Detail from a portrait of Laura Thistlethwayte (née Bell)
by Richard Buckner (1871)
by Richard Buckner (1871)
"She had a small doll-like face, piquant and provocative, big blue eyes, a
strawberry-and-cream complexion,
cascades of glorious golden hair, the
most shapely pair of shoulders in London, and a soft, persuasive
voice.
She was, in short, well-armed for her attack upon male
susceptibility."
Irish-born beauty Laura Bell is a famous example not only of a good girl gone bad, but a bad girl discovering religion and becoming an ardent preacher against vice. I'm not sure which is the most interesting of these moral phenomena; the fall into sin, or the adoption of Victorian values and bourgeois conventions. Let's investigate ...
Bell was born in Dublin, in 1829, but grew up in the village of Glenavy, Co. Antrim. As a bored teenager with something of a wild streak, she decided to leave home and find work as a shop girl in Belfast, supplementing her meagre earnings by also working as a prostitute. Finding that she derived more pleasure - and certainly made more money - from whoring rather than retail, Bell decided to move to Dublin and establish herself as a courtesan. Among her illicit lovers was the famous surgeon and author Sir William Wilde (father of Oscar).
Having successfully learnt all the tricks of her trade - and still only twenty years of age - Bell decided to head to London and try her luck amongst some of the richest and most powerful noblemen in Europe. Eventually, she would be known as The Queen of London Whoredom and ride daily around Hyde Park in a gilt carriage drawn by two white horses, with a young pageboy wearing a black and yellow striped waistcoat sitting proudly behind her. She wanted to cut a figure as a woman of sex, style, and substance and this she certainly succeeded in.
It was whilst in the Royal Park that she met the Nepalese Prime Minister, Jung Bahadur Rana, who was immediately captivated by her and installed her in a beautiful house in Belgravia, showering Bell with outrageously expensive gifts during the three-month period they spent together.* Before he returned to Nepal, he presented Bell with a diamond ring and the promise that he would always be there for her should she ever need his assistance.
When Bell wrote to him in 1857, asking that he send forces to help the British crush the Indian Mutiny, it was probably not quite what he'd had in mind. Still, a promise is a promise - and Bell enclosed the diamond ring with her letter to remind him of it - so he duly sent troops. One wonders what other woman - apart from Queen Victoria - could've stepped into world political history in such a decisive manner at this time ...?
Having successfully learnt all the tricks of her trade - and still only twenty years of age - Bell decided to head to London and try her luck amongst some of the richest and most powerful noblemen in Europe. Eventually, she would be known as The Queen of London Whoredom and ride daily around Hyde Park in a gilt carriage drawn by two white horses, with a young pageboy wearing a black and yellow striped waistcoat sitting proudly behind her. She wanted to cut a figure as a woman of sex, style, and substance and this she certainly succeeded in.
It was whilst in the Royal Park that she met the Nepalese Prime Minister, Jung Bahadur Rana, who was immediately captivated by her and installed her in a beautiful house in Belgravia, showering Bell with outrageously expensive gifts during the three-month period they spent together.* Before he returned to Nepal, he presented Bell with a diamond ring and the promise that he would always be there for her should she ever need his assistance.
When Bell wrote to him in 1857, asking that he send forces to help the British crush the Indian Mutiny, it was probably not quite what he'd had in mind. Still, a promise is a promise - and Bell enclosed the diamond ring with her letter to remind him of it - so he duly sent troops. One wonders what other woman - apart from Queen Victoria - could've stepped into world political history in such a decisive manner at this time ...?
I'm not sure when (or why) Bell chose to quit her lucrative and adventurous life as a courtesan; perhaps after she married Capt. Augustus Frederick Thistlethwayte in 1852 and moved into a new home in Grosvenor Square. Or perhaps after she found old time religion in 1856 and started referring to herself as God's Ambassadress.
From this point on she mostly hosted evangelical tea parties for high society (rather than orgies) and wanted to save London's prositutes (rather than reign over them)**; eventually forming a very close and long-lasting friendship with William Gladstone, who also had a thing for rescuing fallen women.
Because there is no God - or, if you prefer, because God is a cunt with a cruel sense of humour - just when Bell was at her most righteous and telling everyone who would listen about His Love, her husband - who liked to sermon the servants by firing his pistol into the ceiling - accidently shot and killed himself, leaving her a heartbroken and lonely widow for her final years.***
From this point on she mostly hosted evangelical tea parties for high society (rather than orgies) and wanted to save London's prositutes (rather than reign over them)**; eventually forming a very close and long-lasting friendship with William Gladstone, who also had a thing for rescuing fallen women.
Because there is no God - or, if you prefer, because God is a cunt with a cruel sense of humour - just when Bell was at her most righteous and telling everyone who would listen about His Love, her husband - who liked to sermon the servants by firing his pistol into the ceiling - accidently shot and killed himself, leaving her a heartbroken and lonely widow for her final years.***
Bell died, seven years after Thistlethwayte's fatal accident, at her home in West Hampstead, in 1894. Many of those who knew her at the end of her life had no idea of how notorious a figure she'd been in her prime and most obituaries made only veiled references to her life as a prostitute, stressing instead her charity work and kindness to animals.
Notes
* To give you some idea of just how outrageously expensive these gifts were - including the house in fashionable Belgravia - it's believed that Rana spent in the region of £250,000 on Bell during their brief affair; that's £21 million in today's money, making her one of the most expensive rides in history.
** Having said this, there's evidence to suggest that Bell may have continued to have the odd affair; including one, for example, with the artist Edwin Landseer (best known for sculpting the lions in Trafalgar Square).
*** Actually, this isn't quite the case; Bell's marriage was not a happy one and she and her husband had largely lived separate lives; she hosting lavish parties in London, while he spent his time hunting in Scotland. One of the main bones of contention between them was the fact that Bell liked to spend way beyond her means and had no concept of living sensibly on an allowance. By 1870, she owed her creditiors £25,000, much to Thistlethwayte's chagrin.
Those interested in the lives of famous 19thC prostitutes might like to read a sister post to this one on Cora Pearl: click here. See also 'Love Blinds: The Shocking Case of Jeanne Brécourt': click here.
** Having said this, there's evidence to suggest that Bell may have continued to have the odd affair; including one, for example, with the artist Edwin Landseer (best known for sculpting the lions in Trafalgar Square).
*** Actually, this isn't quite the case; Bell's marriage was not a happy one and she and her husband had largely lived separate lives; she hosting lavish parties in London, while he spent his time hunting in Scotland. One of the main bones of contention between them was the fact that Bell liked to spend way beyond her means and had no concept of living sensibly on an allowance. By 1870, she owed her creditiors £25,000, much to Thistlethwayte's chagrin.
Those interested in the lives of famous 19thC prostitutes might like to read a sister post to this one on Cora Pearl: click here. See also 'Love Blinds: The Shocking Case of Jeanne Brécourt': click here.
