The Contagious Diseases Acts of the 1860s had been the legislative answer to increasingly persistent calls for the regulation of prostitution and the prevention of venereal disease in the armed forces. By 1869 a growing opposition had arisen to the Acts (from middle- and working-class radicals and women's suffrage societies among others) and was made worse by calls to extend their application outside garrison towns and into the civilian population. Although it was not unusual for Select Committees to consider the workings of such acts of legislature, a call for their repeal in the House of Commons and the increasing agitation of the larger repeal movement resulted in the appointment of a Royal Commission in 1870. The 1871 ‘Report of the Royal Commission upon the Administration and Operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts’ is an important text for historians of Victorian prostitution. As a parliamentary text it represents ‘official’ opinion regarding prostitution, and the date of its investigation and publication locate it in the formative years of the well-documented repeal movement. It is often referred to in studies of prostitution but rarely subjected to close analysis.