Talk:Elizabeth Cresswell/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs) 20:27, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Lead

• The lead is too short to adequately summarise the article.

Extended.

The lead now says that Cresswell was Sir Thomas Player's lover, but that's not what the article says. Malleus Fatuorum 19:28, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Rephrased

• The ODNB says she died in c. 1698, not some time in the rather astonishingly large range of 1684–98.

The different sources give differing dates. The older ODNB states 1684, but I will go with the current ODNB.

Life and career

• "During a trial a local constable John Marshall ...". Who was on trial? Cresswell? The constable?

Further detail and ref given

• "... John Marshall describes 'Elizabeth Cresswell living in Bartholomew Close was found with divers Gentlemen and Women in her House at divers times: some of these women were sent to Bridewell.'" That doesn't really work.

Rephrased

• "She had attempted to bribe the police in order avoid the publicising of the case". Very awkward, ungrammatical, and what case are we talking about anyway?

Rephrased

• "By October she was living two miles to the northeast, in St Leonard's, Shoreditch. A mass of angry locals had gathered to indict her as she ...". I just can't follow the chronology of this section at all; there was a trial at some unspecified date, by October (which year?) she'd moved to St Leonards, a crowd tried to indict her (before or after the trial, and how can a crowd indict anyone anyway?).

Rephrased, underlined chronology.

• "They complained that, such was the proliferation of bawds in the area of the house ...". What house?

Rephrased. The ellipses are given in the secondary sources.

• "Cresswell was sentenced to hard labour in prison." As a result of that rather vague trial?

The two sources give only this information.

• "She had attempted to bribe police in order to avoid publicising the court case." I don't understand how "had attempted" relates to the immediately preceding comment about some of Cresswell's prostitutes being jailed. Were they jailed because she'd attempted to bribe the police?

Rephrased.

In contemporary media

• "By mid-life she was an independently wealthy woman, connected across England to rich and powerful men in government and the court, whose network of services were in high demand, counter to the religious and social morals of the day." That's rather confusingly written. What's a "network of services", and whose network was it? The way it's written makes it look like it was the rich and powerful men in government but I suspect that it's Creswell's.

Rephrased. The 'network' refers to the earlier mention in the "Success" section: "She had a network of agents across the country who found her pretty young girls". The sources specify this unusual set up.

• "... which helped to build her own legend." And what was her legend?

Rephrased.

Political affiliation

• "These were said often to turn into orgies; on one occasion Cresswell provisioned such a party with 300 prostitutes; the story of the night was promptly turned into a local ballad." You need to revisit the structure of that sentence; you can't have two semicolons.

Re-punctuated.

• "Cresswell bankrolled his career during this time, a power that gave her leverage in the political and financial underworld". "Power" clearly isn't the right word here.

Rephrased.

• "In 1681, she was brought to trial for 'over thirty years of bawdry', during which many of her own prostitutes testified against her." You need to look at that again, as what it's saying is that her prostitutes testified against her during thirty years of bawdry, not during the trial.

Rephrased.

The Bawdy House Riots and the Whores' Petition

• "... smashed up the royally supported brothels across London, representative to some of Charles's continental style court". What does that mean? Representative of? In what way representative?

Rephrased

Last years

• "After long searching ...". After a long search?

Rephrased.

• "Cresswell was incarcerated in Bridewell Prison". When?

No given sources say when, just that they are sure she died there and may be buried in the Bridewell graveyard.

References

• Why is the article relying on an ancient version of the DNB when there's a perfectly good up-to-date entry in the current (2004) version?

I wouldn't say the article is 'relying' on this older version. It gives a different set of information, especially concerning contemporary media in which she featured.

I would. It's cited 10 times, under two different entries (why?): The Dictionary of National Biography and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Woodfall's entry is 124 years old, and certain of the details don't match what the 2004 edition says, including the probable site of Cresswell's burial. Malleus Fatuorum 16:42, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The older version is only ref'd three times. The two works have two different names. The title was changed in 2004 to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

• OK, I think we can wrap this up now. Malleus Fatuorum 20:59, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work on this review. Best wishes Span (talk) 21:18, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.