Urania Cottage

Urania Cottage was a Magdalene asylum, in the terminology of the time, hostel or women's shelter, founded in London in 1847 by the novelist Charles Dickens and the philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts.

It also offered assistance in case they wished to emigrate to Australia,[6] Dickens was the house's almoner, to 1855, and took charge of its day-to-day operations.

[9] On 26 May 1846, Dickens wrote Burdett-Coutts a lengthy letter stating his desire to open an asylum for girls and women working in London's streets as prostitutes.

He wrote: It is explained to her that she is degraded and fallen, but not lost, having this shelter; and that the means of Return to Happiness are now about to be put into her own hands, and trusted to her own keeping.

For every instance of ill-temper, disrespect, bad language, any outbreak of any sort or kind, so many - a very large number in proportion to her receipts - are deducted.

[23] Dickens praised Morson's oversight at Urania Cottage in an 1852 letter recommending her as matron for the Foundling Hospital, in which he described her "capacity for the administration of such an office",[24] going on to explain that "She is accustomed to method, order, punctuality, and to a habit of sound and judicious observation.

[26] For Urania Cottage, he often went to the Coldbath Fields prison, to find women who might come to the house, and is thought to have based his character Mr Creakle of David Copperfield on the magistrate Benjamin Rotch he met there.

[31][32][33] A refuge named for Elizabeth Fry opened in 1849 at 195 Mare Street, Hackney, as a half-way house, and referred some women to Urania Cottage.

[36] Over time, those admitted to the house became more varied: imprisoned sex workers were joined by women or girls convicted of crimes such as theft not connected to prostitution, and those who were homeless or destitute.

[21] Caroline, Duchess of Richmond recommended the larcenous Rhena Pollard, who was a troublemaker, hauled up before the committee and harangued by Dickens.

[37] John Hardwick of Marlborough Street Magistrates Court in 1855 recommended to Dickens the domestic servant Susan Mayne who had a record of drunkenness and prostitution charges.

The work of Urania House continued after Dickens, also in 1858, withdrew from his role there, for some years, encountering difficulties, and eventually ceasing.