Elizabeth Adkins, who was also known as Moll King, Moll Bird, Mary Godson, Mary and Maria Godson, was a prominent figure in London's underworld during the early 18th century. She owned King's Coffeehouse with her husband Tom King and she also allegedly worked in the sex trade and as a pickpocket. Adkins has been connected in historical analysis to a London criminal named Moll King, and court documents suggest Moll King was born at least twenty years before.
Biography
According to a pamphlet published anonymously in 1747, Adkins was born in 1696 in Vine Street, London. The Life and Character of Moll King states that Adkins' father was a shoemaker and that her mother sold fish, fruit and greens in the street. It also suggests Adkins became a prostitute before the age of fourteen. Adkins was married to a man named Thomas King, known around the area as Smooth'd-Fac'd-Tom, at fourteen, and was linked several years later to William Murray. When this second relationship ended, Adkins befriended a famous courtesan Sally Salisbury and began her own work in the sex trade. During this time, between 1715 and 1720, Adkins began using her aliases, Mary or Maria Godson. Adkins returned to her husband King, and the two began a business selling nuts on the street. By 1717, the nut stand had grown into the storefront eventually called King's Coffeehouse in about 1717. Guests at the coffeehouse included many of London's most famous sex workers, including Mother Needham and Mother Whyburn. Adkins was thought to be the driving force behind the coffee house, and also became a money-lender. Although never a brothel as such, the coffee house was a meeting place for pimps, prostitutes and their clients. To avoid prosecution for keeping a brothel, there were no beds on the premises. King and her clientele spoke in a slang called "flash talk" to try and confuse any eavesdroppers to the conversations. Tom and Moll King were arrested in 1737 for keeping a disorderly house and fined. The Kings bought a parcel of land at Haverstock Hill and built a 'genteel villa' and three substantial houses. The villa became known as 'Molly King's Folly, and was occupied by King's protege Nancy Dawson. King was known in the area as the "Little Princess". Adkins' husband, King, died in 1739, allegedly of complications due to his alcoholism. After her husband's death King continued to run the coffee house by herself. Her tolerant attitude frequently gave way to rages and she earned a new nickname, "The Virago". Adkins increasingly showed drunken behaviour which landed her in court frequently. However she was adept at playing the system and sometimes manipulated her court appearances to be transferred to the Court of King's Bench. The prosecution did not pursue the charges due to the much greater expense of King's Bench hearings. After refusing to pay a £200 fine for keeping a disorderly house, King was imprisoned. King remarried to a Mr Hoff. King retired in about 1745, and following a long illness, died on 17 September 1747, in her country house at Haverstock Hill. Adkins left her money to her son, who was described as a "very hopeful young fellow and on whom she bestowed a liberal education at Eton School".
Moll King criminal
Little is known of Moll King's early life, she was probably a native Londoner and born in the 1670s. In October 1693 she had one of her hands branded after robbing a house in St Giles, Cripplegate. It is thought she married a City Officer in 1718. King went into business with infamous London criminal Jonathan Wild, from whom she learned pick-pocketing. In October 1718, King, now using the name Mary Gilstone, was arrested for stealing a gold watch from a woman near St Anne's Church, Soho. She was sentenced to death in December 1718, but this was commuted to fourteen years' transportation to America when it was confirmed by a 'Panel of Matrons' that she was pregnant. After her baby was weaned, King was transported on the convict shipSusannah and Sarah, to Annapolis, Maryland, arriving on 23 April 1720, but within a short time had returned to England. It is assumed that King's connection with Jonathan Wild facilitated her release. In Annapolis King had teamed up with fellow felon Richard Bird, originally from Whitechapel, and the pair travelled back to England together, King using the name Bird. In June 1721, Adkins was arrested robbing a house in Little Russell Street, Covent Garden and incarcerated in Newgate Prison. The legal documents from this case refer to Adkins as Moll King, alias Moll Bird, alias Mary Godson. Jonathan Wild was able to use his influence with "tame" magistrates for the charges to be dropped. A second indictment for returning from transportation was added, and in January 1722 King was again transported to America, this time on the ship Gilbert. However, by June 1722 she was back in London and in September that year was arrested and returned to Newgate. She was again transported to America in June 1723. In 1723, a man named John Stanley was hanged for murdering his mistress. According to a pamphlet which was published after Stanley's death, he had allegedly been intimate with Moll King as well. In 1734, Adkins was allegedly sentenced to transportation to America a final time.
''Moll Flanders''
Historical analyst Gerald Howson argues in his 1985 book, Thief-Taker General: Jonathan Wild and the Emergence of Crime and Corruption As a Way of Life in Eighteenth-Century England, that Elizabeth Adkins' story had inspired Daniel Defoe to write his novel, Moll Flanders. While Adkins was imprisoned at Newgate in 1721, novelist Daniel Defoe began writing about her. Defoe was visiting his friend, the journalist Nathaniel Mist, when he began mentioning Moll King in his notes.
