Society for the Reformation of Manners Society would pay others to bring prosecutions, or bring prosecutions on its own account. A prominent supporter of the Society was John Gonson, Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the City of Westminster for 50 years in the early 18th century. He was noted for his enthusiasm for raiding brothels and for passing harsh sentences, and was depicted twice in William Hogarth's "A Harlot's Progress" series of paintings and engravings. In around 1770, the Society denounced Covent Garden as: The Society sought and gained the patronage of both Church and Crown: John Tillotson, the Archbishop
Thomas Hardy (English painter) Thomas Hardy (English painter) Thomas Hardy (1756/57 – 1804) was a portrait painter born in Derbyshire, England. Not much is known about Hardy's background, life and career. He enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools at the end of 1778, where records show he had turned 21 in the previous June. He exhibited some 31 paintings at the Royal Academy from 1778 to 1798 — practically all portraits — and four portraits at the Society of Artists exhibition in 1790. Thomas Hardy’s sitters included musical figures active in London during the 1790s. Most of Hardy's portrait paintings were painted for the