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Corner
of Duke Street - supposed residence of Maggie May.
Image courtesy of Liverpool Record Office and Liverpool Libraries.
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"Lime
Street had a world wide reputation for "ladies of the night", with
one name particularly associated with that trade, but as the opening
line of the famous song "Maggie May" tells us … "she’ll never
walk down Lime Street anymore".
"Prostitution
was rife in the 1800s, especially during the so called 'naughty
nineties', when Maggie and her contemporaries offered their
services to seaman, and others, on Lime Street and in the public
houses which lined that famous thoroughfare.
"Maggie
herself is alleged to have plied her trade in the American Bar.
Some other famous "ladies" associated with that period are Mary
Ellen, the "Battleship", Jumping Jenny and Cast Iron Kitty, although
how and why they acquired those names is not clear.
A Policeman
from the 1940s recalls Liverpool's prositute problem:
"When
you see films with regards to prostitution, you get the impression
it was a tremendous problem. Well that didn’t apply to Liverpool.
The poor girls in Liverpool were just poor girls. In my day, a lot
of them were just married women who were just bloody hard up."
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