APRIL 2023 MEETING REPORT
WHITECHAPEL 1888 – A YEAR OF MURDER – AN AGE OF POVERTY
Although named after a thirteenth century chapel which was destroyed in The Blitz, there was nothing white and clean about this poor area of London in the year 1888. Our speaker Stuart Robinson warned us that we were going to be told about shocking conditions and crimes which took place in this dirty, smelly, disease ridden part of East London.
This was the time of expanding numbers of people from rural areas of Britain coming to London to find work and also large numbers escaping persecution and famine elsewhere. Whitechapel had various types of industry where these poor people hoped to find employment in the factories, slaughterhouses, sweatshops, tanneries and street markets. Cramming into slum tenements and doss houses, when they could find the funds, or sleeping in doorways in the maze of dark alleyways and courtyards when they could not, it is no wonder that many sunk into drunkenness and crime. A hand to mouth existence was the normal situation, spending the day searching for ways through casual labour or other means to afford to spend the night under cover – even if their bed was in a dormitory of up to fifty coffin shaped boxes, as shown in a photograph or, if funds did not stretch that far, a space leaning against a rope. Owning a change of clothes and having access to facilities to wash was rare.
For women without status and private incomes and lacking the protection of a supportive wage earning family and husband the situation was even more desperate. Apart from the dreaded workhouse there was no welfare support and the very few jobs available to them included home working (making gloves, matches, etc), charring, laundry and other domestic work and market trading, all very poorly paid. In Whitechapel at this time there was said to be over 1,200 prostitutes, though for the majority this was not their chosen career and often was an occasional way of living to avoid starvation and to find shelter in a doss house.
The so called ‘Jack the Ripper’ murders added another layer of horror. The five women murdered between August and November 1888 and identified as victims of The Ripper were Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols; Annie Chapman; Elizabeth Stride (born in Sweden); Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly (born in Limerick). Poverty, relationship breakdowns and drink were the reasons they entered ‘the oldest profession’ and met their gory deaths by throat slitting and abdominal mutilations.
There were also a further six women murdered in Whitechapel between April 1888 and February 1889 - Emma Elizabeth Smith who lived long enough to describe being attacked by a gang; Martha Tubram stabbed 39 times; Rose Mylett; Alice McKenzie; Frances Coles and an unidentified women whose dismembered torso was found in Pinchin Street. With several police forces involved, failing to share information and a lack of forensic tools at their disposal there were several suspects but no convictions. It is interesting that relevant police records which were removed from the files continue to be unavailable.
Christina Tyler, Programme Organiser
WHITECHAPEL 1888 – A YEAR OF MURDER – AN AGE OF POVERTY
Although named after a thirteenth century chapel which was destroyed in The Blitz, there was nothing white and clean about this poor area of London in the year 1888. Our speaker Stuart Robinson warned us that we were going to be told about shocking conditions and crimes which took place in this dirty, smelly, disease ridden part of East London.
This was the time of expanding numbers of people from rural areas of Britain coming to London to find work and also large numbers escaping persecution and famine elsewhere. Whitechapel had various types of industry where these poor people hoped to find employment in the factories, slaughterhouses, sweatshops, tanneries and street markets. Cramming into slum tenements and doss houses, when they could find the funds, or sleeping in doorways in the maze of dark alleyways and courtyards when they could not, it is no wonder that many sunk into drunkenness and crime. A hand to mouth existence was the normal situation, spending the day searching for ways through casual labour or other means to afford to spend the night under cover – even if their bed was in a dormitory of up to fifty coffin shaped boxes, as shown in a photograph or, if funds did not stretch that far, a space leaning against a rope. Owning a change of clothes and having access to facilities to wash was rare.
For women without status and private incomes and lacking the protection of a supportive wage earning family and husband the situation was even more desperate. Apart from the dreaded workhouse there was no welfare support and the very few jobs available to them included home working (making gloves, matches, etc), charring, laundry and other domestic work and market trading, all very poorly paid. In Whitechapel at this time there was said to be over 1,200 prostitutes, though for the majority this was not their chosen career and often was an occasional way of living to avoid starvation and to find shelter in a doss house.
The so called ‘Jack the Ripper’ murders added another layer of horror. The five women murdered between August and November 1888 and identified as victims of The Ripper were Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols; Annie Chapman; Elizabeth Stride (born in Sweden); Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly (born in Limerick). Poverty, relationship breakdowns and drink were the reasons they entered ‘the oldest profession’ and met their gory deaths by throat slitting and abdominal mutilations.
There were also a further six women murdered in Whitechapel between April 1888 and February 1889 - Emma Elizabeth Smith who lived long enough to describe being attacked by a gang; Martha Tubram stabbed 39 times; Rose Mylett; Alice McKenzie; Frances Coles and an unidentified women whose dismembered torso was found in Pinchin Street. With several police forces involved, failing to share information and a lack of forensic tools at their disposal there were several suspects but no convictions. It is interesting that relevant police records which were removed from the files continue to be unavailable.
Christina Tyler, Programme Organiser