Scandal & Society · Portsmouth, Hampshire
Portsmouth Point — Spice Island
Portsmouth Point packed taverns, pawnshops, suppliers and brothels into a tiny sailors' quarter outside the old city gate—preserved in all its disorder by Rowlandson's 1811 print.
The story
Portsmouth Point, locally called Spice Island, was the compact sailors' quarter at the harbour mouth. Taverns, lodging houses, chandlers and a dockside sex trade served crews returning from long commissions. Women were also admitted aboard warships in harbour under the polite label of sailors' wives, a documented custom whose scale varies by ship and witness. Rowlandson's public-domain 1811 image supplies the place's most memorable surviving view, but its comedy should not obscure the hard economy beneath it.
More stories at this spot
Sources
- Royal Collection Trust, Portsmouth Point by Thomas Rowlandson
- Portsmouth City Council, Portsmouth Encyclopaedia
- Suzanne Stark, Female Tars
Nearby on the map
The seaside palace Albert built so the royal couple could be, in Victoria's word, 'snug' — a marriage of genuine passion the Queen recorded with un-Victorian candour. Her bathing machine survives; so do the nine children as evidence of the idyll.
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