peoplepill id: john-gonson
JG
United Kingdom Great Britain
3 views today
3 views this week
John Gonson
British judge

John Gonson

The basics

Quick Facts

Intro
British judge
Work field
Gender
Male
The details (from wikipedia)

Biography

Sir John Gonson (died 1765) was an English judge for nearly 50 years in the early 18th century, serving as a Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the City of Westminster. Gonson was a supporter of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, and was noted for his enthusiasm for raiding brothels and for passing harsh sentences.

Gonson appears in contemporary court reports and newspaper articles, but is best known for having been depicted twice in A Harlot's Progress, William Hogarth's series of paintings from 1731 and subsequent engravings from 1732. Gonson first appears in plate 3, leading three armed bailiffs into the boudoir of the protagonist, Moll Hackabout. The character of Moll is based on a real-life prostitute, Kate Hackabout, who was apprehended by Gonson in 1730 and sentenced to hard labour for keeping a disorderly house. Gonson appears again in plate 4, shown hanging from the gallows in graffiti, while Moll beats hemp in Bridewell Prison.

Gonson was mentioned twice in Satire IV of Alexander Pope's Satires of John Donne, in Essay on Man, mentioning "the storm of Gonson's lungs" and "Peace, fools, or Gonson will for Papists seize you, If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu!". He has been called the scourge of Gin Lane or of Drury Lane, and wrote, in 1728,

Gonson not only used the rod of the law to fight what he saw as the evils of immorality in London. He is listed as a founding governor of the Foundling Hospital in that charity's royal charter of 1739. The first effort of its kind in the country, the Foundling Hospital was a home for abandoned children, many of them children of prostitutes. Hogarth was also a governor of the Foundling Hospital from its foundation.

The contents of this page are sourced from Wikipedia article. The contents are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
Lists
John Gonson is in following lists
comments so far.
Comments
From our partners
Sponsored
John Gonson
arrow-left arrow-right instagram whatsapp myspace quora soundcloud spotify tumblr vk website youtube pandora tunein iheart itunes