Faro Ladies is a term for aristocratic female gamblers in the late eighteenth century. Gambling in public was not acceptable for aristocratic women as it was for aristocratic men in 18th century England, who played at social clubs such as the Tory-affiliated White's or the Whig-affiliated Brooks's. Thus, women gambled in private houses at social gatherings that often provided other, more socially acceptable forms of entertainment, such as musical concerts or amateur theatricals.Russell, Gillian. "Faro's Daughters": Female Gamesters, Politics, and the Discourse of Finance in 1790s Britain." Eighteenth-Century Studies (2000): 33.4, p. 484. A group of aristocratic women came to be well known for the faro tables they hosted late into the night. Mrs. Albinia Hobart (later Lady Buckinghamshire), Lady Archer, Mrs. Sturt, Mrs. Concannon, and Lady Elizabeth Luttrell were common figures in the popular press throughout the 1790s.
Gambling's reputation as a dual personal and social vice, especially female gambling, was not new to the late 18th century.Donald, Diana. The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996, p. 106. Charles Cotton's The Compleat Gamester from 1674 was still widely cited during the era. However, in the 1790s, the issue took on new importance as Britain, influenced by the chaos of the French Revolution, focused its attention with renewed vigor on any threatening domestic issue that could disrupt social order and political power.Russell, Gillian. "Faro's Daughters": Female Gamesters, Politics, and the Discourse of Finance in 1790s Britain." Eighteenth-Century Studies (2000): 33.4. Another factor contributing to a new focus on gaming was the increased importance of the middle classes in late eighteenth-century Britain. The middle class, who depended on credit for both livelihood and reputation, were particularly sour toward the vices in which the landed classes indulged, often without serious repercussions. At the same time, the middle class's avid consumption of the public information about aristocratic gamblers provided by the press made possible their very notoriety.
Politics In the Westminster election of 1784, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, a renowned gambler who canvassed for Charles J. Fox, himself a notorious gamester (he in fact ran a faro table in his home from 1780–81), brought the issue of gaming into the popular media's negative portrayal of the aristocracy's involvement in politics.Deutsch, Phyllis. "Moral Trespass in Georgian London" Gaming, Gender, and Electoral Politics in the Age of George III." The Historical Journal 39.3 (Sep., 1996), pp. 637-656. As a whole, the group aristocratic, gambling women were often associated with the Foxite Whigs.McCreery, Cindy. The Satirical Gaze: Prints of Women in Late Eighteenth-Century England. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2004, p. 237 Lady Archer canvassed for Charles Fox as well, as did the Duchess's sister and Lady Duncannon. In other elections, Mrs. Hobart canvassed for Admiral Lord Hood and Sir Cecil Wray. The private version of gaming practiced in the Faro ladies' homes, furthermore, was "a crucial component of the social forum through which women entered the politics," because women participated in both the play and political discussion with each other and any males present.Deutsch, Phyllis. "Moral Trespass in Georgian London" Gaming, Gender, and Electoral Politics in the Age of George III." The Historical Journal 39.3 (Sep., 1996), pp. 647-649.
Legal repercussions
Justice Ashurst was the first member of the judiciary to speak publicly about the private gambling houses, following George III's "Proclamation Against Vice" of 1792. He referenced statutes existent since the reign of Henry VIII and encouraged his audience, the Grand Jury of Middlesex county, to be "vigilant in its administration of the law." Voicing the influence of Enlightenment ideals, he emphasized the irrationality of gambling in terms of the health of society.Russell, Gillian. "Faro's Daughters": Female Gamesters, Politics, and the Discourse of Finance in 1790s Britain." Eighteenth-Century Studies (2000): 33.4, p. 489. The legislation concerning Faro in particular set a penalty of £200 for keeping a table and £50 for playing. A few years later, in 1796–97, increased monitoring of lower-class gambling brought about the arguably most famous legal admonishment of the Faro ladies. Henry Weston had committed forgery in order to obtain 100,000 pound from the Bank of England, and then lost the amount at a Faro bank. Lord Chief Justice Kenyon spoke out on May 7, 1796:
Caricaturists subsequently published prints depicting Mrs. Hobart and Lady Sarah Archer at the pillory, the victims of an unruly crowd in Gillray's The Exaltation of Faro's Daughters and in Richard Newton's Female Gamblers in the Pillory, for example.
In early 1797, the discovery of the loss of the faro bank at one of the Ladies' parties brought them to the forefront of the news once again. Conspicuously outed as a result of this incident, information against Lady Buckinghamshire, Lady Elizabeth Luttrell, Mrs. Sturt, and Mrs. Concannon, and the usual proprietor of their table, Henry Martindale, was heard before Conant, the magistrate of Marlborough Street.Russell, Gillian. "Faro's Daughters": Female Gamesters, Politics, and the Discourse of Finance in 1790s Britain." Eighteenth-Century Studies (2000): 33.4, p. 494 and Ashton, John. History of Gambling in England. London: Duckworth & Co., 1898, p. 78 The informants were two footmen previously in the service of Lady Buckinghamshire, and The Times reported on 13 March 1797 that "the evidence went to prove that the defendants had gaming parties at their different houses in rotation; and, that when they met at Lady B.'s, the witnesses used to wait upon them in the gambling room…" Martindale was charged £200, and all but Mr. Concannon £50.Ashton, John. History of Gambling in England. London: Duckworth & Co., 1898, p. 78.
"Faro Ladies" and the press
Anti-gaming literature in late eighteenth-century Britain, in the form of satirical prints, newspapers, and serious moral treatises, emphasized the moral, social and political problems associated specifically with female gaming. The growth of the press in the second half of the eighteenth century was a key element to the publicity of the Faro ladies. Scandalous gossip and news about the aristocracy and royalty became common knowledge to the literate public through newspapers and an increasingly popular art form, caricature prints.Hart, Katherine W. James Gillray: Prints by the Eighteenth-Century Master of Caricature. Hanover: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2004, p. 26. These prints made the Faro ladies visible to anyone, literate or illiterate, who happened to be passing a print shop window. The print shops littered the neighborhood in which many of the aristocratic Faro ladies lived and played, St. James, and also middle and lower class neighborhoods, such as The Strand and Covent Garden.Russell, Gillian. "Faro's Daughters": Female Gamesters, Politics, and the Discourse of Finance in 1790s Britain." Eighteenth-Century Studies (2000): 33.4
One caricaturist in particular, James Gillray, made Lady Buckinghamshire and Lady Archer's moral transgressions and gambling habits extremely visible.McCreery, Cindy. The Satirical Gaze: Prints of Women in Late Eighteenth-Century England. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2004, Gillray's prints satirizing the Faro ladies include: Modern-Hospitality,—or—A Friendly Party in High Life (1792); The Exaltation of Faro's Daughters (1796); Discipline a la Kenyon (1797); The Loss of the Faro-Bank; or—The Rook's Pigeon'd (1797). Caricature prints often utilized pointed ironic discrepancies to satirize their subjects' vices. For example, in "The Exaltation of Faro's Daughters," irony manifests in the discrepancies between the print's image, public shaming on the elevated pillory, and the triple-entendre of "exaltation." The ladies are physically exalted-raised up-but rather than accordingly esteemed in this position, are actually defamed by a wild crowd who pummel them with garbage and tomatoes. The word also suggests the "undue degree of pleasurable excitement""Exaltation." Oxford English Dictionary Online, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press: 1989. that moral reformers associated with the dangerously sexual dimension of older women's exercise of power via morally reproachable modes such as gaming.
Earlier examples from Gillray's predecessor William Hogarth include A Rake's Progress and The Cockpit (1759). Isaac Cruikshank's Dividing the Spoil!! (1796) leverages a scathing commentary on the propriety the Faro ladies have literally gambled away. In this print, four Faro ladies, including Mrs. Hobart and Lady Archer are compared to four prostitutes through the juxtaposed depiction of counting earnings over a table. The Faro ladies' portrait is labelled "St. James," a wealthy aristocratic neighborhood also home to royalty, while the prostitutes' portrait is labelled "St. Giles," a notoriously seedy London area.
John Ashton's The History of Gambling in England catalogues a series of extracts from The Morning Post and The Times, organs which the public accessed news of these "Faro ladies," as they came to be called in the press. Other newspapers that contributed to wider knowledge of social scandal include the Public Advertiser, the Morning Chronicle, and the Morning Herald. The written press allowed the literate public to understand what issue the caricaturist's above were referencing in their prints.Hart, Katherine W. James Gillray: Prints by the Eighteenth-Century Master of Caricature. Hanover: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2004, p. 26. Notes range from simple announcements, who opened their home that week for a Faro party, for example, to condemnations: "It is impossible to conceive a more complete system of fraud and dishonour than is practiced every night at the Faro Banks."Ashton, John. History of Gambling in England. London: Duckworth & Co., 1898, p. 81. However, coverage of the Faro ladies was ubiquitous enough such that all voices on the matter could be heard. A brief note in the "Fashion" section of World from 1791 reads:
"Dear Ladies of the METROPOLIS, study this PORTRAIT! With the Ladies of PARIS—the moments of improving dissipation are gone by, and a more solid and reasoning character has succeeded to them: but you are in the meridian of what is Ton, Taste, high Play, strict Honor, Faro Tables, Parental Affection, Lottery Insurances, and EXQUISITE SENSIBILITY. To jumble all these qualities properly together, forms at once the character of – a WOMAN OF CAPITAL FASHION! Follow and Embrace it! Be bold! Be desperate!""Fashion" in World, Thursday, February 17, 1791, Issue 1289.
Moral Reformers