Edwin Muir's 1935 description of prostitutes in Edinburgh moving freely between the working-class areas of the city and those reserved for the middle and upper classes highlights their rare ability to transgress gender and class boundaries. Muir's statement suggests that prostitution in Edinburgh was not forced into the outskirts of society but remained in the very heart of the city centre. His recollections, whilst compelling, do not provide the full picture. This chapter will use court and police records alongside other contemporaries’ writings on prostitution to gain a fuller understanding of how prostitution was organised and to explore the wider social implications attached to this use of space. By chronologically mapping the changing location of prostitution in Edinburgh and Glasgow, it is possible to track how emerging technologies and the development of new entertainment venues influenced the location of prostitution and shaped women's opportunities for successful solicitation. The first half of the chapter will focus on the geography of prostitution in Edinburgh, beginning with street solicitation and moving on to look at the location of brothels. The second half will then examine the location of prostitution in Glasgow, following a similar pattern. Whilst the previous chapter stressed the role that the state played in shaping the organisation of prostitution, this chapter will show that the women's utilisation of new commercial and technological developments was at least equally important in that process.

Selling Sex on Edinburgh's Streets

The development of the New Town at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century meant that Edinburgh's wealthy elite moved from the overcrowded tenements of the Old Town to the wide streets and attractive town houses of the New Town. Initially this meant that poorer inhabitants remained in the Old Town and so too did prostitution. For example, in 1840 Dr William Tait described how most prostitution occurred in the Old Town on streets such as Black Friar's Wynd, the Grassmarket and the High Street.