Kitty Fisher and Joseph Salvador

Kitty Fisher is remembered as one of the eighteenth-century’s most (in)famous courtesans. When I began to research her life, it came as a surprise to discover just how short her ‘career’ was. This chapter of Kitty’s life was no longer than a year, and possibly as short as just a few months.

However, during this time, Kitty gained such notoriety that her name lives on. Today, it is kept alive by a nursery rhyme that tells of how Kitty Fisher lost her pocket, and Lucy Locket found it. Several stunning portraits of Kitty have survived.

The scandal that attached itself to Kitty was due not just to her being a courtesan, but the fact that she was ‘kept’ by a group of five men simultaneously. These men belonged to White’s Club where they gambled. They agreed to jointly ‘keep’ Kitty, each giving her 5% of their winnings and having an equal share of her favours. Nothing has survived to give Kitty’s feelings on the matter.

There were, however, other men in Kitty's orbit at this time. One was a wealthy (and married!) Jewish businessman named Joseph Salvador. His money came from dealing in precious stones and jewels, including importing diamonds from India. Kitty loved diamonds above all else.

Kitty Fisher by Sir Joshua Reynolds, New York Public Library

Kitty had an accident while riding with a friend and two officers on The Mall. She tumbled from her horse and the press loved the idea of a fallen woman, falling. Overnight, Kitty became a sensation. A two-volume pseudo-biography was rushed out, The Juvenile Adventures of Miss Kitty Fisher (1759). In it, most of the men in her life were given Spanish pseudonyms. Joseph Salvador was called Don Camelio and noted as the richest of her lovers.

The sudden attention scared Salvador and most of the other men in her life away from Kitty. One (not a member of the gambling group) was steadfast, and Kitty spent several years living with him in the country, passing as his housekeeper for the sake of politeness.

The tragedy struck. Kitty’s lover died and she had to find ways to survive. She returned to London and sought out the one man she thought would still be prepared to pay: Joseph Salvador. He agreed to become her protector and c.1765/1766 gave Kitty substantial amounts of money. Salvador itemised some of the payments.

£300 towards your support and your family; £100 towards mourning on your father’s decease; £100 as a present on your journey to Bath and £100 for expenses on the journey; £500 as a token of my love and affection and in consideration of the many necessary expenses you must incur to appear – as I desire you.[i]

A print was made and circulated, depicting contemporary gossip and slurs about Salvador's and Kitty's relationship. It was produced by Carington Bowles (the Yale University Library states that it could not be published before 1764, as that was the date that Bowles separated his business from his father’s). Joseph Salvador is depicted reaching for his purse to pay for a pair of pearl drop earrings.

Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0 User: נעבעך אפיקורס.

Perhaps Salvador spent too freely. Around this time he experienced money worries. He would, in due course, sell up in England and move to America. For Kitty, however, the hero of her story was about to make his entrance.

You can read the full story in my book, Kitty Fisher: The First Female Celebrity, published by Pen and Sword Books. It’s available via my publisher’s website by clicking here, or via Amazon or your bookstore of choice.

If Major’s book, Kitty Fisher: The First Female Celebrity was turned into a reality television series depicting the lascivious 18th century — and if time travel could be achieved — Kitty Fisher would have a hit show called, “Keeping up with Kitty.” It would include an extended cast of rival courtesans and other infamous women on Harris’s famous list of loose and exciting women about London. Video clips of Kitty’s horsing accident in the Mall would have broken the internet, shut TikTok down, gone viral. (Goodreads 5* review.)

Notes:

[i] Woolf, Maurice. ‘Joseph Salvador 1716–1786.’ Transactions (Jewish Historical Society of England), vol. 21, 1962, pp. 104–137. Accessed via JSTOR. Woolf says that Salvador’s wife, Leonora, had died by 1766.