The Whitechapel Murders (1888-91)

The Whitechapel murders (1888-91) were a series of eleven unsolved brutal murders of women committed in Whitechapel, in the East End of London between 3 April 1888 and 13 February 1891. At various points all of them have been ascribed to the notorious, but elusive, individual known as Jack the Ripper. [ [http://www.met.police.uk/history/ripper.htm The Metropolitan Police History of Jack the Ripper] ] Most, if not all, of the victims were prostitutes. Their names were Emma Elizabeth Smith, Martha Tabram, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Jane Kelly, Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, and Frances Coles. There was also an unidentified woman. The investigations were conducted by the Metropolitan Police, joined after 30 September by the City Police. Private organisations, such as the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, were also involved in the search for the killer.

Whitechapel 1888-91

At this period Whitechapel was reckoned as the most notorious criminal rookery in London. Assistant Commissioner of the CID Sir Robert Anderson, in an interview with an American journalist of 4 November 1889 recommended it (plus the Black Museum) as London's prime criminal "show place" 'for those who take an interest in the dangerous classes'. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 225] Robbery and violence were commonplace in a district characterised by extreme poverty, sub-standard housing, homelessness, drunkenness and endemic prostitution. These factors were focused in the institution of the common lodging-house, which provided cheap communal lodgings for the desperate and the destitute, amongst whom the Whitechapel murder victims were numbered. All the identified victims resided at the heart of the rookery in Spitalfields, including three in George Street, two in Dorset Street and two in Flower and Dean Street. [Jerry White (2007) "London in the Nineteenth Century": 323-332]

The victims

1. Emma Elizabeth Smith, (c. 1843- 4 April 1888) an East End prostitute of mysterious origins. At the time of her death was living at a common lodging-house at 18 George Street, Spitalfields. She was approximately forty-five years old.2. Martha Tabram (name sometimes misspelled as Tabran; used the alias Emma Turner; maiden name Martha White), (10 May 1849 - 7 August 1888). Born in Southwark she was a casual prostitute who at the time of her death, aged thirty-nine, resided at a common lodging house at 19 George Street, Spitalfields. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 51-55] 3. Mary Ann Nichols (maiden name Mary Ann Walker, nicknamed "Polly"), (26 August 1845 - 31 August 1888), a casual prostitute. Born a Londoner, at the time of her death she was living in a common lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street in Spitalfields. She was forty three years old but according to contemporary reports looked about ten years younger. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 56-62] [Paul Begg (2006) "Jack the Ripper: The Facts": 42] 4. Annie Chapman (maiden name Eliza Ann Smith, nicknamed "Dark Annie"), (September 1841 - 8 September 1888), a casual prostitute. Born a Londoner, at the time of her death she resided in a common lodging house at 35 Dorset Street. She was 47 years old. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 66-73 ] 5. Elizabeth Stride (maiden name Elisabeth Gustafsdotter, nicknamed "Long Liz"), (27 November 1843 - 30 September 1888), a casual prostitute. Stride was Swedish but had moved to London in 1866 at the age of twenty-two. At the time of her death she was living at the common lodging house at 32 Flower and Dean Street, Spitalfields. She was 44 years old at the time of her death. 6. Catherine Eddowes (used the aliases "Kate Conway" and "Mary Ann Kelly," from the surnames of her two common-law husbands Thomas Conway and John Kelly) (14 April 1842 - 30 September 1888). Born in Wolverhampton, at the time of her death she was living with her partner John Kelly at at Cooney's common lodging house at 55 Flower and Dean Street, Spitalfields. She was forty-six years old. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 114-40] 7. Mary Jane Kelly (called herself "Marie Jeanette Kelly" after a trip to Paris, nicknamed "Ginger"), (c. 1863 - 9 November 1888), an attractive red-haired Irish prostitute of somewhat mysterious origins and history. At the time of her death she was living in a single room at 13 Miller's Court, at the rear of 26 Dorset Street, Spitalfields. She was approximately 25 years old when she was murdered.

8. Rose Mylett (true name probably Catherine Mylett, but was also known as Catherine Millett, Elizabeth "Drunken Lizzie" Davis, "Fair" Alice Downey, or simply "Fair Clara"), (1862 - 20 December 1888). She was a known Whitechapel prostitute, with a propensity to drink, who frequently lodged in George Street, Spitalfields but also had connections with Poplar, where she was known as "Fair" Alice Downey. She had once been married to a man named Davis. She was twenty-six years old at the time of her death. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 245-6] [Martin Fido (1987) "The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper": 101] [http://www.casebook.org/victims/mylett.html Ripper Casebook] 9. Alice McKenzie (nicknamed "Clay Pipe" Alice and used the alias Alice Bryant), (c. 1849 - 17 July 1889), a prostitute who resided at Mr. Tenpenny's lodging house at 52 Gun Street Spitalfields. She was approximately forty years old at the time of her death. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 205-09 ]

10. An unidentified woman (? - est. 10 September 1889) whose remains were designated the "Pinchin Street Torso" (a term coined after a torso was found in similar condition to the body which constituted "The Whitehall Mystery," though the hands were not severed). A speculation of the time that the body belonged to Lydia Hart, a prostitute who had disappeared, was refuted after the latter was found recovering in hospital after "a bit of a spree". Another claim that the victim was a missing girl called Emily Barker was also refuted. The woman was never identified. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 210-15 ] 11. Frances Coles (also known as Frances Coleman, Frances Hawkins and nicknamed "Carrotty Nell"), (1865 - 13 February 1891), a prostitute described as 'young and pretty'. At the time of her death she was living at common lodging house at 8 White's Row, Spitalfields. She was twenty five years old. [Paul Begg (2006) "Jack the Ripper: The Facts": 316-17] [Martin Fido (1987) "The Crimes, Death and Detection of Jack the Ripper": 113] [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 218-22 ]

Investigation timeline

1888

*3 April - Emma Smith viciously assaulted and robbed in Osborn Street, Whitechapel in the early hours of the morning. She survives the attack and manages to walk back to her lodging house at 18 George Street, Spitalfields with the injuries. Here she tells the deputy-keeper, Mary Russell, that she was attacked by a number of men, one of whom was a teenager. Friends bring her to the London Hospital.

*4 April - Smith falls into a coma and dies at 9 a.m. 4 April 1888. Medical investigation reveals that a blunt object had been inserted into her vagina, rupturing her perineum.

*6 April - The police are informed that an inquest is to be held the next day.

*7 April - The inquest is conducted by Coroner Wynne Edwin Baxter (who also conducted the inquests on nine of the other victims), attended by the Local Inspector of the Metropolitan Police, H Division Whitechapel: Edmund Reid. His subsequent investigations, however, prove fruitless and the murderer or murderers are never caught. Walter Dew, who was a Detective Constable stationed with H Division at the time, later writes that he thought that Smith was the first victim of Jack the Ripper. [Walter Dew (1938) "I Caught Crippen"] . Many of his colleagues disagreed.
*7 August - Martha Tabram murdered. Her body is found at George Yard Buildings, George Yard, Whitechapel with a total of 39 stab wounds inflicted on it. Based on the statements of a fellow prostitute, and PC Barret who was patrolling nearby, some soldiers at the Tower of London were put on an identification parade by Inspector Reid, but with no positive results. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 51-55 ]

*31 August - Mary Ann Nichols murdered. Nichols' body is discovered at about 3:40 a.m. on the ground in front of a gated stable entrance in Buck's Row (since renamed Durward Street), a back street in Whitechapel, two hundred yards from the London Hospital. She has had her throat slit and there are mutilations to her abdomen. This murder occurs in the territory of the J or Bethnal Green Division of the Metropolitan Police and is initially investigated by detectives from their Bethnal Green Road station. However suspicions that there is now a serial killer at large in London led to the secondment of Detective Inspectors Frederick Abberline, Henry Moore and Walter Andrews from the Central Office at Scotland Yard to assist. On the same day James Monro resigns as the head of the CID. Initial investigations into the murder have little success, though some of the press link it to the two previous murders and suggested the killing might have been perpetrated by a gang as in the case of Smith. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 56-62] In his memoirs Walter Dew records widespread panic in London at this time due to the killings. [Nicholas Connell (2005) "Walter Dew: The Man Who Caught Crippen": 15-16]

*1 September - Sir Robert Anderson appointed head of the CID.

*2 September - Superintendent Arnold, in charge of H (Whitechapel) Division of the Metropolitan Police goes on leave.

*7 September - Anderson goes on sick leave to Switzerland.

*8 September - Annie Chapman murdered. Chapman's horribly mutilated body (with some body parts missing) is discovered about 6:00 a.m. lying on the ground near a doorway in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. Chapman, a prostitute, had left her common lodging house at 35 Dorset Street with the intention of getting money from a client to pay for the rent at 2 a.m on the same day she was murdered, before meeting with her killer [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 66-73 ] This precipitates a mob attack on the Commercial Road police station, on the suspicion that the police were harbouring the murderer there. [Nicholas Connell (2005) "Walter Dew: The Man Who Caught Crippen": 19-21]

*10 September - A notorious local character called John Pizer, dubbed 'Leather Apron', with a reputation for terrorising the local prostitutes, is arrested by the police on suspicion of the murders, but is found to have an alibi. At this time the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee under the chairmanship of George Lusk is set up and offers a reward—something the Metropolitan Police refuses to do—for the apprehension of the killer. The Society also employs two private detectives to solve the case.

*15 September - Overall direction of the murder enquiries is confused and hampered by the fact that the head of the CID, Sir Robert Anderson is on holiday in Switzerland, leading the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Charles Warren to appoint Superintendent Donald Swanson to co-ordinate the enquiry from Scotland Yard.

*25 September - Further confusion is caused by the Dear Boss letter hoax in which the Central News Agency is informed that the preceding murders had been committed by 'Jack the Ripper'.

*30 September - Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes murdered. Stride's body is discovered at about 1 a.m., lying in a pool of blood with her throat cut, in Dutfield's Yard, inside the gateway of 40 Berner Street (since renamed Henriques Street), Whitechapel. She had been killed just minutes before. At 1.45 a.m. Eddowe's horribly mutilated body is found at the south corner of Mitre Square, in the City of London, by PC Edward Watkins on his beat. She had been killed less than ten minutes before. One of Eddowes' kidneys has been removed by the killer. Due to the location of this murder the City Police under Detective Inspector James McWilliam are also engaged in the enquiry. At 3 a.m. a blood-stained fragment of Eddowes' apron is found lying in the passage of the doorway leading to 108 to 119 Model dwellings Goulston Street, Whitechapel. Above, on the wall is graffito inscribed: "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing". At 5 a.m., Commissioner Warren attends the scene and orders the words erased. Superintendent Arnold returns.

*1 October - The Saucy Jacky postcard from 'Jack the Ripper', claiming responsibility for the murders of Stride and Eddowes, posted and received by the Central News Agency. It describes the murders of the two women as the "double event", a designation which has endured to this day.

*2 October - The Whitehall Mystery. An unidentified female torso found in the basement of New Scotland Yard is linked to the Whitechapel murders by the press, though this is denied by the police.

*4 October - The Eddowes inquest opens.

*15 October - The head of the CID, Anderson, eventually gets back from holiday and takes charge of the investigation on the part of Scotland Yard. On the same day the "From Hell" letter is dispatched, also known as the "Lusk letter".

*16 October - The letter is received by George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. Lusk opens a small box to discover half a human kidney, later said by a doctor to have been preserved in "spirits of wine" (ethanol). The writer claims that he had extracted it from the body of Eddowes and that he had "fried and ate" the missing half.

*23 October - The Stride inquest closes.

*8 November - Charles Warren resigns as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

*9 November - Mary Jane Kelly murdered. Kelly's severely mutilated body is discovered shortly after 10:45 a.m. lying on the bed in the single room where she lived at 13 Miller's Court, off Dorset Street, Spitalfields.

*12 November - Inquest into death of Kelly held at Shoreditch Town Hall. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 175]

*19 November - Amid scenes of great emotion, thousands of mourners attend Mary Kelly's funeral. The cortege travels six miles to the Roman Catholic Cemetery at Leytonstone, where she is laid to rest.
*1 December - James Monro appointed new Commissioner of Metropolitan Police.

*20 December - Rose Mylett murdered. Her body was discovered by a patrolling constable in Clarke's Yard, High Street, Poplar. She was reportedly strangled "by a cord drawn tightly round the neck". However, at the Inquest the head of CID Sir Robert Anderson contests the verdict of four doctors present that she had been strangled and states his belief that she had accidentally suffocated herself on the collar of her dress while in a drunken stupor. Despite this, the jury returns a verdict of 'willful murder against some person or persons unknown' and the case was added to the Whitechapel murder file. The identity of the murderer was never discovered. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 245-6]

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner's report for 1888 records that the Whitechapel murderer remains undiscovered despite 143 extra plain-clothes men deployed in Whitechapel in November and December [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 204]

1889

*17 July - Alice McKenzie murdered. She reportedly died from the "severance of the left carotid artery" but several minor bruises and cuts were found on the body. Her body is found in Castle Alley, Whitechapel. Police Commissioner James Monro initially believes this to be a Ripper murder and one of the pathologists examining the body, Dr Bond, agreed, though later writers have been more circumspect. Evans and Rumbelow suggest that the unknown murderer tried to make it look like a Ripper killing to deflect suspicion from himself. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 205-09 ]

*10 September - "The Pinchin Street Murder", a term coined after a torso was found in similar condition to the body which constituted "The Whitehall Mystery," though the hands were not severed in this case. The body is found under a railway arch in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel. An unconfirmed speculation of the time is that the body belonged to Lydia Hart, a prostitute who had disappeared. "The Whitehall Mystery" and "The Pinchin Street Murder" have often been suggested to be the work of a serial killer, for which the nicknames "Torso Killer" or "Torso Murderer" have been suggested. Whether Jack the Ripper and the "Torso Killer" were the same person or separate serial killers of uncertain connection to each other (but active in the same area) has long been debated. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 210-15 ]

1890

*21 June - Sir Edward Bradford replaces Monro as Commissioner.

1891

*13 February - Frances Coles murdered. Minor wounds on the back of the head suggest that she was thrown violently to the ground before her throat was cut. Otherwise there were no mutilations to the body. Her body is found by PC Thompson at 2.15 a.m. at Swallow Gardens a passageway under a railway arch between Chamber Street and Leman Street, Whitechapel. Superintendent Arnold and Inspector Reid arrive soon afterwards from the nearby Leman Street police station and by 5am Chief Inspectors Swanson and Moore who had been involved in the previous Whitechapel murders investigation arrive. [Martin Fido (1987) "The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper": 104-5] A man named James Sadler, seen earlier with her, is arrested by the police and charged with her murder. A high profile investigation by Swanson and Moore into Sadler's past history and his whereabouts at the time of the previous Whitechapel murders indicates that the police may have thought him to be the Ripper himself.

*3 March 1891 - Sadler discharged from court due to lack of evidence. [Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates": 218-22 ]

1896

*The Whitechapel murder file is closed following the receipt of a final hoax letter.

The murderer or murderers were never found and the case remains unsolved.

References

Further reading

Stewart P. Evans and Donald Rumbelow (2006) "Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates". Sutton: Stroud.

[http://www.jacktheripper.nl Ripper Times: Jack the Ripper] Comprehensive archive concerning the Whitechapel Murders.