Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel murders

What is left of original London Wall

In the Victorian age Whitechapel was an area in the East End of London that stood outside the city walls. An influx of Jewish, German, Irish and other immigrants had moved to London looking for work, they found it in dark, cramped shops doing work such as match making or leather work. They made little money and there was a lack of suitable housing. Entire families might share one small room with each other and sometimes with strangers; some took daily earning just to buy a bed for the night, having no permanent place to live.

Prostitution was high with many women forced into selling their bodies just to survive. Diseases were rampant and doctors almost nonexistent, overcrowding and crime took over the area and many people died, from sickness, disease and from murder.

The area is  famous for the Jack the Ripper murders that took place here between August and November 1888. While in London last September we took a “ Jack the Ripper “ tour, we walked along the streets where he murdered his victims, saw where he left the bodies, and learned some interesting things about the time frame, the area, and the murders.

It is still unclear exactly how many women Jack the Ripper killed, but in general, there are five victims that are accepted as being murdered and mutilated by him. All five of the victims were prostitutes, all were thought to be drunk at the time of their murder, the victims varied in age and looks, and there is nothing to suggest they were in anyway connected to each other.

The first victim Mary Ann Nichols was 44 years old at the time of her murder; she was married and had five children but had been separated from her husband and was working the streets as a prostitute.  She had been moving from workhouse to workhouse since her separation from her husband and was known to have an alcohol problem.  On the night she was murdered it was raining and cold, she was seen walking down the street after being refused a bed at the lodging house, due to not having any money. She stated she would soon have the money and left.  Mary Ann was later seen drunk and staggering, she told another prostitute she had earned the money for a bed three times that night, but had drank it away. Early the next morning her body was discovered, it was believed that she had only been dead a few minutes.

Annie
Chapman murder

St. Botolph's Church, known as the Prostitutes church because they would
walk around it looking waiting for customers.

The second victim Annie Chapman was 47 at the time of her death, she was also married and the mother of three children. Annie and her husband had separated and he later died of cirrhosis of the liver, she had been arrested several times for drunken behavior. With the death of her husband, the minimal financial support she had been receiving stopped and she turned to prostitution. Another prostitute reported seeing Annie standing with a man; Annie’s body was discovered a short time later.

The third victim Elizabeth Stride was 45 years old and made most of her money sewing, received some support from Michael Kidney a man she was living with, and turned to prostitution only occasionally.  Elizabeth had been married; however, she had separated from her husband prior to his death of heart disease. She had been arrested and charged with being drunk and disorderly on numerous occasions so Michael Kidney was not concerned that she had not returned to the lodging house for several days.

On September 30^th Elizabeth is seen with a man kissing in a doorway, she is then seen with a man walking down the street, the descriptions of the two men varied enough that it was determined they were not one in the same. At 1am a salesman attempts to take his horse and cart into Dutfield’s Yard, the horse refuses to go, the man whips the horse forward and comes into contact with the body of Elizabeth who he thought was passed out drunk, he goes for help and it is discovered that her throat has been cut.  Her body is still warm and she was not mutilated leading investigators to believe that Jack the Ripper may have been in Dutfield’s Yard, when the man first attempted to enter and was forced to run away before finishing.

Mitre Square today

Also on September 30^th Catherine Eddows aka Kate Kelly is murdered.  Kate was suffering from Bright’s disease, a condition where the kidney blood vessels are inflamed with protein from urine. She was not married but had been living with Thomas Conway and together they had three children. The couple split up in 1881. She later met and moved in with John Kelly, friends reported that she sometimes drank too much. That couple was low on money and  Kate left John after saying she was going to find her daughter to try to get some money, later that evening she was found drunk laying in a heap on the street, she was taken to the police station and left in a cell. At 12:30 am she states she is well enough to take care of herself and  at 12:55am she is released. At 1:35 am she is seen on a corner talking to a man, at 1:45am her body is discovered in Mitre Square. As the second victim the same day it is wondered if she was killed because Jack was interrupted before he could finish with Elizabeth.

The fifth victim Mary Jane Kelly was only 25 years old at the time of her murder, she had been married and her husband died in an accident, she was said to be noisy and quarrelsome when drinking but otherwise was a very quiet women. Mary Jane arrived in London from Ireland in 1884 and worked at a high class brothel in the West end, she then accompanied a gentleman to Paris but returned sometime later. Upon her return she lives with several different men and ends up on the East Side in Whitechapel.  She had last been living with Joseph Barnett who left her because he stated she continued to let other prostitutes stay in their room, he stated she had a good heart and she could not stand to leave them out in the cold.

On the night of her murder Mary Jane is seen walking with a man towards her room.  Later that morning the owner sends a man to collect the past due rent owed, when there is no answer to the knock on the door he looks inside and sees the mutilated remains of Mary Jane.

Dorset Street scene of the final murder

While there are only five victims that are generally accepted by all as being victims of Jack the Ripper, there are multiple other victims that some believe were also killed by him.

Jack the Ripper earned his name as a result of letters that were sent to a newspaper and signed " Jack the Ripper", interestingly it was later determined that the letters were a hoax written by a local journalist who wrote the letters and made up the name Jack the Ripper.

The case of Jack the Ripper has never been solved, there were multiple suspects at the time of the murders to include Prince Albert Victor grandson of Queen Victoria and Lewis Carroll who went on to write Alice in Wonderland. Of course these two and countless others were cleared, while some remain suspects. It is commonly believed that whoever he was he likely had some sort of medical background due to the way the women were murdered.

While we may never know for sure who Jack the Ripper was our tour guide did offer us his “opinion” making sure we understood it is just that, his own theory that has not yet been proved or disproved. His belief is that Irish born American Francis Tumblety may have committed the murders. He was a self-proclaimed doctor with no real medical training, but he did possess knowledge of human anatomy, had a hatred towards women and was in the area during the murders, fleeing back to the United States, when he came under suspicion.  After he left England the murders stopped, unless of course some of the ladies who were later murdered in the area were actually victims of Jack the Ripper as well.