At the time of her first trial for fraud in 1868, Madame
Rachel’s case exposed not only the thinly veiled anti-Semitism that was rampant
in Victorian London, but also their fears of independent women running
successful businesses. She threatened
everything that the Victorians held dear about the role of women, who were
supposed to be chaste, unpainted angels who needed protection. Whores, actresses and loose women wore
make-up and cared about their appearances, not the average Victorian housewife,
or so they thought. Her trial exposed
women’s dirty, little secret, that they were willing to pay a high price in
their pursuit of beauty.
In the 19th century, cosmetics were a lucrative
growth business; companies such as Rimmel were founded. But the industry was
still in its infancy, and products were crude, and colors were limited. Make-up consisted of rouge and powder, red
salve for the lips and kohl for the eyes but any respectable woman who used
more than face powder was given disapproving looks. Queen Victoria, in
particular, was appalled at the idea of women using cosmetics. Female beauty
was only supposed to be achieved by washing with soap and water, and exposure to
fresh air, but not too much dancing as it gave an undignified flush to the
cheeks. There was such a general hostility to make-up that most women concocted
their cosmetics at home using homemade recipes with ingredients such as arsenic. Only those with money could afford face
washes and creams offered by proprietors such as Madame Rachel.
Madame Rachel claimed to be a woman of social standing who
was distantly related to the great French tragedienne Rachel Felix. In reality, she was born Sarah Rachel Russell
sometime between 1806 and 1814. She grew up poor and illiterate in the East End
of London, but what she lacked in formal education, she more than made up with
street smarts. According to biographers,
Rachel was married to an assistant chemist in Manchester, and then later in
1844 to a man named Jacob Moses who deserted her. She later moved in with a man named Philip
Levinson (also known as Levy or Leverson), whose name she subsequently
took. Leverson was the father of six of
her children. Initially Rachel had a
fried fish and potatoes stall in the slums of Clement St. Danes, supplementing
her income as a dealer in second hand clothes, before she hit on a more
lucrative line of work, selling cosmetics.
She came armed with a sob story guaranteed to win sales, claiming
that she’d been ill with a fever and her beautiful locks were shorn. A medical man told her that he would give her
a lotion which would make not only make her hair grow back, but even more
beautiful and luxurious than before. The
product worked and Madame was launched into the beauty business. With the help of her oldest daughter also
named Rachel, she wrote a pamphlet called Beautiful
for Ever, which laid out her philosophy of beauty. The pamphlet was only 24 pages and could only be
purchased exclusively at Madame Rachel’s.
Although she may not have had a formal education, she was a
natural when it came to marketing her products and her business. Madame Rachel advertised her exotic sounding
wares in publications like The Times of London, the Court Journal and Debrett’s
peerage, places where her target audience, wealthy women, would see them and
become intrigued. Next she secured
premises in Bond Street (No. 47A) for her shop.
She claimed to not only be a ‘purveyor to Her Majesty the Queen,” but
also Empress Eugenie, one of the most admired beauties of the era. She also jacked up the prices, proving that
even in the Victorian age; people believed that if something was incredibly
expensive, it must be good. To make it
even more alluring, Madame Rachel advertised that nowhere else could women
obtain the products that she offered.
Everyone loves exclusivity. She
also claimed she and her daughters were much older than they were as proof of
efficacy of her products. If Madame
Rachel were alive today, she would probably be the CEO of a global advertising
firm.
Women would arrive at her door heavily veiled so that no one
would recognize them. Once inside,
Madame made sure that they were surrounded by luxury. The premises were decorated with Middle
Eastern opulence, the scent of sandalwood and incense in the air, their every
need attended to by young women in flowing robes. And at the center of it all was Madame
Rachel, dressed all in black, like a spider luring its prey. For her more discreet patrons, Madame Rachel
also made house calls. The season which stretched from about the beginning of
February until mid-July was her busiest time. According to her most recent
biographer Helen Rappaport, Madame Rachel raked in thousands of pounds on a
weekly basis, which eventually bought her a box at Covent Garden, a fine
carriage and a pair of horses. Madame Rachel didn’t just spend her money on
herself; she used the money to send her younger daughters and sons to school in
Paris so that they could obtain the education that she never had. Her eldest son David was attending medical
school in London.
Madame Rachel offered an array of treatments all with
suitably luxurious and exotic names. Items such as Rejuvenating Jordan water which
sold for 10 to 20 guineas a bottle (about £1,000 today), Circassian Golden Hair
Wash, Magnetic Rock Dew for Removing Wrinkles, Royal Arabian Face Cream, and
Honey of Mount Hymetus wash, along with perfumes, oils and spices that she
imported at great expense from Armenia, Circassia and Madagascar. But her most sought after treatment was what
she called ‘enameling.’ Anyone who has
seen portraits of Queen Elizabeth I probably have a good idea of what the
treatment entailed. Her customers craved
a white, porcelain complexion not just on the face but also the bosom and
shoulders. The price for this treatment
was a mere 20 guineas. The treatment was
actually quite simple. Madame would use
various lotions to remove facial hair, followed by an alkaline toilet wash to
cleanse the skin, and then she would fill in the lines and depressions on the
face with a thick white paste. A little
powder to set the paste and a touch of blush completed the process.
But beauty treatments weren’t all that Madame Rachel
offered. She also had a neat little
sideline going as a so-called marriage broker, as well as procurer. Lonely widows and spinsters would come to
Madame Rachel for treatments, and then once she had ‘beautified’ them, she
offered them a chance at personal happiness but it was all lies. Like con
artists since the dawn of time, Madame Rachel exploited the weaknesses of women
to make a profit. She would also
encourage her clients to take an Arabian bath and then men would pay money to
spy on them through a peep hole.
But her most profitable sideline was in blackmail. Madame’s treatments cost a fortune, and many
of her upper class clients were in debt up to their eyeballs. Until the Married Women’s Property Act in
1882, a married woman had no money of her own unless she had a forward thinking
Papa who made sure that his little darling had an allowance or pin money as
part of her dowry. Most women were not
that lucky. They were basically spending their husbands’ money without his
permission. Madame Rachel would extend them credit and then once they owed her
thousands of pounds, she would try to collect. Since the women were too afraid
to tell their husbands the truth, Madame would offer to take their jewels as
collateral. Madame would then take the
jewels to a pawn shop and keep the money for herself. Women were too afraid to take Madame to court
because it meant being exposed to ridicule and social humiliation.
In 1868, one of her former clients was finally brave enough
to sue Madame for fraud and malpractice.
While Madame was eventually convicted, her client’s reputation was
ruined. The client’s name was Mary
Tucker Borradaile, a widow of an Army colonel who had been stationed in
India. She had met Madame Rachel in
1864, and continued to patronize her shop for several years. As an inducement for Mrs. Borradaile to
continue her treatments, Madame Rachel told her that an aristocrat named Lord
Ranelagh (Thomas Heron Jones, 7th Viscount Ranelagh) was in love
with her. Mrs. Borradaile corresponded
with Lord Ranelagh solely through Madame Rachel, continuing to give her money
for treatments, until in the end she’d even signed over her widow’s pension. Of course, Lord Ranelagh, a notorious rake
and scoundrel, denied that he had ever met Mrs. Borradaile or set foot in
Madame Rachel’s shop.
The newspapers and tabloids had a field day with the
story. They printed vicious anti-Semitic
cartoons; the case seemed to confirm people’s suspicions about Jews, that they
were avaricious and foreign, preying on the good citizens of Britain. There was so much coverage of the case, with
so many slanderous stories, that it would have been impossible for Madame
Rachel to receive a fair trial. The case went through two trials before Madame
Rachel was convicted. By the end, the
judge clearly believed that she was guilty and made no bones of his opinion in
front of the jury. Madame Rachel nee
Sarah Rachel Leverson was sentenced to five years penal servitude, of which she
served three years. Unrepentant, she
went back into the beauty business. Ten
years after her first conviction, she was once again convicted of fraud and
sentenced to prison where she died in 1880. During her second trial, several of
her products were analyzed and found to contain nothing more than water, fullers
earth, pearl ash, starch and hydrochloric acid.
Sources:Margaret Nicholas, The World's Wickedest Women, Octopus Books Limited, London, 1984
Helen Rappaport, Beautiful for Ever: Madame Rachel of Bond Street – Cosmetician, Con-Artist and Blackmailer. Ebrington: Long Barn Books 2010.
The Extraordinary Life and Trial of Madame Rachel at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey
