Eighteenth-century London was not a single city but many, with areas of overlapping jurisdiction, each with its own system of governance, law and order, and administration. There was no overall body of governance for the metropolis as a whole, nothing remotely approaching anything that could be called a modern-day city council. Instead, the metropolis of London was subject to an astonishing variety of local bodies, including the very ancient and exclusive Corporation of the City of London, the vestries and commissions of Westminster, the Surrey justices responsible for Southwark, and the Middlesex justices responsible for the rapidly expanding northern and eastern suburbs of the city.

Such complexity of jurisdiction had profound effects on the life of the inhabitants. A criminal could evade capture simply by leaving one jurisdiction and entering another. The fragmented nature of governance is one of the reasons the sex trade flourished in certain areas, especially in the liberties and out-parishes where oversight was weakest, and one of the reasons why publications such as Harris's List could circulate for decades without interference.

The map below shows the principal wards across all four jurisdictions. Click on any of the highlighted areas to see its name. The four borough pages below discuss each of these jurisdictions in more detail, including maps of the wards and parishes in which the entries in Harris's List are concentrated.

The Four Jurisdictions