Although inspired and fed by the moral excesses of London, branches were set up in towns and cities as far afield as Edinburgh, where Daniel Defoe was a member, though the societies never flourished in rural areas.

These eminent professionals (lawyers, judges and MPs) along with the original founders, provided the expertise and financing to enable prosecutions to proceed.

[1] A prominent supporter of the society was John Gonson, Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the City of Westminster for 50 years in the early 18th century.

He was noted for his enthusiasm for raiding brothels and for passing harsh sentences, and was depicted twice in William Hogarth's A Harlot's Progress series of paintings and engravings.

In around 1770, the society denounced Covent Garden as: ...the great square of VENUS, and its purlieus are crowded with the practitioners of this Goddess.

The new attitude to the theatre may be judged from the anti-theatre pamphlet Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage by Jeremy Collier, from 1698, who attacked the lack of moral instruction contained in contemporary plays, such as Love For Love (1695) by William Congreve and The Relapse (1696) by John Vanbrugh, signalling the end of the popularity of Restoration comedy.