– With two murders committed in the space of a week at the beginning of September 1888, the terror levels of the East End had cranked up several notches. Still known as ‘the Whitechapel fiend’ at this stage or ‘Leather Apron’ despite John Pizer’s undoubted innocence, the very mention of the murderer sent the unfortunates of the district into shudders or angered enough people to call for direct action on anyone whom they considered a suspect.
For their part, the police were fighting battles on two fronts. Firstly, they had to deal with a man who killed at random before disappearing into thin air. Violence was a daily occurrence in Whitechapel, but a man who ripped bodies to shreds for the sheer sake of it were something new.No one saw anyone leave the murder sites of Bucks Row or Hanbury Street and, Pizer and Isenschmid aside, there was no obvious suspect.
The second front consisted of overwhelming local and media criticism. The Abberline and Thicks of the world were largely excused, but the Home Secretary along with Sir Charles Warren, the Commissioner of Police, were vilified by all quarters. Thousands of column inches lambasted the men for failing to offer a reward for the capture of the murderer, though it was unlikely that that would have done any good as the man clearly acted alone. Warren was also in favour of a level of vigilantism and thus revealed how out of touch he was with his own force as his men on the street did not welcome public help. There were already shouts of ‘Leather Apron!’ from prostitutes who thought their clients were underpaying or who simply saw an opportunity to extort them. Anyone ‘foreign’ (Jewish) or suspicious were only a cry away from being lynched.
The lack of arrest became a source of embarrassment for the police and government. Nearly a century later during the Yorkshire Ripper investigation, local forces bristled at the very suggestion that Scotland Yard would be called in when they too drew a blank. One man stated: ‘They haven’t caught their own yet.’
The radical newspapers, who had already played their part in inciting the riots of Trafalgar Square a year earlier, wasted little opportunity to use the killings to further their own causes. The more mainstream press, though not as vociferous, pointed out police deficiencies whenever possible. A week after the Chapman murder, the Pall Mall Gazette wrote.
“A week has now passed since the last of the Whitechapel murders took place. During that period there has been something more than the customary show of police activity. The coroner has done as much as it lies in the power of a coroner to do to probe the mystery: yet not the smallest approach appears to have been made towards the apprehension of the criminal, or even towards an elucidation of the circumstances of the crime. No trustworthy clue has been obtained; and the only issue of the exertions made is to lessen whatever hope was at first entertained, and the terrible secret might somehow be brought to light. . . . We assume that the police have done their best, and we are far from charging them with in capacity because their best amounts only to failure. . . . They have not arrested any man against whom a reasonable prima facie case could be made out; but they have arrested more than one whom there never was the faintest warrant for suspecting. . . . We are entitled to express our surprise that the police have pounced on persons who were plainly innocent. That they have not succeeded in arresting the culprit is a pity; but they have been energetic in the wrong direction is distinctly a reproach. There is a worse thing than doing nothing: that is, doing something that aught not to be done.”
The East End and the police could do little but await the next murder and hope for a blunder. Many had noted that the man struck at weekends and speculated that his work must keep him away from the East End and his hobby. However, the 15th and then the 22nd September passed without incident. In that time, the cases against both Pizer and Isenschmid’s were dismissed and the inquests of the Nichols and Chapman murders concluded.
Just as things were slowly getting back to normal in London, though not in the affected area, the Central News Agency received an anonymous letter. I will be dealing with this next week, but suffice to say the signature brought the murders back into focus.
There it was. The catchiest name for the murderer yet.
Jack the Ripper.
Jack the___ was a common enough term back then and described men by their jobs, but ‘Ripper’? How beautifully summed up. Far better than being named a fiend or after a piece of clothing. The press loved it.
But the man himself had been unusually quiet.
This did little to quell the East End panic. On Thursday 26th September 1888, the philanthropist and benefactor Dr Thomas Barnardo – a regular visitor to the common lodging houses of Spitalfields – came to talk to the local women who were at threat. Though this side of his life saw him work as a pastor, he was a doctor first and foremost. He was inevitably listed as a suspect though he was far too old and looked nothing like anyone suggested in the witness reports. Upon this recent trip he wrote to The Times:
‘I found the women and girls thoroughly frightened by the recent murders, one poor creature, who had apparently been drinking, cried bitterly, we’re all up to no good and no one cares what becomes of us, perhaps some of us will be killed next’.
While in the lodging house kitchen at 32 Flower and Dean Street, off Commercial Street, he spoke to several women, one of which was a Swedish woman called Elizabeth Stride.
(Lolesworth Close, Spitalfields in 2017. The former location of Flower and Dean Street)
‘Long Liz’ (she was five feet five which was certainly tall for a woman of the time) was born Elizabeth Gustafsdotter at Stora Tumelhed farm in Tordslanda near Gothenborg on November 27th 1843 to Gustaf Ericsson and Beata Carlsdotter. Her early years were fairly non-descript. She became a domestic servant in Gothenburg shortly before her 17th birthday, but either the wages were not enough or something else happened over the next three years as by 1865 she was registered by the Gothenburg Police as a prostitute. It was also around this time that she gave birth to a stillborn girl. This may have been due to a venereal disease as records suggest she was treated at the time.
In 1866 she moved to London and registered at the Swedish Church in Prince’s Square in St George’s-in-the-East -an area to the south of Commercial Road (note: not Commercial Street) in Whitechapel.
(An area breakdown from 1870 showing St Georges-in-the-Field. The murders took place in the areas shown as St Mary’s Whitechapel and Christ Church and Spitalfields. A walk around all five murder sites can be concluded in roughly forty minutes)
On 7th March 1869, Elizabeth married John Stride at St. Giles in the Fields. He ran a coffee shop (though alcohol was sold) in Chrisp St, Poplar.
The couple moved in and around the Poplar district for the next eight years or so, but the marriage seems to have broken down come 1877. In the March of that year she was recorded as being at the Poplar Workhouse. It’s largely suspected that alcohol was a factor.
On 3rd September 1878, a full decade before the murders, the SS Princess Alice – a passenger steamer – was making a return journey from Gravesend up the Thames to Swan Pier near London Bridge when it collided with the much larger SS Bywell on the starboard side. The smaller vessel split in two and sank in four minutes. An hour before the clash 75 million imperial gallons of raw sewage were released into the Thames at Barking and Crossness meaning that many of the deaths were due to poisoning as much as drowning. Over 650 people perished in the disaster.
Elizabeth claimed that her husband and two of her children died on-board. This was an outright lie as John Stride actually died of heart failure six years later and she had no children. It’s likely that she used this as a hard luck story to illicit money from the Swedish church or anyone who would listen. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
By 1882 she was living at 32 Flower and Dean Street where she would later meet Dr Barnardo. She met a waterside labourer, Michael Kidney in 1885 and they began a tempestuous relationship. They moved to Devonshire Street (now Bancroft Road) in 1887 but were far from happy and their both being heavy drinkers didn’t help.In April 1887 she had Kidney arrested for assault though she did not appear in court to testify against him.
If Kidney was known for roughhousing, Stride herself was certainly not shy of public disorder, being arrested for drunkenness eight or nine times – eight under her own name and one, possibly, under a pseudonym of Annie Fitzgerald.
The day before meeting Barnardo Elizabeth left Kidney, apparently for good, and returned to Flower and Dean Street, having not been there for three months. She would tell people that she was now in domestic service for various Jewish families in the area. She certainly spoke Yiddish, which would be an advantage over most domestic staff.
On the afternoon of Saturday 29th September she was paid 6d by Mrs Tanner, the lodging house keeper, for cleaning two rooms. Later that day she asked a man called Charles Preston if she could borrow his clothes brush, but he couldn’t find it. She was heading out to the Queen’s Head pub on the corner of Commercial Street and Fashion Street with Mrs Tanner and wanted to tidy herself up.
(The Queen’s Head pub. The façade has only just been newly revealed due to work on the building)
She then returned to Flower and Dean Street an hour later before heading out again. She still had the 6d she’d been paid earlier.
Little is known of her whereabouts for the next few hours but come 11pm she was in The Bricklayers Arms on Settle Street – a long since lost pub and a little off the beaten track for a Spitalfields resident. Two men – John Gardner and J. Best saw her leaving with a man of about the same height with a black moustache, weak sandy eyelashes and who wore a morning suit and a billycock hat. The couple had been kissing and cuddling all night. They teased her that the man was ‘Leather Apron getting ‘round you’ but were good-natured to the extent that they offered to buy the man a drink. He refused and the pair headed towards Commercial Road in the direction of Berner St.
Berner Street is now called Henriques Street after the philanthropist Basil Henriques who opened up several boys clubs for the poor Jewish residents. In 1888 it consisted of a collection of cottages on the west side and, near the junction of Fairclough St, a small gateway at 40 Berner Street called Dutfield’s Yard. On the corner of Berner St and Fairclough St stood the Nelson pub while, next door, a man called Matthew Packer would sell fruit through his window. Then came another cottage and the gates of Dutfield’s Yard.
Here is a photograph from 1909. The wheel on the wall sits in Dutfield’s Yard.
And here’s a contemporary view from roughly the same position.
The entrance to the yard would have been roughly here with the pipe on the wall marking the left hand side of the gate.
It was also possible to use Dutfield’s Yard to reach the International Workingmen’s Educational Club which sat adjacent. This was a meeting place for local Jews where they could listen to lectures or take part in debates. A good deal of drinking and singing would also take place. Between 11.30 and 11.45 ninety or so people began to leave the building after hearing a lecture on ‘Why Jews should be socialists’ which was presided over by a Mr Morris Eagle. About thirty or so stayed and continued their conversations and songs. It was around this time that the resident of 64 Berner Street, William Marshall claims he saw Elizabeth talking to a man. They were canoodling but as they past Marshall got a good look at the man.
‘The man was 5’ 6”, stout, middle-aged, had an English accent, mild speech, wore dark pants, peaked sailor-like cap, short black cutaway coat, was probably clean shaven, decent appearance.’
The only thing he could hear the man say to her was ‘You would say anything but your prayers,’ which is either an amusing putdown or rather sinister.
Around 12.30, PC Smith of the Metropolitan Police, whose beat took into Berner Street, saw Elizabeth and a man quietly talking. The description he gave was similar to Marshall’s
‘The man was 5’ 7”, 28 years old, clean shaven, had dark pants, a dark overcoat, dark hard felt deerstalker. Had a respectable appearance and carried a newspaper parcel about 18” in length and 6-8” wide’
A deerstalker is only a flap away at the back from being a peaked cap.
At 12.45, another man, James Brown, saw a couple on the corner of Berner St and Fairclough, i.e. a few feet north of where William Marshall had seen his couple. He heard the woman say ‘No, not tonight. Maybe some other night.’
‘The man was 5’ 7”, average build (‘not so very stout’) and wore a long coat, almost down to his heels.’
Of course, this could have been a different couple altogether.
A few minutes earlier, Mrs Fanny Mortimer, who lived two doors away from the IWEC and the entrance to Dutfield’s Yard, heard ‘the measured, heavy stamp of a policeman’ pass her house though she never saw him. When she went outside she saw a man carrying a shiny black bag. The archetypal bag for Jack the Ripper!
I’ll write a piece on the Ripper myths soon but, since we’re here, I’ll deal with this one now. Most film adaptations of the murders picture a man in a top hat and cape, carrying a black bag, no doubt containing an array of knifes and surgical instruments. The bag motif began here with Mrs Mortimer in Berner Street. In reality, the truth was more prosaic. A few days later a man called Leon Goldstein called in at Leman Street Police Station and identified himself as Mrs Mortimer’s suspicious man. He had been walking from nearby Spectacle Alley to his home in 22 Christian Street. He was indeed carrying a bag, but it contained nothing more than empty cigarette boxes.
As you can see, there was plenty going on in Berner Street as Saturday night became Sunday morning. Liz has been seen with a man and, if it were the same couple Brown saw, had been kissing him and then denied him anything more.
But it is the next man who is the star witness of the entire ten week period.
Israel Schwartz, a Hungarian Jew who had not been in the country for long, walked south down Berner Street at around 12.45am. He saw a man ‘stop and speak to’ Stride who was, at that point, in the gateway of Dutfield’s Yard. He then either tried to pull the woman into the street or push her into the passage (accounts vary as his statement is second-hand and was possibly dramatised by the press) whereupon she ‘screamed three times, but not very loudly.’ It seems nonsensical that she should be attacked by a man this way and then murdered by another. This was to be her murderer.
‘He was 5’ 5” tall, 30 years old, broad shoulder, fair complexion, small brown moustache, dark pants, black cap with a peak, dark jacket, brown hair’
Schwartz took this to be nothing more than a domestic dispute and wanted nothing to do with it, so he crossed the road. It was then that he noticed a second man who was lighting a pipe and also on the other side of the street.
He was ‘5’11”, 35 years old, fresh complexion, light brown hair, dark overcoat, old black hard felt hat with a wide brim and a clay pipe in his hand.’
The first man called ‘Lipski’ but it’s unclear at whom. Schwartz spoke no English but, given the tone and situation, hurried away. He noticed that the second man had begun to follow him so he ran off in a southerly direction. The second man ran too though Schwartz could not say if he was being chased or if the man with the pipe was being chased too. In any case, Schwartz ‘ran as far as the railway arch’ but the man did not run so far.
The term ‘Lipski’ was pejorative and one peculiar to the East End.The origin of the insult was found very close to Berners St – in the very next street, in fact – for in April 1887, a local umbrella stick salesman called Israel Lipski murdered a pregnant woman, Miriam Angel, at 16 Batty Street.
(The location of 16 Batty Street, though it is not the same building)
The case was simply bizarre. When Angel’s body was found in bed it was clear that she had died through consuming nitric acid against her will. To the surprise of investigators, Lipski was found underneath the very same bed.He too had nitric acid stains around his mouth. He denied murder and claimed that two of his employees were extorting him and had killed Angel. He was arrested, tried and sentenced to hang.
The case created some sympathy and many believed that the verdict was based more on anti-Semitism than due process with even Queen Victoria registered her doubts. However, when Lipski was allowed to speak to a rabbi he admitted to the crime, though stating that his motive was theft and not rape as had been suspected.
Since then the term ‘Lipski’ was one of abuse to Jewish residents, so the broad-shouldered man was a local and, you’d assume, not Jewish. Either that or it was the other man’s name and he was calling for his assistance. In any case, according to Abberline there was no one called Lipski in that area in September 1888.
A little later, a man called Louis Diemschutz drove his pony and cart down Commercial Road. He had been to Crystal Palace and was keen to get home through the rain. As he approached the junction with Berner Street he saw the clock in the window of Harris’s Tobacconist. The building survives today.
(the site of Harris’s Tobacconists on the corner of Commercial Road and Henriques Street, 2017.)
The clock read 1am.
He turned down Berner Street and guided his pony through the gates of Dutfield’s Yard. As he attempted to ‘park’ next to the IWEC building, the pony lurched away, clearly disturbed. Diemschutz climbed down to see what the problem was. It was as black as pitch in the yard, but he was able to make out an object on the ground. He poked it with his whip and it failed to move. He lit a match and found it to be a woman.
He went indoors to tell his wife and a few others. He could not tell if the woman were dead or merely drunk, just as Charles Lechmere had done in Bucks Row a month earlier. They went outside with a candle and found the body of Elizabeth Stride. Her throat had been cut and cut recently. Blood still poured from the wound.
Today, the murder site sits within the grounds of the Harry Gosling Primary School, roughly where the disabled sign is. Hers was the only body turned on its side and not on its back. She would be facing us in this picture (taken in 2015).
Morris Eagle ran up Berner Street towards Commercial Road shouting ‘Police’. Mrs Mortimer heard the mayhem and believed it to be a row. William Marshall, much further down Berner Street, also heard the cries.
Reserve Police Constable Albert Collins and Police Constable Henry Lamb were found and brought back to view the body. Collins was then sent to 100 Commercial Road to find Doctor Frederick William Blackwell. When he arrived Lamb gave the order to shut the gates so nobody could leave. He searched the premises and examined every bystanders’ hands for blood stains.
Blackwell observed:
“The deceased was lying on her left side obliquely across the passage, her face looking towards the right wall. Her legs were drawn up, her feet close against the wall of the right side of the passage. Her head was resting beyond the carriage-wheel rut, the neck lying over the rut. Her feet were 3 yards from the gateway. Her dress was unfastened at the neck. The neck and chest were quite warm, as were also the legs, and the face was slightly warm. The hands were cold. The right hand was open and on the chest, and was smeared with blood. The left hand, lying on the ground, was partially closed, and contained a small packet of cachous wrapped in tissue paper. There were no rings, nor marks of rings, on her hands. The appearance of the face was quite placid. The mouth was slightly open. The deceased had round her neck a check silk scarf, the bow of which was turned to the left and pulled very tight.
“In the neck was a long incision which exactly corresponded with the lower border of the scarf. The border was slightly frayed, as if by a sharp knife. The incision in the neck commenced on the left side, 2 1/2″ below the angle of the jaw, and almost in a direct line with it, nearly severing the vessels on that side, cutting the windpipe completely in two, and terminating on the opposite side 1 1/2″ below the angle of the right jaw, but without severing the vessels on that side…The blood was running down the gutter into the drain in the opposite direction of the feet. there was about 1 lb. of clotted blood close by the body, and a stream all the way from there to the back door of the club.”
There was no signs of asphixiation before the throat was cut and certainly no eviscerations.
This all seems to be a little un-Ripper like. Was this, then, a Ripper murder?
It’s been a discussion point for years and there are strong cases on either side. Sir Melville Macnaghten of Scotland Yard stated in 1894 in his famous memoranda that ‘the Whitechapel murderer had 5 victims and 5 only’ and, though he was not in situ throughout the case, he had more information on the case than modern day commentators. While assaults and cases of domestic cruelty were common around Whitechapel (amongst Elizabeth Stride’s possessions was the key to a padlock as Michael Kidney was not averse to locking her indoors), murders in the street were not. Nor, for that matter, were throat cuttings.
So, a knife attack in the street a matter of weeks after two in the last month must automatically be considered amongst the horrors perpetrated by the newly-named Ripper.
But there’s so much wrong with this murder of Elizabeth Stride. Serial killers are capable of changing their modus operandi as we’ll see later with the death of Mary Kelly, but this one seems too unusual.
Firstly, there’s the knife. Though the cut on Stride’s throat was keen enough, it was done by a small blunt knife and the Ripper preferred a long and very sharp blade, so much so that he used one less than an hour later. Nichols and Chapman had had their throats cuts so deep that the head was nearly removed. Stride’s less so.
Then there’s the location. Polly Nichols was killed in a quiet street – so quiet that they were not witnessed by anyone even before they entered Bucks Row – while Chapman was lured into a yard, away from the prying eyes of Hanbury St residents on their way to work. The killer needed solitude for his work and as there was no exit point from Dutfield’s Yard other than the gateway, it would be far too dangerous to remove organs from a body with only one method of escape.
Let’s also consider the witnesses. Not only were there several in the street, including one – possibly two – whom he’d abused, but Dutfields Yard had dozens of people leaving it. True, it was very dark, but did he really intend to tear the poor woman open and hope passers-by would not notice? It’s a bit of a stretch.
The common explanation is that it was ‘Jack’ but Diemschutz’s pony and trap had disrupted him before he could get to work. There’s a chance that he was still in the yard when the Diemschutz prodded the corpse with his whip, hiding in the shadows, and used the time needed to find his wife to make good his escape through the gateway. If that’s the case, then maybe the footsteps Mrs Mortimer heard was of the murderer rather than a policeman.
Neither Mrs Mortimer nor Schwartz were called to the inquest – though Schwartz was tracked down by the press.. This an extraordinary decision.
Matthew Packer , who claimed to have sold grapes to the couple, became something of a star witness in the affair for the wrong reasons. Questioned at 9am the following morning he said:
“No. I saw no one standing about neither did I see anyone go up the yard. I never saw anything suspicious or heard the slightest noise and know nothing about the murder until I heard of it in the morning”
That’s that then.
Nope.
A few days later, two private detectives searched Dutfield’s Yard and found a grape stalk near the sewer pipe where the body had lay. They made the connection with Packer’s employment and took him to see the body in Golden Lane mortuary. However, as a test, he witnessed Catherine Eddowes’ body whom he did not recognise. Two days later, Sergeant White, who had originally interviewed him, returned to his house only to be told by Rose Packer, his wife, that the two detectives had collected her husband and taken him to view Stride’s body.
Packer confirmed that he had sold her the grapes at around 11pm that night. Somewhat at odds with his original statement and impossible as at 11pm Stride was just leaving the Carpenter’s Arms.
In any case, the detectives claimed to have taken Packer in a cab to meet with no lesser personage than Sir Charles Warren. A report was written about Packer’s second statement which read:
“Matthew Packer keeps a shop in Berner St. has a few grapes in window, black & white.
On Sat night about 11pm a young man from 25-30 – about 5.7 with long black coat buttoned up – soft felt hat, kind of yankee hat rather broad shoulders – rather quick in speaking, rough voice. I sold him 1/2 pound black grapes 3d. A woman came up with him from Back Church end (the lower end of street) She was dressed in black frock & jacket, fur round bottom of jacket with black crape bonnet, she was playing with a flower like a geranium white outside and red inside. I identify the woman at the St.George’s mortuary as the one I saw that night-
They passed by as though they were going up Com- Road, but- instead of going up they crossed to the other side of the road to the Board School, & were there for about 1/2 an hour till I shd. say 11.30. talking to one another. I then shut up my shutters.
Before they passed over opposite to my shop, they wait[ed] near to the club for a few minutes apparently listening to the music.
I saw no more of them after I shut up my shutters.I put the man down as a young clerk.
He had a frock coat on – no gloves
He was about 1 1/2 inch or 2 or 3 inches – a little higher than she was.”
He was not called to the inquest and with good reason. Matthew Packer lies.
A few weeks later he claimed that he had seen the murderer on Commercial Road and was rendered insensible with fear. I suspect that Matthew liked the attention and he would not be the first person to embroider himself into the story. In any case, when the contents of Elizabeth’s stomach was examined it contained ‘cheese, potatoes and farinaceous powder’ and no trace of grapes. ‘Farinaceous’ means flour or starch and is, in my view, the loveliest word in Ripper folklore.
But let’s go back to Dutfield’s Yard and assume that Elizabeth’s murderer was indeed Jack the Ripper. He had killed but he that was not enough. For reasons best known to himself he wanted to slice open a victim and perform mutilations and/or take a trophy with him. As the conditions were not ideal, he would have to try again though it would prove trickier as there would be policeman swarming the streets. He had to be where there would be rich pickings.
Ten minutes away to the west of Commercial Road stands St Botolph’s Church or, to give it its full name, ‘St Botolph without Aldgate and Holy Trinity Minories’ (pronounced ‘minneries’). Records of the church date back as far as 1115 AD though it is believed to have been built at the time of the Norman conquest. It still stands today – an incongruous sight, being a Gothic church beneath skyscrapers of metal and glass.
(St Botolph’s Church Without Aldgate, 2017)
Though the church is easily accessible today, in 1888 it sat on an island, surrounded by roadways such as Houndsditch and Aldgate itself. As prostitutes could be arrested for as little as stopping on a street corner, the island meant that the unfortunates could circle the church without police intervention as long as they didn’t stop, they were not breaking the law. No doubt to the chagrin of the clergy, it became known locally as ‘the Church of Prostitutes’.
That side of Aldgate is not in the East End as such as it falls within the City of London. Today you can spot the road barriers which bear the crest of the City up to Middlesex Street. Then they disappear as the area gives way to Greater London. Hence, Aldgate tube station is in the City of London while Aldgate East tube, a couple of minutes walk away, is not.
When the murderer passed across Houndsditch, he had walked from the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police and into City of London Police territory. It is for this reason that Catherine Eddowes, a 46 year old resident of Cooney’s Lodging House at 55 Flower and Dean St, is by far the unluckiest of all his victims.
Catherine was born in Wolverhampton in 1842 to George Eddowes and Catherine Evans. The family would eventually walk to London though Catherine would return to Wolverhampton from time to time. When she was 21 she took up with Thomas Conway from the 18th Royal Irish. She had the initials ‘TC’ tattooed onto her left arm.
They moved to Birmingham and sold books authored by Conway. They also produced what were known as gallow ballads, where they would sell their creations to the audience at the hangings. She even sold them at her own cousin’s execution.
They had three children but split in 1881 and it was at that point that she moved to Cooney’s in Flower and Dean Street. She then met a market worker named John Kelly.
As with many of the East End poor, it was Eddowes and Kelly’s practice to go hop picking in the summer months. Annie Chapman had talked of going to Kent the week she died, but Catherine made it to Hunton though the trip was unsuccessful. It was on this excursion that she was given a pawn ticket for a shirt by a friend. It would later be used to identify her.
Kelly returned to Cooney’s on Friday 28th September while Catherine went to the casual ward in Shoe Lane. The next day she met up with Kelly and pawned a pair of his boots where they were given enough money for breakfast. Still struggling for cash, she told Kelly that she would visit her daughter in Bermondsey to raise some money. This was probably a ruse as she had no idea where Annie was at the time as her daughter was tired of bailing her mother out and didn’t let her know where she lived.
There are conflicting reports of Catherine’s temperament and habits. The staff at Cooney’s claimed that she would not often be outdoors after 10pm and that her drinking wasn’t excessive save for the odd session. Kelly would later state that she was not a streetwalker.
She was certainly drunk on the evening of Saturday 29th September and was seen standing in the middle of the road making a sound like a fire engine. When City Policeman Louis Robinson came across her she was dead drunk surrounded by a crowd outside 29 Aldgate High Street – mere metres from the City of London border. Robinson, along with PC George Simmons took her to Bishopsgate Station to be arrested. Had she been found across Houndsditch in the Metropolitan Police district she would have most likely been taken to Leman Street Police Station.
Upon her arrival at the station she gave her name as ‘Nothing’ and was put in a cell.
It was the practice for the City Police to keep their drunks in till 1am, by which time they could not obtain more alcohol and cease to cause any further trouble. The Metropolitan Police preferred to sling them out when they were sober enough, probably because cell space was an issue. Had Catherine been in Leman Street she would have been released much earlier than 1am and therefore not ran into her murderer. As I say, the unluckiest of all the victims – arrested mere metres from the apparent safety of the Metropolitan District.
At 12.15am she told PC Hutt that she was capable of looking after herself, but was kept in for another 40 minutes. She had now sobered up and gives her name as Mary Ann Kelly and her address as 6 Fashion Street. At 1am, the same time Louis Diemschutz was entering Dutfield’s Yard just over a mile away, she was released, informing Hutt ‘I shall get a damn fine hiding when I get home.’ Hutt replied ‘And it would serve you right. You have no right to get drunk.’ With the words ‘Goodnight, old cock’ she left the station and, curiously, turned left rather than right where Flower and Dean Street lay. She seemed to have been heading back towards Aldgate and, possibly, St Botolph’s Church.
On the corner of Duke Street, Aldgate stood the Imperial Club. At 1.35am, three men – Joseph Lawende, Joseph Levy and Harry Harris left the club and talked briefly before heading home. On the other side of the road, they noticed Catherine talking to a man who was about 30 years old, 5’ 7” and wore a salt and pepper jacket, a red kerchief and a grey cloth peaked cap. Lawende later said that he had the appearance of a sailor. Catherine had her hand on the man’s chest though not in a defensive manner.
(Joseph Lawende)
Levy said to Harris ‘Look there. I don’t like going home by myself when I see those characters about.’ This, coupled with the fact that he refused to give any information at the inquest, has led people to believe that he may have recognised or even known the man, but this is largely speculation.
At 1.40am, PC James Harvey walked past Church Passage which leads into Mitre Square, though his beat did not include entering it. He heard and saw nothing untoward though the Ripper was at work nearby.
At 1.44am, PC Edward Watkins entered Mitre Square and shone his lamp into the four corners. In the south west corner, he found the bloodied corpse of Catherine Eddowes. She looked, as he said, ‘like she’d been ripped up like a pig in the market.’
(Two depictions of Mitre Square, the latter taken in 2015. The area is now a building site.)
(The location of Catherine’s body in Mitre Square. Note: NOT my footprints, though I did tell the couple standing there what had happened beneath their feet. The woman was appalled!)
In preparing these articles I took the decision not to show the autopsy pictures. The images of Tabram, Nichols, Chapman and Stride were of the face only and used purely as a means of establishing the identities of the women, but there are full images of wounds inflicted on Eddowes and Mary Kelly. I urge those of a squeamish disposition not to Google them. Seriously. They are simply horrific. I’m aware that this statement might make the reader more curious as it did with my friend Serena. She now wishes she hadn’t investigated further.
(Serena says ‘Don’t be like, Serena’)
If Lawende et al. had seen the murderer with Eddowes at 1.35, he would only have had nine minutes to persuade her into the pitch black square, throttle her, cut her throat, remove her kidney and uterus, cut off her nose and carry out almost delicate cuts on her cheeks. All in complete darkness.
The nightwatchman of the Kearley and Tonge warehouse (visible in the old image of Mitre Square above) was George Morris, a retired policeman. He heard nothing and claimed he would gave easily heard a cry. A few days earlier he told a friend that he wished the ‘butcher’ would try his luck in Mitre Square so he could ‘give him a doing.’
He was cleaning the stairs when Watkins hammered on his door and urged ‘For God’s sake,mate. Come to my assistance.’ Morris still had his old police whistle and raised the alarm, bringing PCs Harvey and Holland to the body.
Dr Frederick Brown was called for and he gave a very long statement – the more salient points being:
“I believe the wound in the throat was first inflicted. I believe she must have been lying on the ground.
The wounds on the face and abdomen prove that they were inflicted by a sharp, pointed knife, and that in the abdomen by one six inches or longer.
I believe the perpetrator of the act must have had considerable knowledge of the position of the organs in the abdominal cavity and the way of removing them. It required a great deal of medical knowledge to have removed the kidney and to know where it was placed. The parts removed would be of no use for any professional purpose.
I think the perpetrator of this act had sufficient time, or he would not have nicked the lower eyelids. It would take at least five minutes.
I cannot assign any reason for the parts being taken away. I feel sure that there was no struggle, and believe it was the act of one person.”
The man had taken the left kidney and a large part of the uterus. Dr Brown was able to establish that the remaining kidney was ‘bloodless’ – an indication of Bright’s Disease. A fact which will become relevant in the next article.
Both the Metropolitan and City of London forces were scouring the area. Roads were closed, but the killer obviously knew how to slip away.
The dramas of the night were not yet over.
At 2.55am PC Albert Long was walking his beat down Goulston Street which is on the East End side of Aldgate about 5-7 minutes walk away from Mitre Square. As he passed 108-119 Wentworth Dwellings, he spotted a piece of apron lying in the doorway. It was covered with blood and, shall we say, other bodily matter (guess). At first he suspected that there was another body nearby so he made a search of the area. He swore that the apron had not been there when he passed at 2.20am. What had the Ripper been doing between leaving Mitre Square at c.1.44am and c2.55am when there was only a small distance between the two sites?
(The doorway of 108-119 Wentworth Dwellings where the apron and graffito were found)
Long met with another constable who informed him of the Mitre Square atrocity. He told the man to stand guard and ensure no one left the building. He then took the apron to Commercial Street Police Station. It was later confirmed that it was the missing part of Catherine Eddowes’ apron. The murderer had cut it off and cleaned his hands and knife in the doorway of Goulston Street before heading off.
Incidentally, had he been walking away from Mitre Square and down Goulston Street he would have been heading towards Bell Lane and Crispin Street and subsequently straight up to Dorset Street, Fashion St and the Ten Bells. Had he turned right at the next junction he would have been on Wentworth Street and onto Commercial Road where the rookeries of Flower and Dean Street and Thrawl Street lay close.
The apron was not the only discovery made by PC Long. On the door jamb above the apron was a graffito written in chalk on the black brickwork. It read (though versions differ)
“The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing”
It’s unclear what this could mean. The killer – if he is responsible for what became known as ‘the Goulston Street Graffito’ – either seems to be blaming the Jews for the murders or is proud of them and his people. And that’s if they refer to the murders at all, though the positioning of the apron (which Long saw first) may be a factor.
(The version attached to the Home Office report)
Senior police officials came to the scene and discussed what to do with the message. The City Police wanted the writing to be photographed, but that would mean waiting for a photographer to show up. It would soon be light and Goulston St, being a market area (it still is), would be teeming with Jewish stallholders and Gentiles buying their wares. The Metropolitan Police said that they could not take the risk of it being seen as racial tensions were already high and a full scale riot was more than possible. After all, this was not long after John Pizer was nearly lynched. Then some recommended deleting the words ‘Juwes/Jews’ but that would fail to disguise the context.
Sir Charles Warren was already in the East End investigating the murders and arrived at Goulston Street at 5am. Despite protests he was of one mind and told his juniors to scrub the wall clean
.
(A modern day version of the graffito found in Gunthorpe St, near the Martha Tabram murder site)
Did he destroy the greatest piece of evidence in the whole case? It may seem so and would be unthinkable today but I have some sympathy with him. Goulston St was a predominantly Jewish area and the criminal fraternities and gangs of Whites Row and Dorset Street were only a handful of streets away.
There would later be accusations about Warren, claiming that he understood the message’s true meaning and that it was concerned the Masons of which he was a member. It’s nonsense from start to finish. The man simply wanted to bring peace on a night which had already cost two lives.
Elizabeth Stride was buried in the East London Cemetery at the expense of the undertaker, Mr Hawkes Catherine Eddowes two days later at the City of London Cemetery – her remains being not too far from Polly Nichols’. Both graves now have a plaque.
London awoke to the horror of the two murders. On 1st October, the Central News Office received a postcard from ‘Saucy Jacky’ which boasted ‘double event this time’. The term ‘double event’ became the covering title of the murders of Sunday 30th September 1888. The police were soon receiving daily missives from wannabe Jacks and now graffiti had started too.
NEXT WEEK: THE LETTERS AND GRAFFITI OF JACK THE RIPPER.
There was a man, dressed in Victorian period costume, standing on a park bench, talking loudly at a group of people below. He was banging on about someone called Catherine.
Ten Weeks In Whitechapel 