Who was Rebecca Jarrett? (1848-1928)
Rebecca was born on the 3rd March 1848 to parents who owned a shop on the Old Kent Road in London. She had a difficult childhood - abandoned by her father and raised by a mother who struggled with alcohol. It was from the age of 12 (which was then the age of consent) that Rebecca’s mother abused and sexually exploited her. In her adult years, Rebecca’s life continued to be one of hardship and adversity, as she sought to survive through selling sex and later through managing a brothel. By the age of 36, her health was deteriorating, and she was battling severe alcohol dependency, likely used to mask the trauma in her life. It was around then that her life started to change, aided by meeting women like Florence Booth and Josephine Butler, who offered Rebecca compassion and practical support at a time when she was vulnerable.
Rebecca found a new sense of hope and purpose, reportedly praying “to be a good woman and truly break away from the drink’. Her life had changed, and it was at this point, drawing on her knowledge, she visited dangerous areas and invited other women and girls to a safe house located at 212 Hanbury Street, Whitechapel. Later, she established and became the Matron at ‘Hope House’, a Refuge in Winchester, supported by Josephine Butler.
Josephine Butler wrote of Rebecca:
‘Rebecca’s influence here was something extraordinary. Her love and pity for the worst sinners were genuine and unbounded. She shrank from nothing that might have been repulsive or difficult to a more refined or less loving nature. She went straight into the worst and lowest dens of infamy, choosing frequently for her most arduous work the Saturday night, when drunkenness most prevails. She would stand in the midst of a den full of men and women of the lowest type, get them down on their knees, pray with them and for them, and teach them to pray; and when other persuasions failed, she related to them what she herself had been, and what God had done for her.’
The Campaign Against ‘Child Prostitution’
Most famously, Rebecca became involved in a campaign to make ‘child prostitution’ (as it was referred to then, now seen as child sexual exploitation) illegal by raising the age of consent to 16. With support from Florence Booth’s network, a meeting was arranged with investigative journalist W.T. Stead, and together they planned a sting operation to show the nation how easy it was to purchase a child for sexual exploitation.
Rebecca was pressured, if not coerced, to take part by using her former contacts. She took enormous personal risks to expose the exploitation of children. She agreed to find a mother in need of money and then arranged to purchase her daughter, Eliza Armstrong, aged 13, for £5 (estimated to be £450 in today's money).
Rebecca took Eliza to a brothel, where Stead then posed as someone purchasing sex and paid the fee. Then Eliza was handed over to him, and the sting operation was complete. Eliza was then taken safely to France and cared for by the Salvation Army, while Stead began to write up the story in the Pall Mall Gazette, naming it the ‘Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’.
According to accounts from Rebecca in the Court trial, it was clearly implied to Eliza's mother that Eliza was being sold into prostitution, but the mother was later to deny this. When it came to publication, some newsagents were so shocked by Stead’s descriptions of ‘child prostitution’ that they refused to sell such lurid content. So volunteers from the Salvation Army stepped in to sell the Gazette themselves, despite the risk of arrest, ensuring that the nation would be made aware of this scandal.
Playwright George Bernard Shaw even offered to help, and named the main character in his famous play Pygmalion after Eliza.) The stories in the Gazette led to protest meetings across London, and a march of thousands to Hyde Park in 1885. Such was the strength of public opinion that, despite initial opposition, Parliament passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act a month later, raising the age of consent to 16, the age it remains today.
The campaign had made enemies, however, and the government decided to prosecute Stead, Rebecca, and others, accusing them of abducting a child without parental consent. Rebecca was unable to prove that Eliza’s mother had consented to her daughter being sold into prostitution. And so, despite strong public support for them both, Rebecca and Stead were imprisoned. Stead was sentenced to three months, before returning to his journalism, while Rebecca was sentenced to six months' hard labour.
On her release from Millbank prison, she went back to her work, but to protect herself from the backlash of her involvement in exposing the sex trade, she lived under the name of Mary Grey. Rebecca continued to advocate for women through her work with the Salvation Army in England, Scotland and further afield, travelling to Canada for a short time. She gave her life's work to help women reclaim autonomy and rebuild their lives.
Rebecca died on 20 February 1928 at 259 Mare Street, Hackney, aged 82. She was buried in Abney Park Cemetery, London.