Jack the Ripper Photo Blog

Fire in the Docks

2006-10-08T23:09:00.001+01:00

On the night of Polly Nichols murder, two huge fires broke out in London's docklands. One of the fires occurred in the warehouse of Messrs Dible and Co, Engineers, at the dry dock in Shadwell, and as well as gutting the building damaged the rigging of a sailing vessel, the Connovia, which was under repair there at the time. The other fire broke out in a liquor warehouse in the South Quay of the Pool of London. A journalist for one of the newspapers of the day was crossing London Bridge at the time and described the scene.

A more imposing spectacle than the fiery furnace seen from this structure I have not witnessed for a very long time. From out of the grim blackness of the well known pool leapt lurid flames of gigantic volume, rising high against a canopy of fantastic clouds and throwing the tapering masts into clear relief until they and their rigging looked like fairy cobwebs, illuminated by a strange, unearthly light. The effect was grand, and in the stillness of the morning, distinctly weird. From afar came the rumbling whirr of the hurrying engines and the muffled shouts of the lusty firemen as they battled bravely with a sea of relentless flame. As one waited and watched and saw the fire fiend leaping, as it were in triumph, until gradually it fell victim to overpowering forces, it gradually became evident that in a few short hours some hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of property had been sacrificed to the merciless enemy.

The photograph above is taken from London Bridge looking in the direction of where the fire would have been. Tower Bridge was still under construction at the time, and while the towers had been built, the connecting bridges had not. Beside it you can see Canary Wharf tower peeking over the top of the Tower Hotel, which obscures the approximate position at which the fire would have been.

For the poor folk of the East End there was not much by the way of entertainment to be had. If they could scrape the pennies together they could enjoy a drink at one of the many local beer houses, and there was always the Music Hall. But a good fire was a real draw, something the always gathered a crowd of spectators. One of these, at the Shadwell fire, was Emily Holland, who until just over a week earlier had been sharing a room with Polly Nichols at the Thrawl Street lodging house.

Following the fire she headed back there, and along the way became the last person, other than her killer, to see Polly alive.

Thrawl Street

2006-09-19T22:35:00.000+01:00

The streets between Brick Lane and Commercial Street were dirty and narrow and filled with lodging houses of the meanest kind where a bed could be obtained for fourpence a night, or eight pence for a double. There was little in the way of privacy, the beds were crammed in together, separated into rooms by partitions which reached neither floor nor ceiling. The bedding was changed once a week no matter how many different people occupied the bed during the week, and the level of cleanliness was otherwise low.

One of these streets was Thrawl Street. The photo shows the current road which goes by that name, which does not follow exactly the line of the old road, but quite close to it.

The lodging houses were regulated, after a fashion, and the landlords were expected to keep good order. During the night a "deputy" would be on duty, and usually a watchman. The deputy would often know his regular clients and try to keep their beds for them where possible, but the life of a lodging-house dweller was irregular and itinerant. Very few of the houses would allow a bed to go on credit, if you didn't have the money in hand then you couldn't stay, but Edward Hoare tells us, writing in 1888, that "a regular frequenter of a lodging-house would be often allowed to sit by the kitchen fire till one o'clock, even if he had not the fourpence to pay for his lodging."

One ofthe rules of the lodging houses was that unmarried couples were not supposed to be allowed to occupy a bed together. In practice this was not generally the case, but the more regular houses would ensure that beds were only shared by couples who regularly stayed together. A woman would not be allowed to bring a different man into her bed every night. Some houses did allow this, however, and these were essentially known as glorified brothels. One such was The White House, at 56 Flower and Dean Street, where Polly Nichols had spent the previous eight to ten nights before the night of her murder.

However, on leaving the Frying Pan pub that night she did not return to this lodging house, but rather to number 18 Thrawl Street, which would be on the right hand side of the road in the picture, where she had been living previous to this, sharing a room with three other women, one of them one Emily Holland. On arriving at the house Polly settled down in the kitchen despite the fact that she had not the money to pay for a bed for the night. She arrived at around half past midnight, and remained there until somewhere around twenty past one, when she was told by the deputy that she would have to leave.

The Frying Pan Public House

2006-07-29T22:03:00.000+01:00

Anyone who has spent time recently in Brick Lane will be aware that the street is one of the most popular in London for Indian (and other ethnic) restaurants. The popular Sheraz Balti House stands on the corner of Brick Lane and what used to be Thrawl Street.

However, a look at the red brickwork at the top corner of the building will quickly tell you that this building was not always used for it's current purpose. Picked out of the brickwork in bas relief is a crossed frying pan motif and lettering which show that in 1888 this was a public house called The Frying Pan, and it was here that the first of the recognised Ripper victims spent her last evening.

Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols was 43 years old at the time of her death, although it was said in contemporary reports that she looked younger. She had been married at the age of 19 and had five children, but in 1880 she and her husband separated, apparently because he was unable to cope with the fact that she had started to drink heavily in the previous three years or so. Initially he had agreed to pay her maintenance of five shillings per week, but two years later when he learned that she had turned to prostitution he discontinued payment.

Between 1880 and 1888 she had moved around quite a lot. For the first three years she had been in and out of workhouses and had lived for a time with her father but had moved out due to constant arguing over her disollute lifestyle. For a few years she lived with a man named Thomas Drew and the pair appear to have lived quite respectably, Polly having shown up at her Brother's funeral dressed well. But this relationship ended and she found herself back on the streets.

In early 1888 she worked for at time in Wandsworth, in service for a respectable family, the Cowdrey's, who were deeply religious and teetotal. However this ended when she absconded with clothing worth over two pounds, and by August 1888 she was living in the lodging houses of Whitechapel, selling her body to earn enough for her bed for the night and a few pints of beer or glasses of gin in the Frying Pan.

The London Hospital

2006-07-03T19:57:00.000+01:00

The London Hospital stands on the south side of Whitechapel Road in the very heart of Ripper territory. It had stood in this spot since 1757, and had been granted a Royal charter by George II the following year, although it's Royal title would not follow until 1990. In 1785 the first medical school in England was founded here, and by the late 1880's it was among the most important hospitals in the capital.

The hospital plays a large part in the story of the Whitechapel murders. Several of the medical students located here were among contemporary suspects, while another suspect who has emerged since, and who thrust himself into the investigation through articles written in the newspapers of the time, was an inmate here during the time of the murders. Also resident here at that time was Joseph Merrick, better known as the Elephant Man, who had come here in 1886 after being befriended by one of the resident doctors, Frederick Treves, and who would continue to occupy rooms in the hospital until his death two years later at the age of just 27.

It was to this hospital that Emma Smith was brought on the morning of her attack, by the lodging house keeper Mary Russell. Along the way she told Russell the story of the attack and pointed out where it had occurred. On her arrival she was treated by the duty house surgeon, a Dr G. H. Hillier, who found that the wound to her peritoneum had developed peritonitis, which would result in her death the following day. The police, meanwhile, heard nothing of the attack until two days after her death, on April 6th, when they were informed by the coroner that an inquest was to be held.

No arrests were ever made, and on the face of it we have to accept Smith's story that she was attacked by three men, one of whom she described as being no more than 19 years of age. Almost certainly she was not a victim of Jack the Ripper, but her killing would later be connected with those crimes by the newspapers. And it has been suggested that Jack may have been a member of the gang who carried out the attack, and that his taste for blood could have stemmed from this incident.

On The Corner Of Wentworth Street

2006-06-04T20:17:00.000+01:00

Taylor Brothers Mustard and Cocoa Mill stood on the corner where four streets met. Running South to North, Osborn Street became Brick Lane. Running West to East, Wentworth Street became Old Montague Street.

Passing along Wentworth Street from this corner, George Yard Buildings, where Martha Tabram would meet her end four months later, is almost exactly 100 yards distant. Virtually opposite the entrance to George Yard, running North, was another street, George Street. The name would change to Lolesworth Street within a few years. This street no longer exists, it has been swallowed up by the Flower & Dean Housing Project.

It was at 18 George Street that Emma Smith lodged, and it was there she was hurrying on the night she was attacked. She was so close to getting there, but on this street corner her time ran out.

The three men beat her and stole her money, and quite possibly one or more of them may have raped her. When they were finished, one of them concluded the attack by taking a hard blunt object, possibly a wooden stake or a metal railing post, and thrusting it deep into her vagina with great force, rupturing her peritoneum.

The total distance to her lodgings can have been no more than 300 yards at most. We don't know what exact condition Emma was in after the men left her, or how long she lay in that place, but we do know that eventually she picked herself up and staggered back those 300 yards. Every step must have been agony, she was bleeding internally and living on borrowed time. It was over two hours after the attack that she arrived.

St Mary's

2006-05-09T18:56:00.000+01:00

The Altab Ali Park stands on Whitechapel Road opposite the entrance to Osborn Street. This was the site of the St. Mary Matfelon Church, the original White Chapel which gave the district it's name, until it was destroyed during the blitz in World War II.

The canonical victims of Jack the Ripper number five. These are the victims which are generally accepted (although not always) as having been murdered by one single hand, and they seem to have been decided upon as a result of a memo from Sir Melville McNaughton, who took over the case as Chief Constable of the CID in 1890. In the memo he stated that "the Whitechapel murderer had five victims, and five victims only."

However, the Metropolitan Police files regarding "The Whitechapel Murders" include several other victims, of which Martha Tabram was one. But the first victim included in the file runs back even further.

Emma Elizabeth Smith fits a very similar profile to most of the other victims. 45 years old at the time of her death, she had fallen on hard times and wound up, as so many in her situation did, living in the lodging houses of Whitechapel and scraping a living by selling her body on the streets.

At about half past one on the morning of Tuesday 2nd April, 1888, the previous day having been Easter Monday, Smith was returning to her lodging at 18 George Street, via the Whitechapel Road, and it was outside St Mary's Church that she became aware of being followed by a group of men. Nervous of the situation she crossed the road and turned in to Osborn Street. The men followed and she took to her heels. To her horror they chased her, finally catching up with her outside a mustard factory on the corner of Wentworth Street.

Archway

2006-04-14T20:07:00.000+01:00

This archway stands today at the entrance to a modern housing development which stands on the site of what were once known as the rookeries, Flower & Dean Street and Thrawl Street, some of the worst slum districts in the whole of London.

The arch is on Wentworth Street, directly opposite the entrance to George Yard, and as can be seen by the keystone, it was erected in 1886, two years before the Ripper murders began. It would have been one of the very last sights Martha Tabram saw before she turned and entered George Yard Buildings.

In the last 117 years, the matter of whether or not Martha was a victim of Jack the Ripper has been debated endlessly. She is not included on the list of five "canonical" victims, but many have argued very persuasively for her inclusion.

Her murder did not follow exactly the pattern of those to follow, but nonetheless was not a straightforward killing, thirty-nine stab wounds shows unusual savagery. Three weeks later the Ripper murders would begin in earnest, and the idea that there could have been two men in the district capable of such an act would be quite extraordinary. Personally I have always felt that Martha was a victim of Jack, and maybe not even his first.

Brick Lane

2006-04-07T07:01:00.000+01:00

PC Barrett rushed to the scene, and sent immediately for a doctor, Dr Timothy Killeen of 68 Brick Lane. Much of Brick Lane today has been rebuilt, and this building is no longer standing, but this photo shows some of the buildings which would have been around at the time.

Killeen was a young man, almost fresh out of medical school, and most likely had never experienced anything of this nature before. He pronounced Martha dead and estimated the time of death at around 2.30, which from the other evidence seems likely to be correct. He found 39 stab wounds in her body, ranging from her neck down to her genitals and legs. All but one of these he said were quite shallow and could have been made with a penknife, but one wound in the chest was deep and had been inflicted with a strong, long bladed instrument which he thought could have been a dagger or a bayonet.

Inspector Edmund Reid, the head of the local CID for H Division (Whitechapel), took charge of the case. Reid was a fascinating character. Not only was he a highly experienced career detective, he was also variously an actor, a singer and an adventurer who has gone down in the history books for making England's first ever parachute descent from a balloon in a thousand feet in 1876, and breaking the balloon altitude record in 1883. He was also immortalised in print in a series of novels by Charles Gibbon under the name Detective Dier.

But there was very little he could do to elucidate this particular case. There were simply no clues as to who the perpetrators could be. PC Barrett and Pearly Poll were taken round various barrack houses to see if they could identify the respective soldiers they had seen, but Barrett was unable, and Poll turned out to be a most unreliable witness. The case fizzled out, and the general feeling was that it had probably been a punishment killing meted out by one of the gangs who made a living through extortion.

George Yard Buildings

2006-03-30T20:59:00.000+01:00

This small section of blue wall is all that remains of George Yard Buildings today. This is the corner where George Yard, or Gunthorpe Street as it is today, meets Wentworth Street. On or near this corner, at around 2am, PC Thomas Barrett (226H) encountered a soldier loitering in the street. Barrett asked him what his business was there, and he replied that he was "waiting for a chum who had gone off with a girl." It seems unlikely that this was either of the two soldiers who had spent the last part of the evening with Martha Tabram and Pearly Poll, but it was considered suspicious enough to be thoroughly investigated by detectives looking into Martha's murder.

At around 3.30, a cab driver named Alfred Crow, who lived in room number 35 in the buildings, was returning home from work, tired and ready for his bed. As he passed up the stairs he was aware that somebody was lying on the first floor landing. He paid it no attention, as it was dark and drunks and homeless people often crept in to sleep on the stairs at night.

John Reeves lived in room 37. He was a casual dock labourer, which meant in those days that he would have to be up early and join the crowds around the docks hoping to be one of the lucky ones picked for a day's work. He left his room at a quarter to five that morning. When he reached the first floor landing, he saw Martha lying there, surrounded by a pool of blood.

She was lying on her back, with her arms by her side and her legs wide open. Her clothes were in disarray, pulled up so as to expose the whole lower half of her body. Reeves could see at a glance that she was dead, and so, without stopping to examine the body, he quickly ran out into the street where he located PC Barrett, still on patrol, and alerted him to what he had found.

Whitechapel Skyline

2006-03-23T22:44:00.000Z

The skyline of Whitechapel has changed out of all recognition over the last 117 years. This photo was taken from an upstairs room of the City Hotel in Osborn Street, looking out towards Commercial Street. Gunthorpe Street (previously George Yard) runs between the two.

On the right of the photo can just be seen the rooftop of a red brick building which today belongs to Toynbee Hall. In 1888, this spot was occupied by a model dwelling house called George Yard Buildings. A model dwelling house was a kind of Victorian housing project. One step up from a lodging house, it consisted of individual rooms gathered around a central stairwell. The rooms were small, but at least afforded some privacy. Many of the model dwelling houses are used as bedsits today. Back then, one of the rooms would often be occupied by a whole family.

One of the rooms was occupied by a young couple named Joseph and Elizabeth Mahoney. They occupied room number 47, on the second floor. Joseph was a carman, meaning he transported goods on a barrow. Elizabeth worked in a match factory from nine each morning until seven at night. Monday August 6th having been a Bank Holiday, they had not been working that day and had been out enjoying themselves until the early hours. They returned home at around 1.50 am but, feeling peckish, Elizabeth went out to buy some fish and potatoes at a nearby chandler's shop and returned again at around two. Neither one noticed anything unusual as they passed up and down the stairs of the building. They would be the last ones who did not.

George Yard

2006-03-16T23:35:00.000Z

Today, George Yard goes by the name of Gunthorpe Street. A long narrow lane, it runs all the way from Whitechapel High Street up to Wentworth Street, and stands between Commercial Street and Osborn Street, which leads to Brick Lane. So today it is in the heart of one of the most bustling areas of the East End, especially at night. And yet, itself, it is still an isolated and slightly desolate looking location.

Along the left hand side on this picture, which is looking North towards the Wentworth Street end, is Toynbee Hall, the headquarters of a charity formed in 1884, four years before the Ripper murders, by the Reverend Samuel Barnett. Barnett was a campaigner for social justice and a close associate of Thomas Barnardo. He was the canon of St Jude's church in Commercial Street. Barnett would involve himself in the Ripper murders in a series of letters to the newspapers, writing that the crimes were merely symptomatic of the neglect with which the slum areas of the East End had been treated.

The intent of the charity was to aid the inhabitants of impoverished communities, and it was named after Arnold Toynbee, a fellow campaigner in the area who had worked towards greater access to adult learning opportunities for the poorest members of society, and who had died at the tragically early age of 30.

Until his own death last week, former Secretary of State for War John Profumo was the President of the charity.

Writing in 1998, reknowned Ripper expert Stewart Evans described his first visit to George Yard in 1967. "I located the arched entrance to Gunthorpe Street (George Yard) with the White Hart public house on the west corner at the junction with Whitechapel High Street. Entering the narrow street with its cobbled road surface and gloomy Victorian buildings on both sides stretching northwards in front of me, there was an immediate feeling of atmosphere and a gloomy oppressiveness. At this point the true idea of the Victorian London of 1888 could be obtained. Even today this bottom end of Gunthorpe Street is remarkably little changed."

Toynbee Hall was not the only charitable institution here in 1888. On the top left hand corner stood a Salvation Army mission. On the right hand side of the alley stood the George Yard Mission School. It was up this gloomy little alleyway that Martha Tabram was last seen, arm in arm with her soldier client, as Bank Holiday Monday of August 6th slipped into the early hours of the 7th. Their business would not have taken long to transact.

Angel Alley

2006-03-13T21:33:00.000Z

This photograph shows the entrance to Angel Alley off Whitechapel High Street. Angel Alley was only a short distance from George Yard, running parallel to it, although it was narrower. The image from an 1894 Ordinance Survey map below shows how close. The red arrow points to the White Hart public house, the green one to the entrance to Angel Alley.

Pearly Poll was said to be a very tall woman in her mid forties, with rather masculine looks and a reddened drink-sodden face. Many of the estimated 1,200 prostitutes who operated within the Whitechapel district were said to work on a more or less occasional basis, selling their bodies as and when they were unable to scrape together money for bed and food any other way. For Poll, however, prostitution seems to have been her main source of income.

The cost of a quick jump would have been very small, probably no more than a couple of pennies. The actual sex act would have been brief. Poll would have taken her soldier to a dark part of the alley, leaned against the wall and lifted the back of her skirts. The deed would have been done standing up with his entering her from behind and humping away until he was done. There was very little that was romantic or erotic about the occasion. It was a means to an end, nothing more, for both of those involved.

The White Hart Public House

2006-03-10T20:03:00.000Z

This is the White Hart public house at 89 Whitechapel High Street. At approximately 11.45pm on August 6th 1888, a 39 year old prostitute by the name of Martha Tabram, together with a collegue, Mary Ann "Pearly Poll" Connelly, parted company with each other in front of this public house. They had spent the last hour and three quarters in the company of two soldiers who had treated them to drinks in several pubs in the area. Now Martha went with one of the soldiers up George Yard, through the archway that can be seen in the photo, while Pearly Poll took the other one to nearby Angel Alley for what she called "immoral purposes". It was the last time Martha was seen alive.