John Gonson

Sir John Gonson (died 1765) was a British 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. [ [http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/grub/night.htm Suppression of Night-Houses in 1730] , early 18th century newspaper reports.] [ [http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/grub/gaming.htm Gambling in 1730] , early 18th century newspaper reports.] 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. [ [http://hogarth.chez-alice.fr/gallery01.htm A Harlot's Progress - 1732] .] 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!". [ [http://eremita.di.uminho.pt/gutenberg/etext00/esymn10.txt Etext] of "Essay on Man" by Alexander Pope, from Project Gutenberg.] He has been called the scourge of Gin Lane or of Drury Lane, and wrote, in 1728, [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9501E2DC113EF93AA25752C0A9659C8B63 Juniper Madness] , review of "Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason" by Jessica Warner in the "New York Times", 19 January 2003.]

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. [R.H. Nichols and F A. Wray, "The History of the Foundling Hospital" (London: Oxford University Press, 1935), p. 348.] 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.

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