sex crimes

The Lock Hospital is one of Glasgow's best kept secrets. Above the doors were emblazoned the words of its philosophy - ''Treatment - Knowledge - Reformation''. At its creation in 1805 it was our most primitive step towards sexual health care and one which has almost been lost in history.

Its original site was at the top of Montrose Street, near what is now Cathedral street.The two-storey charitable building, which was among the first in Scotland to look after women with venereal disease, faced the Magdalene Asylum for prostitutes in old Dobbies Loan, and was flanked by a women's insane asylum. The formidable buildings shaped a Bermuda Triangle of care from which few patients emerged. From 1805 through to the early 1900s, women and children, poor and therefore powerless, endured barbaric treatments for syphilis and gonorrhoea. There was no respite from the pain through antibiotics or penicillin - these inventions were to be out of reach for many years. Instead mercury was used, which tragically only made things worse.

This crippling lack of medical knowledge, however, was overshadowed by a deep sense of shame the women, branded as reviled by God, had to suffer - a stigma which was etched into every brick of The Lock. The doctors who attended the facility were not paid and did not like their involvement talked about. The hospital committees made up of the well-meaning upper classes did what they did out of necessity.

That is why there are no gravestones for Glasgow girls Annie Ellen McGuire or Elisabeth Martin. In their short lives only a handful of people ever knew their names, names left hidden deep in historical documents. Elisabeth had syphilis aged nine, as did Annie Ellen, aged seven. They died still children and were buried in paupers' graves.

This was around 1890, and what links them together was that they both appear in records as having received treatment in The Lock. They had not had the disease from birth, but were victims of sexual abuse. As young virgins the two may even have been used by infected gentlemen as ''cures'' for syphilis, a medieval belief which became popular at this time.

The girls' fate, along with others, could have remained buried forever but for the single minded obsession of a Scots librarian. For five years Anna Forrest pored over the Glasgow Borough Records, city planning notes, and records of all Glasgow hospitals before concluding her research into what she had been assured many times was a non-existent building.

Based at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, the 48-year-old says she is determined to give a voice to those women made scapegoats for the spread of venereal diseases which were then as deadly as cholera and typhus.

Just as she was making a breakthrough a book was published about the infamous London Lock - known for such hideous practices as baby-farming and soliciting children as ''cures'' for rich gentlemen.

''All the time we had a Lock of our own,'' says Forrest. ''It is impossible to say if what went on in Glasgow was as extreme as London, however. Although the treatments given to these women sound barbaric the medical profession of the time actually thought mercury was purging their bodies of the disease.''

She adds: ''It was the cruelty of society which was shocking. Women up until The Lock had had no sexual health care. They were seen as carriers who gave the ''clap'' to men. Women were officially documented as dangerous and when it was first suggested that a VD clinic should be opened for them polite society recoiled in horror.''

Glasgow's was one of several Lock Hospitals in the UK. Although there was no link between them, it's possible they took the name because it was thought to derive from the old English word loke, associated with a leper house. It could also have been from the French loque - a bandage or wrap used to treat lepers.

Arguments about whether Glasgow should have such a facility raged between the clergy, physicians, and traders of the day. The Glasgow Courier carried regular letters from those who said it would only encourage sinful women to go out and sin again. Syphilis and gonorrhoea were seen as a punishment from God.

As far back as 1598 the Glasgow Kirk Session and town council had ordered drastic quarantine measures in an attempt to isolate sufferers. It was thought it could be caught by breathing the same air, or even by touching victims, so the ill were rounded up and taken outside the city walls. The women were branded on their faces so they could never return, and their belongings were burned.

A similar situation arose in Edinburgh. It was some time before the ''plague'' was recognised as being sexually transmitted. But, by then, women were considered the carriers.

Glasgow's Town Hospital in Clyde Street was established in 1733 but still no women were allowed in. It was eventually used as an insane asylum, overrun by men in the last stages of syphilis. In 1790 a small unit was set up at Glasgow University, but only pregnant females could get help there. Those with VD were shunned.

It was not until 1793 that an Edinburgh doctor realised there were two conditions - syphilis and gonorrhoea. By that time, London's Lock was receiving huge numbers of patients. In Edinburgh the Royal Infirmary provided a facility for women; it was nicknamed the Duck Pond because of the infected women's brown uniforms and their painful, waddling gait.

When the Napoleonic War broke out the Gallowgate Barracks were established in Glasgow and the city's own Royal Infirmary opened. The population stood at around 14,000, a third of whom were not permanent residents.

Such was the huge spread of disease due to soldiers sleeping with the ''sporting ladies'' of the town that certain wards were turned over to treat the military only. The GRI would only take in infected women who could convince doctors without a doubt that they had caught ''the clap'' from their soldier husbands. Only 18 females out of hundreds ever managed to do so.

After much debate the Glasgow Lock opened its doors in 1805, at 151 Rottenrow Lane, with 11 beds. Such was the controversy surrounding the move it did not exist in medical records of the time.

The main treatment for syphilis and gonorrhoea - then treated as one illness - was mercury. However, while the pills and potions, offered slight initial relief, the mercury slowly destroyed tissue and brain cells, causing heavy salivation and sores. Mercury vapour baths sent steam into every pore, speeding up the destruction of the brain and reproductive organs. This system was used for over 20 years until around 1880. Word spread that many entering The Lock were not seen again for months. Some were never seen again.

Fear of the three institutions grew. The non-denominational Magdalene Asylum for prostitutes, which opened in 1812, would shave the heads of the inmates and bathe them in carbolic solutions before marching them to The Lock for an internal examination. If they were well they would return, if not they would receive mercury treatment. If this became severe the women would be sent to the Insane Asylum, established in 1814, to live out the rest of their days.

The route between the buildings became known as Asylum Road and viewing galleries in the buildings offered a popular Sunday pastime to well-heeled ladies and gentlemen of the day who would come to watch the unfortunates after a morning at church.

Those mill workers, weavers, and servants who attended the hospital were kept in so long they often lost their jobs. The stigma of being there in the first place meant many would have no choice but to turn to prostitution on their release as way of making money.

It was 1807 before the magistrates of Glasgow officially recognised the Lock. Borough records say: ''It is sincerely expected that the establishment of this place will stop the spread of this evil infection.''

By 1846 the hospital had moved to new purpose-built premises at 41 Rottenrow Lane. Women from Duke Street Prison were sent there, still manacled together as they were treated.

Child victims of abuse and incest were being discovered in huge numbers, but society found this impossible to admit. One Lock doctor, Mr Alexander Paterson, is on record in 1882 as saying a seven-year-old girl ''had given the illness to herself''. There were certainly syphilitic babies born in The Lock, but many others, like Annie Ellen and Elisabeth, had been infected by adults.

The scourge of Glasgow's prostitutes, Chief Inspector Alexander McColl, was meanwhile busy clearing the streets of over 300 brothels. His special constables had the power to turn women onto the streets and charge them. Those arrested were either taken to prison, or to The Lock, where they were subjected to enforced internal examinations.

By 1924 a ward specifically for children was opened with record numbers needing help. Refuges for women began springing up all over the city. And from 1925 new treatment centres were opening for venereal disease patients and treatments had taken a huge leap forward. Lock reports show that by 1940 the number of patients was on the decline and seven years later the building's funds were transferred to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons.

In 1947 the building was being used as a naval advice centre for young men. Posters warned them to avoid contact with ''dirty and dangerous women''. The Lock was finally demolished in 1955 and the walls which held the pain of thousands of women were gone forever.

''Those days were hard and cruel in our eyes but it is an important part of our history and shows us how far we have come,'' says Forrest. ''All I want to do is give the Glasgow women and children treated at The Lock a voice. They were not unclean or cursed by God. They were people who should be remembered.''