Geographies of Regulation : Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Empire

This study of British authorities' attempts to regulate prostitution both at home and abroad challenges our understanding of colonial regulation. Considering the similarities and differences between colonial and metropolitan practices, Philip Howell argues that the British administration of commercial sexuality was deeper and more extensive than is conventionally portrayed.

In the nineteenth century British authorities at home and abroad attempted to regulate prostitution in order to combat the spread of venereal diseases. Philip Howell examines in detail four sites of such regulated prostitution - Liverpool, Cambridge, Gibraltar and Hong Kong - and considers the similarities as well as the differences between colonial and metropolitan practices. Placing these sites within their local, regional and global contexts, the author argues that the British administration of commercial sexuality was deeper and more extensive than conventionally portrayed. The book challenges our understanding of what constitutes colonial regulation and also confronts imperial historiographies in which projects are simply translated from metropolis to periphery. By emphasizing both particular sites of regulated prostitution, and their place in the British imperial world, this book contributes not only to histories of gender and sexuality, but also to the revision of British imperial history.