seduction, attacked at the same moment, the vanity of the girl, and the wants of her parents. In short, Mrs. Mitchell wanted a servant, exactly such a servant as Polly and, perhaps, she did not deviate from truth, when she told the pedlar that the would take the same care of his child, as if it were her own. So the poor girl was taken to Mrs. Mitchell's house, stripped naked, put into a large tub of water, when after having been cleansed from the dirt and defilement of her late situation, she was handsomely clothed, and at night consigned to a defilement of another and more fatal species, in the arms of a gentleman, who gladdened Mrs. Mitchell's heart with the sum which he gave her for the prize she had so luckily procured him.
Elizabeth Mitchell was a famous brothel-keeper on King's Place, a road running between Pall Mall and King Street in St James's in London. It was a thoroughfare lined with high class brothels nicknamed 'nunneries' or 'cloisters'.
Polly was described as being 'Small and auburn-haired with dark eyes and an inviting smile'.
Fame
Ann Sheldon goes on to report how Elizabeth Mitchell transferred Polly Jones into 'high keeping' by King George III's brother, the Duke of Cumberland:
Here she remained for some time, when being at Vauxhall Gardens, she happened to captivate the Duke of Cumberland, who arranged the matter with Mrs. Mitchell, by paying her about seventy pounds which she said Miss Jones owed her. The young lady was then taken home by his Royal Highness, where she declared, she had every reason to be contented.
Ann Sheldon met Polly Jones and the Duke of Cumberland together at Sunning Hill and regularly accompanied them on their evening walks during which Polly amused the Duke by tumbling in the grass with her heels over head and holding indecent postures. The Duke confided in Ann that his mistress' vulgarity quite disgusted him, and asked Ann if she was interested in taking her place as his live-in lover; she refused.
Polly Jones told Ann Sheldon she had no objection to the Duke but there was somebody in town whom she liked better, namely one of the Kennedy brothers who were famous for the murder of a watchman on Westminster Bridge and for obtaining pardons from the King through the intercession of their sister - the courtesan Kitty Kennedy. Polly told Ann that if she could secure one of the Kennedy brothers, she would leave the Duke's protection.
In January 1768 George Selwyn wrote that Polly was robbed of 12 guineas when alighting from her sedan chair outside the home of her lover Lord Bolingbroke who lived close to him on Chesterfield Street. Lord Bolingbroke's brother, John St John, was the lover of Kitty Kennedy.
After Polly and the Duke parted in 1770 she accused him in the newspapers of selling the furniture that he had given her because he had run out of money. Polly claimed the Duke 'left [her] destitute, friendless and almost penniless after he had professed the greatest regard, esteem, and even love for me.' She followed through by taking legal proceedings against one of the Duke's retainers claiming a debt of £3000 under a bond that she had received from him. She won the case with support from Lord Bolingbroke but it was overturned on appeal.
In 1770, Polly took to calling herself Polly Kennedy. She sat for a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds in November 1770 and February 1771 and his appointment book describes her as 'Miss Kennedy'. The painting was commissioned by Sir Charles Bunbury who was her new paramour. Sir Charles' main interests were in racing and gambling. Known to his numerous friends at his London clubs of Brooks's and White's as 'Bully', he drank enough to be noticed even in a time of heavy indulgence.
In 1771 Polly was living with the madam Charlotte Hayes in Duke Street, St James's (calling herself Polly Jones again).
In his memoirs, William Hickey describes a renewed acquaintance with 'Mary Sturgess, previously known as Polly Jones', 'a fine woman, plump and lusty, with good skin and lovely eyes' with an elegant house in Cumberland Court off Drury Lane in Covent Garden.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 Sheldon, Ann (1790). Authentic and interesting memoirs of Miss Ann Sheldon; (now Mrs. Archer:) a lady who figured, during several years, in the highest line of public life, ... Written by herself. ... 1790: Vol 1. Internet Archive.
- ↑ Cruickshank, Dan; Cruickshank, Dan (2010). London's sinful secret: the bawdy history and very public passions of London's Georgian Age. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-65898-4.
- ↑ Tillyard, Stella (2010). Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings. Penguin Random House. ISBN 978-1-4090-1769-1.
- ↑ Selwyn, George Augustus (1899). His Letters and Life. Fisher.
- ↑ Notes and Queries. Oxford University Press. 1907.
- ↑ Carroll, Leslie (2011). Royal Pains: A Rogues' Gallery of Brats, Brutes, and Bad Seeds. East Rutherford: Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-101-47877-6.
- ↑ Meares, Hadley Hall (2022-04-19). "A Brief History of Royal Trolls". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2026-10-30.
- 1 2 Bleackley, Horace (1909). Ladies fair and frail; sketches of the demi-monde during the eighteenth century. University of California Libraries. London : J. Lane; New York, J. Lane company.
- ↑ Mannings, David; Postle, Martin (2000). Sir Joshua Reynolds: a complete catalogue of his paintings. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-08533-4.
- ↑ Copies of the Depositions of the Witnesses Examined in the Cause of Divorce Now Depending in the Consistory Court of the Lord Bishop of London, at Doctor's-Commons, Between the Right Honourable Richard Lord Grosvenor and the Right Honourable Henrietta Lady Grosvenor, His Wife, as They Were Severally Taken by Mess. Lushington and Haseltine, Proctors, the Examiners in the Above Cause: With an Appendix Containing the Libel and Allegations. J. Russell. 1771.
- ↑ Burford, E. J. (1986). Wits, wenchers, and wantons: London's low life: Covent Garden in the eighteenth century. London: R. Hale. ISBN 978-0-7090-2629-7.