Mabel Grey

A carte-de-visite portrait of the courtesan Mabel Grey.

According to a report on one of her many appearances in court, her real name was Hannah Maria King (South London Chronicle, 26 February 1870). Another report, this time on the festivities on Derby Night in 1871 at Cremorne Gardens, where that night Mabel was surrounded by a crowd of male admirers, described her as ‘a quondam drapers assistant in an Oxford Street shop (The Day's Doings, 27 May 1871).

In November 1868, she almost got the young scion of a noble house to the altar, but was headed off at the last moment by his frantic relations. One newspaper named the would-be groom as ‘young Milbank,’ the heir to the Duke of Cleveland (Cheltenham Chronicle, 17 November 1868). Another newspaper, some three years later, reported on the appearance in court of William Harry Vane Milbank, who owed a dressmaker and milliner the sum of £500. He plaintively informed the court that he had spent the money on Mabel Grey, who at the time was living under his protection (Cardiff Times, 29 July 1871).

In January 1871 Mabel brought charges against a young actor named Alfred Owens, ‘of no fixed abode,’ in an attempt to retrieve a gold ring she claimed he had stolen. ‘The complainant, who is well known at this Court, according to her statement, met the prisoner in the streets, and he having treated her with some refreshment she took him to Frederick Street, where she resides, and he stayed the night with her, since which he had cohabited with her.' Owens had his own version of events, claiming that Mabel had given him the ring and was only bringing the charge now because she had seen him 'speaking to another prostitute' and become jealous. 'Mr Barber said he did not believe the evidence of the complainant, and discharged the prisoner.’ This was the same beak who had previously sentenced her to one month’s hard labour for brawling with a laundress (North British Daily Mail, 30 January 1871).

Photographed by Hills and Saunders of London.