Beggars Benison

(approx. 4 min read) 

Trigger Warning Disclaimers:  

This blog post concerns sexually explicit content which potentially includes historical non-consensual sexual activity. Please proceed with caution. Resources can be found in the Resources tab of this microsite for anyone who is affected by these issues.   

Language used in these blogs refers to cis, heteronormative gender identities owing to the historical context of the Beggar’s Benison Club. Today, we are aware of and acknowledge a wider spectrum of gender identities. 

From 1732 to 1836, Anstruther in the East Neuk of Fife was home to the Beggar’s Benison Club. The secret all-male club was devoted to the idea of male sexual liberation. Members created symbolic sexual imagery and may have practised sexual rituals. Members also had interests in subversive politics and illegal smuggling.  

From medals and seal matrices to phallus shaped drinking glasses, the Collection of the Beggar’s Benison has survived the 185 years since its disbandment in 1836, yet it has spent much of that time hidden.  

After 1836, the Collection was left in the hands of one of the last Club members, Matthew Foster Conolly.  Since then, the objects have passed through multiple hands. The Collection held at the Wardlaw Museum is likely only a fraction of what existed during the Club’s height. Even before the Beggar’s Benison disbanded, some of the records of the Club and its objects had already been lost.  

Throughout the life of the Collection, no one has really known what to do or make of it. Certainly, Conolly, who had control of the Collection for about forty years, appears to have been conflicted over whether to preserve or destroy it.  

His uncertainty around what to do with this Collection is somewhat understandable. For instance, on one hand, the Collection contains objects connected to illustrious figures in society at the time. Indeed, the Collection includes a snuff box that is thought to have been gifted to the Club by the then Prince Regent, the later King George IV, whilst visiting Scotland.  He is said to have been intrigued by the Club and was subsequently given an honorary membership. However, on the other hand these objects, due to the imagery displayed, form and function, after the Club’s decline leading to its eventual disbandment may have seemed less warrantable to preserve without its once captive audience.¹ For instance, the snuff box is said to have once been filled with pubic hair belonging to the mistress of the then Prince Regent. 

Indeed, the historian David Stevenson, who has written a book dedicated to the history of the Club, believes that Conolly’s eventual decision to preserve the Collection mostly probably came down to the fact that he was an avid local historian. However, it is clear this decision was not made without serious consideration, highlighted by the fact that he burnt many of the records, clearly intending to destroy them, but not before he partially copied many. He passed the Collection down to his son-in-law, a Reverend Gordon, on his death. 

Reverend Gordon believed that, despite its nature, the Collection was significant enough to warrant preservation.² This is evidenced by the fact that after Gordon, the Collection passed to Mcnaught Campbell, who worked at the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow. Once in his possession, he loaned them to the Kelvingrove Museum who reportedly displayed some, yet not the more obscene, of the items that formed part of the Collection.  

The Collection later passed on again to a new owner who tried to sell the Collection to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, now the National Museum of Scotland. The Museum seems to have considered purchasing them but instead chose to pass on the sale. The Collection, it seems, was too obscene for the Museum, making it difficult to display.³ 

Eventually, after the death of its last owner, the Collection was donated to the University of St Andrews. For a long time, the Collection sat in the basement of the stores. A University Librarian left a note stating that the Collection “was not for female eyes.” In addition, the Collection was later covered with a sheet. The Collection has since been preserved in storage, deemed unfit for display.   

Now the Wardlaw Museum will publicly display the Collection for the first time as part of the exhibition Sex as Subversion, Fantasy, Power: The Beggar’s Benison Club.  The Exhibition will explore the hidden stories behind this controversial Club and its members. The Exhibition team, along with co-curators from our Advisory Panel, aims to highlight the issues and themes surrounding the Beggar’s Benison Club and its activities. 

In this Exhibition, we particularly wish to examine how the unequal balances of power wielded by the Beggar’s Benison Club relates to continuing issues surrounding sexuality and gender in today’s society. Certainly, this Collection, when explored in a sensitive, collaborative way, can highlight and spread awareness of issues related to sexuality, sexual injustice and gender discrimination. 

Written by Nicola Law, student in MLitt. Museum and Galleries Studies at the University of St Andrews

[1] Stevenson, Chapter Two 

[2] Stevenson, Chapter Two 

[3] Stevenson, Chapter Ten 

• Stevenson, David, The Beggar’s Benison Club: Sex Clubs of Enlightened Scotland and their Rituals, 2001. 

(6 minute read) 

Trigger Warning Disclaimers:  

This blog post concerns sexually explicit content which potentially includes historical non-consensual sexual activity. Please proceed with caution. Resources can be found in the Resources tab of this microsite for anyone who is affected by these issues.   

Language used in these blogs refers to cis, heteronormative gender identities owing to the historical context of the Beggar’s Benison Club. Today, we are aware of and acknowledge a wider spectrum of gender identities. 

From 1732 to 1836, Anstruther in the East Neuk of Fife was home to the Beggar’s Benison Club. The secret all-male club was devoted to the idea of male sexual liberation. Members created symbolic sexual imagery and may have practised sexual rituals. Members also had interests in subversive politics and illegal smuggling.  

Indeed, a central activity of the Beggar’s Benison Club was to fantasise about sexual exploits. This came in many forms, from conjuring grandiose origin myths, appropriating mythological and Biblical stories, to reading pornographic texts, and drinking toasts to genitalia. These ideas were essentially tied to sexual imagination as a way to satisfy male lust and fantasy. However, they also served a more practical purpose; to support the Club’s quest for sexual pleasure, to validate its rituals and to be ‘enjoyably ludicrous.’¹ 

It is important to note that here, in this context of the Beggar’s Benison Club, ‘fantasy’ is not associated with innocent, positive connotations. The ways in which Club members fantasised about sex were from a male perspective that was exploitative and misogynistic. These dynamics have not been explored in great detail thus far by historians, especially in terms of the impact and implications for the young women hired by the Club. We endeavour to explore these dynamics within this exhibition and investigate the unequal sexual power dynamics. 

Possibly the most important myth conjured by the Benison was that which explained the Club’s origins, ‘The King and the Beggar Maid.’ The folktale is attached to King James V of Scotland [1513-1542], who possessed hero-status according to the Benison, as he set an example of sexual licence within high society.  

While disguised as a commoner, James V visited the Dreel Burn, the river boundary between Anstruther Easter and Anstruther Wester in the East Neuk of Fife. He did not want to wet his feet crossing the water (the height of royal heroism); therefore, he received the help of a beggar maid to carry him across the water. As thanks, James gave her a gold coin and in return, the maid thanked him in the form of a blessing or ‘benison’. 

In this context, ‘benison’ is a colloquial term for sexual favours. Indeed, the Old Scots rhyme associated with the myth describes its sentiments towards wealth (the gold coin) and sex (the benison):  

May your purse naer be toom (never empty) 

And your horn aye in bloom. (always) 

The club also referred to the punchier, anglicised version as their toast and motto:  

May Prick nor Purse never fail you. 

The name of the Club was thus a most suitable title for their endeavours and desires. It references the Beggar Maid myth and its connotations of sex and money. Members idolised King James V as an archetypal figure of sexual fantasy and saw themselves in him; ‘for they too were rulers, by right of the phallus.’² 

Other fantastical origin myths for the Club go even further back than the reign of King James V. Club members metaphorically imagined that the Beggar’s Benison originated with the biblical Creation. This biblical reference can be found on one of the surviving Club medals within the exhibition, where a depiction of Adam and Eve is accompanied by the phrase ‘be fruitful and multiply.’ This coy play-on-words appropriates God’s directive to procreate, into such a meaning that justifies the Club’s desire for sexual pleasure. 

Even within a small town such as Anstruther, the Beggar’s Benison found ways to attach sexual innuendos to their surrounding environment. The Isle of May, off the coast of Anstruther and visible from its harbour, found its way into the Club’s imagination. Members speculated about sex-crazed monks that inhabited the island, taking it for granted that masturbation was a monastic speciality. The name ‘May’ also added to their fantasies as it bore a girl’s name and the month of May was associated with spring and fertility. 

It must be reiterated that these sexual fantasies were conjured to satisfy only the male perspective. They were not simply cheerful, innocent imaginations of consensual sex. Indeed, Club members may have enabled and encouraged one another in their objectification and fantasising of the female body. As well as drunken songs, toasts and general debauchery, Club members would read and celebrate pornographic texts in order to satiate their male lust. In line with the Club’s love of sexual innuendo and double entendre, 1700s pornographic texts describe the female body through metaphor.  

In texts such as A New Description of Merryland, the notion of male sexual dominance is rampant. The author consistently highlights the imperfections of female genitalia while simultaneously praising his own penis. Female masturbation is considered abhorrent, yet male self-pleasure is considered natural and normal. The female body, denoted as ‘Merryland’, is a foreign country to be conquered as a man’s rightful territory.  

Other texts read by the Beggar’s Benison include Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland, or more commonly known as Fanny Hill. The text describes Fanny, aged fourteen, as lewd, promiscuous and sexually insatiable, with a theme of shame which she should feel for her pleasures. Again, the double standards of celebrated male sexuality and shamed female sexuality is shown here, not to mention the shocking imbalance of power concerning the sexual relations between a fourteen-year-old girl and older men. We know that this text was read by the Benison on St Andrew’s Day in 1737, where ‘two nymphs’ of eighteen and nineteen years old exhibited themselves nude for the members.  

This act of hiring girls to pose naked will be explored in the ‘Subversive Sex’ and ‘Women of the Beggar’s Benison’ blogs. In this context, however, it shows us how Club members were obsessed with fantasising around the female body in male-dominant and misogynistic forms. This sexual imagination was compounded with the exploitative physical observation of naked young women.  

Written by Leonie Leeder, student in MLitt. Museum and Galleries Studies at the University of St Andrews

Sources:

¹ Stevenson, 14. 

¹ Stevenson, 17. 

• Dubois, Sharon O’Toole, ‘Merryland: Gender and Power in an Eighteenth Century Pornotopia’, Utopian Studies, 11:2 (2000). 
• Lord, Evelyn, The Hell Fire Clubs: Sex, Satanism and Secret Societies, 2008. 
• Peakman, Julie, Lascivious Bodies: A Sexual History of the Eighteenth Century, 2004. 
• Stevenson, David, The Beggar’s Benison Club: Sex Clubs of Enlightened Scotland and their Rituals, 2001. 
• Stretzer, Thomas (pseudonym Roger Phequewell), A New Description of Merryland: Containing a Topographical, Geographical and Natural History of that Country, 10^th ed, 1742. 

(Approx. 3 minute Read) 

Trigger Warning Disclaimers:  

This blog post concerns sexually explicit content which potentially includes historical non-consensual sexual activity and images. Please proceed with caution. Resources can be found in the Resources tab of this microsite for anyone who is affected by these issues.   

Language used in these blogs refers to cis, heteronormative gender identities owing to the historical context of the Beggar’s Benison Club. Today, we are aware of and acknowledge a wider spectrum of gender identities. 

From 1732 to 1836, Anstruther in the East Neuk of Fife was home to the Beggar’s Benison Club. The secret all-male club was devoted to the idea of male sexual liberation. Members created symbolic sexual imagery and may have practised sexual rituals. Members also had interests in subversive politics and illegal smuggling.  

The Exhibition Sex as Subversion, Fantasy and Power: The Beggar’s Benison Club at the Wardlaw Museum aims to explore this Club and its Collection through the three central themes of Subversion, Fantasy, and Power.  

Taken at face value, the objects from the Collection displayed within this Exhibition will likely elicit shocked gasps and exclamations, especially due to their appearance with many featuring phallic imagery. Certainly, as is explored in our ‘The Secret History of the Collection’ blog, these objects have been left undisturbed in storage since the mid-1800s as they were simply deemed too obscene to show to the public.  However, the Club’s fascination and celebration of sex must not be misunderstood and dismissed as merely raunchy. The Club used the idea of sex to be politically subversive, to fantasise about male dominated sexual exploits, and to exhibit power over women. This blog will briefly discuss the subversive nature of the Club’s relationship with sex, which is reflected by the objects from the Collection and the activities of the Club. 

Indeed, the surviving relics of, and records belonging to, the Club explicitly highlight their members’ convivial advocation of male sexual freedom. They emphasise the Club’s belief that sex should be enjoyed for pleasure, which at the time was extremely subversive, rebelling against the widespread belief in the 1700s that sex should be purely for procreation.   For instance, the records belonging to the Club, which will be presented as part of our online exhibition, describe a version of the initiation ceremony in explicit detail. From these we learn that new initiates to the Beggar’s Benison Club were required to demonstrate their ability to perform sexually. This included exhibiting his phallus to his fellow members-to-be, masturbating in front of existing members, and sometimes masturbating together as a sociable activity.  

The novice (prospective member) would be ‘prepared’ in a closet in which two members would ‘[cause] him to propel his Penis until full erection.’ Coming out of the closet (an interesting choice of words given the Club’s disapproval of homosexuality, as shall be explored in later blogs), the initiate was greeted by existing members who wore sashes and medals in full fanfare. He was required to place his phallus upon the Test Platter to demonstrate his ability to perform sexually.  

This action was accompanied by ‘four puffs of the Breath Horn’ to simulate ejaculation. The records then note ‘The Members and Knights two and two came round in a state of erection and touched the novice Penis to Penis.’  

A wine glass displaying the Club’s motif was then used to drink a toast to the new member, who was bestowed with his own sash and medal. The ceremony was thus concluded by reciting the Club’s motto: ‘May Prick nor Purse never fail you.’  

This ritual was inspired by the founding myth of the Club. According to this, in the mid-16th century, King James V travelled around Scotland pretending to be a common subject. He acquainted himself with his subjects in this way. In Anstruther, he met a maid whom he offered a golden coin for carrying him across a stream. In turn, she thanked him with a ‘benison’, a slang term for sexual favours.   

Another activity adopted by the Club in the 1700s was to add pubic hairs of mistresses to a wig. Specifically, the mistresses of King Charles II (1660-1685). The King offered it to his friend and Club member, the Earl of Moray. Later Minutes of the Club confirm in 1775 that new members must kiss the wig and wear it during their initiation ceremony. The collection and use of pubic hair in this way is an example of how these sex clubs attempted to objectify, possess and control the female body. It was an act to wield power over women through somber mockery.  

Initiation rituals were adopted by the Club to legitimize their male sexual activity and advocation of male sexual pleasure. They served to prove a potential member’s ‘manhood’ and sexual capability. Both these criteria were essential to be accepted into the Club.  

However, discretion had to be taken to ensure such interests did not cause public scandal, as such sexual conduct went against the moral and ethical teachings of the Church and State. Hence, the secrecy that surrounded the Club. As the historian David Stevenson, who has written a history of the Club, puts it, the Club’s activities had ‘the spice of being naughtily outrageous’.  

Indeed, throughout the 1500s and 1600s, there was a rise in religiously inspired sexual repression, where sex for anything other than procreating was strictly prohibited. Until the end of the 1700s, a strong taboo surrounded masturbation. This theme will be explored in a later blog, ‘Sex as Science’.   

The Age of Enlightenment in the 1700s and 1800s was important for developing new ways of thinking about sexual liberation (for heteronormative men). The Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical revolution where scientific inquiry was favoured over religious faith. The idea of sexual freedoms and sex as pleasure fitted perfectly into progressive thinking at this time. As such, the attitudes of the Beggar’s Benison Club toward sex align with this wider movement. 

Fast forward to the present day, it is interesting to think that whilst the Beggar’s Benison Club was sexually subversive during the 1700s and 1800s, the Collection of the Club was still deemed to be too subversive and obscene to display until very recently. Indeed, our Exhibition Sex as Subversion, Fantasy and Power: The Beggar’s Benison Club at the Wardlaw Museum will be one of the first bold public displays of the Collection at the University. The exhibition aims to explore the theme of subversion further, and deconstruct and discuss the taboos surrounding the Club. Certainly, this chapter in Fife history and display of sexuality and sexual freedom, can also help us to explore and discuss issues relating to sexuality and sexual freedom ongoing today.    

Written by Leonie Leeder, student in MLitt. Museum and Galleries Studies at the University of St Andrews

Sources:

• Peakman, Julie, Lascivious Bodies: A Sexual History of the Eighteen Century, 2005 

• Stevenson, David, The Beggar’s Benison Club: Sex Clubs of Enlightened Scotland and their Rituals, 2001