Theresa Berkley and the Berkley Horse,Theresa Berkley was an infamous governess and dominatrix who r

Theresa Berkley and the Berkley Horse,Theresa Berkley was an infamous governess and dominatrix who ran a flagellation brothel in London in the early 19th century.  Clients typically consisted of wealthy English ladies and gentlemen who enjoyed a good spanking or flogging.  For a price, one could also spank/flog her or one of her employees, named “Miss Ring, Hannah Jones, Sally Taylor, One-eyed Peg, Bauld-cunted Poll, and a black girl called Ebony Bet.”  Theresa was well staffed and well equipped for her work, and throughout her life she invented many instruments and devices which are common staples of BDSM culture today. As described by the writer and frequent customer Henry Spencer Ashbee,“Her instruments of torture were more numerous than those of any other governess. Her supply of birch was extensive, and kept in water, so that it was always green and pliant: she had shafts with a dozen whip thongs on each of them; a dozen different sizes of cat-o’-nine-tails, some with needle points worked into them; various kinds of thin bending canes; leather straps like coach traces; battledoors, made of thick sole-leather, with inch nails run through to docket, and currycomb tough hides rendered callous by many years flagellation. Holly brushes, furze brushes; a prickly evergreen, called butcher’s bush [?butcher’s broom]; and during the summer, a glass and China vases, filled with a constant supply of green nettles, with which she often restored the dead to life. Thus, at her shop, whoever went with plenty of money, could be birched, whipped, fustigated, scourged, needle-pricked, half-hung, holly-brushed, furze-brushed, butcher-brushed, stinging-nettled, curry-combed, phlebotomized, and tortured till he had a belly full.Mrs Berkley has also in her second floor, a hook and pulley attached to the ceiling, by which she could draw a man up by his hands.”Among Theresa Berkley’s most famous inventions was the Berkley Horse, which she referred to as the “chevalet”. As described by Ashbee,“A notorious machine was invented for Mrs Berkley to flog gentlemen upon, in the spring of 1828. It is capable of being opened to a considerable extent, so as to bring the body to any angle that might be desirable. There is a print in Mrs Berkley’s memoirs, representing a man upon it quite naked. A woman is sitting in a chair exactly under it, with her bosom, belly, and bush exposed: she is manualizing his embolon, whilst Mrs Berkley is birching his posteriors.”Theresa Berkley became exceptionally wealthy from her business. She died in 1836, and all her wealth and assets, valued at £100,000, went to her brother, a Christian missionary in Australia.  When her brother discovered the source of her wealth, he renounced all claims and returned to Australia.  The executor of her estate and other family did as well.  With no heirs to inherit the fortune, the estate come under possession of the British Government and was liquidated. -- source link

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