Died 1747 Spouse(s) Tom King | Nationality English Name Elizabeth Adkins | |
Born 1696 St Giles in the Fields, London Occupation Coffeehouse proprietress, sex worker Known for Co-owning Tom King's Coffee House, Allegedly inspiring Daniel Defoe's novel Moll Flanders Criminal charge Theft, disorderly household | ||
Elizabeth Adkins was a prominent figure in London's underworld during the early 18th century. She is most famous for being the joint owner of King's Coffeehouse with her husband Tom King, but she also allegedly supported herself as a sex worker and pickpocket. Her aliases included "Mary"' or "Maria Godson," although she is best known as Moll King.
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Life and career
According to The Life and Character of Moll King, late mistress of King's Coffee House in Covent Garden, a pamphlet published anonymously in 1747, Adkins was born in 1696. However, 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 1747. The Life and Character of Moll King states that Adkin's father was a shoemaker and that her mother sold fish, fruit and greens in the street. It also suggests Adkins became a sex worker 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 with 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. She also went into business with infamous London criminal Jonathan Wild, from whom she learned pick-pocketing.
In October 1718, Adkins, referred to in legal documents as Moll King, was arrested for stealing a gold watch from a woman near St. Anne's Church, Soho. She was sentenced to seven years transportation to America, and later, when she was discovered attempting to en-enter the United Kingdom, she was sentenced to death. It is assumed that Adkin's connection with Jonathan Wild facilitated her release.
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. Guests at the coffeehouse included many of London's most famous sex workers, including Mother Needham and Mother Whyburn. Some sources, including The Life and Character of Moll King, insinuate that Adkins continued her criminal business alongside Jonathan Wild while helping her husband manage the coffeehouse. In her parallel life, Adkins became known as Moll King, a notorious loan shark.
In 1721, Adkins was arrested again as Moll King and sentenced to reside in Newgate Prison. The legal documents from this case refer to Adkins as Moll King, alias Moll Bird, alias Mary Godson.
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. Adkin's husband, King, died in 1739, allegedly of complications due to his alcoholism. Adkins, who had since been released from prison, was arrested shortly after her husband's death for keeping a disorderly house. Her criminal activities increased, and she earned a new nickname, "The Virago". In 1734, Adkins was allegedly sentenced to transportation to America a final time. It is not clear when she returned to London, but in 1747, Adkins died in a house on Haverstock Hill. She was either fifty-one or seventy-one.
Adkins left her money to her son, financing his education at Eton College.
Inspiring 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. 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 Defoe to write his novel, Moll Flanders.