Don’t lock up the wife 
E.S. Turner
- A Monkey among Crocodiles: The Life, Loves and Lawsuits of Mrs Georgina Weldon by Brian Thompson
Prison does nothing for the complexion, but spells in Newgate and Holloway, combined with a rackety way of life, had left unravaged the face of Mrs Georgina Weldon, whose radiant likeness appeared on the London buses in the year of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. An accompanying legend ran: ‘I am 50 today, but thanks to Pears Soap my complexion is only 17.’ London’s favourite jailbird and troublemaker had joined the immortals – the society ladies who, for a consideration, were willing to tell the world how they kept blackheads at bay. There had been times in Mrs Weldon’s life when a crate or two of Pears Soap delivered to the scruffy orphanage she was half-running could have been put to better use than fostering what ad-men call longer-lasting loveliness.
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E.S. Turner wrote his first article for the Dundee Courier in 1927. He contributed to Punch for 53 years, and wrote more than eighty pieces for the London Review. His last social history was Unholy Pursuits: The Wayward Parsons of Grub Street. He died on 6 July 2006, at the age of 96.
Other articles by this contributor:
A Broad Grin and a Handstand · ‘the fastest woman in the world’ and the wild early years of motor-racing
Our chaps will deal with them · The Great Flap of 1940
Petting Cafés! · wartime spivs and dodgers
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