Sally Salisbury

Sally Salisbury
Engraving of Sally Salisbury from the Authentic Memoirs of the Life, Intrigues and Adventures of the Celebrated Sally Salisbury (1723)
Born	Sarah Pridden c.1690 London, England
Died	1724 (aged 33–34) Newgate Prison, England
Occupation	Prostitute

Sally Salisbury (c.1692 – 1724), real name Sarah Pridden and also known as Sarah Priddon, was a celebrated prostitute in early 18th-century London. She was the lover of many notable members of society, and socialised with many others.

In 1722 she stabbed and wounded a client. As a result, she was sentenced to one year's imprisonment. She was sent to Newgate Prison to serve her sentence but died in prison after only nine months.

She was born around 1690–1692 and given the name Sarah Pridden. Her father was a bricklayer. At the age of nine she was apprenticed to a seamstress in Aldgate. After losing a valuable piece of lace she ran away and took to life on the streets of the slum district of St Giles. Here she turned to various forms of street trading. She became well known in London as "the beautiful little wench who sells pamphlets to the schoolboys and apprentices...in Pope's Head Alley in the City of London", but her pamphlet sales were merely a sideline to her more lucrative trade, charging the boys half a crown for an hour of her time. The notorious roué Colonel Francis Charteris made her his mistress, but abandoned her when she was 14, after which she was taken in by the bawd, Mother Wisebourne, whose house in Covent Garden was among the most exclusive and expensive brothels of the time. She adopted the name Salisbury from one of her lovers. After Wisebourne's death she moved on to the house of Mother Needham in Park Place.

She was celebrated for her beauty and wit and attracted many aristocratic customers. The Secretary of State, Viscount Bolingbroke was a great admirer, willing to pay "the highest price for the greatest pleasure" and she boasted that she had "at least half a score" of lords as clients. The Duke of Richmond, the poet and diplomat Matthew Prior, and Nell Gwyn's son, the Duke of St Albans all patronised her, and even the future George II was rumoured to have been amongst her lovers.