Moll King (coffee house proprietor)
Elizabeth Adkins, who was also known as Moll King, Moll Bird, Mary Godson, Mary and Maria Godson (1696–1747), was a prominent figure in London's underworld during the early 18th century. She owned King's Coffeehouse with her husband Tom King and she also allegedly worked in the sex trade and as a pickpocket. Adkins has been connected in historical analysis to a London criminal named Moll King, and court documents suggest Moll King was born at least twenty years before. Biography According to a pamphlet published anonymously in 1747, Adkins was born in 1696 in Vine Street, London. The Life and Character of Moll King states that Adkins' father was a shoemaker and that her mother sold fish, fruit and greens in the street. It also suggests Adkins became a prostitute before the age of fourteen. Adkins was married to a man named Thomas King, known around the area as Smooth'd-Fac'd-Tom, at fourteen, and was linked several years later to William Murray. When this second relationship ended, Adkins befriended a famous courtesan Sally Salisbury and began her own work in the sex trade. During this time, between 1715 and 1720, Adkins began using her aliases, Mary or Maria Godson. Adkins returned