Ripperologist 91

RIPPEROLOGIST MAGAZINE
Issue 91, May 2008

QUOTE FOR MAY:
‘How often do you find happily married men, whose happiness naturally involves regular sexual fulfilment, committing crimes of a violent and
perverted nature? Do we believe that Jack the Ripper was a happily married man?’
Captain George Augustus Anson, Chief Constable, Staffordshire, in Julian Barnes’s Arthur and George, Jonathan Cape, London, 2005. In this
novel, Arthur is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and George, George Edalji, the solicitor whom Doyle helped to clear his reputation.
Features Book Reviews

Meet the Team Ripperologist looks at Jack the Ripper and
A chance to get to know the Ripperologist team the East End, edited by Alex Werner and
Adventures In Paranormal Investigation by
Coloured by Context Joe Nickell
Editorial by Adam Wood We would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance given by the
following people in the production of this issue of Ripperologist: —
Will You Lend Me Sixpence?
Stewart Evans for his photograph of 13 Millers Court, taken on the
A closer look at the men in the life of Mary Kelly
set of From Hell, reproduced on the front cover—Thank you!
By Leanne Perry
The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in signed arti-
Maxwell Under the Microscope cles, essays, letters and other items published in
How safe was Caroline Maxwell’s testimony? Ripperologist are those of the authors and do not necessarily
By Bob Hinton - Illustrated by Suzi Hanney reflect the views, conclusions and opinions of Ripperologist or
It’s Madness its editors. The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in
Another look at the Ripperologists in our midst unsigned articles, essays, news reports, reviews and other
By Jennifer Pegg and Don Souden items published in Ripperologist are the responsibility of
Ripperologist and its editorial team.
We occasionally use material we believe has been placed in
the public domain. It is not always possible to identify and
contact the copyright holder; if you claim ownership of some-
Regulars thing we have published we will be pleased to make a prop-
er acknowledgement.
East End Life The contents of Ripperologist No. 91 MAY 2008, including the
Shoe-blacks and the Ragged Schools compilation of all materials and the unsigned articles,
By Adam Wood essays, news reports, reviews and other items are copyright
© 2008 Ripperologist. The authors of signed articles, essays,
Whitechapel Times
letters, news reports, reviews and other items retain the
Jennifer Pegg gives us a round up of some world events from November 1888
copyright of their respective contributions. ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
Press Trawl
stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise circu-
Chris Scott returns with more from the news from the 19th century lated in any form or by any means, including digital, elec-
tronic, printed, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
News and Views any other, without the prior permission in writing of
Ripperologist. The unauthorised reproduction or circula-
I Beg to Report tion of this publication or any part thereof, whether for
From the Yorkshire Ripper to the Smiley-face Slayings monetary gain or not, is strictly prohibited and may con-
stitute copyright infringement as defined in domestic laws
and international agreements and give rise to civil liability
and criminal prosecution.
RIPPEROLOGIST MAGAZINE
PO Box 735, Maidstone, Kent, UK ME17 1JF. [email protected]
Editorial Team Consultants Advertising

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MEET THE TEAM
With the changes this month to our masthead we felt this might be a good time to reintroduce the entire Ripperologist team.
Month after month—twelve times a year—every issue of Ripperologist brings its many readers the very best in Ripper-
related articles, reviews and fun features as well as a broad variety of articles about the social history of the ever-fascinat-
ing Victorian Period and up to the minute crime-history news from around the globe.
We at Ripperologist are justly proud to be the best publication in the field and with more changes and ideas coming soon we
will only get better.
Adam Wood is Director of a design and print company in London. He translated and repub-
lished Carl Muusmann’s Hvem Var Jack the Ripper?, and has worked on Ripperologist since
1997. He is also a member of organising team for the bi-annual UK Ripper Conferences.
His interest in the case is rooted in family history; his Great-Grandfather Benjamin Wood
lived off Brick Lane during the murders.
In his spare time, Adam shoots pool, plays his left-handed guitar badly, and supports
Manchester United. His favourite dessert is cheesecake.
Adam Wood – Executive Editor

Christopher T. George has served as an editor for Ripperologist since 2002 and has been a con-
tributor to the magazine for the last decade. A past editor of the U.S. Ripper magazine, Ripper
Notes, he helped organize the first American Jack the Ripper convention in Park Ridge, New
Jersey, in April 2000.In addition, Chris is the lyricist and co-writer for Jack the Musical: The Ripper
Pursued, written with French composer Erik Sitbon. He is currently finalizing work on a book on
Jack the Ripper and the Jews.
By profession, Chris is a medical editor in Washington, D.C., and he lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with
his wife Donna and two cats.
In addition to being a Ripperologist, Chris is recognized as a War of 1812 historian. His book,
Terror on the Chesapeake: The War of 1812 on the Bay was published by White Mane
Publishing Company in 2001. He recently published Scots in Maryland and a History of the St.
Andrew’s Society of Baltimore, 1806–2006 (St. Andrew’s Society of Baltimore, 2007).
Chris is a Liverpudlian and an avid supporter of Liverpool FC.

Christopher T George – Editor
Don Souden has been an editor at Ripperlogist for nearly two years. He holds a BA from
Columbia University and an MA in American history from Boston University.
He taught at several colleges, did museum textual design and edited several newspapers
and periodicals. He then took a vow of involuntary poverty to become a freelance writer.
He has authored several non-fiction books as well as the recent mystery thriller The
Same…Only Different.
His interests include sports (playing and watching), music, photography and reading, but
he cautions that suffering fools gladly is not among his hobbies.
He writes and performs in revues and musicals and has yet to be pelted with rotten veg-
etables. He has lived most of his life in the New England state of Connecticut.
Don Souden – Editor
Ripperologist 91 May 2008 1

Paul Begg had a career background in newspapers, television and publishing
before becoming a freelance writer in 1979 following the publication of his
first book Into Thin Air. He has written extensively for magazines and newspa-
pers on both sides of the Atlantic, and for almost a decade reviewed comput-
er software for most of the computer magazines in the UK.
He was formerly the Executive Editor and is a sometime cotributor to

Ripperologist and is author of Jack the Ripper: The Uncensored Facts, Jack the
Ripper: The Definitive History, and Jack the Ripper the Facts, and is co-author
of The Jack the Ripper A to Z.
He has appeared on numerous television programmes about Jack the Ripper in

the UK and abroad, as well as on other subjects, and is the author and co-
author of other books with Martin Fido and Keith Skinner, plus a history of the
Mary Celeste. He lives in Kent where he runs a 15th century pub and restau-
rant - actually all the work is done by his wife, Judy, and daughter, Sioban, Paul Begg – Editor at large
and two Jack Russells.
Eduardo Zinna was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he read

both law and his first book on Jack the Ripper: Robin Odell's JTR in
Fact and Fiction.
In later years Eduardo lived in New York, USA, Puerto Cabezas,

Nicaragua, Pnom Phem, Cambodia, and Geneva, Switzerland, all for
reasons related to his work with the United Nations. He also visited
a number of other countries and can say 'hello' in quite a few lan-
guages. At present he divides his times between Andalucia and
Kenya. He prefers cats to dogs.
Eduardo Zinna – Editor at large
Jennifer Pegg has been a Ripperologist since the turn of the cen-
tury. Her case interests include the life of Robert James Lees and
the dreaded ‘Maybrick Journal’. She gained her MA in Social
Research from Warwick University in 2006 and has since been pur-
suing a career in the NHS. As well as Victoriana she enjoys family
history and reading. A regular contributor to the Ripperologist
since January she takes on the new role of Managing Editor with
this issue.
Jennifer Pegg – Managing Editor

Jane Coram has been a fine artist and illustrator for many years, working
mainly for museums, national galleries and institutions around the world,
until she retired five years ago. Since then most of her time has been devot-
ed to Ripperology and the social history of the East End.
Jane has been working on Ripperologist as designer and contributing editor

for the last year.
She lives in East Sussex, with her husband, her daughter Melissa, two cats
and a house mouse called Marvin. Her loves are raspberry trifle, embroidery
and Cadbury's Creme Eggs, but not all at the same time.
Jane Coram – Art Director
Chris Scott is an editor at the Internet site Casebook: Jack the Ripper and
specializes in tracking down newspaper reports on the case. He is the
author of Jack the Ripper - A Cast of Thousands and Will the Real Mary
Kelly...
His Press Trawl in Ripperologist has uncovered many interesting and
unusual snippets from the press for us over the years.
Chris Scott – Contributing Editor
Wilf Gregg is the celebrated co-author with Brian Lane of books such as The
Encyclopedia of Mass Murder and The New Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. His
‘Crimebeat’ gives up to date reviews of all the latest crime books on the mar-
ket
Wilf Gregg – Contributing Editor
The Beadle Prize

Ripperologist wishes to announce the Beadle Prize, a major new writing
award in memory of Jeremy Beadle. Jeremy was a special friend to every-
one in the field of Ripperology and his tragic death earlier this year has
left a sad void in our lives. We feel that this new award for writing excel-
lence will be a fitting tribute to his memory. Full details of the Beadle
Prize will be announced in our June issue.
Coloured by Context
Editorial by Adam Wood
.
It’s a situation familiar to students of the Ripper case: something comes along - a new suspect,
piece of evidence, or event - that splits opinion so firmly that it causes debate with proponents
defending their opinions fiercely (in the case of the Maybrick Diary, seemingly unendingly).
And so it has proved again with the launch of the Jack the Ripper and the East End exhibition at the Museum in
Docklands.
Running for six months until November, the exhibition has drawn both praise and criticism since it opened on 15 May. While
feedback left by visitors at the exhibition itself in its Guest Book is generally favourable, judging by reactions posted on
Casebook: Jack the Ripper, a number of Ripper students are less complimentary.
This would appear to be down to the way the organisers have focused the exhibition, in order to reach their declared
target of ‘36,000 visitors’ – presumably meaning the general public rather than those with some knowledge of the case
(are there 36,000 Ripperologists?!).
Several comments posted online complained that the exhibition wasn’t ‘Ripperish’ enough, despite artefacts such
as the Macnaghten Memoranda, Catherine Eddowes’ inquest statements and
Abberline’s scrapbook being on display.
This led Stewart Evans to comment on Casebook, 19 May:
I have been reading and researching the case for 47 years and have seen
enormous changes in this area of interest. Once an enthusiast would have
travelled across half the country merely to see the actual ‘Dear Boss’ let-
ter and would have been more than satisfied just seeing that. Now it would
seem not. Perhaps people today are spoilt and have been subjected to
‘Ripper overkill’ for too many years now.
The main problem seemed to be the lack of information for visitors to

the exihibition on specific areas of the Ripper case.
Neal Shelden, the premier researcher into the lives of the victims, felt
that the exhibition’s understated treatment of the murdered women was
insufficient:
To suggest that by showing pictures of poor people from that time at this
exhibition is enough for people to know about the victims of the most
famous crimes in the world is simply not enough. This was the opportunity
to show people who these women actually were! And frankly speaking if it

isn’t important to please Ripperologists with this exhibition why was it important to include medals belonging to PC
Long and Inspector Spratling, or even Abberline’s walking stick, how many people have heard of Abberline (despite
Depp’s film) let alone care a damn if he had a walking stick. Is it more important to see these pieces than the Annie
Chapman photograph?
Many commentators felt the exhibition focused too much on the East End, and the social history of the late Victorian
period, suggesting the event should be renamed The East End and Jack the Ripper, among other similar titles.
Stewart Evans, on 20 May, countered this by suggesting that the Museum’s organisers had hit a good balance for the
interested but initiated visiting public:
For any visitor wishing to know more there were plenty of pointers as to where to seek information and, of course,
the exhibition book which was on sale there and which contained much more information for those who might desire
it. Many contemporary newspapers were also on display.
I will say again, however, I don’t really know what else that was available to them that they could have put on dis-
play. No-one denies that the victims are important, or that there have been some great finds such as Neal [Shelden]’s
superb and detailed research on the victims and Philip [Hutchinson]’s great 1960s photographs of the area and sites.
But all that, in my opinion, is the greater detail that awaits the interested reader should they decide to pursue further
interest in the subject that may be inspired by the exhibition. There is only so much that ‘Joe Public’ will internalise
when visiting an exhibition such as this.
‘Clive’, in a post on Casebook on 26 May, disagreed, stating:
To me, a successful exhibition not only informs but encourages the visitor to go away with a desire to learn more
about the subject. A good starting point is the selection of literature available in the shop. In this respect, what was
available was extremely disappointing in its range. The fact that there are hundreds of copies of the “official” book
but very little else suggested to me that commercial reasons alone dictated what was sold and not any intention to
encourage further exploration.
Perhaps Zena Alkayat, in her review of the exhibition for Metro, sums up the exhibition best:
Some might feel as if they’re on a school trip thanks to the emphasis placed on the everyday life of East Enders
but Jack the Ripper’s murderous story never feels sidelined, only coloured by context.
Over and above this, though, are the reasons behind the negative feedback offered so far.
From Stewart Evans’s Casebook post on 20 May:
How much emphasis should be given to victims, and suspects for that matter, in exhibitions such as this? Whilst
these ideas may be a very personal thing, and we are all bound to have different ideas about it, some based on our
own involvement in researching the subject, I still don’t think that they have got anything too wrong.
This, perhaps, is the crucial point. As more information is discovered and shared than ever before, and researchers
diversify into their preferred avenue of interest, we all become ‘experts’ in certain fields.
We’re flattered when outside organisations such as the Museum, television crews, and magazines seek our advice,
but why do we feel snubbed when our contributions aren’t used? Would this situation occur in any other subject of his-
torical research, or are Ripper studies unique with researchers tackling so many different avenues of personal interest?

Will You Lend Me Sixpence?
A closer look at the men in the life of Mary Kelly
By LEANNE PERRY
The inquest into the death of Mary Jane Kelly was opened at 11am., Monday, 12th November, by
Dr. Roderick MacDonald, M.P. (the coroner for the North-Eastern district of Middlesex County), at
Shoreditch Town Hall. The first person to give their testimony was Mary’s ex-lover, Joseph Barnett,
who had lived with her for nearly all the eighteen months prior to her murder. Almost everything
we know of Mary’s background comes from Barnett, who could only repeat what Mary herself had
told him about her childhood and life before she met him. There is very little of it that can be con-
firmed, but we are on more solid ground when we look at Mary’s life after she met Barnett, and
more particularly about the men in Mary’s life, whether intimate friends or just acquaintances, in
the few years before her murder.
Is there, though, more to these relationships than might appear on the surface? This article intends take a closer
look at Mary’s love-life after she moved to London, and whether or not it might shed any light on her murder.
The obvious place to start, of course, would be with Joe Barnett himself. A great deal of research has been done on
Barnett in recent years, by writers such as Bruce Paley1 and Shannon Christopher,2 and although there are some elu-
sive gaps, and some of the information on him is unsubstantiated and vague, we can still build up a fair picture of Joe
Barnett’s background and character.
Joe’s parents, John and Catherine Barnett, came to London from the Irish city of Cork in the wake of Ireland’s great Potato
Famine as did thousands of others. By 1849 they had moved to Chalk, Kent, where their first child Denis was born. A second
son, Daniel, followed in 1851, then two years
Between the decks on an immigrant ship from Ireland, show-
ing the appalling conditions in which they had to travel. after that, daughter Catherine arrived.
Sometime in the next five years, the family
moved to 4 Hairbrain Court, Whitechapel,
where their third son, Joseph, was born on the
25th of May, 1858, and two years after that a
fourth son, John, was born.3
1 Jack the Ripper: The Simple Truth Bruce Paley

Headline Book Publishing, 1995
2 Unfortunates Shannon Christopher Privately pub-

lished, 2003
3 Birth certificates exist for three of the five Barnett

children and are on file in St Catherine’s House, London.
WE2. See also census reports for 1861 and 1871.

By 1861 the couple and their five children were living a few dozen yards
from Hairbrain Court in Cartwright Street. It was common for families to
move often in those days as the head of the household searched for work
and, as the Barnetts now lived near London Docks, John was able to find
work there as a fish porter at Billingsgate fish market. Billingsgate Market
was known as ‘The Great Fish Depot of the Metropolis’, and was situated on
Lower Thames Street looking over the River Thames. The family probably
didn’t move far from their last residence, to remain close to John’s work-
place, as market porters and dock workers were the highest paid in the area
and the Irish, as did most newly arrived immigrants, tended to stay togeth-
er in the same districts anyway.
John’s four sons all found work at Billingsgate like their father. To get
employment there you had to know someone who could recommend you.
The exact age at which each started cannot be ascertained as yet, but they Contemporary newspaper sketch of Joseph Barnett
were all issued their licenses on the 1st of July, 1878, when porter’s licenses first became compulsory. These licensing
laws were brought into existence to ease, sort and to ‘cash-in’ on the mad, crowded rush for high-paid work around
the docks. According to their licenses, all four brothers had a fair complexion. Joseph Barnett was 5ft 7ins tall, with
blue eyes, as described on his license.4
Sixteen years before the Barnett boys’ licenses were issued (sometime in July 1864), their father died of pleurisy.
Joseph Barnett had just turned six years of age, Denis was 14, Daniel was 12, Catherine was ten, and John Barnett, Jr.,
was just three years old. As the family’s chief breadwinner was gone, it’s reasonable to assume that all the Barnett
boys were working at Billingsgate as soon as they left school.
As if the loss of the children’s father wasn’t enough hardship for the Barnetts, mother Catherine disappeared shortly
after John’s death. She was no longer listed as part of the Barnett family in the 1871 census, and the last official record
of her existence is on her husband’s death certificate.
In an effort to find Catherine Barnett after she stopped residing with her children, contributors to the Website:
Casebook, Jack the Ripper have found a ‘Catherine Barnett’ in the 1871 England/Wales census listed as ‘servant’, age
48’, to Thomas Allman at ‘Cohen’s Buildings, Whitechapel’, not far from the Barnett family residence at Cartwright
Street. In Catherine’s defence, some claim that she may have moved in with a neighbour (also from Cork), to work out
of necessity but remaining in touch with her youngsters. I would argue, however, why then did the Barnett children
move to ‘24½ Great Pearl Street’ (where the 1871 census lists them, with the 2nd-eldest son ‘Daniel’ listed as ‘head’)?
Catherine Barnett was listed as still living with widower Allman and his daughter in the 1881 census, only this time her
name was misspelled as ‘Catherine Burnett’. There is no indication of a remarriage.
With both parents gone, the task of the family’s breadwinner fell to the eldest son, Denis, until he married Mary Ann
Garrett in 1869. He then moved across the Thames to settle in Bermondsey to raise a family of his own. The task of
heading the household then fell to Daniel, who worked at Billingsgate Market like his father. To Daniel’s credit, the
younger Barnett children apparently finished school. It was thought to be a great advantage to a family, especially a
poor Irish one, if the children could at least read and write. It is very likely that the Barnett youngsters attended a
‘ragged’ school, which was a school set up to cater for poor families at no cost.
Barnett, as we have seen, followed the family tradition and went to work at Billingsgate, and it was still his place of
4 Billingsgate porters’ licenses are on file in the Guildhall, London EC2.

employment when he first met Mary Kelly on
April 8th, 1887. At the inquest into Mary’s death,
the Coroner asked Barnett where he had first
‘picked her [Mary] up’.5 Barnett answered:
‘In Commercial Street. We then had a drink

together, and I made arrangements to see her
on the following day, a Saturday. On that day
both of us agreed that we should remain
together.’
Mary was, of course, working as a prostitute

at the time, around Leman Street and the
Aldgate area,6 and Barnett either approached
Mary as a customer or met her in a pub and, it
would seem, instantly became enamoured of
Billingsgate fish market
the attractive young woman.
One of Mary’s friends, Julia Venturney, who also testified at the inquest, made a statement that was reported in Lloyd’s
Newspaper on 11th November, 1888,7 which revealed that Barnett forbade Mary to walk the streets as soon as they were
living together. He would certainly have had the financial resources to see that she was at least comfortable, as his wages
were good, probably above average for the typical workingman at that time. Added to that statement, the Coroner’s
files reveal that Venturney stated: ‘I heard him say that he did not like her going out on the streets, he frequently gave
her money, he was very kind to her, he said he would not live with her while she led that course of life....’
The couple first took lodgings in George Street, but their tenancy there didn’t last long; indeed, as was the pattern
for most in their circumstances, they changed addresses three times during their eighteen months together. From
George Street they moved to Paternoster Row on Brushfield Street, a passageway that ran between Dorset Street and
Spitalfields Market. Barnett told the Central News Agency, (and Lloyds Newspaper included it in a report on the 11th
of November, 1888), that the pair were evicted from their Brushfield Street residence for ‘going on a drunk’, instead
of paying their rent. They then moved to Brick Lane before settling into Room 13, Miller’s Court, at the rear of 26 Dorset
Street, Spitalfields; this was their last address together.
Barnett was the first witness called to testify at the inquest, and the Star newspaper reported that he looked: ‘very
respectable for one of his class’. His testimony proved to be an ordeal for him, and he possibly displayed some very
strange behavioural quirks. The Standard newspaper of 13th November, 1888, reported: ‘witness [Barnett] spoke with
a stutter’. The Illustrated Police News of 17th November, and the Daily Chronicle of 13th November, noted that Barnett
‘stammered’. The South Wales Weekly News reported: ‘A curious effect was produced by the witness [Barnett] begin-
ning every answer by repeating the last word of every question asked’. Although some Ripperologists argue that this
could be the normal behaviour of someone under stress, this characteristic—named ‘echolalia’—is now known to effect
75% of autistics, sufferers of Tourette’s Syndrome, and schizophrenics.8 Tourette’s Syndrome is accompanied by the dis-
play of nervous tics, so would have been commented on further, but schizophrenia can start to show at various times
5 The Daily Telegraph - 13th November 1888,
6 In the Star 10th November 1888, John McCarthy made the statement ‘since her murder I have discovered that she walked the streets in
the neighbourhood of Aldgate.’
7 Statement to the police dated 9th November held at the London Metropolitan Archives
8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echolalia, http://groups.msn.com/theautismhomepage/echolaliafacts.msnw

in a sufferer’s life. Another possibility, autism, would have rendered
him unable to eventually give clear answers to the coroner’s questions.
Only four newspapers bothered to comment on Joseph Barnett’s pecu-
liar speech patterns, yet Mary Kelly’s inquest was mentioned in many
newspapers. As not every newspaper sent reporters to Shoreditch Town
Hall that day, it’s obvious that most decided to omit that minor detail.
The Wheeling Register of the 19th November,* however, seems to take
a different view of Barnett’s appearance at the inquest. A reporter who
spoke to Barnett had the following to say:
Last week I saw the man, Joe Barnett, who lived with the woman
Kelly up to a short time before she was butchered. He then begged for
money to bury his poor dear, and wanted it understood that he ’ad a
’art as well as men with black coats on. He was furiously drunk at the
inquest and is living with a certain notorious Whitechapel character
who testified at the inquest and became enamored of the drunken A rather unflattering newspaper sketch of Mary Kelly from the
brute because, as she said, of the romantic interest attaching to him, Illustrated Police News drawn from witness descriptions.
which illustrates life in London’s slums.
How much credence can be put in this report is hard to say, but it’s an intriguing report all the same. We have some
newspaper reports giving the clear impression that Barnett was speaking somewhat erratically or awkwardly at the
inquest, another giving the impression that his problem with speech was due to drunkeness. Of course, someone with a
speech impediment might well appear to be drunk. There is no doubt that Barnett did drink, and under the circumstances
it would hardly be unreasonable to think that he might have had one or two to steady his nerves, but the expression
‘furiously drunk’ is hardly ambiguous and doesn’t paint a very positive picture of him. The ‘notorious Whitechapel char-
acter’ (described in the last report), that testified at the inquest, could only have been one of Mary’s friends or neigh-
bours who lived in Miller’s Court. If the report has any truth in it, it does open up some interesting possibilities.
The Daily Telegraph reported that Barnett said he identified Mary’s remains by recognising ‘the ear and the eyes’.
Some researchers argue that this was a misunderstanding of his Irish or Cockney accent and should have been ‘hair and
eyes’. One surviving photograph of her body lying on the bed shows that her hair was bloodstained and her ears were
missing, so this confirms my belief that his formal identification occurred after the body was taken to the mortuary,
cleaned up, and pieced together as near as possible. As Joseph Barnett apparently displayed odd speech this, as well
as his accent, would make either interpretation possible. It’s worth noting that in the above newspaper report, he drops
the h’s from ‘had’ and ‘heart’.
When we put together all of the newspaper reports, the inquest testimony and the official statements, the impres-
sion we get of Mary and Joe as a couple is a fairly typical East End relationship at the time in the poorer section of
society. They seem to have got on well together generally, and Barnett was obviously very fond of Mary. They both
appear to have gotten drunk regularly, and to have rows and even fights on occasions, but Barnett seems to have been
a hard-working man who provided well enough for Mary, and took care of her as best he could. But it does seem likely
that Mary’s attraction to Barnett was more material than emotional and she may well have just been using Barnett as
a means to an end until something better came along. Mary did have quite a serious drinking problem, and became
quite belligerent when she was drunk, according to various accounts. Barnett himself confirmed that Mary did get
drunk fairly frequently.
* The complete extract from the Wheeling Register can be found in Press Trawl later in this issue.

At the inquest the Coroner asked Barnett:9
Was she, generally speaking, of sober habits?
Barnett: When she was with me I found her of sober habits, but she has been drunk several times in my presence.
This would seem to indicate that Mary went out drinking on her own or with friends, but without Joe, possibly when
Barnett was at work. She ‘often came home drunk’ according to Mary’s landlord John McCarthy, who stated “When in
liquor she was very noisy; otherwise she was a very quiet woman.”10
Julia Venturney, a Miller’s Court neighbour, said in her statement to the police: ‘...she used to get tipsey occasion-
ally. She broke the windows a few weeks ago whilst she was drunk....’ In other accounts, though, Julia states that Mary
got drunk ‘frequently’ and ‘very often’ and not just occasionally. This statement was made on the 9th of November,
which would suggest that the window breaking incident Julia mentions here took place no later than the middle of
October or possibly earlier. As we shall see later, it looks as if Mary had more than one violent outburst in the weeks
9 The Daily Telegraph - 13th November 1888

10 Inquest testimony
Artist’s impression of Mary and Joe’s room at 13 MIller’s Court. Mrs Elizabeth Prater lived directly above them.
Copyright Jane Coram

The smaller window of 13 Miller’s Court, showing
the two broken window panes. The top one would
seem to have been broken by Mary in a quarrel and
the smaller lower one was used to gain entry to the
room when the only key to the room had been lost.
Mr. George Bagster Phillips, at the inquest stated:
Two panes in the lesser window were broken, and as
the door was locked I looked through the lower of
the broken panes
(See www. casebook. org - Message Board thread:
http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=612
for a discussion)
leading up to her murder that involved the breaking of windows. The photographs of the exterior of Mary’s room do
seem to show more than one broken window pane.
It does seem, based on all the testimony, that Mary could more than handle herself in any arguments she had with
Barnett, and although Barnett got drunk, it was Mary who took the more aggressive stance in their disagreements.
There does not appear to be any evidence that Barnett abused Mary, in fact quite the reverse. He seems to have been
a kind-hearted man who put up with quite a lot of bad behaviour from her.
At the inquest the Coroner asked Barnett:
Did she express fear of any particular individual?
Barnett: No, sir. Our own quarrels were very soon over.
This might seem a strange reply to the Coroner’s question. Barnett obviously wanted to make it clear that Mary was
not afraid of him and that he was not violent toward Mary. Is there any evidence to suggest Mary was afraid of Barnett?
Julia Venturney stated that Joe Barnett was of good character and was kind to Mary Jane, so although it seems they
sometimes did argue and even resort to violence, their relationship does not seem to have been a bad one, with Barnett
quite likely being the more passive of the pair.
Their relationship seemed to have worked well for so long as Barnett was able to provide for Mary from his porter’s wages,
but in August or early September 1888 Barnett lost his job at Billingsgate for reasons unknown, and had to try and find work
as a casual labourer or by selling oranges on the street. This would have brought about a huge drop in the couple’s income,
and it inevitably led to arguments and growing tension between them. It seems very likely that Mary returned to prostitu-
tion soon after Barnett lost his job in order to make ends meet and to pay for her drinking. It is possible she initially hid this
from Joe by telling him she was just going out for a drink with friends, but instead plying her trade on the streets.
A newspaper article that appeared in The Times [London] on 12th November 1888 reported,
‘She [Mary] was in the habit of going nightly to a public house at Fish-street hill; but Sergeant Bradshaw, on mak-

ing inquiry at the house in question, found that she had not been there for upwards of a month past.’
Just over a week before Mary’s death, on October 30th, the couple finally separated, and the parting was fairly acri-
monious by all accounts.
At the end of October 1888, Mary, for whatever reason, allowed Julia—a fellow prostitute—to come and stay in their
tiny room with them. The habitation at 13 Miller’s Court was extremely small and cramped, with only one bed, and it’s
not hard to imagine that Barnett would not be well pleased with the arrangement. Simply on a comfort level, with only
one bed, it’s quite probable that he would have been expected to sleep on the floor, whilst the women had the bed.
The fact that Julia was a prostitute would also not have pleased him, as he made it clear that he did not want Mary
working the streets whilst she was living with him—so adding all of the circumstances together, he must have been very
angry about the situation.
Elizabeth Prater, who lived directly above Mary, stated that Barnett and Kelly had an argument on the evening of
the 30th October and Barnett left Mary, going to live at Buller’s boarding house at 24-25 New Street, Bishopsgate.
During this argument the windowpane of their room was smashed, so obviously some violence was manifested by at
least one of the pair. Even so, Barnett still went to see Mary every day and gave her money when he could, so he obvi-
ously still had feelings for her.
At the inquest the Coroner also asked Barnett why he had left Mary.
‘Because she had a woman of bad character there, whom she took in out of compassion, and I objected to it. That
was the only reason. ‘
What is worth noting is that Barnett gave a different answer to the Coroner to the one he gave in a statement to
Inspector Frederick Abberline on the morning her body was found. On the day of her murder’s discovery, Barnett told
Artist’s impression of Mary and Joe’s room, taken from newspaper sketches, the crime scene photographs and written descriptions
Copyright Jane Coram

Abberline that he left her: ‘in consequence of not earning sufficient money to give her, and her resorting to prostitution’11
This would seem to suggest that ‘the woman of bad character’ who was staying with them was encouraging Mary to
go back to prostitution (if she had not already returned to it) and it was that change to which he really objected, not
the fact that someone was staying there. He had already made his feelings about Mary prostituting herself very clear.
On Saturday, 10th November, the day after Barnett spoke to Abberline, he spoke to the Central News Agency and
told them a story similar to the one he later told the coroner, naming the immoral lodger as ‘Julia’ [presumably Julia
Venturney] and then he added that ‘a Mrs. Harvey afterwards came and stayed there, I left and took lodgings else-
where. I told her I would come back if she [Harvey] would go and live somewhere else.’
By November 8th, the last time Barnett stated he saw Mary alive, Mrs. Harvey had already taken lodgings elsewhere,
yet it appears that Barnett wasn’t asked by Mary to return to her or, indeed, that he had asked to return. The fact that
he was still visiting Mary daily and giving her money when he could might suggest, though, that he did want to go back
to her, now that the offending interlopers were out of the way. There is no doubt that it would be on the proviso that
she gave up prostitution.
The first reason that Barnett gave to Inspector Abberline for his leaving Kelly seemed to show him accepting the blame
for her return to prostitution. In contrast, the reason he gave at the inquest seemed to put the blame on a ‘woman of
bad character [prostitute]’. He then added: ‘That was the only reason.’
The Coroner was obviously interested to find out if Barnett had left Mary on good terms on the night she was mur-
dered. Barnett replied:
‘Yes, on friendly terms; but when we parted I told her I had no work, and had nothing to give her, for which I was
very sorry.’
Barnett told the Coroner that he visited Mary between 7.30 & 7.45 on the evening before she was found, was with
her for about an hour, and that there was ‘a woman who lives in the Court’ with them who left shortly before he did.
Opinions differ as to who this woman might have been, as we shall see in a moment.
Looking back at the statement he gave to police on the 9th of November, Barnett had put the time of this visit at
between 7 and 8, saying he left her at 8pm, mentioned that another woman was there (without naming her), and indi-
cated his visit was simply to tell Mary that he had no money to give her. There are differences in the duration of his stay
according to which source is used, but it was certainly more than just a couple of minutes. It doesn’t take an hour or
even as long as fifteen minutes just to exchange a sentence or two, so more words must have been exchanged than those
Barnett mentioned.
A newspaper sketch of Mary’s shambolic room. Because of a newspaper report,12 many are
It was far more cramped than the sketch indicates.
convinced that the unnamed woman was Mary’s
friend Lizzie Albrook, who lived in Room 2 Miller’s
Court, but there is no question that Maria Harvey
was there when Barnett visited Mary that evening
—Harvey swore it under oath. It is possible that
Lizzie Albrook was also there—briefly when
Barnett called, but Lizzie Albrook was never
11 Statement made to the police on the 9th November,

London Metropolitan Archives
12 The St. James Gazette 12th of November 1888,

called to testify at the inquest. If she had been such an important material witness,
the police would certainly have asked her for a statement and she would have
appeared to testify. It seems quite likely that Lizzie Albrook was being rather creative
with the truth for the sake of getting her name in the papers. The penalties for per-
jury in court were extremely high, but Harvey stated quite categorically that it was
she who was in the room when Barnett called that night:
Coroner to Maria Harvey: Were you in the house when Joe Barnett called?
Yes. I said, ‘Well Mary Jane, I shall not see you this evening again’, and I left with
her two men’s dirty shirts, a little boys shirt, a black crepe bonnet with black satin
strings, a pawn-ticket for a grey shawl, upon which 2s had been lent, and a little girls
white petticoat.
There can be no question that Maria, one of the two women that had been a major
instigator of the breaking-up of Joe and Mary’s relationship, was in Mary’s room the
last time Barnett saw her alive. It is hard not to imagine that there would have been
a very tense and unpleasant atmosphere created between Maria and Joe. Barnett
A far more flattering portrayal of Mary going into
would not have been pleased to see Harvey there under the circumstances, and it does her room. Mary, however, as far as it is known,
possessed neither a hat or coat at the time of her
seem that Harvey made a fairly quick departure once Joe arrived, leaving behind items death.
of clothing, possibly for Mary to pawn and obtain at least some of the rent money she
needed.
Barnett is on record that he left Mary because Maria Harvey was staying in their room, whatever the implications,
and that she was the trigger of their breakup, but Maria had moved out a couple of days prior to Mary’s death. We,
therefore, shouldn’t ignore the possibility that Barnett was hoping to move back into their old room and that was why
he continued to visit Mary and give her money, in the hope that she would let him return to her.
The Daily Telegraph of November 10th reported:
‘Harvey, however, took a room in New-Court off the same street, but remained friendly with the unfortunate
woman, who visited her in New-Court on Thursday night. After drinking together they parted at half-past seven
o’clock, Kelly going off in the direction of Leman-street, which she was in the habit of frequenting. She was perfectly
sober at the time. Harvey never saw her alive afterwards.’ The very same day Harvey told the police that she last saw
the deceased at five minutes to 7:00 in Kelly’s room, when Barnett called. ‘I then left’.
Maria Harvey told the Coroner that the pair appeared to be on the best of terms when she left, but we must wonder
whether she lurked around outside the room to monitor the conversation afterwards? Most people don’t like to have
moody conversations with other people present.
There was another possible cause of friction apart from Mary’s drinking, prostitution or her choice of female friends.
Mary, it seems, was still seeing a former lover, Joseph Fleming, whilst she was living with Barnett. This was hardly a
recipe for domestic bliss at No. 13.
At the inquest Barnett was asked about Mary’s past history and any former relationships she might have had. He first
mentioned a man named Morganstone, who was in the building trade, and lived near Stepney gas works, who had once
had a relationship with Mary. Attempts have been made to find out more about Mr Morganstone, but they have met with
little success to date, though research continues into this mysterious paramour. After that partnership failed, Mary, it
seems, took up with a costermonger named Joseph Fleming, living with him somewhere near Bethnal Green. Julia
Venturney revealed to the press after the murder that Fleming frequently visited Mary whilst she was living with Joe

Barnett and that she was still fond of Fleming. In The Daily Telegraph - 13th November 1888 Venturney states:
‘She said she was fond of another man, also named Joe. I never saw this man. I believe he was a costermonger.’
In her statement to the police though Julia says: ‘
... she told me she was very fond of another man named Joe, and he had often ill-used her because she co-habited
with Joe (Barnett).’
In the Times 13th November Julia gives this additional information:
Deceased said she was fond of another man named Joe who used to come and see her and give her money. I think
he was a costermonger. She said she was very fond of him.
There is a great deal of useful information here if we read between the lines. Obviously Mary was still in love with
someone else called Joe and this was almost certainly Joe Fleming. He was visiting her in Miller’s Court whilst she was
living with Barnett, and giving her a very hard time for living with him. Whether this was physical or verbal abuse we
obviously can’t determine now, but as Julia never actually saw this other Joe, it could only be that Mary told her what
had been going on between her and the other Joe. He was also giving her money, although, again, we can’t say how
much she received. Mary may have been delighted with the jealousy that she was obviously causing, but I hardly think
she was the type to put up with physical abuse from a man she no longer relied on.
When she moved out on Fleming it should have been the end of her involvement with him, but apparently it wasn’t,
if we take Julia Venturney’s comments into account. What she suggested is that Mary did not truly love Joe Barnett,
but saw him as a passive, willing provider and possibly a means of keeping Joe Fleming jealous. Was Barnett aware that
this was going on? Of course we will never know, but if this scenario is anywhere near accurate Mary was playing a very
dangerous game.
The Coroner also asked Barnett if he knew about Mary’s past relationships, and Barnett replied:
‘she [Mary] described a man named Joseph Flemming, [sic] who came to Pennington-street, a bad house, where she stayed.
I don’t know when this was. She was very fond of him. He was a mason’s plasterer, and lodged in the Bethnal-green-road.
Coroner Was that all you knew of her history when you lived with her?
Yes. After she lived with Morganstone or Flemming (sic)—I don’t know which one was the last—she lived with me.
So if Barnett did know that Mary was still seeing Fleming, he was keeping it quiet.
Mark King is a researcher who uncovered some information on Joe Fleming some years ago, and had his findings pub-
lished in the periodical Ripperana.13 He noted that Fleming’s name has been spelt with a double ‘m’ in various publica-
tions, but was spelt ‘Fleming’ on his birth certificate, dated 17 March 1859. He was the son of Richard Fleming, (a plas-
terer) and Henrietta Fleming (nee Mason), who lived at 32d Wellington Place, Bethnal Green, at the time of the birth.
The 1871 census was taken when Joe Fleming was 12. At that time he lived at 60 Wellington Place, Hackney, with his
parents, two sisters, Jane (14) and Mary (8), plus Jessie (3). The 1881 census reveals that Fleming had left home to live
at 61 Crozier Terrace, Homerton, and worked as a plasterer like his father, while the rest of his family lived at 4 Cyprus
Street. He would have been 22 years old at the time of this census.
In late 1886 or early 1887 Mary Kelly was allegedly working out of a brothel in Breezer’s Hill for a ‘Mrs. Carthy’ before
she left to live in Bethnal Green with Morganstone; she then moved in with Joseph Fleming who was a mason or plas-
13 Mark Kings article is on pages 21-24 of the periodical Ripperana, issue no. 13, and on pages 20-21 of issue 21.

terer at the time. The pair couldn’t have lived together long, as Mary met Barnett on the 8th of April, 1887, and she
immediately went to live with her new man.
It is believed that sometime between 1881 and 1891, Fleming stopped working as a plasterer and found work as a
boot finisher, then a dock labourer,14 so his wages must have been greatly reduced. What happened to cause him to
lose his job as a plasterer is unknown, and is like guessing what caused Barnett to lose his job at Billingsgate Market.
It seems strange that he could afford to give Mary money, when he quite possibly would not have had enough to cover
his own living expenses. She does seem to have had a strong hold on the men in her life.
Records show us that Fleming was admitted to the ‘Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary’ the year after Mary Kelly’s
murder. These records also show where he was living before he was admitted:15
‘Admitted on 16 November 1889 – Joseph Flemming, due to an injured leg, aged 31, occupation – dock labourer,
from 41 Commercial St, (which was the address of ‘The Victoria Home’, around the corner from Dorset Street), ‘Length
of residence in the parish of Whitechapel: 15 months. Discharged as recovered on 30 November 1889’.
If Fleming had been living at the Victoria Home for the 15 months leading up to November 1889, his first appearance
there must have occurred in about the middle of August 1888, which was just around the time that Barnett lost his job
at Billingsgate, and just before the Ripper murders started.
On the 4th of July 1892, Fleming was admitted under the name of ‘James Evans’ to the City of London Asylum at Stone,
after being found wandering the streets. From the polices, he was sent to the infirmary of the City of London Union. He
was transferred from there to the nearest asylum at Stone. This was his first recorded attack of mental illness, although
his bodily health was good. The records show that he was ‘6 feet [sic] 7 inches and weighing 11 stone 8 ounces’ at the
time of his admission.16 This was definitely an error by the clerks and almost assuredly the height should have been ‘5
feet 7 inches’, because a man 6ft 7 ins who weighed 11 and a half stone would be totally skeletal and hardly described
as ‘bodily healthy’.
On 14th February 1895 (3 years later), ‘James Evans’ was transferred to the City of London Mental Hospital at
Claybury. There is little question that this man was really the Joseph Fleming that we are searching for, (the one that
was born in 1859), as the name recorded as a person to contact on his behalf was ‘Henrietta’, residing at ‘261 Nile
Street’ (which was the name and address of our Fleming’s mother).
More condemning is the death certificate for this person which reads:
‘28 August 1920 at Claybury Mental Hospital, Urban District. Joseph Fleming, otherwise James Evans. Male, 65 years.
Of City of London Union Infirmary. Previous address unknown. Chargeable to Bethnal Green, a dock labourer. Cause of
death, Pulmonary Tuberculosis, 6 months, 13 days P.M. Certified by F. Paine, acting Medical Superintendent, Claybury
Mental Hospital, Ilford, 1 September 1920.
Going back 65 years from 1920, tells us that this man was born in 1855 not 1859 (as our Joseph Fleming was), but
censuses were notorious for such small errors and other evidence is quite compelling that this was indeed our man.
It does seem, then, that we have proof that Fleming did resort to aliases, so it is definitely possible that he regis-
14 The 1881 census lists Fleming’s occupation as ‘plasterer’. The 1891 census lists him as a ‘boot finisher’, and his death certificate in 1920
says he was a ‘dock labourer’
15 .From the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary Admissions and Discharge Register.
16 All of the information on Fleming’s asylum admissions are from the Corporation of London Records Office, document: City of London Mental
Hospital records: Case Book, Males, Vol. 10, folios 63 and 97

tered at the Victoria Home in Commercial Street,
around the corner from Mary Kelly, using an alias,
in August 1888. This is of course still speculation,
so readers should be left to decide for themselves,
but how likely is it that he used his true name
when he didn’t have to? Joe Fleming was still vis-
iting Mary Kelly at Miller’s Court, or at least seeing
her secretly within the area whilst she was living
with Barnett. Further, Barnett knew the name of
Fleming and his relationship with Mary, either past
or present. Surely Fleming would not risk giving his
own name at the Victoria Home in case someone
mentioned it in a pub or word got back to Barnett
that one of Mary’s old lovers was living just around
Claybury Mental Hospital the corner? An alias would seem like a very sensi-
ble course of action.
There is one other mysterious male that was involved in the events surrounding Mary’s death that still needs to be
discussed.
With the ordeal of Mary Jane Kelly’s inquest over, the afternoon of the 12th of November, 1888, was to bring more
drama to the Ripper case. At 6pm that day, George Hutchinson of the Victoria Home Commercial Street (Peabody
Building), voluntarily entered Commercial Street Police Station to make a statement. He dictated the following to
Sergeant Badham:
‘At 2 am 9th I was coming by Thrawl Street, Commercial Street, and saw just before I got to Flower and Dean Street
I saw the murdered woman Kelly. And she said to me Hutchinson will you lend me sixpence. I said I can’t I have spent
all my money going down to Romford. She said Good morning I must go and find some money. She went away towards
Thrawl Street. A man coming in the opposite direction to Kelly tapped her on the shoulder and said something to her.
They both burst out laughing. I heard her say alright to him. And the man said you will be alright for what I have told
you. He then placed his right hand around her shoulders. He also had a kind of a small parcel in his left hand with a
kind of a strap round it. I stood against the lamp of the [‘Ten Bell’ – deleted] Queens Head Public House and watched
him. They both then came past me and the man hid down his head with his hat over his eyes. I stooped down and looked
him in the face. He looked at me stern. They both went into Dorset Street I followed them. They both stood at the cor-
ner of the Court for about 3 minutes. She said she had lost her handkerchief he then pulled his handkerchief a red one
out and gave it to her. They both then went up the Court together. I then went to the Court to see if I could see them
but could not. I stood there for about three quarters of an hour to see if they came out they did not so I went away.
Description age about 34 or 35. height 5ft6 complexion pale, dark eyes and eye lashes [‘dark—deleted] slight mous-
tache, curled up each end, and hair dark, very surley looking dress long dark coat, collar and cuffs trimmed astracan.
And a dark jacket under. Light waistcoat dark trousers dark felt hat turned down in the middle. Button boots and
gaiters with white buttons. Wore a very thick gold chain white lined collar. Black tie with horse shoe pin. Respectable
appearance walked very sharp. Jewish appearance.
Can be identified.
George Hutchinson
E. Badham Sergt
E. Ellisdon Insp

The first page of George Hutchinson’s statement

T. Arnold Supdt.
Submitted by F G Abberline Inspr
Hutchinson, a casual labourer and for-

mer groom, was interrogated by
Inspector Abberline immediately.
Hutchinson averred that his suspicions
were initially aroused when he saw such a
well-dressed man in Mary’s company. He
had known the deceased for about three
years, (three-quarters of the time she
was living in London, if Mary Kelly had
told Barnett the truth), and had occasion-
ally given her a few shillings. Abberline,
who was an outstanding detective,
believed him, and sent Hutchinson out
A newspaper sketch of George Hutchinson’s statement, showing Mary Kelly with the man in
with two detectives that night to search the astrakhan coat, outside the Queen’s Head pub. Hutchinson is standing by the lampost.
the neighbourhood for the well-dressed man. The three searched unsuccessfully until 3am the next morning, and again
later the next day during daylight hours.
Hutchinson had made a remarkably detailed observation in the early hours of a wet morning and in poor lighting con-
ditions, yet Abberline believed, trusted and thought him an important witness because the description he gave matched
the description of the killer that police had already furnished, (i.e. ‘a foreigner’).
The press received word of this amazing sighting the following day and many reporters sought out Hutchinson for a
possible ‘exclusive’. His sudden rise to ‘stardom’ brought out an even more detailed description from him. In The
London Times newspaper on November 14th, Hutchinson’s remarkable observation included the length of the parcel in
his suspect’s left hand, (‘8 inches’), the colour of the stone hanging from his watch chain, (‘red’), the colour of the
man’s kid gloves, (‘brown’) and even the fact that the parcel he carried was made of dark, American cloth. Instead of
the time being 2am, he ‘suddenly’ remembered the time of his observation as being at precisely 10 or 5 minutes to
2am. He even remembered the exact time of his leaving the corner of Millers Court as being 3 o’clock.
The St. James Gazette for November 14th, reported that Hutchinson was able to fix the exact time of this observa-
tion as he passed Whitechapel Church and: ‘When I left the corner of Miller’s Court the clock struck three.’ One can
only hope that he was as specific on times when Inspector Abberline interviewed him, but he should have noted the
exact times if he was aware of them when he was writing his statement. He could have been more specific about the
time he left Miller’s Court too.
It was not long, however, before serious doubt was cast upon Hutchinson’s testimony, and it was eventually dismissed
as being untrustworthy, although debate still goes on as to whether or not the press gave him a raw deal and that he
was in fact telling the truth, the consensus is that Hutchinson’s statement was not at all reliable. This is hardly sur-
prising when one examines the vast number of impossibilities in it. There are parts of his story that cannot possibly be
true, and therefore suspicion must be cast upon the whole testimony.
So who was Hutchinson? What was his relationship with Mary, and what was he doing keeping such a close eye on Mary
and waiting outside her room for a such a long time in the rain on the night of her murder? Could he have been one of
Mary’s clients? A client-server relationship with Mary might help to explain why Hutchinson waited three days to give his
important information to the police. Perhaps he was frightened to be implicated in the crime. Another possibility that
has been suggested is that he was covering for someone he knew, and keeping suspicion fixed on a foreign-looking man.

As George Hutchinson approached the police after Mary Kelly’s inquest had concluded, and before the details of the
inquest appeared in the newspapers, it is likely that he was present at Shoreditch Town Hall as the testimonies were
heard. It is believed by many Ripperologists that he heard the claims of witness Sarah Lewis, who at the inquest
described a man:
‘. . . opposite the court in Dorset Street standing alone by the Lodging House. He was not tall, but stout, had on a
wideawake black hat.’17
Some researchers believe that he might have came forward to clear himself any suspicion after this possible sight-
ing, by giving an explanation for his presence and directing it towards another ‘well-dressed’ man, who may or may not
have even existed. But, if he were present at the inquest, it should be asked, why, then, didn’t he speak up in court?
He seems to have feared confrontation with Sarah Lewis, who may have identified him as the man she saw. There is no
written proof that she ever picked Hutchinson out of a line-up of men.
Yet another possibility is that George Hutchinson was waiting for the ‘well dressed man’—who wore a thick gold
watch-chain and a horse-shoe pin to leave Kelly’s room—so he could rob him of his valuables. That would explain why
he was both so observant, and yet so hesitant to come forward at first.
But if Hutchinson’s story was fabricated and there was no well-dressed-man visiting Mary’s room, why was Hutchinson
standing for so long outside Mary’s door that night? There is one possible explanation, which, although not yet prov-
able, is worth considering.
17 Inquest testimony
Map of Dorset Street and the surrounding area, showing the key locations in Hutchinson’s statement.
Miller’s Court
Queen’s Head public house

We have already looked briefly of the history of another man that was living at the Victoria Home in Commercial
Street during that period, who had a great deal of involvement in significant events leading up to the murder of Mary
Jane Kelly. George Hutchinson made a remarkable, some would say impossible, statement to police after Kelly’s inquest
had concluded, implying that he was the last person other than the killer to see her alive.
Surprisingly enough, although we have a fair amount of evidence that Joseph Fleming existed, there is very little—
if any—documentary evidence that George Hutchinson actually existed or was a resident of the Victoria Home in
November, 1888.
If we look back at Hutchinson’s statement to police, he claims that he had known Mary Kelly for three years. That’s
about the same length of time that Mary had known Joe Fleming. His claims to have known her for that length of time
suggest that they became friends shortly after her arrival in London from Wales and, as Joseph Fleming was a man she
had lived with for a short time shortly after her arrival, it’s not unreasonable to speculate that they could be the same
man.
George Hutchinson was described as a casual labourer, who gave Mary Kelly a few shillings (the equivalent of a weeks
rent) occasionally. If we look back at the cases of the other victims, the ex-partners gave the victims comparable
amounts of money as maintenance. Why would Hutchinson, a casual acquaintance, give Mary such significant sums of
money, unless they had a more intimate relationship?
A week’s rent, in those days, was far too much for a casual labourer to sacrifice to a casual friend. A stronger bond
is certainly suggested, and we only have Hutchinson’s word that the deceased called him by the name of Hutchinson.
It was quite handy for him that there were no other witnesses to this conversation, and we must ask themselves where
a casual labourer would get that kind of spare change. It also provides a good reason for Hutchinson not to attend the
inquest. How could he have been certain that Mary Kelly had never pointed him out in the street to a friend, or that
Barnett had never viewed him?
As for the other boarders at the Victoria Home, if a man registered there under the alias ‘George Hutchinson’, how
would anyone there have known he was using an alias? If a man registered there under the name ‘James Evans’, then
later claimed to be ‘George Hutchinson’, who would have thought that he had third identity? Who would have cared?
Aliases were so commonly used at the time for varying reasons, and nobody would have even bothered to check. It’s a
Taking Mary’s body from Miller’s Court to the mortuary

fact that no one can find any record of a man named George
Hutchinson ever residing at the Victoria Home in Commercial Street.
Unfortunately, censuses were only taken every ten years (i.e. 1881,
1891, 1901, etc), and the Victoria Home doesn’t appear to have kept
a register of its lodgers. If 300 people stayed there every night, and
most of them were casual boarders who only stayed there one or
two nights, registering names in a book would have taken volumes.
We know that Joseph Fleming lodged there because of the address
listed in the Whitechapel Infirmary records. If no register records
were kept, how could the police in 1888 have confirmed that George
Hutchinson was a resident there, and how else could they have con-
Mary Kelly’s funeral. Joe Barnett is obviously one of the men pic- firmed that he gave them his true name?
tured, but there is no record of who the other man was. It might
have been Joe’s brother Daniel, there to give him moral support. There is no doubt that Mary’s love life at the time of her death
was a complicated one. We have an ex-lover, who had recently sep-
arated from her, who may well have known that she was still seeing another man of whom she was very fond and who
appears to have been desperate to stop Mary returning to prostitution. He gave conflicting reasons for his break-up with
Mary, and they did have violent quarrels. Despite this, Barnett appears to have been extremely fond of Mary, even after
their break-up, and continued to visit her and give her money when he could. Then we have Joseph Fleming, who was
still visiting Mary after she had moved in with Barnett, who had a history of violence with Mary, and who moved in just
around the corner from where Mary was living at about the same time that Barnett lost his job at Billingsgate market
and things were obviously starting to get strained between Barnett and Mary.
Added to the mix at the same time is a man called Hutchinson, whose history has never been successfully traced,
living at the Victoria Home at the same time as Fleming, who sees Mary just a short time before her death, and who
at least partially fabricates a statement about a man that he saw with Mary on that night. He also admits to loitering
for a considerable time right outside the room around the time she is murdered. The evidence suggests that he was
more than a passing acquaintance, and had known Mary for exactly the same length of time that Fleming had—longer
than her partner Joe Barnett—and who was giving her money as well.
All in all, the men in Mary’s life at the time of her death do seem to warrant further investigation. Were the ‘three’
men actually just two and could one of them have been Mary’s killer?
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jane Coram and Don Souden for their help with this article.
Leanne Perry has been writing articles on Jack the Ripper and heavily involved in crime research for many years now.
She was sub editor of Ripperoo, which she co-founded with Julian Rosenthal and she also helped to run the Australian
branch of the Cloak and Dagger Club for some years. Her recently published book – Catch Me When You Can – Jack the
Ripper, (Perry Publishing 2007, ISBN 978-0646-47696-4) is now available.
Leanne can be contacted on: [email protected]

Maxwell Under the Microscope
By BOB HINTON
Illustrated by SUZI HANNEY
One of the problems that face us as we research a subject is that there comes a time when,
instead of continuing to check diligently our sources to ensure accuracy, we begin to rely on a
potted version of events that has become enshrined as fact in our minds. Let us look, for exam-
ple, at the incident involving Caroline Maxwell. Mrs Maxwell, as you may recall, is the woman who
claimed to have seen Mary Kelly several hours after her supposed death. Obviously such a state-
ment, if true, would insert a very large spanner into the works. Mrs Maxwell’s supporters point to
several ‘facts’ that enforce their conclusion that her assertions are accurate:
1. Mrs Maxwell knew Kelly well and could not possibly have confused her with anyone else.
2. Kelly knew Mrs Maxwell and showed this by using first names when talking to her.
3. Mrs Maxwell could not be confused about the date as she pinpointed it by reference to an errand she ran on that
day, when she returned to their owner some plates her husband had borrowed.
4. Mrs Maxwell later saw Kelly outside the Britannia Public House talking to a man.
Now you will agree that these points do tend to support Mrs Maxwell’s version of events. But, are they correct?
The whole story is based on not one but two statements made by Mrs Maxwell. She made the first statement on 9 November
and the second at the inquest on Mary Kelly on 12 November. These are the two statements that we must examine if we are
to untangle the puzzle.
Statements given soon after an event are more liable to be accurate. The longer the gap between the event and the rec-
ollection, the greater the risk of the memory of the incident becoming contaminated. For example, let us say that you have
witnessed an incident involving a car. In your own mind you are certain the car is a black Rover. However, listening to others
talking about the same incident afterwards, you are surprised to hear that the other witnesses are sure the car was a blue
Toyota. In this case there is a distinct possibility that you will alter your version of events to conform to the norm.
You may also succumb to the temptation of embroidering your evidence, padding it out to include details that you
think the interviewer wishes to hear. Taking statements is an art form. The interviewer must be very careful not to give
any hint of what he thinks happened, lest the interviewees alter their evidence to adjust it to the interviewer’s view
of the incident. This is especially important when interviewing children. As a rule, children have an in-built desire to
please authority figures, a trait that is very noticeable when they are questioned about something.
In one infamous case, social workers involved in suspected cases of ritual child abuse did not refer the problem to highly
trained and experienced police interviewers but interviewed children themselves. Right from the start the whole thing was a
travesty. The social workers asked the children questions like ‘Where did you see the little boy being abused in the graveyard?’
Thinking that the adults wanted to hear a tale about child abuse in graveyards, the children obliged. The disastrous result was
that many completely innocent families had their children snatched in dawn raids and carried off screaming by the social serv-
ices. Of course, once the process was started it was impossible to stop it. Every day the papers trumpeted the success of the

social service teams in stopping a Black-Magic child-abuse ring. The police were finally allowed to interview child witnesses in
connection with the alleged murder of a child. Instead of asking questions, the police invited the children to talk about any-
thing they wanted. The children brought up a variety of subjects, but did not mention child abuse even once. When the police
tentatively broached the subject to the young witnesses, one little boy said he was fed up with that particular game and want-
ed to play something else. The whole edifice came crashing down, but not before innocent families had been branded as child
abusers and seen their children forcibly removed from them. Obviously, the child witnesses were not telling the truth, but it
would be wrong to accuse them of lying. They were merely telling the tale they thought others wished to hear.
Now let us examine in detail the two statements made by Mrs Maxwell to see whether we can come to any sound
conclusions. First of all, let us look at the statement she made on the day Mary Kelly’s body was discovered, Friday 9
November 1888. Remember that the door to Kelly’s room was forced at about 1.30pm. Most probably, the police started
collecting witness statements from that time onwards. At any rate, Mrs Maxwell made her statement within a matter of hours
of the events described. She started off by saying:
‘I have known deceased woman during the past four months’
This statement immediately establishes how long Mrs Maxwell had known Mary Kelly. You must consider, however, that
at that time Kelly had been living in Miller’s Court for eight months. It is odd that Mrs Maxwell didn’t notice her until
quite recently. Mrs Maxwell then goes on to elaborate on her knowledge of Kelly and her life:
‘…since Joe Barnett left her she has obtained her living as an unfortunate’
This was an odd thing for Mrs Maxwell to say. It indicates that she was under the impression that Kelly had turned to
prostitution only after Barnett left her. Mrs Maxwell alone seemed to believe this, as everyone else was aware that Kelly
had been a prostitute for some considerable time. She continued:
‘I was on speaking terms with her, although I had not Mary Kelly © Suzi Hanney
seen her for the past three weeks’
This establishes that the two women knew each

other well enough to speak to one another. Yet this is
a bit of a fluid description. Does ‘speak’ mean engage
in long conversations or simply to nod and say ‘Good
Morning’? It is also odd that Mrs Maxwell had not seen
Kelly for the past three weeks. Why not? There is evi-
dence that Kelly was up and about as usual. Since Mrs
Maxwell lived opposite Kelly, it is strange that for
three weeks she had failed to see her neighbour.
Mrs Maxwell then went on to describe the first time
she had seen Kelly for almost a month:
‘…she was then standing on the corner of Miller’s

court in Dorset Street. I said to her ‘what brings you
up so early?’ (approximately 8.30am) she said ‘I have
the horrors of the drink upon me as I have been drink-
ing for some days past.’
Now this was again quite an odd thing to say. It gives

the distinct impression that Kelly had been on a drink-
ing spree for the last few days. Yet a friend of hers,
Maria Harvey, stated that she had visited her on
Thursday in her room in Millers Court and they had spent the afternoon together. Harvey left when Joe Barnett came
to visit Kelly that evening. According to her, Kelly was perfectly sober at the time. Barnett arrived at Kelly’s room at
about 8.00pm. In his statement at the inquest he described her as being ‘quite sober’.
The next person to see Kelly was Mary Ann Cox, who saw her about midnight in Dorset Street and said she was ‘very
much intoxicated’. Yet later on, George Hutchinson referred to her as being ‘slightly spreeish’. I think it is safe to
deduce that between the time when Barnett saw Kelly, at about 8.00pm, and the time when Hutchinson saw her, at
about 2.30am, she had managed to get hold of some drink. The amount she had drunk, however, had not prevented her
from walking and conversing quite normally with Hutchinson. It is difficult to reconcile these facts with the statement
made by Mrs Maxwell that the person to whom she had spoken had said that she had ‘been drinking for some days past’.
Mrs Maxwell advised this person to get a hair of the dog:
‘I said why don’t you go to Mrs. Ringers meaning the public house at the corner of Dorset Street called the Britannia
and have ½ pint of beer’
To this advice she received the reply:
‘I have been there and had it, but I have brought it all up again at the same time she pointed to some vomit in the
roadway. I then passed on and went to Bishopsgate on an errand’
Now, if we look closely at this portion of the statement, certain things will immediately jump out at us.
1. It wasn’t a long conversation; Mrs Maxwell spoke 19 words and Kelly 32.
Mrs Maxwell © Suzi Hanney

2. No names were used.
3. Mrs Maxwell was under the impression that Kelly had become a prostitute only recently.
4. Mrs Maxwell had only known Kelly for approximately half the time she had lived directly across the road from her.
Oddly enough, she had failed to see her at all for the last three weeks.
Already some of what we ‘knew’ about Mrs Maxwell is beginning to look a bit shaky. It is clear that she did not know
Kelly well. They did not address each other by name but simply talked in a manner such as two strangers might use. A
conversation of just 51 words could hardly be called a gabfest between old friends.
Mrs Maxwell’s statement then continued with her account of events on her return to Dorset Street after returning
the plates her husband had borrowed. It was about 9am. She was about to enter the lodging house where her husband
worked when she:
‘Noticed the deceased standing outside Ringers public house. She was speaking to a man, age I think about 30, height
about 5’5’, stout, dressed as a Market Porter. It was some distance away and am doubtful whether I could identify him.’
The distance in fact was about 30 yards. To give you some idea of what this means, the distance between wickets in
a cricket pitch is only 22 yards. Now, if you take both the distance and the strong probability that Dorset Street would
be thronging with foot traffic at that time, especially since the Lord Mayor’s show would be starting later, it is a won-
der that Mrs Maxwell managed to identify any individual at all.
This is the statement that Mrs Maxwell gave on 9 November. Let us now move forward three days to the inquest, and
examine the statement she made then. She reiterated that she had only known Kelly for four months and followed this
with the remark:
‘I never spoke to her except twice’
This is quite a significant statement. It brings into question exactly how well Mrs Maxwell knew Kelly. If the second
of the two occasions on which she spoke to Kelly was their conversation on Friday, this would mean that during the four
months she said she ‘knew’ Kelly she had only spoken to her once! Furthermore, that conversation was no more than
a casual greeting in the street.
The next line in the statement is extremely interesting. Indeed, I’m surprised that it has never drawn much com-
ment in the past. Mrs Maxwell said:
‘I took a deal of notice of deceased this evening seeing her standing at the court on Friday from 8 to half past’
You cannot fail to notice that Mrs Maxwell was now stating that she had seen Kelly in the evening, not the morning as she
had previously claimed. Now this could easily have been a simple slip of the tongue. Even so, it was never corrected. Could
it have been a Freudian slip? Did the meeting actually take place the previous evening, after Barnett had left Kelly?
But, even accepting that Mrs Maxwell meant the morning and not the evening, there is something else that does not
ring true. She now said that Kelly had been standing at the court for thirty minutes, from 8 to 8.30am, while previously
she had stated that their meeting had taken place at about 8.30am. Besides, it doesn’t take 30 minutes to say 51 words.
The statement continued:
‘I said ‘Why Mary what brings you up so early?’ ‘Oh I do feel so bad! Oh Carry I feel so bad!’ She knew my name. I
asked her to have a drink, she said ‘Oh no I have just had a drink of ale and have brought it all up’ It was in the road
I saw it. As she said this she motioned with her head and I concluded she means she had been to the Brittania [sic] at
the corner. I left her saying I pitied her feelings I then went to Bishopsgate’
Although this statement appears to be nearly identical to the original one, it does have significant differences. First
off, we now have the two women referring to each other by name, something that was missing from the first state-
ment. Next, Mrs Maxwell invited Kelly to have a drink, again something that was missing in the first statement. Kelly
replied that she had had a drink and had brought it all up. No mention was made of Mrs Ringer’s or the Britannia. Kelly
just nodded her head, which Mrs Maxwell took to mean the Britannia. Finally, Mrs Maxwell commiserated with the

woman she called her friend and went off to run her errand. This last bit just does not ring true. If they really were
friends on first-name terms, surely Mrs Maxwell, seeing that Kelly was obviously unwell, as the proof lying in the gut-
ter showed, would have assisted her back to her room? It was only a few steps away down Miller’s Court. But she did
not. Instead, Mrs Maxwell just said that she felt for Kelly and then blithely trotted off to return her plates.
Back from Bishopsgate, Mrs Maxwell saw Kelly once more:
‘as I returned I saw her outside the Britannia talking to a man—the time was then about 20 minutes to half an hour
later about a quarter to nine. I could not describe the man I did not pass them, I went into my house I saw them in
the distance.’
We seem to have a bit of confusion about the timeline. In her first statement, Mrs Maxwell says she first met Kelly at 8.30am
and returned to Dorset Street at 9am. Here the time has changed. If you add 20 or 30 minutes to 8.30am you get either 8.50am
or 9am; you certainly don’t get 8.45am. Not too much should be read into this, however, as it is possibly an innocent mistake.
What is unusual is the assertion that she could not describe the man who was with Kelly. This jars with her first statement,
when she had stated that he was ‘about 30 years old, 5’5’, stout and dressed like a market porter’.
Looking at the two statements I am reminded of something Mark Twain said: ‘If you tell the truth you don’t have to
remember anything’. To me it would appear that Mrs Maxwell’s first statement is an account of something that might
or might not have happened, while the second is a statement by the same person who is now desperately trying to
remember what she said two days previously. Bits are added, such as, for instance, the use of first names. Bits are left
out: Mrs Ringer’s and the Britannia are mentioned in the first statement but not in the second. The first statement con-
tains a description of the mystery man seen with Kelly, the second does not.
Mrs Maxwell and Mary Kelly © Suzi Hanney

Of course there might be a logical explanation for this. Mrs Maxwell might be one of those persons who easily get
themselves tangled up in their stories. But I don’t think so. When the coroner told her that her evidence contradicted
all other available evidence, she stuck to her guns and her story.
So, after looking closely at both statements, we are left with a decision to make. Was Caroline Maxwell telling the
truth? Did she really see Mary Kelly several hours after she was presumed to have died? Looking at all the evidence,
I have to say no to both questions. I do not believe, however, that she told a deliberate lie. She simply mistook some-
body else for Mary Kelly. It is easy to do. Just imagine Mary Kelly and another woman walking down the street as Mrs
Maxwell is deep in conversation with another person. As the two young women walk past Mrs Maxwell, one of them calls
out ‘Good Morning!’ Mrs Maxwell’s interlocutor answers the greeting and turning to her says ‘Oh, that’s Mary Kelly who
lives up the court with Joe Barnett.’ Mrs Maxwell might for some reason have fixed on Kelly’s companion and filed her
away in her memory as Mary Kelly. Now, unless she meets the real Kelly on a regular basis, there is no reason why she
should ever be disabused. But we know that she doesn’t meet Kelly regularly. In her own words, she had spoken only
twice to Mary Kelly in all the eight months she had lived a few feet away from her.
On 9 November, when Mrs Maxwell found out that the police were making enquiries about Mary Kelly, she may have
recalled passing the woman she believed to be Kelly briefly that morning as she was vomiting in the gutter. Mrs Maxwell
then expanded this brief encounter into something more; something that would give her a few minutes in the limelight.
I believe that in the period between her first and second statement Mrs Maxwell decided to gild the lily a bit and put
in some extra detail, such as the use of names in her conversation. Her problem, however, was trying to recall exactly
what she had said on Friday.
Let us look at it another way. Let us suppose that Mrs Maxwell was absolutely correct and that she had talked to the
real Mary Kelly that morning. For that to be true the following would have had to happen:
1. Mary Kelly would have had to get up, leave her room and go to the Britannia, all without anyone seeing her.
2. She would have had to get served with a drink in the bar without anyone seeing her or the barmaid remembering her.
3. She would have had to return to Miller’s Court, hang about for about thirty minutes and throw up in the gutter
without anyone seeing her.
4. She would have had to have a conversation with Mrs Maxwell without anyone seeing them.
5. The body on the bed contained remnants of food in her stomach. If she had been vomiting a short time earlier her
stomach would have been empty.
6. Considering that Kelly’s body was discovered at 10.30-10.45am, to accept that she had been talking to someone
outside the pub at 9am would imply an impossibly short time-frame for her to be accosted by the killer, taken back to
her room and cut into pieces. All, besides, without anyone noticing a thing.
What can be concluded from the points just made? Taking everything into consideration, I think that the balance of
probabilities is that Caroline Maxwell did not speak to Mary Jane Kelly that morning.

It’s Madness
By DON SOUDEN and JENNIFER PEGG
Introduction
Is Ripperology truly “madness”? There are probably many who cling to the belief that the deep
interest in a series of particularly brutal murders 120 years ago that characterizes Ripperology is
a manifestation of madness, but happily for those in the field the answer would seem to be a
resounding “No!” Or at least our latest research into that interesting sub-species Homo ripperol-
ogist strongly suggests that the inhabitants of Ripper World are rather normal, almost ordinary,
with rich and rewarding lives apart from an abiding desire to answer the seemingly unanswerable.
There may be the occasional “crazy uncle who should be locked in the attic” among Ripperologists,
but then that would apply to almost any common-interest group large enough to fill a bed-sitter.
Still, if the certifiably mad are scarcely in the majority, Ripperologists are still a fascinating lot. This is our third ven-
ture into seeking answers to the question of what sort of people Ripperologists are and it is by any measure the most
ambitious. As explained in the methodology section, this was a totally random survey and includes several new tech-
niques like photo analysis and in-depth interviews. In some cases the results surprised us greatly whilst in other areas
only seemed to reinforce previous findings. Overall, though, this report on the Ripperologists among us is interesting and,
if nothing else, ought to give pause to anyone thinking of buying stock in a newspaper company—the reader is warned.
Methodological Discussion
This was our third excursion into the world of Ripperologists, and, with the last two surveys under our belts, we decided we
could afford, both in terms of time and effort, to undertake something a little bigger and broader than we had tried previously.
Therefore we used a multi-strategy approach, so that we could generate both quantitative and qualitative data. The methods
incorporated were questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and visual analysis.
Some people have argued that there are two distinct social research methods and that these are underpinned by
two opposing and competing theoretical assumptions about the social world and so the two different research meth-
ods cannot be combined together. Other sociologists, however, have taken the view that quantitative and qualitative
research methods can be combined to form multi-strategy research and have undertaken such research (Bryman, 2004).
As Coffey and Atkinson (1996) pointed out, quantitative and qualitative data are not easily distinguishable from one
another and therefore they should not be thought of as inherently different. Bryman (2004) also stated that the research
method is seen as a tool for the investigation of social phenomena and so methods can be combined together in order
to reach sociological understandings about the world. This is the view that we have taken.
The first part of our method was a questionnaire that incorporated a range of open and closed questions. The closed
questions were mainly categorical in their nature (e.g. age, gender) whereas the majority of our open questions were
opinion based. Closed questions are advantageous in that they are easy to fill in and therefore it takes relatively little

time to do so. They also allow for clarity, i.e., they give the type of response that
we are after (see Bryman, 2004). The open questions allowed respondents to
answer in their own terms and allowed for unusual or unexpected responses and,
unlike the closed questions, were not suggestive of the answer(s) expected (in that
they did not use pre-determined categories) (see Bryman, 2004). It was also pos-
sible to generate statistical data via the open questions. Therefore, for each ques-
tion, we used the form that we deemed most appropriate for the type of informa-
tion that we wanted to solicit.
The results and findings of the last two questionnaires, as well as the problems
with some of the questions, were once again incorporated into the design of the
questionnaire this time out. We used a mixture of questions we had previously used
(some adapted to resolve problems that we had previously encountered) as well as
some new ones.
This time, we were able to use a probability-sample; this is “a sample that has
been selected using random selection so that each unit in the population has a
known chance of being selected” (Bryman, 2004 pp 87). The sampling method we
used to generate this was a simple random sample; this means that each person in
the population has an equal chance of being selected, hence eliminating
Ripperologist 85
researcher bias from the selection of the sample. As we mentioned in the method-
ology section of our last research [Ripperologist Issue 85] “it is worth noting that producing a probability sample for
the population to be explored (‘Ripperologists’) would be difficult given that it is not an easily definable or immedi-
ately recognisable category”. This meant we had to consider where our sampling frame would come from in order to
generate a representative random sample. We chose to use the members of the Casebook: Jack the Ripper message
board to form the population in this instance. Whilst recognising that this may have introduced some non-sampling error
into our findings, we felt that it was the most appropriate way to reach what is a hidden population in large numbers.
In order to reduce the likelihood of including duplicate registrations, or people who were no longer Ripperologists, we
limited our sampling frame to those people who had visited the Casebook in the six months prior to the 23rd December
2007 (i.e. 23 June 07 – 23rd December 07 inclusive). Therefore our sampling fraction was 250/816.
In order to generate a random sample from our sampling frame we used an online random number generator (see
http://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/randomN1.cfm ). The sample was generated on the 28th December 2007. The
use of a random sample makes our sample representative of the population. As we have used a random sample our
results are generalisable i.e. we can say that represent all users of the Casebook. In using this sampling method we
have reduced several of the problems highlighted by our first two methodologies. However, it should be noted that
there are limitations to the population stud- Photograph A - A scene from the 1998 Norwich Conference © Judith Stock
ied. This is because there is no definitive list
from which to draw. However, we feel that
given the circumstances surrounding who is
studied, this was the most effective way of
producing a probability sample which repre-
sented the population that we are studying.
Our questionnaire was sent to the 250 peo-
ple who made up our sample. The response
rate was 35 out of 250 = 14 percent. We felt
that our response rate may have been com-
promised by the crash to the Casebook as
some of our respondents had to be contacted

Casebook - Jack the Ripper
solely by its PM function. We also felt that on reflection we may have allowed too long a window for a previous visit to
Casebook and therefore we may have included in the sampling frame, and thus the sample, people who were not cur-
rently an active user. This could be resolved on any future survey by limiting the sampling frame to people who had vis-
ited the Casebook website in a shorter time frame.
We felt that the use of a questionnaire had some distinct advantages. Most important was that our questionnaire
allowed us to reach a relatively large number of people in the population in a relatively short amount of time. They also
have the advantage that people can take their own time filling them in and so consider their thoughts. Moreover, they
are a cheap method of reaching a large amount of the population (see May, 2001). Questionnaires also had the advan-
tage of reducing interviewer effect and variability from the data (see Bryman, 2004). There are some disadvantages to
using a questionnaire, most notably that it is hard or impossible to probe beyond the answers given (see May, 2001).
The second part of our method was semi-structured interviews. That is, we had an interview guide that was made
up of fairly specific topic areas that needed to be covered (see Bryman, 2004). We conducted the interviews between
26/1/08 and 11/2/08 via instant messaging. Our sample was made up of 20 people and response rate was 4/20 =20%.
For the selection of respondents for interview we also used a random sample of Casebook members in a similar way to
that mentioned above, only this time we generated our sample to include only 20 people, instead of 250. Respondents
had an equal chance of being selected for an interview regardless of whether or not they had been selected for the
questionnaire. The sampling fraction was 20/816.
Using interviews as part of our research allowed us to probe beyond the first answer that was given and develop points with
our respondents. The interviews also allowed people to answer more on their own terms (see May, 2001). However, we were
not able to reach such a large amount of people using this technique and we used a smaller sample due to constraints of time.
The final part of our research involved a visual analysis. The use of visual methods to gain understanding has become
widely used (see Bolton, Pole and Mizen, 2001).
Photograph B – A possible identity parade hits the Norwich Conference, 1998 © Judith Stock
As Grady (2004, pp 20) stated “pictures are valu-
able because they encode an enormous amount
of information in a single representation”. Visual
images are viewed as windows into social reality,
however, they are not unproblematic and the
researcher must be sensitive to the context in
which they were generated (see Bryman, 2004).
It can be argued that visual methods are poten-
tially less ambiguous than other methods since
researchers can select and reconstruct text
whereas an image remains the same however it is
interpreted (see Knowles and Sweetman, 2004).
For our visual analysis we looked at photo-
graphs from the following conferences:
Norwich 1998, New Jersey 2000, Liverpool
2003, Baltimore 2004, Brighton 2005 and

Wolverhampton 2007. Therefore we used images that were not specifically
number Gender
created for the research. We feel that we have analysed the images with the
(22) 63%
Male potential problems of visual methods in mind and that, although visual meth-
(12) 34% ods have been criticised, they can provide useful insights into the social world,
Female
particularly, when used in conjunction with other methods.
(1) 3% No Answer
“Sweet Old World”
Table 1 - The gender of our respondents. We wanted to find out the demographic make up of Ripperologists, so we
looked into questions that told us something about their social background. The gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, mar-
ital status, education and occupation of respondents were all examined as we wanted to find out if there might be
something in a person’s background that might pre-dispose them towards an interest in Ripperology.
The first aspect of this to be examined was the gender of Ripperologists. From our data we found that 62 percent of
the sample were male and 34 percent were female (see
Table One). It is interesting to note how this compares to number
Age
the last survey (Rip 85) as, in that instance, 65 percent of
6% (2)
respondents were men. So this result can be considered as 17-25
pretty similar. Interestingly, we also noted last time that 26-30

11% (4)
62 percent of those people who sat down at the
11% (4)
Wolverhampton banquet were men (the same percentage 31-35
as the results of this survey). Meanwhile, men made up 36-40

20% (7)
the totality of those in our interview sample (although a
23% (8)
small response rate may have introduced bias). 41-50
Turning to our visual study, we noticed that the major- 26% (9)
51-60
ity of those pictured were men. The sample of images
3% (1)
61-70
backs up the survey’s findings, showing that men appear
to be present in higher proportions to women in all the Table 2A - The age of survey respondents
conferences. Though women feature in most of the pic-
tures, they are, (in all but two cases—Photographs C and F), significantly outnumbered by their male counterparts. Our visu-
al analysis spanned nine years, starting with the 1998 Norwich Conference and ending with the 2007 Wolverhampton
Conference (with many of the intervening years covered). The later conferences (Baltimore 2004 and Wolverhampton 2007,
in particular) appear to show an increased presence of women compared to earlier Conferences. Photograph C (a shot
Table 2B - How many survey respondents were over 36 years of age?

from New Jersey) is one instance where there are more women in view
than men, but it is interesting to note that in this shot the women are
all focusing on what the male is saying. Our data from all three sources
confirms our earlier findings that men outnumber women within the
<35 field of Ripperology.

29% The next thing that was considered was the age of Ripperologists,
(10 people)
as shown in Table 2B, 71 percent of our sample were aged 36 or over.
The majority of these were spread pretty evenly through the 36-40, 41-
>36
50, and 51-60 categories respectively (see Table 2A). It can also be
71%
(25 people) noted that only 6 percent of the sample were between the ages of 17
and 25, whilst no one was younger than this. As an interesting aside, it
can also be reported that all four of our interviewees were in their for-
ties, one aged 46, two 45 and one who said, more vaguely, that he was
in his forties. Looking at the photos we examined, we noted that many

of those pictured appeared to be in their thirties or older,
although a spectrum of ages were shown when the complete Ethnicity number
data set was taken as a whole. In general, there were mid-

White 71% (25)
dle-aged men in view, although some shots, such as
Photographs C and G, showed younger women in the fore- 17% (6)
Western European
ground. It was also noted that those attending at Baltimore
2004 appear, overall, to be younger than do those attending 3% (1)
Mixed Race
the other Conferences as a general rule.
9% (3)
We also asked respondents to describe their ethnicity and No Answer / Unclear
nationality and once again this produced some interesting

data. We again found that the overwhelming majority of Table 3 - The ethnicities that our respondents identified themselves with.
Ripperologists proved to be white; with 88 percent stating

that they were either white (71 percent) or Western European (11 percent). A further 9 percent did not answer this
question or provided an answer that was unclear, whilst
one respondent was of mixed heritage (see Table 3). In
Nationality
number the last survey 89 percent of respondents were white,
(10) 29% British whilst in the first (more methodologically problematic)
(4) 11% English survey this figure was 94 percent. Therefore it can be
seen that a trend has emerged whereby it has been
(1) 3% Scots
shown that nearly all Ripperologists are white, meaning
(10) 29% American
that there are very few from what are, in the Western
(4) 11% Australian hemisphere, minority ethnic backgrounds. So far the
(2) 6% Canadian next biggest response besides “white” has always been
(2) 6% Norwegian no answer! The visual clues we have looked at support
(1) 3% this notion overwhelmingly—in all the photos we have

Dutch
looked at thus far there appears to be no one from a non-
(1) 3% Venezuelan
white background to be found (apart from the then
Table 4 - The nationality of those who took part. Mayor of Brighton, seen in Photograph I, who, clearly, is
not a Ripperologist).
We also examined the nationality of our respondents (see Table 4). We found that most were British (a total of 43 per-
cent), although there were a significant number of American (29 percent) and a fair amount of Australian (11 percent) and
a few Canadian (6 percent) Ripperologists. This
Table 5 - The number of people who were married or otherwise engaged.
data was supported by findings from our inter-
number
views. This seems to affirm the notion that Marital Status
Ripperologists come, in the main, from Britain or Married 34% (12)

English-speaking Western countries once affiliated
Single 40% (14)
with it (although there were a few Europeans and
Partner 11% (4)
one South American national in our results). Perhaps
it is unsurprising, given that Jack the Ripper is a his- Separated 3% (1)
torical British event, that it should be people from (1)

Widow 3%
Britain or associated English-speaking former
Unclear 3% (1)
colonies or Commonwealth countries who find it
interesting. Therefore, one might similarly expect No Answer 3% (1)
a large amount of people from the Asian sub-conti-

nent to have been interested in these
number Education Level
crimes had they been committed
(5) 14% 16/under
there.
(10) 29% A-level/high school/equivalent This time out we also looked into
the marital status of our respondents
(12) 34% Degree (see Table 5). We found that 34 per-
cent were married, whilst 11 percent
(4) 11% MA/Equivalent
had a partner (making 45 percent
(3) 9% PhD who were in a relationship). This

compared to 40 percent who said
(1) 3% Unclear that they were single. With 3 percent
of people a widow and 3 percent sep-
Table 6A - What qualifications respondents had.
arated this made it a pretty even
split between those who were and were not in a relationship. This quashes any ideas that people MIGHT have had that
Ripperologists were all single males with nothing better to do with their time! It shows a pretty even social mixture of
people who are married or otherwise.
Determining the education levels of Ripperologists has always been a difficult proposition because of differing ter-
minology among countries. The question has been refined several times and whilst the problem has been smoothed out
so far as the United States and the United Kingdom are concerned, this latest survey added several different countries
Table 6B - The subject of the degrees and HE qualifications that had been studied
and their school systems into the mixture. Nonetheless, we
seem on firm footing to say that more than half (54 per-
Degree Subjects
cent) of respondents reported having a bachelor’s degree or
BA/equivalent more. Of those with a degree, 34 percent hold a bachelor’s,

11 percent a master’s and there were three PhDs (see Table
(1) Drama College
6A).
(2) English - English Literature
Amongst those with a bachelor’s degree, four people said
(1) English Literature, Spanish and Philosophy (combined)
they received it in English, English literature or English
(1) Norse Philology
combined with another field. Psychology was the major for
(1) PGCE (teaching qualification)
three other respondents whilst drama, Norse philology, edu-
(1) Philosophy
cation and philosophy were each represented once. Among
(3) Psychology
those holding master’s degrees, archaeology, architecture,
(1) Not stated
British history and English were the majors named. In addi-
MA/equivalent tion, in the course of conversation one of our interviewees

mentioned holding a master’s in American history. Amongst
(1) Archaeology MA + MLitt Material Culture Artefact Studies
those with PhDs, the fields were analytical chemistry,
(1) Architecture
applied mathematics and history. Overall, we Ripperologists
(1) British History
would seem a well-educated group (see Table 6B).
(1) English
What Ripperologists do (or don’t do) for a living has been
a part of every survey we have done to date and the answers
PhD
are usually reflective of the diverse population of “Ripper
(1) Analytical Chemistry World” and range from day labourer at one extreme to cor-
(1) Applied Mathematics porate chairman at the other. This was also true of our lat-
(1) History (not completed) est survey with one notable exception—the leading “occu-
pation” reported, at 14 percent, was “unemployed”. In the

two previous surveys only one person had responded to the
Occupation number
occupation question with unemployed. Whether this jump in
the number of unemployed respondents indicates a worsening Unemployed 14% (5)
world economy or was just a statistical anomaly is unanswer-

IT 11% (4)
able, though one possible explanation might lie in the compo-
sition of our sampling pool. Our pool was drawn from the Management 9% (3)
active members of a message board so it might be that those 9% (3)

No Answer
who are not working have more time to both post and answer
Labourer 6% (2)
survey questionnaires. It should be noted in contrast, howev-
er, that while there were significant numbers of “retired” Author 6% (2)
respondents in the first two surveys there was only a single
Retail/Sales 6% (2)
such answer in this one.
Otherwise, the answers were quite in line with those of pre- Teacher 6% (2)
vious surveys and, as Table 7 shows, indicate a wide range of
Actor 3% (1)
jobs held by Ripperologists. Not surprising in this age of bur-
geoning technology, the IT field was second most popular, Architect 3% (1)
employing 11 percent of respondents. Other job areas report-

Artist 3% (1)
ed by more than one respondent were management, at 9 per-
cent, and labourer, author and retail all at 6 percent. Beyond Book keeper 3% (1)
those occupations, however, were people earning a living at 3% (1)

Consultancy/Brokerage
every thing from architecture to woodworking, just as has
Engineer 3% (1)
been the case in our previous surveys. Ripperologists, it
seems, will be found in every field imaginable, though it is Environmental Consultant 3% (1)
something of a surprise that we have come across only one
Forklift and wheel loader 3% (1)
lawyer in the course of our investigations. Then again, that
may be very lucky for us. Driver 3% (1)
It was also possible to observe some more general things
Graduate Student 3% (1)
from looking at the visual clues we have presented. The pho-
tographs showed both formal and informal settings, in all the Historian 3% (1)
shots where discussion/talks were not clearly taking place the

Housewife 3% (1)
settings are very relaxed and there appears to be much social
Indexer 3% (1)
interaction. This leads us to conclude that Ripperologists are
perhaps socially inclined creatures (this notion might be sup- 3% (1)
Prison Officer
ported by the number of JtR message boards and forums, clubs,
Researcher 3% (1)
meetings and other gatherings that take place, including
Conferences!). In terms of the pictures which show arranged Retired 3% (1)
events, such as talks, discussions and the like, the audience
Scientist 3% (1)
seem to be, in the main, engaged with the event and attentive
to it (apart from Photograph J, where the person in the focus Teacher 3% (1)
of the shot has clearly been distracted by the camera!) This

Tourism 3% (1)
supports the idea that Ripperologists are serious about what
they do and although they might be considered by us to be Woodworker 3% (1)
socially inclined, this is, perhaps, secondary to their interest in Table 7 - The varying occupations of Ripperologists.
the field in itself.

number Other Interests “I Hope You Dance”
(15) 43% Books/Literature/Reading
The interests to which Ripperologists
(10) 29% Music
will admit other than Jack the Ripper are
(7) 20% Sport
wide-ranging and . . . well very interest-
(6) 17% History
ing by themselves (see Table 8A). Indeed,
(5) 14% Art
were you to look at the list of the other
(5) 14% Cooking/Food & Drink
(5) 14% Film passions and avocations reported by
(5) 14% Paranormal/Mythology/Forteana Ripperologists in our three surveys to date

(4) 11% Computing/Internet it would be hard find any area of human
(4) 11% Crafts endeavour in which at least someone in
(4) 11% Family History/Genealogy the field has not dabbled. In fact, one
(4) 11% True Crime/Criminology respondent to this survey listed a full 28
(3) 9% Archaeology/ Palaeontology other interests and then added “. . .and
(3) 9% Crossword/Puzzles many, many more.” The mind boggles.
(3) 9% Historical Re-enactment More specifically, this latest survey once
(3) 9% Pets/Animals
more underscores the notion that
(3) 9% Theology/Religion
Ripperologists are a remarkably literate
(3) 9% Writing
lot, with 43 percent answering that
(2) 6% Board Games
“books/literature/reading” were a major
(2) 6% Family/Friends
interest. Of course, with so much Ripper
(2) 6% Military History
research dependent on the written word
(2) 6% Other
(2) 6% Poetry in one form or another, this ought not be
(2) 6% Science/Technology a great surprise. Nor was it that much dif-

(2) 6% Travel ferent in previous surveys. The survey
(2) 6% TV taken at the 2007 conference had 12 per-
(1) 3% Adventure Games cent listing reading as an important inter-
(1) 3% Astronomy est and one-third of those in the initial
(1) 3% Country Sports survey said the same.
(1) 3 Farming The second most popular interest this
(1) 3 Forensics time turned out to be music, at 29 per-
(1) 3 Gardening/Plants
cent. This compares to a mere four per-
(1) 3 Handwriting Analysis
cent at Wolverhampton and a whopping
(1) 3 Languages
45 percent in the first survey. The star-
(1) 3 Local History
tling difference among the three surveys
(1) 3 Martial Arts
is rather puzzling and cannot be account-
(1) 3 Museums/Art Galleries (visiting)
ed for simply by differing sampling meth-
(1) 3 Photography
(1) 3 Philosophy ods. Moreover, the après-presentation
(1) 3 Postcards musical interludes in the bar at

(1) 3 Psychology Wolverhampton seemed to appeal to most
(1) 3 Quizzes everyone (as does the steady business at
(1) 3 Rambling the conference bookstalls suggest a
(1) 3 Social History greater interest in reading than the sur-
(1) 3 Socialising vey indicated). Without a doubt these
(1) 3 Victorian Era anomalies deserves more study.
(1) 3 Weaponry
Table 8A - The many and differing interests of
(1) 3 No Answer Ripperologists broken down into categories.

Sports (as a participant or spectator) is enjoyed by one in five
Songs number
Ripperologists and other interests with double-digit percentages
Rock 26% (9)
were history, art, cooking and food, film and the paranormal (all
at 14 %) as well as computers, crafts, genealogy and criminology, Pop 11% (4)
all reported by 11 percent. A glance at the full list of outside inter- Country 9% (3)
ests reported will quickly suggest that if you have a question
Rock ‘n’ Roll 9% (3)
about anything, some Ripperologist ought to be able to supply an
answer. Folk 9% (3)
We asked a question about respondents favourite songs that was Metal 6% (2)
supposed to provide a little fun for the authors as well as make their
Punk 6% (2)
task a little easier by providing both an article title and headings
for the various sections. As Meatloaf once sang, “two out of three Opera 6% (2)
ain’t bad.” That is, since we both enjoy popular music we most Classical 3% (1)
assuredly got a lot of enjoyment from the answers to this ques-
Electronic 3% (1)
tion. Further, the song choice of one respondent, “It’s Madness”
by Motown rocker Marvin Gaye, seems a very apt title for any arti- Soul 3% (1)
cle about Ripperology. But just how well some of the other choic- World music 3% (1)
es serve as subject headings we leave to the reader to decide. It
No Answer 9% (3)
was also fascinating that the songs themselves provided no hints
Table 8B - The Songs that Ripperologists like to play
as to the respondents’ ages or gender, nor was any song the choice
of more than one person.
The list of “favourite” songs is certainly interesting and certainly eclectic, ranging from classical selections to coun-
try and western. Moreover, the popular music selections span more than 60 years. Among the many genres represented
was early Rock ‘n’ Roll with “Sleepwalk” by the Farina brothers, Santo and Johnny, and “Blue Moon” by the Marcels.
Country got a nod with ‘Lovesick Blues” by Hank Williams as did classical music as one person chose Mozart’s “Requiem
Mass” and two songs were picked from operas. Several pop standards were named, like “I Am a Rock” by Simon and
Garfunkel and George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord”. Folk songs were well represented with “Lady Midnight” by Canadian
Leonard Cohen as one example. Straight rock had several adherents, including one person who opted for Jethro Tull’s
“Locomotive Breath”, while black metal, nu metal and even punk was also represented. A favourite song is clearly a
very personal thing (see Table 8B).
Perhaps the only real surprise was from one poor respondent who wrote “I have no favourite song”. How very sad.
Another person wrote “Dunno! But Edith Piaf can still bring a lump to my eye and a tear to my heart.” In that case per-
Photograph C – the 2000 New Jersey Conference © David Yost

haps we can choose ourselves and add Piaf’s signature “Le Vie en Rose” to
Newspapers
the list. In contrast, another respondent wrote that her favourite is “Penny
number
(14) 40% Lane” because she once walked down Penny Lane with a fellow
No Paper
Ripperologist and that was “just a WONDERFUL few hours.” Truly, that is
(5) 11% Local Paper
what a favourite song should be about.
(2) 6% Aftenposten
We again asked a question about regular newspaper readership (first
(2) 6% Dagbladet used in our second survey) which was first conceived as a means to obtain
(2) 6% Guardian a possible insight into the political leanings of Ripperologists. Since the
(2) 6% Independent second survey was conducted amongst delegates to the 2007 JTR
(2) 6% Conference in Wolverhampton, England, and most of those delegates were

NY Times
from the UK the question about newspaper readership did prove quite illu-
(2) 6% Times (London)
minating. This was so because the UK is not only small enough geographi-
(1) 3% “Dutch Newspapers” cally as to make many of its newspapers “national” in scope regardless of
(1) 3% Evening Standard where they are published, but also because those newspapers provide a
(1) 3% Globe and Mail rich variety of editorial commitments that blanket the political spectrum.
(1) 3% International Herald Tribune As a result, the second survey findings—without being at all definitive—
(1) 3% suggested a slight centre-right political bias amongst the conference

Irish Times
attendees and it was tentatively adduced this might have been linked to
(1) 3% Mail on Sunday
their age (approximately two-thirds were over age 40).
(1) 3% Metro Unfortunately, the latest survey did not allow for such convenient polit-
(1) 3% National Post ical insights, largely because well over half of the respondents came from
(1) 3% Nordlys outside the UK and we had no easy way to identify the political stance of
(1) 3% papers like the Aftenposten (Norway), far less the Killagoree Times
Observer
(1) (Australia). Moreover, the situation in the United States (which provided
3% Sydney Herald
nearly a third of the respondents) does not allow for easy political cate-
(1) 3% V.G
gorizing. There are really only two “national” newspapers, USA Today and
(1) 3% Washington Post the Wall Street Journal (neither of which was named). And, with the
(1) 3% Yorkshire Post exception of a few cities—most notably New York—most metropolitan
areas in the United States are now served by only a single major daily
Table 9 -The newspapers that are regularly read
by our survey respondents. newspaper (which is often simply part of a newspaper chain anyway) the
political orientation of readers is not always apparent. The vast majority of those newspapers do have a left-liberal
editorial stance, but with an essentially “captive readership” because of their local market monopoly they are not near-
ly so indicative of political leanings as in the UK with its rich variety of offerings (see Table 9).
However, if the question about newspapers failed in its intended purpose of providing insights to the political lean-
ings of Ripperologists, it did provide one rather startling bit of information—a full 40 percent of respondents said they
do not regularly read any print newspapers. And it is important to keep in mind when assessing that datum that
Ripperologists as a whole are very literate, something borne out by all three of our surveys. Nor are they at all indif-
ferent to the world around them. Rather, a number of them reported that the Internet had supplanted print newspa-
pers as their only source of national and international news.
In the second survey the percentage of those who did not regularly read a print newspaper was less than half (19
percent) that in this survey. There are any number of reasons why this may be that involve sampling methods and pools,
but one possible reason that deserves attention concerns the ages of the respondents in both surveys. Among the
Wolverhampton conference delegates who responded, about two-thirds were older than 40 years, while only about half
fell into that age grouping in the latest survey. It may well be that just as email and text messages have made postal
services virtually redundant in many areas, so too could the Internet be rendering print newspapers obsolete. Certainly,
as promised in the introduction, anyone with an inclination to invest in a newspaper stock would be well advised to

suppress that hankering. number
“Wind In Your Sails” Book 31% (11)
There are certain authors in the field who are held in bad TV/film 20% (7)
repute by most Ripperologists and yet in terms of bringing 17% (6)

Family
new recruits into the fold they could well be the “poster
19C. crime interest 3% (1)
children” for any “Jack the Ripper Needs You!” placards.
This is particularly true of Patricia Cornwell and Stephen Mystery of it 14% (5)
Knight as reading either Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper
Letters 3% (1)
Case Closed or Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution was cited
by nearly one-fifth of the respondents in this survey as the History 3% (1)
spark that ignited their continuing interest in Ripperology. In 6% (2)

Diary
fact, in our first survey (the question was not asked in the
No Answer 3% (1)
Wolverhampton survey) a similarly high percentage of
respondents credited the same pair as the reason for getting Table 10 - What sparked people’s interest in the case
more deeply involved in the
field (see Table 10).
Moreover, reading Ripper books—both revered and detested—was the major reason given
21>
29% for becoming interested in Ripperology in both surveys. In our latest effort a full third of
34 people respondents and interviewees said that a book had been the impetus for their continuing
<20 study. Films and television programs accounted for another 20 percent of the answers.
71 %
Amongst films mentioned was the movie “Murder By Decree” and amongst television pro-
25 people
grammes the old “Barlow and Watts” Jack the Ripper special and “the Michael Caine mini-
series” were specifically cited, along with the “Kolchak” series.
As in the first survey, the influence of family members (either just talking about Jack
or passing on their own passion for the puzzle) also sparked interest amongst many (17
Table 11A – The number of people who were
interested in the case for 21 years or more. percent) and answers along the lines of “the mystery of it” were cited by 14 percent.
There were also a number Table 11B – The number of years that respondents had been interested in JtR for.
of unique responses that ranged from “studying the hoax
Years number
letters” to being asked to participate in a quest to find the
<5 17% (6)
origins of the Maybrick Diary.
6-10 31% (11)
Finally, perhaps the oddest reply of all came during one
11-15 6% (2)
of the interviews when we were told that listening to a
16-20 17% (6)
Screaming Lord Sutch record owned by a parent touched
off what has become a life-long interest in Jack the Ripper. 21-25 3% (1)
If that erstwhile rocker and perennial political pretender
26-30 11% (4)
helped create a Ripper researcher then anything may be
possible. It certainly makes clear that while all roads may 31-35 3% (1)
eventually lead to Whitechapel in 1888, there are a near- 6% (2)
36-40
infinite number of places from which to start the journey.
41-45 3% (1)
There is no question, however, that wherever that “jour-
ney to Whitechapel” begins it usually turns out to be a long 46-50 0% (0)
one, though there was a rather interesting difference in
51-55 3% (1)
the number of years respondents have been interested in

Year Jack compared to the previous surveys. This time around, almost three-
number
fourths (71 percent) of those returning surveys had been involved for 20
(2) 6% 1956-60
or fewer years. This compares to half the respondents (51 percent) in
(0) 0% 1961-65 the first survey and 42 percent in the second. It is quite possible that
(2) 6% 1966-70 the answers from the Wolverhampton Conference sample were skewed
toward more years of interest because the event drew a generally older
(1) 3% 1971-75
crowd and would also be likely to draw a more committed set of
(5) 14% 1976-80 Ripperologists. Still, only 17 percent of respondents have been interested
for fewer than five years whilst at the other end of the scale one person
(0) 0% 1981-85
reported studying the mystery for more than half a century! (see Tables
(3) 17% 1986-90 11A and 11B).
This third survey did tend to reinforce a notion that arose with our first
(1) 3% 1991-95
survey and continued through the second—a definite spike in years of inter-
(12) 34% 1996-00 est centred around 1988. This was, of course, the year of the Whitechapel
(4) 11% 2001-05 murders centennial and was accompanied by a great number of books and
television shows as well a generally heightened amount of media attention.
(2) 6% 2006-present
Historians are wont to dismiss “round-number” anniversaries as meaning-
less but it would appear that at least as far as Jack the Ripper interest is
*71% interest started after 1986
concerned the 100th anniversary was quite effective in bringing many into
Table 12 – The five year periods that people became interested. the field. It will be interesting for future researchers to see if this year, the
120th anniversary, produces a like result (see Table 12).
Finally to be considered here is just why so many people continue to follow the long trail to Whitechapel. Indeed,
in many ways that might well be the key question amongst all those we have asked as the answers not only provide a
greater understanding of the phenomenon but also have much to say about the very future of Ripperology.
In our first survey (again, the question was not asked at Wolverhampton) about a third of the respondents cited the
mystery of who was the murderer known as Jack the Ripper as most important for sustaining interest and, as a sort of
corollary to the mystery aspect, another third said their interest was sustained by the new information and lore that is
constantly being discovered by dedicated researchers. In this latest survey much the same results were obtained. Just
over one-third (34 percent) of the respondents indicated that the “eternal mystery of it” keep them interested whilst
31 percent replied that it was the new information that is always emerging that sustains their devotion to Ripperology.
Among those who cited the mystery aspects we received answers like ‘I enjoy unsolved mysteries of every kind”,
“mystery solving”, “probably the fact that it will remain unsolved and poorly understood forever, providing endless
years of study”, “the thrill of amateur sleuthing”, and “The guilty pleasure of playing armchair detective with an inter-
esting historical whodunit”. Similarly, people whose interest is sustained by the new discoveries gave replies like “little
Photograph D – another glimpse at New Jersey 2000 © David Yost

bits of the ‘jigsaw puzzle’ that keep emerging”, “the
results of on-going research”, “the discoveries made
by myself and others”, and “new facts coming to
light and new interpretations of the existing facts”.
The rest of the answers we received seemed to run
the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous. Among
the more high-minded replies was one person who said
“victims’ research and wanting to do my best to make a
wider amount of people more aware of their lives”
whilst another just said “my research.” Two people
cited “Casebook” and a third mentioned the “Internet
and conferences”. One respondent gave a more prag-
matic reason for a continued presence in Ripperology by
writing simply “contacts and work.” On a less than pos-
itive note, another respondent said “. . .perhaps I just
Photograph E – what are you looking at? Liverpool, 2003 © Suzi Hanney enjoy the sheer fatuity of it all”. And finally, there was
the one succinct reply to what sustains interest—“bitter-
ness and despair”.
Overall, though, most Ripperologists seemed to have good and well thought out reasons for sustaining their interest.
Nonetheless, with nearly two-thirds of Ripperologists citing the eternal mystery or new information for keeping them in the
field, that oft-debated question, “what happens if we truly discover Jack’s identity?” could mean, should it come to pass,
that a lot of people will be looking for a new hobby or a new mystery to solve. And somehow becoming a “Torso-murderol-
ogist” does not carry the same cachet.
“More Than A Feeling”
When we conducted our interviews we discussed the participants own research and interests within the field.
Interviewee One commented that he liked “the research aspect more, theory books do not usually measure up” and then
added, “for me it is more about trying to work out what make Jack tick, I have never really been one for searching
through dusty files”. Furthermore, he felt that “perhaps we can not work out who Jack was but I think we can say with
reasonable accuracy who he was not”. This set of interests appears to have, at least in part, been one that was shared
with Interviewee Three who stated that his interest was “In general, research into suspects.” This was initially an inter-
est that led him to be “very interested in Druitt, and did a
Photograph F – a further scene from Liverpool 2003 © Suzi Hanney
bit of research with [a fellow Ripperologist]. Now I’m more
interested in Kosminski, and have been devoting quite a
lot of time to researching his background. Not because I
think he is likely to have been involved in the murders.
Just out of a desire to fill in the gaps in his story.” Whilst
Interviewee Two found that “No named suspect has held
my interest as a suspect, but.... […] I enjoy looking at
several that have been made to see why anyone would
suspect them to begin with.” Interviewee Two was also
able to illuminate his interest in Victimology and stated
that “I am working on figuring out, in my own mind, who
were the actual victims.[…] We have no real forensic evi-
dence, so we only have circumstantial evidence and that
can be viewed in so many different ways.” When asked

who he considers to be victims, the answer was that
“I am pretty positive on Nichols, Chapman and
Eddowes. […] Then Kelly is a possible.” He further
commented that in terms of Stride’s candidacy he had
“not ruled her out, I just haven’t found enough com-
monalities between her and the other victims. […]”
As well as their own research we asked our intervie-
wees to give comments on who they admire in the
field. One stated “Paul Begg, Keith Skinner are the
obvious ones, though there are many on the Casebook
who are excellent researchers and theorists also […] Don
Rumbelow too […]” before adding “but NOT Pat
Cornwell “. Another stated “There are a lot of authors
that I respect, even if I don’t agree.” He then gave a
couple of examples such as “Paul Begg. […] Stewart
Evans. […]”. Interviewee Three commented “As far as Photograph G – an attentive crowd at the 2004 Baltimore Conference © Stephen P. Ryder
books go, I think Sugden is head and shoulders above the other authors I’ve read. […] Obviously there’s some good work being
done by others. I don’t subscribe to any periodicals, so I only see the occasional issue I buy specially, and the articles that
get reproduced on Casebook […] on the field in general, I am a bit ambivalent. “
“The Sacrilegious Scorn”
We asked for views on suspect-based Ripperology because responses in previous surveys were quite striking and so we
thought the answers this time out might prove interesting, and luckily, they did. We hit a split of opinion between those
who found suspect-based Ripperology broadly positive and those who found it broadly negative at 37 percent in each
category (see Table 13). There was also a significant amount of people who could be considered to have had mixed feel-
ings on the subject (23 percent). Whilst one astute respondent observed “Aren’t all unsolved murders suspect based?”
First we will turn to the positive comments that were made, since we feel it’s best to start on a positive note. It was
commented by one respondent that they did undertake suspect Ripperology themselves although they added “really you
should start with known facts and then look for someone who might match the facts”. Another stated that they found
this area of research both “interesting” and “informative”. A general feeling that “If a book is well researched and well
sourced and referenced, then bravo” can be observed. As one respondent commented “While it’s the ‘in’ thing for people to
denigrate suspect-based Ripperology, it shouldn’t be overlooked that it is the single reason almost all of us found the field. It
is what Ripperology was built on and what will keep it going.” This general view was probably best explained by the respon-
dent who noted
Table 13 -What was made of suspect Ripperology. “I find it more interesting than analysis of the crimes per
se, BUT I think research on suspects should be approached
number
objectively as far as possible, not with a view to making case
(13) 37% Mainly Positive against the suspect. Though even if that’s not the case, such
research can have interesting results, provided the
(13) 37% Mainly Negative
researcher is factually accurate and documents his/her
(8) 23% Mixed sources properly.”
(51) 3% No Answer
There might be such as thing as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ suspect-
based Ripperology, the former of which being considered a

perfectly valid and useful area of study and
the latter not being considered to be, so
seemed to be a trend of opinion that
emerged. For example, one participant stat-
ed “Suspect-based [Ripperology] can be use-
ful if there is good evidence & cause against
a person”. Another summed up their feelings
thusly “It is valid to study a suspect, as long
as you do not try to ‘fit up’ a suspect without
supporting evidence.” Whilst another put this
view in these terms “I’ve no problem with
suspect-based Ripperology so long as it’s
cogently-argued and based on factual evi-
dence or plausible speculation from factual
evidence”. Another observed that they had
found it to be “A necessary evil I suppose.
Such speculation(s) have a place, but the Photograph H –‘Get the drinks in’ – more goings on from Baltimore 2004 © Stephen P. Ryder
efforts to incriminate a certain individual often border on the ludicrous.”

Meanwhile, several people stated their attitude varied according to the suspect. One such person, commenting that
their view of suspect Ripperology “depends on the suspect” went on to add “some research into certain suspects is very
worthwhile. I’d say generally I’m interested in suspect Ripperology.” Another stated “it has its place in Ripperology,
but the authors need to be more honest with their theories” Another agreed in saying “quite a lot of it seems inflexi-
ble and closed-minded. I’m far more interested in those theories which do not seek to select from the facts in order
to better fit a particular suspect. Some theories seem more revealing of the mind of the theorist than of JTR and the
facts of the crimes.” Yet another respondent agreed with the latter point and commented wryly that “it is always inter-
esting to see what is going on in other people’s heads.”
The negative views and comments about suspect Ripperology were the strongest of any in our research. One respon-
dent simply answered that it was “C**p!” and another that they had “no time for it at all—I hate it”. Another called
Photograph I – waiting for the Baxter Bus, Brighton 2005 © Philip Hutchinson
the area of study “A shot in the dark.” One respondent felt
that suspect-based Ripperology “grabs the headlines but will
prove, in my opinion, ultimately fruitless” whilst another
agreed by commenting that “I think that trying to identify a
specific suspect is fruitless” then adding “but investigation of
specific subjects often turns up interesting new facts and
sometimes forces us to examine the evidence in new ways.
This is all instructive and useful in its own way but I don’t
believe that we’ll ever be able to attach a name to JtR that
will stand up to any serious scrutiny.” Some participants elab-
orated on quite what they found wrong with this area of
study. One said
By very approach, suspect-based is rubbish, as deciding

WHO the Ripper was before the facts lead to that suspect is
making the wearer fit the shoe. FACT based research is the Photograph J – another photo shot at Brighton 2005 © Suzi Hanney
only method that should apply in any criminal investigation. That said, since we have only a bare handful of facts
about these crimes, suspect-based seems to be the order of the day for those who believe the Ripper will someday be
named! I don’t believe the killer will ever be named, unless, of course, someone finds that elusive photo of the Ripper
standing over Kelly’s bed, knife in hand.
The way of conducting such research was questioned and one participant said that “I personally feel that suspect-
based Ripperology too easily allows for the temptation to ‘make the suspect fit’ with the evidence and contemporary
accounts/records that we have.” Another said that they were
Not favourably disposed towards this. This is mainly due to the way it has been carried out in the past and the way
specific researchers have tackled it. You should always go ‘evidence - suspect’ not other way round. Too many don’t
understand this and try to make something fit because there belief is so strong (more admirable) or due to financial
gain or deception (much less admirable).
A further respondent questioned the methods used by researchers and they felt suspect research was “dubious, always try-
ing to fit facts to suit agenda”. Added to this, one participant felt that in their experience a lot of it was “misleading & also the
same old stuff, just retold by someone else” when they viewed suspect-based Ripperology theories. One person was a lot
harsher when they stated “Suspect-based Ripperology is intellectually bankrupt. It’s easier to write a suspect-based book
about someone famous than it is to write about a suspect who’s life we know nothing about. I think suspect-based authors
choose suspects on whoever’s life is of interest to them.” This, when taken together with other comments above, points
towards a general mistrust of what is written by suspect-based researchers when they are outlining their case about why
a particular candidate should be considered Jack the Ripper.
Perhaps this view from a respondent can be seen as an apt conclusion to views on this subject
I think this is viewed in a very black and white way with the result that any proposal of a suspect is viewed suspi-
ciously. Obviously the approach of some—which seems to be 1) find a distinguished person who may have some link
with the area or period, 2) find any details about their life which can be distorted to give the impression that they
were capable of the crimes and then 3) weave some outrageous evidence—is rightly condemned. However, if treated
correctly by finding links with the facts of the case then I do not have a problem with this. For a lot of people this is
where the interest in the case is—and certainly for a lot it is how the interest began. I guess what I’m saying is that

Photograph K – caught on camera – the crowds gather for the banquet at Brighton, 2005 © Philip Hutchinson
all suspect theories tend to be tarred with the same brush when this isn’t always justified.
“Going Back”
We wanted to discover more about changes to the field of Ripperology over time and so we asked respondents to
tell us if and how they felt the field had changed. It is worth remembering here that the average respondent in our
survey had been interested in the case for less than twenty years with the largest percentage having started in the five
years between 1996 and 2000 and the second highest between 1986 and 1990 (see Tables 11 A and B and Table 12). As
Table 14 shows the majority of respondents felt Ripperology had changed, with 71 percent responding in this way (this
compares with 62 percent last time out).
Those who reported that they had experienced change in the time they had been interested in the case gave vari-
ous reasons for this opinion. The “availability of data” and the “widening of the field” to include more varied histori-
cal and social aspects were the main reasons cited. One respondent summed up this general feeling and stated that
Ripperology “has got bigger, the field has widened to include Victorian Social History and more” whilst another noted
that Ripperology had moved “from the total concentration on suspects to starting to analyse the actual case”. This was
backed up by our interviews, with one interviewee stating “I think people are getting a great education about the Late
Victorian Period. I think some of the people doing research are dedicated and hard working.” Interviewee Two also
stated that there had been “some good changes, like people researching contemporary media reports and census
reports” It was further commented that these changes were positive for those in the field with one respondent stat-
ing that they “very much enjoy the broader historical inquiries that have expanded from the Ripper Crimes.” In terms
of the exact nature of this widening of Ripperology into a broader and more inclusive field it was stated by one person
that the
Ease of researching vast arrays of newspapers [has occurred], feminist studies in the Ripper case has arisen, more

socio-economic aspects of the East End has been
explored, building preservation has become an
issue, a focus on the victims as opposed to the
killer has become rightly popular for researchers
and readers.
The general view on these types of changes was

summed up by a respondent when they stated “there
has been more effort devoted to understanding the
environment that he [Jack] operated in rather than
trying to name a specific guilty individual”.
A significant number of respondents cited the
Internet and online research as an important Photograph L – the Wolverhampton 2007 banquet table is set © Don Souden
change that had occurred, with most respondents

seeing this in a positive light. One person stated that the “growth of Internet and electronic media generally has had a
massive impact on the field.” This seems to encompass the general feeling that was reported. Another respondent added
that the Internet was the biggest impact and that its rise had “greatly facilitated research.” This “facilitation of
research” was mentioned by Interviewee Three when he said that “electronic databases are obviously changing
research a lot—genealogical databases, newspapers, books and so on”. It was stated by one survey respondent that this
free flow of information “has made Ripperology more egalitarian.” One respondent further pointed out how the
Internet had made communication better between Ripperologists, as they explained,
Thirty years ago people interested in the subject would have to write each other long letters back and forth,
research newspapers and archives via paper files or microfilm etc; now we have the Internet and so much of this can
be done electronically, and quickly. It helps others to be in touch and develop their ideas and share their expertise
leading to the discovery of new information all the time, something which will get better as the supply of archives
online increases”
Another way that information is more readily available was discussed by some as they mentioned the availability of
files and information on the subject to a wider audience and the discovery of new documents. One person said
Table 14 - The views of survey respondents on if the field had changed.

“Evans/Skinner published ‘Ultimate’ which laid the police files at
the fingertips of anyone who wanted them. That is the single
biggest development that has occurred in the field since I joined it.”
9% nswer
Whilst Interviewee One noted that “The A-Z and the Sourcebook
Am people
were fantastic in helping to put the crime back into the Ripper
A
pe us
le
No
2 guo
op
case.” Another respondent in our survey stated “mainly I think it is

3
6% bi
changed and continually changing because for some reason files

No regarding the Ripper investigation seem to ‘show up’ every so often
14%
and other documents become available to the public and from these
5 people
Ripperologists can occasionally include or exclude certain suspects
Yes
71% or victims from their theories”. It can therefore be stated that, in
25 people general, the big changes to the field have been perceived in terms
of the “increased historical research, conversion of period newspa-
pers to digital archives, and data-mining of old news reports” as one
respondent summed it up.
A further development noted by respondents was in terms of “scien-

tific advances”. As one person stated “Forensics and
investigating have come a long way in the 20 years or
so I’ve been interested in JtR” whilst another cited
“Cornwell’s DNA” as an example of scientific
advancement. It was commented that such advances
were useful since they “have been able to disprove
certain suspects”. One respondent stated that they
felt “The inclusion of modern criminology methods
and psychology is a plus.” However, one person noted
“at one time I found the inclusion of Criminal Profiling
to seem helpful, but of late I think that it was mis-
applied. By that I mean that the profilers seemed to
be stuck with modern historical biases, rather than
taking into account any differences between the pres-
ent day and the Victorian era.”
Photograph M – the crowd looks on at Wolverhampton 2007 © Philip Hutchinson Added to this, several people felt more people
were now interested in the case than when they
first started out. One respondent highlighted this view in stating “There seems to have been an increase in interest” since
they started. Another reported that “I’ve certainly seen the number of individuals interested in Jack the Ripper/The
Whitechapel murders expand. The Internet seems to have brought many to the fold, including a few more valuable
researchers than the handful I was aware of 11 years ago”. It might be the case that the number of people that individ-
ual Ripperologists are aware of who are interested in the case has increased due to the previously mentioned Internet and
therefore the ease with which Ripperologists can share opinions and ‘find’ other people who are interested in the sub-
ject. Some respondents also felt that their fellow Ripperologists had changed “I am awed and amazed by the level of
knowledge so many people have of the case, and their expertise” stated one. Another pointed out that “most people with
an interest in Ripperology are much more capable of testing theories nowadays, it could be like facing a firing squad for
any new theorist”.
Some people also felt that suspect-based Ripperology had itself changed. It was felt by several people that positive
changes have been made in this area with one person commenting that there had been “considerable depth in recov-
ery of individual’s histories and their contexts, Druitt being one very good example”. Interviewee One’s opinion can be
seen to have supported this view as he commented that “I think that things had swung away from the sensationalism
of ‘I know who the Ripper was’ towards those who were more interested in facts, although Cornwell put us back 20
years with her book […] and of course that ‘diary certainly didn’t help […]”. There were also negative feelings about
changes in the suspect area of the field and as one respondent stated “Sadly, there have been SO many ‘suspect nam-
ing books’ published lately every new Ripper student thinks that he/she has just named the killer. The true researchers
[…] are the ones who are filling in the blank spaces for us.” It was also noted that “the cherry-picking of data in order
to support the bias of some researchers is, I think, more damaging than constructive to the study.” A further respon-
dent commented “the negative change has been the rise of the Ripper ‘industry’ which engenders vested interest and
entrenched opinion.” This might be considered connected to the negative views expressed about the more commercial
side of Ripperology as opposed to the generally good comments made about what could be seen to be the more schol-
arly side of this area of Ripperology. It was also pointed out that a further “much more disturbing, development is the
intense anger and vitriol that develops when our otherwise sane Ripperologists attack the theories of others. WOW!”
This was supported by our interview data where Interviewee Two commented “There are a lot more people that seem
to want to dominate, argue and accuse as opposed to good, honest debate.” Interviewee Three said “I’m not very
impressed by some of the people who seem to dominate [Ripperology]. […] And a lot of the personal politics in general
[…] I’m sure it’s just human nature to a large extent, but there seems to be a higher proportion of “problem people” in

Ripperology than in some other fields” . Interviewee Two further stated “I only wish that more people could agree to
disagree. […] So many people are contributing great information and are being belittled by others because it doesn’t
agree with their own interpretation.” His would appear to be sound advice.
Several people noted things they felt had not changed. One summed up this feeling up in saying “No, I can’t really
say that I have noticed any obvious changes.” Another was more specific in saying “I think the same elements are still
there to varying degrees—quality research, cranks and bitching.”
“In The End”
We enjoyed our third excursion into Ripperology as much as our first two journeys and feel we have learnt a great
deal about our fellow Ripperologists (and perhaps ourselves) over the course of our research. We feel that this effort
was the most methodologically sound, although in many ways the second and third survey results complemented each
other. This time out the use of interview and visual data supported our findings well. Perhaps one day we will again
venture into the land of Ripperologists.
Ripperologists are a varied bunch of people with diverse occupations, interests and tastes but they tend to have
communalities, especially in terms of nationality, race and age. Their views on Ripperology are as diverse as their out-
side interests! This diverse mix of people makes for a collective logic that should be knowledgeable about many vary-
ing things. This collective knowledge can only be a good thing as the increase in communication links, referred to by
respondents, will mean that links between Ripperologists who specialise in differing but complementary aspects of the
case may well be forged.
Jennifer Pegg and Don Souden are managing editor and editor, respectively, of Ripperologist.
Bibliography
Books and Periodicals
Bolton, A., Pole, C. and Mizen, P. (2001) ‘Picture This: Researching Child Workers’, Sociology, 35, (3): 501 – 518.
Bryman, A. (2004) Social Research Methods, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Coffey, A., and Atkinson, P. (1996) Making Sense of Qualitative Data: Complementary Strategies, London: Sage.
Grady, J. (2004) ‘Working with visible evidence’ ch. 1 in Knowles, C. and Sweetman, P. Picturing the Social Landscape:
Visual methods and the Sociological Imagination, London: Routledge.
Knowles, C. and Sweetman, P (2004) ‘Introduction’ in Knowles, C. and Sweetman, S (eds.) Picturing the Social
Landscape: Visual methods and the sociological imagination, London: Routledge.
May, T. (2001) Social Research: Issues, Methods and Process, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Pegg, J. and Souden, D. (2007a) ‘Who Are We and How Did We Get Here?’ Ripperologist Issue 80, June 2007.
Pegg, J. and Souden, D. (2007b) ‘Consider Yourself One of Us’ Ripperologist Issue 85, November 2007.
Websites
http://forum.casebook.org/
http://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/randomN1.cfm
Acknowledgements
Once again we would like to thank everyone who took part in our research and who gave of their time to fill in our
survey or be interviewed.
We would like to gratefully thank the following people who have assisted with the visual aspect of this project Suzi
Hanney, Lyn Hollifield, Philip Hutchinson, Judith Stock, Stephen P. Ryder and David Yost/Casebook Productions.
We would also like to thank Jane Coram and Melissa Garrett for their help.

East End Life:
Shoe-blacks and the Ragged Schools
By ADAM WOOD
If there is anything especially annoying to a gentleman of neat habits, in his walk over London,
it is the state of his boots. He starts forth with lower extremeties resplendent; a bright morn-
ing sun is shining; ruddy faces, well-shaven, pass him on the way to business; shops glitter after
the morning cleaning; he feels consistently comfortable and of good conscience. But he has hardly
fairly reached the Strand before one of those unaccountable, sudden English showers comes up; not
hard and not long lasting, but just sufficient to thoroughly muddy the sidewalks, splash his nice
pantaloons and dirty his boots. He strides on now another man. He is a wayfarer, a dirty pedes-
trian; his aesthetic faculty is pressed back within him; he becomes indifferent to others. He loses
his sense of the gentleman and splashes grimly along.
At length he is in front of the Exchange with its two ceaseless currents of omnibuses breaking on each side of it.
He remembers a nice business acquaintance whom he would gladly look in upon, in a near street. But those boots!
What respectable English gentleman would ever endure a visitor with such things upon him! To represent “our great
country” in such a be-splashed condition! The Englishman will certainly consider and note it down, as one of the
American peculiarities, never to clean one’s boots. But what to do? Here,
The shoeblack, seen on almost every street suddenly, a voice falls upon the ear. Can it be? Yes,–“Boots! Boots! Have
corner in London in the 19th century
your boots cleaned, Sir? Ony one penny, Sir!”And as by magic, in answer
to the thought, a red-shirted lad has found his way under the gentle-
man’s feet. He has his boots placed, before you know what he is doing,
on a little sloping box; he turns up the bottoms of the trousers; he
brushes off the mud–you observe even in your dream—with one brush; he
dusts with another; he rubs on the blacking with another; he
polishes–and, when the travel-worn boot is all shining and new again, he
cruelly rubs it all over again, until at length a polish comes forth—not at
all your American flitting, vanishing glitter—but a substantial enduring
English-like polish. Then the pantaloons are carefully smoothed down;
another brush cleans them. The other boot is served in the same way, and
the man stands suddenly transformed into—a gentleman—all “For one
penny, Sir!”. You observe your kind assistant in the time of need. He wears
a red shirt, on which in blue is worked “Ragged School Shoe-black Society;”
he has a cap with a red band and a black apron; his face looks thin and
sharpened, perhaps with suffering. You think philanthropy is worth some-
thing that can give a stranger such boots, and you chat with the lad.

“Have you any home, my boy?”
“No, Sir,—I sleeps at the Dormitry.”
“Did you ever go to the Ragged School?”
“Yes, Sir. In Brooke-street. They sends me to the office, and I works as a shoe-black.”
Letters on the Charities of England: The Shoe-Black Society

New York Times 2 December 1854
By mid-1850s London, scenes such as this were becoming commonplace.

With the poor struggling to make ends meet, it’s no surprise that children often drifted into crime. John Garwood,
writing in 1853 in The Million-Peopled City, reveals the extent of the problem in a section titled ‘Criminal and Destitute
London Juveniles of the Ragged School Class’:
…yet the number of sentences to imprisonment in England and Wales, under 17 years of age, in 1849, was 10,460;
and in 1850, 9,187 The number of sentences to transportation, of the same class, was in 1849, 214; and in 1850, 167.
It appears, from a return of Sir John Pakington, that of 10,600 offenders under 16 years of age, two-sevenths were
children under 13. 1,987 boys, under 17 years of age, were committed to Westminster House of Correction in the year
ending Michaelmas, 1851; 198 to Giltspur-street Prison; 130 to the City Bridewell; and 538 to the Brixton House of
Correction. To illustrate the mere infancy at which children are trained to thieve by their parents, a case may be men-
tioned which occurred to a City Missionary this year. He observed a child under 7 years of age being led away by a
policeman, for picking the Pocket of a lady. As he was, happily, just too young to be sent to prison (although had he
been but a few months older he would not thus have escaped), the missionary got possession of him. He traced out
his mother, who lived in Westminster, and found that this child and his brother, aged 14, were both sent out by her
to obtain money how they could, to support her in vice. The elder boy had been often in prison. And the younger boy
stated that he could always take home eighteen-pence a-day. He, therefore, earned half-a-guinea a week, although
not 7 years old.
Garwood relates the case of one boy:
Edward Joghill, AGED 10 YEARS, has not yet been tried by a jury, but he has, within the last 2 years, been 8 times
summarily convicted, viz.:-1847.Feb. 13. For possession of 7 scarfs, &c. 2 months' impris. May 10. Rogue and
vagabond 1 months' impris.July 10. Possession of a half~sovereign. 1 months' impris.Sept. 13. Simple larceny 1 day's
impris., and whipped. Sept. 27. Rogue and vagabond 2 months' impris. Dec. 31. Simple larceny 1 month's impris., and
whipped. 1848.May 23. Ditto 1 month's impris., and whipped. 1849. April 15. Ditto 3 month's impris., and whipped.
This return relates to the committals of this boy to one prison only. For every child that had fallen into crime, there
were dozens equally likely to do so. Until the mid-19th Century, there was little opportunity for children to attend
school. Ragged schools had been in existence for a while, but were few and far between, often started by churches
and staffed by volunteers. People began to realise that by educating children they would be able to find work to keep
themselves, therefore not having to resort to crime to obtain money. Eventually, in 1844, the Ragged School Union was
formed, with Lord Shaftesbury as its Chairman. Initially the Union consisted of 16 schools, growing to 176 by 1861.
As well as being taught to read and write, children were also given ‘moral guidance’, and educated in a trade, which
allowed many of the children to find employment.
In 1851 three teachers from the Ragged School in Saffron Hill, J R Fowler, R J Snape and John MacGregor, while dis-
cussing the shoe-blacks in Paris, decided to try the idea in London. The boys were taught how to polish boots, and on
31 March 1851 the first five shoe-blacks went out to work.
‘Uncle Jonathan’, in Walks In and Around London from 1895, describes the impact they made:

A penny only was the charge and it tempted many clerks, and merchants, and foreigners, to place their boots upon
the boys’ boxes, and have them cleaned and polished in right good style. So the boys picked from the gutter, the street
Arabs, the lads used to thieving, who were now the red-jacketed shoeblacks, commenced their new life of honesty
and industry. At first they were very much annoyed by the idle boys, who threw flour into their blacking-boxes, and
called them nicknames; but the red-jackets stuck manfully to their posts; and it was not long before those who teased
and annoyed them, seeing the dignity of earning an honest living and having money placed in the bank, wanted also
to join the brigade. And by July of that year there were thirty-three boys employed, who, during the Exhibition,
cleaned over a hundred thousand pairs of boots, and earned between them five hundred pounds.
Later the same year, the London Shoe-Black Brigade was established by MacGregor and Lord Shaftesbury, introduc-
ing a ‘uniform’ of a red jacket. In time, different coloured jackets would be adopted to signify the various London dis-
tricts.
J Thomson and Adolphe Smith in 1877’s Street Life in London:
The shoe-blacks now to be seen throughout the London streets are a very interesting class, illustrative of the vast
benefit which may be conferred on individuals and on society by well-directed voluntary Christian efforts. They are
employed by a Society, the Committee of which are twelve barristers of the Temple or Lincoln's Inn, who honourably
devote much time and attention to a cause so apparently humble. One of these gentlemen gave evidence before a
The Ragged School

Committee of the House of Commons in 1852, that, in addition, he had been a Sunday-school teacher for the last 15
years, a member of the Committee of the Ragged School Union for 4 years, and that he had been in the habit of vis-
iting Ragged Schools two or three times every week, as well as on the Sundays. The boys employed have been taken
as nuisances from the streets, and as criminals from the gaols — made useful servants to the public, able to earn an
honest livelihood during their reformation, and give promise of becoming religious and respectable lads at home, or
useful colonists abroad. Of those engaged in the first 1¼ year, 27 had been criminals, and some of them had been
many times in gaol. They are from 12 to 16 years of age, though not often so old as 16 now, as younger boys are found
preferable. They are more generally now about 12 or 13. During the Exhibition of 1851, the number of these lads was
increased to 36, but since then it has even increased, and during the summer of 1852, was 45. It is supposed that there
is room for the employment of 200 in the great city. They are all dressed in a red uniform, provided by the Society,
which has been found extremely useful — to the boy, in enabling him to keep himself separate from his former asso-
ciates; to the Society, in enabling them to find the boy and inspect his conduct; and to the public, in showing them
where the boy is stationed. The stations occupied were applied for by the Society, and allowed by the Police
Commissioners. They vary very much in their value, and the lads are promoted from an inferior station to a better
one as a reward for good conduct, or removed from a better to a worse station as a punishment for bad conduct. The
boys are all taken from the Ragged Schools, and their reception is held out as a prize for merit. It devolves on the
superintendents of the 26 best Ragged Schools to select the candidates, and from these the Committee of the Shoe-
black Society select a given number, whom they consider most worthy of the distinction. Before they are employed
they have a week's training at the Society's premises, No. 1, Off-alley, George-court, Strand. There they all assemble
every morning before they proceed to their respective stations, and prayers are conducted at half-past 7 by one of
the Committee, or, in his absence, by a paid officer, who receives a salary of 64l. a-year. Ten of the boys sleep on
these premises, which pays the rent of the entire house; for the Society is made now entirely self-supporting. The
boys in general take their meals at their posts, and return at 6 in the evening to pay in all the money they have earned.
On Wednesday evenings a lecture is delivered to them on religious subjects. There are provided for them a library, a
savings-bank, and means for providing bath-tickets. They attend their respective schools in the evening, and a Sunday
morning school is conducted for their benefit by one of the Committee, "Good-conduct" badges are given by the Society
as marks of merit; and warning, suspension for a week, or discharge, as punishments. Each boy is paid 6d. a-day. The
remainder of his earnings is divided into three parts, the first of which is paid to the boy himself, the second is put
by for him in the savings-bank, and the third is given to the Society to defray its expenses. A penny is the charge for
brushing a gentleman's shoes and cleaning his trousers. Sometimes 2d., 3d., 4d., or even 6d., is given, but the Society
desires to discourage this excess of payment. About 800 pairs of shoes were cleaned each day during the summer of
1852. During the first year the boys laid by for their future welfare, in the savings-bank, 156l. The earnings of course
much vary, according to the state of the weather, the traffic of the station, and the quickness of the boy. It once
reached 2l. 2s. a-week by an Irish lad during the Exhibition. In the summer, 10s. is a fair sum to earn. This, continued
all the year, with 45 boys, would amount to 1,404l.; but in the winter months the earnings are reduced one-half. The
boys have generally been found honestly to bring to the office what they receive. As they are changed, the value of
each station is tolerably known. They are also inspected by officers of the Society. If suspicion is excited, they are
watched. But only 2 cases of dishonesty were thus discovered during the Society's first year. During that year, of the
27 previous criminals, 3 were sent out by the Society, as a reward, as emigrants, 5 obtained situations, I was restored
to his friends, 3 left of their own accord, 2 were discharged for incompetence, 4 for misconduct, and 9 remained in
the employment. All these had been convicted as thieves. Of 29 other boys employed that year, whose parents were
convicts, or drunken and depraved, or had abandoned their children, 4 emigrated, 6 obtained situations, 1 was appren-

ticed, 1 left of his own accord, 2 were discharged for incompe-
tence, 7 for misconduct, and 9 remained in the employment. Of
the first class — the thieves, a lad was raised from the rank of
a criminal to the rank of inspector, and was paid 10s. a-week by
the Society. Another, who had been a burglar, and who entered
on his work with a bullet in his neck, received a similar promo-
tion. And a third, who, although so young, had been 30 times in
custody, and 3 times in gaol, was proceeding favourably. In one
case, a lad received the reward of emigration, who was the son
of a transport, and who took within him 15l., which he mad
saved from his earnings. In another case, a boy, who was with-
out a father, had only a drunken mother, and who was a crimi-
nal himself, obtained a situation as in-door servant, and, on
doing so, commenced family prayers in the kitchen. He gave
every satisfaction to his employer. One of the best lads remain-
ing has no father; his mother is a criminal; and he himself had
been a criminal also.A remarkable circumstance is, that the
Society has received numerous applications from respectable
parents to employ their sons, who have apparently felt no
objection to their children associating within lads of so debased
a class, so satisfactory has been the general conduct of the lat-
ter. The Society has refused, however, such applications, desir-
ing to limit the number of the lads to those who have passed
A school Inspector pays a visit.
through Ragged Schools. Another interesting circumstance is,
that 25 of these lads, although so young, actually supported their parents by their earnings.It is also very interesting,
that the lads are so fond of their situations, that it is difficult to get them to leave for more permanent ordinary
places. They will not go for less than 7s. a-week, and they often show a desire to return, after having left.Nor is it
an unimportant circumstance, that the Society has no need to seek after situations for the lads. They receive numer-
ous applications for them. One omnibus company alone, during the year, applied for 40 lads.Similar Societies have also
been formed in Dublin, Liverpool, and Sheffield.The lads who have no homes, and who do not lodge at the Society's
house, live in model lodging-houses, and the refuges connected within their schools. Those who lodge in Off-alley pay
3d. a night for their lodging. Emigration expenses have been met partly by the schools to which the lads pertain, and
partly by the Ragged School Union. The outfit is in every case paid for out of the lad's savings. None are sent out but
those who really desire to leave the country. In many cases they prefer remaining at home. Arrangements are in
progress for establishing a school especially for these lads, and making them pay for it, which they appear to be most
ready to do.All the lads on the Sunday must attend either church or school.A fine of 1d. is levied for want of punctu-
ality at prayers in the morning, which is applied to a sick fund.The following advantages in the plans of the Society
are believed to have been most important in its success. By them industry is not merely enforced, but immediately
rewarded; permanent employment is held out in prospect; good and bad conduct are made directly apparent to the
other lads, and to the managers; emulation is promoted by classification; honesty by constant money transactions, in
which trust is involved; economy by daily saving; attention to respectability of appearance by enforcing proper cloth-
ing; punctuality by fixed hours; steadiness by the requirement of prolonged attention to duties at a certain post;

learning by promotion to stations requiring it, and love of home by a provision for those who would otherwise be with-
out a shelter.
The boys worked during the day earning a living, and in the evenings attended lessons at the Ragged Schools.
In many homes, a boy working as a shoe-black might be the only provider for his family, as indicated by John
Hollingshead in Ragged London in 1861:
Opposite this place, in another corner of the Close, is a lower class of court, called Cromwell Place. Here the houses
are chiefly let off in rooms at from 1s. 6d. to 3s. a week, and seven persons in one small room—father, mother, grownup
children, and infants—appear to represent the average distribution of tenants. One family of seven—the man a labour-
er at a greengrocer’s had just been discovered by the working clergy nearly naked, and provided with a few articles
of clothing. The next room sheltered another family--equal in numbers, and very little better off in condition. The
children were all running about with naked feet; and the rooms were barely furnished, dirty, and musty. These poor
people were once far better off, and they dated their fall from a winter a few years back, when bread was at a very
high price. This is not the first time that I have heard a connection traced between present poverty and past scarci-
ty of corn. The parlour contained another family of six, and the mother had just sold her only bed to a marine-store
dealer for two shillings, to stop the many little hungry mouths around her. The father had been out of work for many
weeks; one son had enlisted in the army, another had become a sailor, and a girl of fourteen could have got a situa-
tion as a domestic servant, but she had nothing but rags to go in. This, I am sorry to say, is a very common case. The
best workman in the family was a little stuttering, red-coated shoeblack, who earned his shilling every day, paid his
regulation fourpence honestly over to his office, and brought home his eightpence every night to his mother. This small
house contained eighteen people.
By 1879 the Society had opened nine Homes around London:
A line of children queuing for a free breakfast in the East End. Many of these children would have attended the Ragged School.

* CENTRAL: Saffron Hill
* EAST LONDON: 96 Mansel Street, Whitechapel
* ISLINGTON AND NORTH LONDON: 15 York Road, Kings Cross
* NORTH WEST LONDON: 241 Marylebone Road
* NOTTING HILL: Prince’s Road
* SOUTH LONDON: 223 High Street, Southwark
* TOWER HAMLETS: 23 Stepney Green
* UNION JACK SHOE BRIGADE: Stepney Causeway
* WEST LONDON: Bessborough Place, Pimlico
The Home at Mansell Street acted as the district’s school from 1 July 1859 to 28 March 1873, when it moved to 43
Leman Street.
‘Uncle Jonathan’, again in Walks in and Around London, describes a visit to the Central Home at Saffron Hill:
Let us take a peep at the ‘Old Reds,’ or Central Shoe-blacks’ Home. It is evening when we go there, just the time
when the boys come trooping home from all directions, balancing their boxes skilfully on their heads. Asking at the
door of the Home in Saffron Hill for Mr. Nichols, the Superintendent, we are soon in a large room, listening to all this
gentleman has to tell us about the lads. Here in one corner is a sort of counter, where the boys, as they come in, buy
what they want for tea, getting a good thick slice of bread and butter for a halfpenny, enough meat to cover the bread
for a penny, and a half-pint of tea for a halfpenny. Seated at the long tables are several having their tea, while oth-
ers who have finished are chatting, laughing, and joking, waiting to pay in their earnings. The room is well lighted,
and upon the rafters there hang mottoes bidding ‘Welcome to all,’ and stating that ‘Honesty is the best policy.’ nd
now the lads come to the little pay-window in the Superintendent’s Office to pay in their earnings. We are shown the
nicely kept books, and notice that whatever the amount of earnings may be, or even if the lad brings in only two or
three pence, sixpence is immediately given to him. If there is anything over, it is then divided into three equal por-
tions: one of which is returned to the lad, another goes to the Society, and the other is put into the Savings Bank for
the lad, and helps him to buy clothes, to be apprenticed, or to emigrate. Their average earnings are three shillings
and sixpence per day, so that many of them get as much as fifteen or twenty pounds put into the bank during the year.
Upstairs we are shown a beautifully large and clean schoolroom, with the Christmas decorations still up, where the
schoolmaster, Mr. Bates, keeps perfect order, and that too although he has to teach sometimes A B C and other sim-
ple lessons to some of the roughest and worst lads that can be found in London. Four nights every week they must
attend this school, as well as morning and evening school on Sunday; and every day is begun and ended with Bible
reading and prayer. Upstairs again is the large, clean, and well-aired dormitory, where forty-five boys sleep. here are
eight other Shoe-black Societies in London besides this; but in this one alone, since the beginning, there have been
nearly six thousand boys, who have been started in life on the good old principle that ‘Honesty is the best policy.’
The impact of the shoe-blacks was immense, and the boys became a popular sight on the streets of the capital. While
the boys working from the Society were all licensed, the rewards to be had were soon being claimed by unlicensed,
independent boys. Charles Dickens Jr, in Dickens’s Dictionary of London for 1879, took a dim view of this:
All the lads belonging to the societies are licensed by the chief commissioners of the City and Metropolitan Police,
under the provisions of 30 & 31 Vict. c.134. Licenses are granted to boys not belonging to any society, and a guerilla
horde of unlicensed shoe-blacks, who are subject to no discipline or supervision, infest the streets and annoy the pas-
senger.
The opposite view was expressed by J Thomson and Adolphe Smith in 1877’s Street Life in London, in a section titled

‘The Independent Shoe-Black’:
A long and uneven war has been waged for many years between the various members of the shoe-blacking fraterni-
ty. The factions that divide those who look to our boots for a mode of livelihood are wonderfully numerous. There are
boys who maintain that no able-bodied man should seek to clean boots, that this work should be monopolized by chil-
dren. Others, on the contrary, urge that the street should be free to all, and that if an able-bodied man chooses to
devote himself to the art of blacking boots, as a free British subject, he has a right to follow this or any other call-
ing, however humble it may be. Probably he is not fitted for anything better; and if so, it is to the interest of the
community that he should be allowed to do, at least, that which he feels disposed to attempt. A third party will rejoin
that this is altogether a false theory, that men who are capable of more worthy work should not be allowed to degrade
themselves by menial offices,-a principle which, however, if universally applied, would soon revolutionize the whole
face of society. So far as the London boot-blacks are concerned, this principle has, nevertheless, been carried out to
a very great extent. The police authorities have taken upon themselves to interfere, indeed to destroy, the freedom
of trade in the matter of cleaning gentlemen’s boots, and the independent boot-black is consequently treated by the
authorities as if he was little better than a smuggler. Useful, though perhaps unfair, patronage is accorded to the
members of the Boot-black Brigades. These are the orthodox or legitimate boot-blacks, and they consequently find
favour in the eyes of the police. The policeman, who is essentially a lover of order, an admirer of discipline, cannot
understand why, if a boy wants to manipulate brush and blacking for a living, he should not join one of the brigades.
He is likely to forget that the real attraction of street life, the one advantage it offers in exchange for all the hard-
ships and poverty to be endured, is precisely that sense of independence and absence from discipline which no mem-
Jacobus Parker, a famous Shoe-Black, and Peddler, is shown here standing at his accustomed "pitch." He received some fame in the late 19th
centrury as a veteran soldier and for his many exploits and reciting portions of Shakspeare's plays..
ber of the brigade can enjoy. The shoe-black brigades, though excellent institutions, have decidedly trespassed on the
freedom of street industries. Their organized and disciplined boys have the monopoly of various “beats” and “pitches”
given them, and their exclusive right to clean boots in the streets or at the corners in question is rigorously enforced
by the police. Yet, notwithstanding such privileges, the brigades are unpopular among the classes they are supposed
to serve, and this opinion I find confirmed by the last Annual Report of the Ragged School Union. The author of this
Report qualifies results achieved in the year 1876 as a success, because the number of boys employed in the nine soci-
eties has been augmented to the extent of twelve recruits! In this huge metropolis, with its rapidly-increasing popu-
lation—in a year, too, of commercial depression, when the poor are naturally driven to such expedients—only twelve
new boys were found willing to join the nine different societies. An augmentation of one and one-quarter of a boy per
society during twelve months cannot be qualified as a success. he Boot-blacking Brigade movement was started in
1851, when 36 boys were enrolled, and they earned during the year £650. After labour extending over the whole
metropolis, and unceasingly pursued during a quarter of a century, the number of boys has been increased to 385, and
their annual earnings to £12,062. During the twenty-five years the boys have earned altogether £170,324; and the
average benefits per week accruing to each boy, last year, amounted to twelve shillings. Considering the enormous
influence brought to bear, the subscriptions, the patronage of the public, who generally prefer employing a boy wear-
ing the brigade uniform, and, finally, the protection these boys receive from the police, I do not think that the above
statistics are satisfactory. That independent boot-blacks should still be able and willing to wage war against the
brigade boys, though the latter have every advantage, demonstrates how unpopular the movement is among the poor
themselves. There is also the feeling that, if a boy is willing and sufficiently steady to submit to the discipline
enforced by the managers of the brigades, he is worthy of some better employment than that of cleaning boots in the
streets. This should be left to those who are less fortunate by reason of the bad education they have received, the
bad instincts they have, through no fault of their own, inherited from vicious parents, and the disorderly disposition
engendered by the bad company with which they have been surrounded from their youth upwards. In great towns, at
least, there are always a large number of persons whom
‘Shaftsbury’ or ‘Lost and Found’ William MacDuff, 1862. strict moralists—men who judge a fellow-man by his deeds,
A uniformed shoe-black shows his young friend a portrait of
Lord Shaftesbury, founder of the London Shoe-Black Brigade instead of taking into account his disposition and his sur-
roundings—would condemn as altogether hopeless. Yet these
persons, who are unfit for any good or steady work, must
nevertheless live; if not in the streets, then, probably, in
prison, or in the workhouse. But assuredly, instead of being
supported by the rates or the taxes, it would be preferable
that these unreliable and almost useless members of socie-
ty should earn their living by cleaning boots, or carrying
boards, or by any other similar catch-penny menial work.
The police, however, are determined to debar this class
from the free exercise of boot-cleaning in the streets. n
independent boot-black who has not secured a licence—for
which, by the way, he must pay five shillings a year when, if
ever, he does obtain it—is severely handled by the police.
They will not allow him to stand in one place. If he deposits
his box on the pavement, the policeman will kick it out in
the street, among the carriages, where it will probably be
broken, and the blacking spilt. The independent boot-black
must be always on the move, carrying his box on his shoul-

ders, and only putting it down when he has secured a customer. Even then, I have known cases of policemen who have
interfered, and one actually kicked the box away from a gentleman’s foot, while he was in the act of having his boots
cleaned. This excess of authority was, I believe, illegal; and, I am glad to say, justly resented by the gentleman in
question, who insisted that the independent boot-black should continue his work, and defied the police to arrest him.
The policeman had evidently exceeded his orders, and this was proved by the fact that he did not dare accept the gen-
tleman’s challenge. Of course, if the shoe-black, though not belonging to a brigade, possesses a licence, he may do as
he chooses, and need fear no interference, but the difficulty is to procure a licence. The police do not, I believe,
absolutely refuse to give a licence to an able-bodied man, but they contrive to keep him waiting so long, probably
twelve months, that he generally gives up the attempt, and turns his attention to some other sort of work, or else
goes out with brush and blacking, but without the licence, and submits to the ill-treatment that results. On the other
hand, an old man, a cripple, an infirm man, or youth who can draw up a petition and obtain the signature of four
householders, will receive immediate attention at Scotland Yard, and have a licence given him gratuitously and with-
out any delay. This clearly proves that the police seek, as far as they can, to make the cleaning of boots in the streets
a matter of privilege, and to reserve that privilege for the exclusive use of members of the brigades, or for old men
and cripples.Such a policy, which has certainly many reasons in its favour, has not, however, been brought into force
without considerable opposition. The independent boot-black, whose photograph is before the reader, found by expe-
rience that the system instituted was not altogether pleasant. He has served in two brigades, the “blues” and the
“reds,” and found them both equally objectionable; so, at last, he gave up the uniform, and became an independent
boot-black. In this capacity, though free, he experienced all the persecutions to which I have alluded, and as he grew
older and more tired of this life, he finally resolved to leave the narrow streets for the broader thoroughfares of the
ocean. As a sailor, he promises to become a useful help to his captain and ship. His mother has to nurse an invalid hus-
band, and must also provide for a large family. Under these circumstances, it was not always easy for her to spare the
A Ragged School
services of her son. But when he became an independent boot-black, he could go out at his own hours, and thus was
of greater use to his mother in her trouble; and it was a great help to the family to know that whenever the boy had
a few moments to spare, he might run out and hope to gain some pence by cleaning gentlemen’s boots. he police have
not been uniformly successful in stamping out unlicensed shoe-blacks. In some cases the tradesmen came out of their
shops and spoke in their favour; they objected that the shoe-black had been standing outside their doors for many
years, was well known to the neighbourhood, had proved himself useful in running errands, or lent his aid to put up
the shutters in the evening, and that, consequently, the policeman would oblige them by leaving him alone. There
are, therefore, a few independent boot-blacks who lead an easy life, and whom the police refrain from molesting, but
these are the exception. Taking a broad view of the question, I may safely repeat that the freedom of trade has, in
this respect, been destroyed. Only boys of the brigades and old men and cripples are welcome to practise the art of
cleaning boots in the streets of the metropolis.
Some 30 years after its inception, the effectiveness of the Shoe-black Society was illustrated by a report in the Daily
Telegraph of 12 December 1881:
Thirty changeful years—“some have crept by and some have flown”—are now counted in the modestly useful career
of the Shoe-black Brigade. In the year of peaceful triumphs and of aspirations honorable to the concordant faith of
humanity–in that never-to-be-forgotten year, 1851, a few philanthropists, noble in a sense beyond that of the British
peerage, set the red-coated society going, and it has gone remarkably well ever since. Those were the days of “ragged
schools”, to which the young shoeblacks were affiliated. Gradually, however, the distinctive term “ragged” was
dropped, as being not only invidious, but practically inapplicable. Some cheery statistics have just been published,
showing that the busy young polishers who were at first enlisted to meet a special emergency, when London’s prover-
bial mud was churned by the myriad boots of country cousins and fraternal foreigners, continue to flourish firmly in
a trade that was deemed no more than a transitory stop-gap. One band alone, that of Saffron Hill, numbering 66 red-
jackets, has earned in the last 12 months between three and four thousand pounds. The total sum placed to the cred-
it of this single society’s exertions, in the 30 years of its industrious life, has exceeded £66,000; and as there are eight
other similar societies in London, not all quite as prosperous as the one just particularized, but still holding their own,
it is not surprising to learn that an amount falling little short of a quarter of a million sterling has been turned over
in those boxes on which pedestrians of every social grade plant their feet, in almost mechanical obedience to the
chirping cry, “Shine your boots, Sir!”.
How much did the boys themselves earn from their labour? Returning to Letters on the Charities of England: The
Shoe-Black Society in the New York Times 2 December 1854…
You find his office is in York-place, Strand. There thirty or forty boys come every morning from the different ragged
schools, and take their brushes and boxes, and are detailed to separate districts of the city. Each one has his own place
assigned to him, and according as he is industrious and saving, a better position is given him. If a boy in Division No.
1 only earns fifty cents a day, and one in No. 3 seventy-five cents, the latter is promoted to the other’s stand; but for
this privilege he must pay $1.25 to the Society, and to get to the 2s Division, 62 1/2 cents.
Their first brushes and tools they get from the society, but when these are worn out, they must buy their own,
with money they have saved. Some walk four miles to the office, from their school. Before the thirty odd boys start
out, some gentleman reads a chapter of the Bible and makes a prayer with them to the Great Father, and perhaps the
little fatherless boys in their day’s work remember it, and it helps them along. At any rate, the most of them seem
to turn out remarkably well. During the day, each boy works away as hard as he can. Sometimes he is interrupted by
a rival boot-black, not from the “Ragged School Society,” and he must fight a battle; though he being a professional
blacker, the police are always in his favor. At the close, with blackened face and hands, he returns to the office and

deposits his tools and his money. Twelve cents are returned to him as his allowance. The rest is divided into three
equal parts; one-third is paid to the boy immediately, in addition to the sixpence; one-third is retained by the Society,
and the rest, with the odd money, is kept as a savings-fund for the boy’s benefit, in his “bank”. An active boy will
soon earn fifty cents a day. On one holiday this year, two boys at the Royal Exchange earned $5.25 between them. If
the sixpences come in slowly, and the boy does not get a good surplus over his allowance, he is discharged.
A list with the amount of cash in the bank is hung up conspicuously in the office, and every one looks eagerly at it
as he comes in at night. One lad had the sum of $118 to his credit at one time; another about $39.50.
After he has deposited his money, with sixpence in his pocket, he hurries off to the dormitory of his Ragged School.
There he gets his supper, and in the evening he goes to the school, from which he must bring next morning to the
office his card, showing attendance, before he can begin work. After a year or two of this labor, if industrious, he is
provided with a situation or some trade. The lads have worked now for three years—an average of twenty-four being
regularly remployed the first year, and of thirty-seven each of the two following years. Two hundred and fifty-six is
the whole number employed. These have earned during the three years $11,583, and during the last year alone close
on forty-five hundred dollars! The Association is almost self-supporting.
The rich do not forget them. They were all taken in 1851 to the Great Exhibition; and in the same year, a great
entertainment of tea and cake was provided them, over which Lord Shaftesbury himself presided. Sir Culling Eardly
has had them at his park; and they have an annual picnic at Richmond.
Of the shoe-blacks who have emigrated we observe that one was fitted out by Mr Dickens, who perhaps found the
prototype of his “Joe” among these poor children of the street. Blacking boots all day, in rain and mud and dirt, for
a shilling or two, does not seem an especially desirable business. But with these boys, it is almost a choice between
pilfering and boot-blacking. They support themselves, and gradually save money, until they can start—at a good busi-
ness. Instead of a street-beggar or thief, under the “Shoe Black Society,” the boy becomes an honest, industrious lad.
It has been a good enterprise for the ragged boys of London. The credit of its origin belongs with a highly respectable
gentleman, J. McGregor, of the Temple Buildings.
In the mid- to late-Victorian period there may have been almost unavoidable temptation for children to slide into a
life of crime, but the shoe-blacks, along with other employment opportunities such as newsboys, proved that some did
strive to follow the Ragged School’s motto of “Honesty is the Best Policy”.
Got something to say?

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WHITECHAPEL TIMES
By JENNIFER PEGG
Welcome.
Well, one simply cannot have a column based around significant dates in Ripperolog y and ignore the 9th of
November, so here it is, the Whitechapel Times for that key date when Mary Kelly was murdered. It also seems
that it is a significant date for Germans, for quite different reasons.
In the News – 9th November 1888

Burnaby Street
Girl Kidnapped
Cornelius Wilder, aged 45, a labourer, was charged on remand with taking
a girl who was under the age of 15 out of the possession of her parents. The
girl was called Mary Ann Heath. Her mother lived in Burnaby Street, Lots Road,
Chelsea and the prisoner used to lodge there. Mrs Heath had complained of
his familiarity with her daughter, aged 14. The prisoner said that he could
prove Mary Ann Heath was 16 and that he would take care of her and he
would protect her from harm. It was alleged that the prisoner had been
improperly intimate with the girl and that afterwards he took her away and
occupied a room with her in Notting-hill for four days. When charged and
taken into custody, under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, he said that
Mary Ann’s mother would never part them and that the girl had gone with
him of her own accord. Mary Ann Heath was called as a witness but she
cried and refused to say anything against the prisoner. She was cautioned
by the justice at length about the consequences of not being truthful, but
she persisted in claiming that the prisoner had slept on the floor in the
room that she occupied. The prisoner was then committed to trial.
[[[[[[

In Law
At Marylebone, Lena Brune, otherwise Brown, of 151, King’s
Road, Camden Town appeared in answer to an adjourned sum-
mons, charging her with using certain threatening phrases to her
mother-in-law, Mrs Emily Ann Saxe Brown, a widow of King
Henry’s Road, Primrose Hill. The complainant said that on the
25th August she was in King Henry’s Road when the defendant
came to her and abused her. Mrs Emily Brown said that the defen-
dant asked her where her children were, and that she had
answered that she did not know. At this point, the witness stated
that the defendant had followed her down the street and in doing
so she had continued to abuse her and had stated that the witness
encouraged her son in everything that was bad.
The defendant denied insulting her mother-in-law and said that
her husband had left her and his mother had encouraged him in
Marylebone Magistrates Court
so doing. She added that her children had been kept away from
her, and she was threatened that she would be put into a lunatic asylum. She stated that her husband earned £700 per year but he only
paid her a small pittance. It was also alleged that her two children were taken away from her by three men in the street and she did not
know where they had gone. The defendant alleged that her husband had behaved badly towards her and she imputed that he was guilty
of gross immorality and that this was known by her mother-in-law.
Mr Nicholls, the prosecuting solicitor, denied these allegations. Mr Cooke, the justice, said that from what he had heard the case appeared to
be a very lamentable one. He advised the defendant to apply to a judge in chambers for an order so that she might be able to recover her chil-
dren. The case was adjourned. The defendant then said the judge had been applied to by her solicitors. She stated that her husband was in hid-
ing and could not be found and the judge had ordered he should be advertised for. The defendant was then talking about other matters when
Mr Cooke told her that he would hear nothing further. She was fined 1s. with 2s. costs or one day’s imprisonment.
[[[[[[
Curtain Road
No License
At Worship Street, Duck Smith and John Sampson both of 89
Curtain Road, Shoreditch, appeared to answer a charge that
they had sold beer and spirits without a license. Mr Powell, who
spoke for the excise, said the defence would probably be that
the defendants were servants in the premises of a club named
the Star Club. The Excise Officer, John Darby, was sent to the
club to inspect it on the afternoon of the 4th May, with others.
A man ordered a drink from Sampson, who was operating the
bar. The drink was paid for. The witness then called for other
liquor and paid for it. Mr Montagu Williams fined each defen-
dant £8 4s in costs.

Thieving
Hammersmith
Charles Robinson was charged on remand with stealing a watch from
John Collins Stephens, a ladder maker in the Old Kent Road. The watch
was stolen while Mr Collins Stephens was at the Earls-court train sta-
tion with his wife and children. It was alleged that the prisoner tried to
push by Mr Collins Stephens as he assisted his wife in getting on the
train. After the watch was stolen the defendant was seen to pass it to a
confederate who escaped with it. A prison warder was called; he stated
that defendant had been committed twice to his prison as a vagabond
and rouge. Mr Farman, who defended, said that Robinson would plead
guilty and that he therefore wished to be dealt with by the magistrate.
Earl’s Court Station This wish was declined and he was committed to trial.
[[[[[[
Sea
Just after 3 yesterday morning a barque Explorer, owned by Messrs. Ismay, Imerie and Co. with a general cargo for Valparaiso and in charge
of a pilot, was struck on the starboard side when lying at anchor off the Nore. The ship was struck by the steamship the Erith, bound for
Sunderland. The Explorer began to fill and she sank in less than ten minutes. All eighteen crewmembers saved themselves by clambering onto
the rigging and backstays and jumping on board the Erith steamer. They were, however, unable to save their property. The steamer landed
them at Rochester and the crew then left by train for Gravesend.
Ships in peril on the Nore

Nottingham - The healthy option?
Public Health
The Registrar General’s return for the week ending the 3rd November showed that deaths registered during that period in the twenty-eight
great towns of England and Wales corresponded to 19.6 per 1,000 of their aggregate population. The six healthiest places were Brighton,
Birkenhead, Derby, Nottingham, Portsmouth and Halifax. In London 2,373 births and 1,613 deaths were registered; of the 1,613 deaths, one
was from smallpox, eighty-eight were from measles, twenty-four were from scarlet fever, thirty-two were from diphtheria, nineteen from
whooping cough, twenty-two from enteric fever, thirty-four from diarrhoea and dysentery and not one was the result of typhus, ill-defined
forms of fever or cholera. Thus 220 deaths were referred to these diseases being nineteen above the corrected average weekly number.
In Greater London 3,124 births and 2,025 deaths were registered. This corresponds to an annual rate of 29.5 and 19.1 per 1,000 of
the estimated population. In the outer ring eleven registered deaths were from measles, ten from diphtheria and ten from diarrhoea.
Measles caused five deaths in West Ham and two in the Leighton sub district. There were also two deaths from diphtheria returned in
Croyden, in Kingston and in Tottenham sub-districts.
(Source Times, 9th November 1888)
The Whitechapel Infirmary

Sport
Football
The third round draw of the London Challenge Cup was made the previous evening by the London
Association. The draw was as follows:-
St Martin’s OR Ions v Clapton Unity OR Foxes
Brixton Rangers v Casuals
Old St Paul’s v St Bartholomew’s Hospital
Old Westminsters v London Caledonians
Royal Arsenal v Dulwich
Hotspur v Forest Gate OR Grave House
Old Cranleighans v Vulcans
The Cup was eventually won by the Old Westminsters.
Coursing
Border Union Open Meeting Anyone for footie Chaps?
The Netherby Cup ran at this meet. The Cup was open to all aged greyhounds and was set at 10 guineas each. The winner would get
a prize of £285; second place would earn £95 and third and fourth places £38. There were sixty-two subscribers.
(Source Times, 9th November 1888,)

Notices
Religious
Universal week of prayer, January 6-13 1889— was announced by The Evangelical Alliance. It was to be conducted
by its various branches throughout the world.
Theatre
Mr Henry Irving and the Lyceum Company would be at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham that night and then in
Lyons Grand Mall theatre, Leeds on November 12th.
Mr Richard Mansfield was at the Prince Karl at 8.45.
Weather
9th November 1888

Temperatures:- London – 52 F
Aberdeen – 44 F Stockholm – 26 F
Mr Richard Mansfield
Lisbon – 60 F West and South West France – 55–58 F
A good deal of rain fell in the west and south but there was very little in the northeast and north. There was a southeasterly wind which
varied from a gale on the eastern, northern and extreme northwestern coasts, to a breeze in the southwest and south. The sea was high
at Aberdeen and rough on the northeast and eastern coasts.
Outlook for the 10th November 1888

For London: it was predicted that there would be variable winds and light and changeable weather. It was also forecast that it would be foggy.

It Also Happened On…9th November
It was announced that Albert Einstein had been awarded

the Nobel Prize for Physics on this day in 1922. Although
this was the award for the 1921 prize, Einstein received it
the following year as it had been reserved.
It was the date of the fall of the Berlin wall, in 1989. This
event is marked on the 9th November as World Freedom Day
in America.
On the 9th November 1994 the chemical element Darmstadtium Celebrations as the Berlin Wall comes down
was discovered. It has an atomic number of 269.
The 9th November also marks:-
Albert Einstein The International Day Against Fascism and Anti Semitism, this is because it was on this day in 1938
that the Nazis started their pogrom against the Jews.
The day is known as Schicksalstag—the day of fate—in Germany due to events there that occurred on the 9th November 1848 (execu-
tion of Robert Blum), 1918 ( Wilhelm II dethroned), 1923 (emergence of Nazi Party of key political players, and the events in 1938 and
1989 mentioned above.)
It is also Independence Day in Cambodia.
It is the birth date of:-
King Edward VII, King of Great Britain, born 1841,
Jill Dando, TV personality, born 1961,
And Delta Goodrem, singer and actress, known for her role as Nina Tucker in
Australian soap Neighbours, born 1984.
It is also the date of the deaths of Ramsey MacDonald (died 1937), Neville
Chamberlain (died 1940) and Charles De Gaulle (died 1970).
(Sources, Wikipedia,
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1921/einstein-faq.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/9/newsid_2515000/25
15869.stm http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Ds/hist.html
http://www.united.non-profit.nl/pages/campnov.htm
http://www.embassyofcambodia.org.nz/cambodia.htm)
King Edward VII

CHRIS SCOTT’s
Press Trawl
Eastern Morning News

12 Sept 1888
THE GATESHEAD MURDER
The murderer of Jane Savage is still at large, and no fresh facts of consequence in connection with the Durham
tragedy have transpired.
The body of the murdered woman was examined by Dr. Phillips, of Whitechapel, yesterday morning, but that gen-
tleman will report directly to Scotland Yard, and meanwhile he declines to make any statement. Inspector Roots, of
the Criminal Investigation Department, has given the local detectives the benefit of his large experience; but, so far,
their united efforts have been without result. The continued absence of the man with whom the deceased kept com-
pany has increased the popular suspicion against him. The police have issued handbills minutely describing the man.
They have been distributed very largely. It has been ascertained that he left home on Saturday evening, and said noth-
ing about not returning to sleep as usual. He has disappeared without leaving any trace by which he could be followed.
The disused shafts in the neighbourhood will be searched today, in the hope of finding the weapon with which the crime
was committed, and possibly the body of the murderer, who it is thought may have committed suicide.
The victim of the foul murder was a young woman named Jane Beetmoor, more commonly known in the district as
Jane Savage. Her mother, with whom she lived, was married a second time, her present husband being one Joseph
Savage. Savage follows the calling of a miner, and is a sober, industrious workman, who is respected by all his neigh-
bours. His stepdaughter also was of a quiet, inoffensive nature, and was generally liked.
She appears to have been last seen alive while on her way from the Moor Inn to Mr. Newall’s farm. This must have
been about eight o’clock, although several persons state that they saw her between these two places about nine
o’clock. After this she does not appear to have been again seen alive. As the night wore on Mr. and Mrs. Savage began
to feel anxious about the young woman, and as eleven o’clock drew nigh their anxiety gave place to serious misgivings
as to her safety. At eleven o’clock they decided to go out in search of her. They did so, and, after walking a consider-
able distance and making many inquiries, they returned to their home without eliciting any information as to her
whereabouts. About seven o’clock on Sunday morning, a blacksmith named John Fish was proceeding along the waggon
way from Pit Houses, Black Fell, when at a point known as Sandy Cut, he suddenly came upon the body of the missing
woman. The place at which the body was discovered is a dreary looking spot, and one in which a foul deed might be
perpetrated with little fear of detection or interruption.
The inquest was held on Monday afternoon, when evidence of identification was given by the deceased’s stepbrother
and by John Fish, blacksmith, who found the body, after which the inquiry was adjourned for a fortnight.

28 Sept 1888
THE GATESHEAD MURDER
FUNERAL OF THE VICTIM
A touching incident at Birtley on Wednesday was the burial of the remains of poor Jane Beetmoor, the murdered
woman. When the body was found on Sunday it was immediately conveyed to the lonely cottage occupied by her step-
father (John Savage), her mother, and half brother. The occupants were transferred to the adjoining cottage, and the
corpse left in the home which the poor girl, apparently in her usual health, left on Saturday night never to return again
alive. The police took possession of the key, and guarded the house and mutilated body locked therein until the ‘view’
of the jury on Monday and the post mortem examination. No outsider was allowed to enter by any means. After the
completion of the post mortem examination, the key of the cottage was given up to the deceased’s family, and a dif-
ferent state of things prevailed. Friends and relatives, and other persons actuated by feelings of mere curiosity, were
allowed to enter and gaze on the features of the dead girl. There was a continuous flow of people from the valley below
and the hills above, and the mother and stepfather were too much overcome by the great sorrow which had fallen on
them to do anything to prevent their entering the house as they choose. Matters were allowed to continue until the
situation became intolerable, and, ultimately, the Rev. Arthur Watts, of Durham, who was on a visit of consolation to
the grief stricken parents, in the absence of the rector of the parish, prevailed upon the police to take measures to
stop a state of things which was so undesirable.
The police acted upon his request, and none who was not a friend or relative was permitted afterwards to enter.
The funeral procession was of great length, extending at least half a mile. As the streets of Birtley were reached, all
the inhabitants came outside to witness the procession pass, and when the churchyard was reached it was found that
a large concourse of people had assembled both outside the gates and in the ground itself. The body was taken into
the church, where a portion of the burial service of the Church of England, of which the deceased girl was a member,
was read by the Rev. Arthur Watts, Durham. At the grave, in consequence of the solemnity of the occasion, Mr. Watts
departed from the usual course, and made a few deeply touching and appropriate remarks. He said:
“Mourners, sympathisers, pause a moment beside this open grave. A terrible deed has been done in our midst;
doubtless began in anger at baffled lust, finished in most malignant spite. Oh! the down slide is a swift slide. What
lessons has today for each of us? Burn these two lessons of today into your memories that they never die out. The
down slide is a swift slide. In us, whose manhood is disgraced, pity for the wretched murderer has a hard struggle with
shame at his crime. We will try to say, ‘May he find mercy,’ though he showed none. For our sister, whose poor man-
gled body lies there, we fear not; she died rather than sin; she has borne her cross; her soul is with God. Her mes-
sage to us today is:- ‘Die rather than sin.’”
The scene at the grave was exceedingly affecting, and long after the service had been con-
cluded people lingered, patiently awaiting their turn to look for the last time into the grave.”
A reporter has held an interview with Dr. Phillips, the divisional police surgeon for
Whitechapel, who has been making inquiries into the murder near Gateshead. Dr. Phillips on
Wednesday attended the inquest at Whitechapel for the purpose of answering any further
questions which might be put to him with a view of elucidating the mystery, but he arrived
while the coroner was summing up, and thus had no opportunity. When told by the reporter
of the startling statement in the coroner’s summing up, he said he considered it a very impor-
tant communication, and the public would now see his reason for not wishing in the first place
to give a description of the injuries. He attached great importance to the applications which
had been made to the pathological museums, and to the advisability of following this infor-
mation up as a probable clue. With reference to the murder and mutilation near Gateshead,
he stated that it was evidently not done by the same hand as the Whitechapel murder, that
at Gateshead being simply a clumsy piece of butchery.

15 Sept 1888
THE WHITECHAPEL TRAGEDY
ANOTHER ARREST
The bloodstained newspapers, which were found in Bailey’s Yard, close to Hanbury
Street, and upon which it is conjectured the Spitalfields murderer wiped his hands
after committing his fearful crime, have been subjected to analysis, and the stains are
certified to be those of human blood. The police who made the search state distinct-
ly that the paper was not there when they made the search last Saturday, and, though
they have been closely cross examined on this point, they adhere to their statement.
It is not clear, moreover, that the murderer could have thrown the newspapers in
the spot where they were found from the backyard in Hanbury Street, but, if he threw
the paper, which was rolled up into a round mass, over the wall, it might easily have
been blown or kicked into the corner in which it was found. The police precautions
are even stronger than before, the murderer hitherto having selected Friday or
Saturday for the commission of his crimes.
Our Maidstone correspondent states that a Scotland Yard detective has arrived there
and interviewed the commander of the Sussex regiment, with a view to identify the
writing on the envelope found on the murdered woman.
A statement has been made by a woman named Lloyd, living in Heath Street,
Commercial road, which may possibly prove of some importance. While standing out-
Contemporary newspaper sketch of the back-
yard of 29 Hanbury Street, showing the yard side a neighbour’s door on Monday night she heard her daughter, who was sitting on
to be much bigger than it actually was.
the doorstep, scream, and on looking round saw a man walk hurriedly away. The daugh-
ter states that the man peered into her face, and she perceived a large knife at his side. A lady living opposite stated
that a similar incident took place outside her house. The man was short of stature, with a sandy beard, and wore a
cloth cap. The woman drew the attention of some men who were passing to the strange man, and they pursued him
some distance. He turned up a bye street, and was eventually lost sight of.
The Central News telegraphing last night says:-
The police have today been in communication with the pensioner who was said The front of 29 Hanbury Street showing
the original frontage.
to have been seen in the company of the murdered woman Chapman. He has vol-
untarily explained his connection with the deceased and his antecedents. His state-
ments are, it is understood, entirely satisfactory, and he will be produced as a wit-
ness when the inquest is resumed. In the course of today’s investigations, the police
have become possessed of some further information, from which it is hoped impor-
tant results will follow. All ranks are working in the most indefatigable spirit, and
a complete sense of security seems to be entertained by the inhabitants.
London, Friday midnight.
A man has been arrested on a charge of threatening to stab people in the neigh-
bourhood of the Tower. A roughly sharpened knife was found upon him. He is a
short, stout man, with a sandy beard, and wears a dark cap. The police offer no
opinion as to the value of this latest arrest. It is pointed out as a fact which can-
not be too clearly emphasised, that any one harbouring a person who may be a mur-
derer is liable to be arrested as an accessory after the fact.

1 Sept 1888
ANOTHER WHITECHAPEL TRAGEDY

BRUTAL MURDER OF A WOMAN
The Central News says:-
Following close upon the recent ghastly tragedy in Whitechapel, Londoners were yesterday horrified to hear of a
similar outrage perpetrated in a manner which has seldom been equalled for brutality. At a very early hour in the morn-
ing a constable on beat duty found lying in Bucks Row, a narrow thoroughfare abutting on Thomas Street, Whitechapel,
the dead body of a woman about 40 years of age. The throat was gashed with two cuts penetrating from the front of
the neck to the vertebrae. The body was at once taken to the Whitechapel mortuary, where it was found that the unfor-
tunate victim had been ripped up from thighs to breast in a most revolting manner, the intestines protruding from three
deep gashes. The clothes were cut and torn in several places, and the face was bruised and much discoloured. The
woman’s dress seems to show that she was in poor circumstances, and marks upon some of the under garments indi-
cate that she had been an inmate of the Lambeth Workhouse. This summarises the facts of the case. All besides is in
profound mystery. The police have no clue to the perpetrator of the foul deed, and the neighbours can give no infor-
mation or make only such statements as rather add to rather than diminish the mysteriousness of the affair.
Circumstances, however, point pretty clearly to the fact that the crime was not committed at the spot where the vic-
tim was found. The doctor who examined the body calls attention to the fact that barely half a pint of blood was on
the ground at the spot, yet the wounds, especially that in the throat, must have bled profusely. Blood marks have been
found leading to a place some three hundred yards distance, but yet they have not enabled anyone to establish the
scene of the murder. A woman living in Brady Street, an adjoining thoroughfare, heard screams of “Police!” and
“Murder!” in the small hours, the cries dying away towards Bucks row, but the informant can add nothing else. Up to
a late hour last night the matter remained as unsolved as at the hour when the body was found.
Telegraphing at midnight, the Central News says:-
The body of the deceased has been identified as that of a married woman named Mary Ann Nichols, who has been
living apart from her husband for some years. She has been an inmate of the Lambeth Workhouse on and off for seven
years. She was discharged from the workhouse a few months ago, and went into domestic service at Wandsworth, sud-
denly leaving her situation under suspicious circumstances seven weeks ago. Since that time she has frequented the
locality of Whitechapel, and was seen in the Whitechapel road on the night of the murder under the influence of drink.

4 September 1888
THE WHITECHAPEL TRAGEDY
The inquest on the body of Mary Ann Nichols, who was found murdered in Whitechapel on Friday morning last, was
resumed yesterday morning before Mr. Wynne Baxter, the coroner for East Middlesex. Inspectors Sparklin [sic] and
Helson gave evidence, describing the wounds and the clothing worn by the deceased. Inspector Helson stated that all
the wounds could have been inflicted while the deceased wore her stays. He was of the opinion that the murder was
committed on the spot. William Nichols said that deceased was his wife. She had left him about seven years ago, and
was given to drink. He believed she had been living with various men. Ellen Holland stated that she knew the deceased
for about six weeks. She last saw her about half past two on Friday morning last, when she was the worse for drink.
She was alone. She did not know any of deceased’s acquaintances.

The inquiry was then adjourned for a fortnight.
The Central News says another desperate assault, which stopped only just short of mur-
der, was committed upon a woman in Whitechapel on Saturday night. The victim was
leaving the Foresters’ Music Hall, Cambridge Heath Road, where she had been spending
the evening with a sea captain, when she was accosted by a well dressed man, who asked
her to accompany him. She invited him to go to her apartments, and he acquiesced,
requesting her in the meantime to walk a short distance with him, as he wanted to meet
a friend. They had reached a point near to the scene of the murder of the woman
Nicholls, when the man violently seized his companion by the throat and dragged her
down a court. He was immediately joined by a gang of women and bullies, who stripped
Mr. Wynne Baxter the unfortunate woman of her necklace, earrings, and brooch. Her purse was also taken,
and she was brutally assaulted. Upon attempting to shout for aid, one of the gang laid a
large knife across her throat, remarking, “We will serve you as we did the others.” She was eventually released. The
police have been informed and are prosecuting inquiries into the matter, it being regarded as a probable clue to pre-
vious tragedies.

6 Sept 1888
THE WHITECHAPEL MYSTERY
The authorities now investigating this mysterious case assert that they have a clue, but in what direction they are
not permitted to make the faintest allusion. “If we did,” remarked one of the officers, “justice would be undoubtedly
frustrated.” But the chain of evidence is, it is alleged, being fast drawn round the persons implicated - for it is believed
there are more than one concerned - though the persons watched will not at present be arrested unless they make an
effort to leave the district. The reason of this is explained by the fact that further sworn evidence which might be lost
by precipitate action is likely to reveal the criminal at the forthcoming coroner’s inquiry. It is not improbable that one
man, not immediately concerned in the crime, but who has a knowledge of the circumstances, may make a confession,
and thus shield himself from serious consequences which might otherwise ensue.
William Sadler
Hull Daily Mail

May 1891
MISCELLANEOUS TELEGRAMS
At Maidenhead Police court, this morning, William Sadler, the man who was charged in
London with being the perpetrator of the last Whitechapel murder, was sentenced to seven
days hard labour for having been drunk in the town last night. Sadler behaved in a strange
manner when in the dock.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle
14 October 1890
WANTED TO KILL WOMEN
Terrible Threats Made by an Englishman Probably Insane
At 6 Rivington Street, New York, is a lodging house, with a restaurant on the first floor. A short, stout man entered
the place today and called for a cup of coffee. He startled the landlady of the place by declaring he wanted to kill all
the women of New York. To the only waiter the place can afford he talked familiarly of Whitechapel, and then in a
sullen manner began to watch two girls sitting at another table.
As the two girls got up he hissed after them: “Beasts!” Then turning suddenly upon the woman at the desk, who was
there alone, he said:“Oh, I hate your sex! I could cut you into shreds, stamp you into jelly. I will murder you all, see if
I don’t.” A few minutes later and while the waiter and his employer were coming to the conclusion that their visitor
was Jack the Ripper a couple of girls rang the bell of the lodging house and went upstairs.
“The wretches,” the man yelled, springing to the door. “I will cut their livers out.” He rang the bell and the man-
ager responded, but would not let him in. There is a chain on the door and the stranger was left fuming on the side-
walk. He went across the way to a saloon at No. 5 and, calling for a drink of whisky, ensconced himself at the window
to watch the restaurant. The saloon keeper heard him muttering and asked him what was the matter. The man growled
that he was going to kill all the women across the way and clean out the house. He got tired of watching at last and
went toward the Bowery. He was not drunk. That he was crazy is certain. It is equally certain that he was armed and
vicious enough to do murder. After he went away a Western Union letter envelope was picked up in his seat with the
name Walter D. Handley on it. In pencil is scribbled on the envelope the addresses of the Norwich Union insurance com-
pany, at 61 Wall Street, with the note, “Friday morning, 11:45 a.m.,” under, and the firm name Parker & McIntyre, 206
Produce building, with several Philadelphia and other addresses. The man was an Englishman.
Manchester Guardian
19 Sept 1888
Little or nothing has come to light during the week to show that the perpetrators of the Whitechapel murders are
likely to be discovered.
Yesterday however a rumour was put about that something might come of the arrest of one Charles Ludwig Wetzel
aged forty, a decently attired German, who professed not to understand English, and was charged with being drunk and
threatening to stab Alexander Finlay of 51 Leman Street Whitechapel. At the Thames Police Court the prosecutor said
that very early the previous morning he was standing at a coffee stall in the Whitechapel road when Wetzel came up
in a drunken condition. In consequence the person in charge of the stall refused to serve him. Wetzel seemed much
annoyed and said to witness “What are you looking at?” he then pulled out a long bladed knife and tried to stab wit-
ness with it. Wetzel followed him round the stall and made several attempts to stab him until witness threatened to
knock a dish on his head. A constable came up and the German was then given into custody. The constable said that
when he was called he found Wetzel in a very excited condition. The witness had previously received information that
Wetzel was wanted on the city ground for attempting to cut a woman’s throat with a razor. On the way to the station
he dropped a long bladed knife which was open and when he was searched a razor and a long bladed pair of scissors
were found on him. Constable J. Johnson deposed that while on duty in the Minories he heard loud screams of ‘Murder’
from a dark court in which there where no lights. This court leads to some railway arches and is a well known danger-
ous locality. The witness went down the court and found Wetzel with a woman. The former appeared to be under the
influence of drink. The woman who appeared to be in a very agitated and frightened condition said “Oh policeman do

take me out of this.” The policeman brought them both out of the court and sent the man off. He walked with the man
to the end of his beat when she said “Dear me, he frightened me very much when he pulled a big knife out.” The police-
man said “Why didn’t you tell me that at the time!” and she replied “I was too much frightened.” He then went and
looked for the German but could not find him, and therefore warned several other constables of what he had seen. He
believed the accused worked in the neighbourhood. The magistrates said it was clear the accused was a dangerous man
and ordered him to be remanded for a week. Inquiries show that Wetzel is a Baker. On Sunday night last he lodged at
a coffee house in Church Street Minories but in consequence of his dirty habits the proprietor would not allow him to
remain the next night. He then went to a Hotel in Finsbury where he had previously lodged and remained there until
about one o’ clock in the morning but the landlord would not allow him to stay the night. He produced a number of
razors and acted in such a manner that some of the inmates were frightened at his conduct. The landlady of this hotel
stated that on the day after the last murder in Whitechapel Wetzel called early in the morning and washed his hands
stating that he had been injured. another person has alleged that there was blood on the mans hands, but as to this
the landlady could not speak. Wetzel walks lame having a stiff leg.
The Whitechapel Murder still remains a mystery. Several persons have been apprehended on suspicion but almost
immediately discharged including the ‘Leather Apron’ on whom the fancy of the neighbourhood fixed at once. If the
Police have any clue they have prudently not taken the public into their confidence.
Wheeling Register
19 Nov. 1888
About Whitechapel
Gossip About the Fiend’s Latest Atrocity
LONDON, November 18th
In England there is not much interest in anything just now but the Whitechapel murders and the details surround-
ing it, Warren’s resignation, etc. As I wrote you last week, either Warren or Home Secretary Matthews had to go in obe-
dience to public clamor, and Matthews was sufficiently clever to maneuver Warren’s neck under the ax of popular dis-
favor. People are not satisfied yet, however. The Tories declare that Matthews should go instead of Warren; the Liberals
declare that both should have been turned out, and it very likely that the Whitechapel killer will have the honor of
overturning a Cabinet Minister as well as a Chief Commissioner of Police.
About the mysterious murders nothing more is known and fresh ones are expected. Some clever individual having
invented a detailed description of the man seen walking about with Mary Kelly just before she was murdered, has been
hired at five times his usual salary to walk about with the police and try to see the man again. It has been pointed out
that the murders have all been committed at changes of the moon, which is taken as strengthening the lunatic theory.
Four men in one day, having got drunk, conceived the notion of personating the great murderer. Each howled out in the
street that he had just cut up another woman. Each was pelted for his pains by a mob and each is now doing two weeks.
One young German has got an exalted notion of English Puritanism and respectability. He landed in this country on
Tuesday or Wednesday. He stared, perhaps, a little impolitely at a woman on the Whitechapel Road. A quarter of an
hour later some policeman rescued him, much injured, from a furious mob and took him to the lockup. He was let go
on his statement that he was going to America. The woman had cried out that he was ‘Jack, the Ripper, the Whitechapel
Murderer,’ but the German, who did not understand a word of English, thought all the demonstration was brought about
by her English feelings of propriety being shocked by his indiscreet staring.
Last week I saw the man, Joe Barnett, who lived with the woman Kelly up to a short time before she was butchered.
He then begged for money to bury his poor dear, and wanted it understood that he had a heart as well as men with
black coats on. He was furiously drunk at the inquest and is living with a certain notorious Whitechapel character who
testified at the inquest and became enamored of the drunken brute because, as she said, of the romantic interest
attaching to him, which illustrates life in London’s slums. Kelly’s remains will be buried on Monday.

The Times
3 June 1901
DORSET STREET, SPITALFIELDS
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES
Sir,
It is to be hoped that the public attention drawn to Dorset street, Spitalfields, by the murder there will help on some
needed reforms. To all save those of us who have had an opportunity of studying this street and the courts around it at first
hand it seems impossible that such a breeding spot of crime should be allowed to continue. Although quite a short thorough-
fare, it can boast of more deeds of violence than any other district in London. Its population largely consists of thieves and
their associates. Policemen go down it in pairs. The mere knocking senseless and rifling the pockets of some half drunken visi-
tor in the open doorway is quite frequent. One alley is known among some of the older residents as ‘Blood Alley,’ on account
of the amount of human blood that has been shed there. There are few houses in Dorset street which have not seen at least
one murder, and one house is often declared to have had a murder in every room.
How true that is I cannot say, but I do know that the same house has had a history
which for sheer horror surpasses almost everything in the criminal annals of this
country.
The lodging houses of Dorset street are bad, but they are not the worst part of
the street. Doubtless the owners of some of them do their best to preserve a show
of orderliness. It is unnecessary to dwell on the evils fostered by the many double
bedded cubicles open to all who can pay the few pence necessary. Many lads, old
enough to be free from school, break away from home and live in these lodging
houses. Thrown in association with criminals, they quickly become initiated in
crime. Nominally they earn their living by chance work in the streets. Too often they
are taught the craft of the petty thief. For some time one young man, a sort of cap-
tain among them, had quite a gang of organized pilferers drifting between Dorset
street and Notting hill. He at last disappeared, but similar gangs still exist, and boys
drawn from working class homes are drawn into them and are made life criminals.
Women who find themselves homeless in London, often innocent and the vic-
tims of misfortune, get driven in such lodging houses as these, for there is practi-
Crossingham’s, Dorset Street
cally nowhere else for them to go. The result is obvious.
The ‘furnished rooms’ which flourish around Dorset street are still more harmful than the lodging houses.
That such a place, within a mile of the Mansion house, should be suffered to continue is no credit to London. Yet what is to
be done? Doles are about as effective a cure for the ills of this black spot as cold cream would be a remedy for cancer. If pri-
vate philanthropy could have made an end of Dorset street it would have gone long ago. But property such as it is very prof-
itable. In spite of long continued efforts it has been impossible to discover the names of the freeholders of the land, or steps
could be taken to rouse them to activity. What reforms are to come must come from the various public authorities. May I sug-
gest some obviously needed improvements?
First, much might be done to save the younger children of Dorset street if the London School Board took special measures
to enforce their attendance at school. Compulsory education is practically a dead letter there. The children wander with
their parents from one lodging house to another, and so slip through the educational net. The driving of these children to
school would admittedly be very difficult, and would require school attendance officers.

More police are necessary. The police in this district have a rough time, and I understand that they show a larger propor-
tion of wounds, disablements, and deaths from violence than any other metropolitan section.Their duties are rendered more
severe by the fact that they are miserably undermanned. Some slight effort might be made by the local authorities to enforce
the laws against open immorality. But the only adequate cure for Dorset street is to sweep it away.
Doubtless it is convenient for the police to have such a criminal centre, where they can continually lay hands on wanted
men. But Dorset street makes crime as well as shelters it, and its continued presence as now is a real danger to all London.
Yours faithfully,
Fred. A. McKenzie. May 30.
New York Times

25 April 1891
CHOKED, THEN MUTILATED.

A MURDER LIKE ONE OF “JACK THE RIPPER’S” DEEDS
WHITECHAPEL’S HORRORS REPEATED IN AN EAST SIDE LODGING HOUSE -
AN AGED WOMAN THE VICTIM - SEVERAL ARRESTS ON SUSPICION.
A murder which in many of its details recalls the crimes with which ‘Jack the Ripper’
horrified London was committed late Thursday night or early yesterday morning in a small
room in the squalid lodging house known as the East River Hotel, on the southeast corner
of Catharine and Water Streets. The victim was an old, gray haired, and wrinkled woman,
who had for years past haunted the neighborhood. The murderer escaped hours before the
deed was discovered. He left behind him the weapon with which he had butchered his vic-
tim.
The lodging house is kept by James Jennings. It is a four story brick building, which has
a decent exterior appearance, but the interior is squalid in the extreme. While dignified
by the name of hotel, it is a lodging house of unsavory reputation, and is chiefly resorted
to by the woman who prowl about the neighborhood after nightfall. On the ground floor
there is a bar room. The entrance to the lodging house proper is in Water Street and the
door opens into a short hallway, at the end of which is a narrow stairway leading to the
upper floors. At the landing of the first flight of stairs is what is called the office, and here
Carrie Brown
is kept a greasy book in which it is the practice of Edward Fitzgerald, the room clerk, to
write the names the lodgers give him.
Thursday night Samuel Shine, the bartender and night clerk, was in charge of the premises. Fitzgerald was acting as
room clerk and Mary Miniter, the assistant housekeeper, was on duty looking after the rooms.
According to the story told by this woman to the police the elderly woman came into the saloon at 9 o’clock with a
young woman named Mary Healey. The assistant housekeeper says she had never seen the older woman before, but her
younger companion appeared to be acquainted with her and called her ‘Shakespeare.’ This it was subsequently learned
was a nickname by which the old woman had been known for many years.
The two women remained in the place for over half an hour drinking beer, and then Mary Healey went out with a
girl named Lizzie. The old woman, under the influence of the beer, began to talk about herself in a maudlin way. She
told Mary Miniter that all her relatives were seafaring people, and that her husband died many years ago on the Pacific

coast. She also said that she had two daughters still living, one of whom was thirty six years old. From what she said,
the Miniter woman gathered that the woman’s husband was named either Charles S. Brown or Beane, and that she was
known as Carrie Brown.
The old woman went out and returned between 10:30 and 11 o’clock accompanied by a young man, who is described
by the assistant housekeeper as apparently about thirty two years old, five feet eight inches in height, of slim build, with
a long, sharp nose and a heavy mustache of light color. He was clad in a dark brown cutaway coat and black trousers,
and wore an old black derby hat, the crown of which was much dented. He was evidently a foreigner, and the woman’s
impression was that he was a German. The man kept in the background, and appeared anxious to avoid observation.
Mary Miniter was in temporary charge of the office. The old woman asked for a room, and Mary Miniter asked her
companion for his name. She understood the man to reply “C. Nicolo,” and she went to Fitzgerald and gave him the
name. He made the entry in the register “C. Kniclo and wife,” and assigned the couple to Room 31, which is a corner
room on the top floor of the house. There are six rooms on this floor, all opening on the same hallway. Four of these
rooms were occupied, but, as far as could be ascertained, no noise or calls for help disturbed any of the lodgers.
The discovery of the murder was made by Fitzgerald about 9:30 o’clock yesterday morning. He was on his rounds
waking up the late sleepers, and when he reached Room 31 he knocked but got no answer. The door was unlocked, and
he entered. Such a sight met his gaze that he rushed from the room like one demented and raised the house with his
cries for help. The old woman was lying dead on the bed. She was naked from her armpits down and was disembow-
eled. Her head and face were tightly enveloped in portions of her clothing. There were marks about her throat to indi-
cate that the woman had been choked or strangled before the mutilation was performed.
The woman was lying on her right side with her face to the wall, and her right arm was twisted under her back.
There was a gash extending from the base of the spine around the abdomen to the front of the body. The incision was
begun near the base of the spine and carried from below upward in an oblique direction to a point half way up on the
right side.
On the back was a mark like an “X” made by drawing the knife lightly across the skin; this was evidently the mur-
derer’s sign manual. A messenger was at once sent to the Oak Street police station, and
Capt. O’Connor and his ward detectives were quickly on hand and made a search of the room. On the floor they found
the murderer’s weapon. It is an ordinary black handled table knife with a blade four inches long. At the end of the blade
a piece of the steel has been either broken or ground off, making a sharp point. This knife was found on the floor near
the bed, and was still wet with blood. The only other articles found in the room which belonged to either of the occu-
pants were two pairs of old spectacles and a small shopping bag, made out of gaudy cotton cloth.
Contemporary newspaper Coroner Schultze made a superficial examination of the woman’s Ameer Ben Ali ‘Frenchy’
sketch of Carrie Brown
body. He came to the conclusion that she was killed by strangulation,
probably while asleep, and was mutilated afterward.
When the news of the crime reached Police Headquarters Capt.
McLaughlin, who for several days had been in temporary charge of the
detective bureau, went down to the Oak Street police station with
Detectives Crowley, Grady, and McClusky to assist Capt. O’Connor in
unravelling the mystery, but very little progress was made. It was def-
initely ascertained that the woman Mary Miniter was the only person in
the lodging house who saw the murderer, and she was taken to the sta-
tion house, where she made a statement of all she knew about the case
to the officers. She was committed to the House of Detention. Mary
Healey, who had been in the company of the murdered woman, was

also arrested. She occupied Room 12 in the house during the night, but she was so intoxicated when taken to the sta-
tion house that she was unable to make a statement.
Some blood marks on the scuttle in the roof of the hotel tend to show that the murderer may have escaped to the
roof and down to the street through an adjoining building. Inspector Byrnes, Inspector Williams, Capt. McLaughlin, and
Capt. O’Connor spent most of the evening in the Oak Street station in the Captain’s room. Dragnet tactics were indulged
in, and a search was made in all the lodging houses down town for men answering the description of the murderer.
The first thing done by a dozen headquarters detectives, the precinct detectives, and officers in citizens’ clothes
was to hunt up some of the dissolute companions of the murdered woman and to trace her movements before she went
to the hotel. There was not much difficulty in finding those who had known her as ‘Shakespeare.’ To trace her move-
ments before she visited the house in Water Street was a more difficult matter.
One of the clues lead to the arrest of a man known as ‘Frenchy.’ He met the woman, it is said, on Thursday in Mrs.
Mary Harrington’s lodging house at 49 Oliver Street, where he had called to inquire for a woman named Mary Ann Lopez.
Carrie Brown went out with him, and he may have accompanied her to the Water Street hotel. He was arrested at 9
o’clock last night in a room in Water Street near James. The man might pass for a Greek or an Italian. He is rather tall,
thin, and dark. He does not tally very well in this latter regard with the man described by Mary Miniter. When searched
he had a two dollar bill and some change in his possession.The detectives, from the Inspector down, refused to give
his name or to say a word about the case. The prisoner was taken into the Captain’s room twice, however, and Mary
Miniter and two other women saw him there, but the result of their meeting or his explanation of his movements
Inspector Byrnes kept to himself. It is known, however, that the woman spent some time in the prisoner’s company on
Thursday and that after leaving Mrs. Harrington’s the pair went to John Speckman’s saloon in Oliver Street and left
there together in the evening. “Frenchy” was not seen in his usual haunts in James Street during the day.
Carrie Brown, the murdered woman, often stopped at Mrs. Harrington’s. She was sixty years old and was said to have
been born at sea. She lived out at service till drink caused her fall. She had been released from a short sojourn on
Blackwell’s Island three weeks ago.
Annie Lynch, Annie Corcoran, and Lizzie Mestrom, who work around the East River hotel and visit it frequently, were
detained as witnesses.
Three Italians who were arrested were allowed to go after they had been examined by the Inspector and his aides.
There was no autopsy performed upon the body of the woman yesterday, and whether the parts that in the murders of
‘Jack the Ripper’ were always carried away were removed is not known yet. The body was not taken to the Morgue till
about 6 o’clock, when it was too late to perform the post mortem examination. This morning, however, the autopsy will
be held by Coroner’s Physicians Jenkins and Weston, and some of the doctors in Bellevue Hospital will be present.
There has not been a case in years that has called forth so much detective talent. Inspector Byrnes apparently feels
that the murderer must be arrested, for Inspector Byrnes has said that it would be impossible for crimes such as ‘Jack
the Ripper’ committed in London to occur in New York, and the murderer would be found. He has not forgotten his
words on the subject. He also remembers that he has a photographed letter, sent by a person who signed himself ‘Jack
the Ripper,’ dated ‘Hell’ and received eighteen months ago.
The police theory, however, is that ‘Jack’ is not in New York, but that an imitator, perhaps a crank, committed the
murder. A strict policy of not saying a word about the case was kept up last night. At midnight the temporary detec-
tive quarters at the Oak Street Station were closed for the night, but the night squad were told to look out for a man
about 5 feet 8 inches high, rather thin, with a light mustache, light hair, and hooked nose, and dressed in a dark cut-
away coat and derby hat.
Another woman was added to the company detained at the station house at 11:30 o’clock. Who she is or what she
can testify to is yet a police secret.

All the news that’s fit to print...
I Beg to Report
Is There a Jack the Ripper Type Killer on the Loose?
The police chief of Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, Arjunaidi Mohamed may have a successor to Jack the Ripper loose in his
city. This possibility arose after the headless torso of a dark-skinned woman, aged from 20-30 years, was discovered in
his city. The victim is thought to have been killed elsewhere, and then left under a bridge. Chief Arjunaidi said the killer
had severed the head, hands and legs after death. So far the victim is unidentified and no papers or possessions that
could help in her identification have been discovered.
“We are checking whether it is linked to the discovery of the severed leg yesterday,” the Chief said. He was clear in
stating that the case was considered a murder. A post mortem examination will be conducted in the Kuala Lumpur
Hospital.
Bernama (Malaysia), 20th May 2008
http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/bnm/20080519/tts-police-body-2-last-petaling-jaya-993ba14.html
Ten Ego Boosts For Celebrities Who Need More
There are many ways for celebrities to enjoy their status beyond mere fame and fortune and while
the rest of us can have our egos massaged with a few words of appreciation, columnist Barry Koltnow
suggests that celebrities crave much more in the way of ego boosting.
Many will travel with an entire entourage of handlers and eager yes men/women who will cater to
their every desire. And, should anything unfortunate happen, public relations experts will successfully
spin-doctor a major scandal into a minor misunderstanding.
But, Mr. Koltnow suggests humourously, celebrities—addicted as they are to ego
enhancement—constantly need more and bigger jolts of the perquisites of success. In
that regard, he listed the top ten of the most important of those extra ego boosts.
These include having Oprah Winfrey fawn over you; winning the top award in your field;
having a street named after you; having a famous delicatessen name a sandwich for you;
throwing out the first pitch at a major league baseball game; appearing on the cover of a
major magazine, or having Larry King lovingly interview you on his cable TV schmooze-fest.
And, as his fifth suggestion for acclaim above and beyond the norm, Mr. Koltnow wrote:
Oprah Winfrey and Larry King
5. WAX ON, WAX OFF: If you’ve ever had a particularly rough night and looked at your-
self in the mirror through bleary eyes, you know what you might look like as a wax figure in a museum. But as depress-
ing as it might be in the mirror, it’s a nice boost to be included with the likes of Jack the Ripper and Adolf Hitler.
Barry Koltnow, Orange County Register, 13 May 2008

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080513/ENT05/805130330

Yorkshire Ripper Claims His Human Rights Were Breached
Peter Sutcliffe, the 1970s serial killer known as the ‘Yorkshire

Ripper’, has started another legal effort aimed at his release
from prison, citing violations of his human rights. The effort has
been met with outrage by many, including the families of his
victims.
Sutcliffe, 61, was jailed in 1981 after he murdered 13
women and attempted to kill at least seven others in
Yorkshire and Manchester. He will be represented in his free-
dom bid by lawyer Saimo Chahal who says that the Home
Office violated Sutcliffe’s human rights by failing to fix ‘a
tariff for his sentence’ of 20 life sentences with a minimum
of 30 years to be spent behind bars.
However, Ms Chahal, who has made a name for herself in
Peter Sutcliffe
civil liberties cases as a partner in the Bindmans & Partners
firm of London, believes this tariff was never formalised.
Sutcliffe began his sentence in prison but was diagnosed with schizophrenia three years later and was then sent to
Broadmoor Hospital. Ms Chahal intends to have Sutcliffe’s psychiatric condition re-evaluated, with the goal of having
him returned to a regular prison as a first step toward eventual release.
According to a report on the Black Lawyers Directory website: ‘For Saimo this case raises the issue of how we treat
mentally ill people who have committed heinous crimes and she is concerned that there is a huge amount of informa-
tion in the public domain about this case that is simply untrue.’
Ms Chahal was honoured as Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year 2006 for efforts at ‘pushing the boundaries of the law’ to
aid those with mental illnesses’.
news.sky.com, 14th May 2008
Yorkshire Ripper May Appear In Court After Knifing
YORKSHIRE Ripper Peter Sutcliffe will soon be back to court, this time as a witness for the prosecution. He will be
asked to give evidence in the trial of an alleged paranoid schizophrenic, Patrick Sureda, who carried out a frenzied
knife attack upon Sutcliffe at Broadmoor Hospital.
Sureda, 42, is said to have gone after Sutcliffe with a cutlery knife Sutcliffe showing stitches to wounds he received in a January 1983
attack by a fellow prisoner at Parkhurst Prison
on December 22, 2007, while the inmates were eating lunch in the din-
ing hall of Broadmoor’s Dorchester ward. As many as 20 other inmates
watched the attack but took no other action. Sutcliffe received a cut
below the right eye, but his injury was not severe enough to require
hospital treatment.
As a result of the alleged attack, Sureda was charged with ‘attempted
wounding with intent’. No date for the hearing on the charge has yet been
set, but Sutcliffe is expected to give evidence.
If he does appear, it will be Sutcliffe’s first appearance in public for

many years. A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that Sureda has
been charged with attempted wounding with intent.’
This was the fourth attack upon Sutcliffe since he was given 20 life sentences in 1981 for
his 1970s killing spree. The first attack occurred at Parkhurst Prison in 1983 and the other
three happened at Broadmoor, a high security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire. The most seri-
ous attack occurred In March, 1997, when fellow inmate Ian Kay also attacked Sutcliffe with
a knife. The result of that savage assault left Sutcliffe blind in his left eye and with only lim-
ited vision in his right eye.
Sureda was jailed in August 2000 after he murdered his mother in her home in Tooting, South
London. The killing occurred while Sureda was visiting his mother for a weekend from nearby Home Secretary Jacqui Smith
Springfield Mental Hospital. During the subsequent trial, Sureda—the self-proclaimed ‘street
leader of the Tories’—revealed he strangled his mother after he became convinced she was part of a murderous plot
against him instigated by the New Labour party.
Sutcliffe, 61, gained worldwide notoriety for the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven others in
northern England during the 1970s and 1980s. The death spree earned him the sobriquet ‘Yorkshire Ripper’.
Nonetheless, he has made yet another legal bid for freedom, asserting that his human rights have been violated. As
expected, the families of the victims reacted with vehement outrage at Sutcliffe’s latest attempt to gain release from
incarceration.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has said it is “hard to imagine circumstances” in which Sutcliffe would be freed.
Dean Valler, Daily Star, 18th May 2008
Detective Who Nabbed ‘Wearside Jack’ Retires
The detective who caught Wearside Jack has ended his police career.
Detective Superintendent Chris Gregg, the officer who caught ‘Wearside Jack’, has retired. And, he says that convict-
ing John Humble was one the more satisfying moments in the 33 years he served as a member of the West Yorkshire force.
Sunderland resident Humble was sentenced to jail for eight years in 2006 after he admitted to committing four counts of per-
version of the course of justice. His production of hoax material severely delayed the search for the notorious ‘Yorkshire Ripper’
serial killer in the 1970s by turning the attention of the police in a totally wrong direction.
John Humble the self-styled 'Wearside Jack'
Gregg, who closed his career by heading the West Yorkshire Homicide and Major Inquiry
Team, will not be idle in retirement as he has accepted a consultancy to a major foren-
sic services company.
Just last March Gregg won £50,000 in libel damages from Irish writer Noel O’Gara who
had accused him of framing Humble. O’Gara had contended that it was not Humble who
sent letters and a tape recording that purported to be from the Yorkshire Ripper. O’Gara
had claimed that Gregg had tampered with DNA evidence and had further mistreated
Humble during interrogations.
In the March hearing at the High Court in London, however, Mr Justice King entered a
‘summary judgment’ against Mr O’Gara, saying the Irish author had no hope of a success-
ful defence. The Justice concluded that O’Gara had produced no evidence to back up his
claims and ‘no sources, other than his own imagination.’
Sunderland Echo, 21st May 2008

Detectives Believe as Many as 40 Drowning Victims May Have Been Murdered by ‘Smiley Face Gang’
A team of former New York City detectives and other investigators revealed Monday that as
many as 40 young males may have been the victims of a gang of serial killers who leave ‘smiley-
face’ markings near the crime scene.
It is their contention that the victims did not drown accidentally, as believed by other inves-
tigators, but were, in fact, murdered by members of the so-called “Smiley Face Gang”, accord-
ing to television station KSTP-TV in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.
The station, which first reported the story, said that a smiley-face icon was discovered painted
near several of the drowning locations, including those in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin
and Iowa.
“They’re telling you here that they’re into evil, they’re very happy as most serial killers are,” said Kevin
Gannon, a former New York Police Department Detective, at a press conference on April 28. “They’re con-
Chris Jenkins tent with their work and what they’re doing and the fact that they’re thwarting the police.”
It is the belief of the special team assembled to study the cases that a criminal network, national in scope, is respon-
sible for killing at least 40 young men in ten states during the past few years. The victims of this spree have mostly
been young, white males, often with outstanding scholastic and athletic records
To date, 89 separate deaths in the past decade have been investigated and the volunteer team believes there is evi-
dence to connect 40 of them. The evidence adduced for this con-
clusion includes matching sets of gang graffiti.

It was the death of University of Minnesota student Chris Jenkins,
however, that first alerted local police to the possibility these drown-
ing deaths were not accidental. The victim’s body was found frozen in
the Mississippi River, his hands folded on his chest in a manner incon-
sistent with an accidental drowning.

Mr. Gannon and Anthony Duarte, also a former NYPD detective,
as well the other investigators, suspect that a gang of serial killers
is travelling major highways from New York to Wisconsin, finding
and murdering young men and then faking a death by drowning.
Neither the FBI nor local law enforcement agencies are in total
Anthony Duarte
agreement with the investigative team’s findings, particularly in
regard to attributing all the deaths to the work of national gang network. The families of those who lost loved ones in
this manner, however, have long suspected foul play and are very supportive of the investigators’ conclusions.
FOX News, 29 April 2008

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352960,00.html

More Smiley-slay Links Found
Police in Pennsylvania, USA, are re-examining the death Thomas

Booth, 24, whose apparently drowned body was discovered in a
stream in February and are now entertaining the possibility it may be
linked to the so-called ‘smiley-face’ murders of as many as 40 young
men in 11 states.
The reason for the re-evaluation was the recent discovery of a smi-
ley face with a crown painted beneath the Ridley, Penn., bar where
Booth was last seen alive.
In a related event, a white smiley face was found painted on a tree
about 28 miles upstream from where the body of another young male,
Joshua Szostak, was pulled out of the Hudson River near Coxsackie,
N.Y. This latest smiley graffito was discovered by the father of the vic- Messages left at the ‘smiley-face’ murder scenes
tim, who had been a student at Plattsburgh (N.Y.) State University.

Both Szostak and Booth were found without their cellphones. Because of the cellphone connection and other simi-
larities, the parents of Adam Falcon (who was found dead in upstate New York without his phone in 2004 after leaving
a bar) have asked for a federal investigation into what has been dubbed the Smiley-face slayings.
Reuven Blau, New York Post, 25 May 2008
Loretta Lay Books

Over 200 Jack the Ripper and associated titles on the website
STEWART (William) Jack the Ripper 1st edn. h/back £900

DEW (Ex-Chief Inspector Walter) I Caught Crippen 1st edn h/back £450
JACK THE RIPPER CONFERENCE (Wolverhampton Delegates Pack) £20
Barber (John) Camden Town Murder new hb/dw signed £20
Beadle (William) Jack the Ripper: Anatomy of a Myth new hb/dw signed £12
Begg/Fido/Skinner The Jack the Ripper A to Z (2nd printing) hb/dw signed labels :
Begg, Skinner/Rumbelow (wrote Intro’.) £50
MAIL ORDER ONLY Clack (Robert) & Hutchinson (Philip) The London of Jack the Ripper Then and Now new hb/dw + INDEX,
24 Grampian Gardens, signed labels Clack/Hutchinson/Evans (wrote Intro’) £15
London NW2 1JG Furniss (Harold) & Schachner (Thomas) Famous Crimes Past and Present Vol. II (15,16,17,18) facsimile new
softcover, numbered, signed £30
Tel 020 8455 3069
Shelden (Neil Stubbings) The Victims of Jack the Ripper new p/b signed £10
www.laybooks.com
Whittington-Egan (Richard) A Casebook on Jack the Ripper small h/b signed £250
[email protected] Wilding (John) Jack the Ripper Revealed 1st edn h/back scarce £130
Wolff (Camille) Who Was Jack the Ripper? A Collection of Present-Day Theories and
Observations hb/dw reprint with 16 signatures (some labels) £130

Dear Diary
Events of interest near you soon…
15 May to 2 November 2008:

Jack the Ripper and the East End
Daily 10am-6pm Last admission: 4.45pm
The largest exhibition on the Ripper case ever mounted, with various events scheduled:
Sunday 8 June, 2.30pm

‘Where’s Jack?’ The gruesome and highly successful career of the Ripper on screen
Jack the Ripper’s many film appearances are explored by Ian Christie, Professor of Film and Media History at
Birkbeck. Using film clips, he will give a fascinating account of Jack’s screen career. Tickets £7.50, Concessions £5.
Sunday 22 June, 2.30pm

The Jewish East End
Join a fascinating panel of writers and historians for a discussion on the Jewish East End of the late nineteenth
century, chaired by Jerry White, renowned social historian and author of London in the Nineteenth century.
Panellists include Iain Sinclair, author of London: City of Disappearances; Rachel Lichtenstein, author of On Brick
Lane, and Professor Bill Fishman, author, social historian and leading expert on the Jewish East End. Tickets
£7.50, Concessions £5.
25 June
Jack the Ripper and the East End - Guided Walks
Join Denise Allen to look at the women victims, victims of circumstance, social deprivation and the Whitechapel
murderer, on this guided Jack the Ripper and the East End walk. Tickets £7.50, No concessions
5 June, 12 June, 3 July, 17 July, 24 July

The Victorian East End - Lunchtime talks series
A series of Thursday lunchtime talks associated with the exhibition Jack the Ripper and the East End. In each ses-
sion an expert speaker will explore a different aspect of the Victorian East End. All talks free, 1.10-2pm
Museum in Docklands
West India Quay
London E14 4AL
Booking line: 0844 980 2151

General enquiries: 0870 444 3856
www.museumindocklands.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Special/JTR

2—20 June
Spitalfields Festival 2008
Founded in 1976, Spitalfields Festival is now 3 weeks of music concerts and events. The range of music covers
western classical music, early music, right up to the latest sounds. This year’s dates are 2 to 20 June 2008 and
they plan to bring alive a host of East London venues with classical music, cutting-edge contemporary sounds,
jazz, samba, and Bangladeshi music.
Spitalfields in east London is an area of constant change, with a wealth of history and diversity, and surprises
around every corner; where 18th century architecture meets 21st century living; where east meets west.
Spitalfields Festival is one of a kind: more than a music festival, more than a community program.
www.spitalfieldsfestival.org.uk
5th & 6th June at 7.30pm

Jack The Ripper
Transport yourself back in time to the cold dark streets of Victorian London, where terror lurks on every
corner, and each passing night, may well be your last! Join What’s in a Name? theatre company as they re-
enact the grizzly events of that heated summer in 1888, when Jack the Ripper slashed his first victim. With
the accompaniment of an authentic music hall score, the cast contrast the harsh reality of nineteenth cen-
tury working class living, with the lively and upbeat tempos of Victorian nightlife. The show is a culmina-
tion of the Year 2 acting and performance students’ two years of training at Peterborough Regional College,
and is a wonderful blend of menace, murder and musicality. So, follow the tragic trail of his victims, and
walk in the footsteps of a murderer as you enter the dark underground world of the Ripper himself! He’ll
have you smiling from ear to ear!
£8.00 (£6.00 concessions)
Key Theatre
Embankment Road
Peterborough PE1 1EF
Box Office: 01733 552439
www.peterboroughkeytheatre.co.uk/content.php?TSID=19242

Book Reviews
Jack the Ripper and the East End

Edited by Alex Werner
London: Chatto and Windus, 2008
www.rbooks.co.uk h/back, 287pp,
ISBN: 9780701182472
£25
As a book about Jack the Ripper, this title, published as the companion volume to the current exhibition
of the same name at the Museum in Docklands at West India Quay, is probably the worst ever written.
Or it would be if it were about Jack the Ripper. But it isn’t. Instead, it’s a collection of essays about
the East End of London during the last half of the 19th century and as such it is pretty good. But it
seems to me that a book called Jack the Ripper and the East End, which sports ‘Jack the Ripper’ in
inch-high letters on the jacket along with a dominant iconic image of a top-hatted Ripper, should at
least have a chapter about the Ripper. This book doesn’t have one. Not even a very short one. Moreover, with the notable
exception of Richard Dennis, the contributors don’t even seem to have a nodding acquaintance with the subject of the Ripper,
nor does the editor, Alex Werner—who if he had might have been able to prevent the embarrassment of Peter Ackroyd’s lack-
adaisical, error-strewn introduction. So it’s difficult to escape the feeling that these people recognize that ‘Jack the Ripper’
brings in the punters but have such disdain for the subject that they can’t really bring themselves to discuss it. I don’t know
how you want to describe that, but ‘con job’ springs to my mind.
Anyway…
Peter Ackroyd kicks off with an introduction in which you can read about the murder of Annie May Chapman, found dead
in the same area of Spitalfields as Mary Ann Nichols, of how a police superintendent ordered the erasure of the Goulston
Street graffito, how Mary Kelly was murdered in a room in the area where the first killing had happened and how her organs
were strewn around her room, and how Emma Smith had died after a blunt instrument was inserted into her stomach.
There’s brief mention of theories about the identity of the Ripper—Walter Sickert, Prince Albert Victor and ‘a royal physi-
cian called Sir William Gull’, but nothing about more serious candidate. A three-page ‘box-out’ fleetingly mentions more
serious suspects, but doesn’t say who suspected them, when or why! So you can see that there’s a ‘real’ depth of knowl-
edge involved here.
John Marriott, Reader in History and director of the Raphael Samuel History Centre at the University of East London, has
one of the better essays, ‘The Imaginative Geography of the Whitechapel Murders’, in which he argues that the Ripper mur-
ders focused existing social, moral and political concerns about the East End and forever imprinted the Ripper on the East
End landscape, creating a mythic place of ‘Gothic horror, depravity and fearful danger’. Marriott thinks the creation of this
image, which he believes exists to this day, is the real significance of the Whitechapel murders.
It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure that it’s true. A lot of things, ranging from the moral and other concerns raised
by the Bitter Cry of Outcast London (and its predecessors and successors) to the Bloody Sunday march by the muscle-flex-
ing unemployed in 1887, to the activities of the likes of Josephine Butler, Annie Besant, William Booth and Dr Barnardo, had
by 1888 focused attention on the East End and set the stage for Jack the Ripper. To some extent Jack the Ripper came to

represent those fears in a human form, but did the Ripper continue to cast his shadow over
the East End in the decades that followed?
Rather than being a place of Gothic horror, the popular image of the East End for most
of the 20th century seems to me to have been based on its real or imagined criminality. It
was a place of flophouses, opium dens, and low dives where hard-faced criminals sporting
a broken nose or a knife-scarred cheek would hang out. This was where the fence Slim
Charlie ran a crook-filled café (in Will Hay’s 1938 classic Convict 99—okay, Slim Charlie’s
was in Limehouse, but hardly anyone made that distinction back then) or Sid’s Place, a sim-
ilar villain’s dive in the children’s novel Good Work Secret Seven. It was the home of
‘Whitechapel Wilf’, a common thief whom the anything but common Raffles once pretend-
ed to be, and Gideon of the Yard always found his fences and narks in the East End,
usually loitering outside Aldgate tube station. The common image of the East End was cre-
ated less by Jack the Ripper than it was by the common thievery and thuggery of Arthur
Harding, Issac Bogard, the East End Riot, the Coons and the Blind Beggar Mob, and
the events recalled by men like Wensley and Leeson.
Marriott observes in passing that other violent murders had been committed without sur-
viving in the public imagination and he cites the London Monster and the Ratcliffe Highway
murders as examples. The London Monster series weren’t murders of course, but aside
from that the perpetrators, Rhynwick Williams and John Williams, respectively, were
caught and identified (albeit their guilt has been subsequently questioned) and there was no mystery about their identity.
As we all know, the Ripper was never caught and was therefore all the more frightening. Jack the Ripper represents the
unseen horror, the faceless nightmare, the lurker in the shadows against whom we have no protection, and it is this primal
fear of the unknown which perhaps motivated the efforts to provide him with a name, a face, and an
understandable motive. So it’s doubtful that the iconic image of the Ripper has impressed itself on the topography of the
East End, or if it has then it’s probably a recent phenomenon dating from the 1950s or even as late as the 1980s. So, whilst
Marriott’s thesis has a lot going for it, his conclusion probably hasn’t.
Anne J. Kershen, Barnet Shine Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Centre for the Study of Migration at Queen
Mary College, provides a chapter entitled ‘The Immigrant Community of Whitechapel at the Time of the Ripper Murders’.
She opens her essay with the claim that by the time of Annie Chapman’s murder a widely expressed popular belief was that
the murders were so alien that they could only have been committed by an alien (meaning foreigner, not a little green man
from Mars), and that hostility consequently focused on the newly immigrant Jewish community. But the problem is that
whilst newspapers such as Lloyd’s Weekly News (9 September 1888) certainly reported that this sentiment was being
expressed on the streets, they also pointed out that it was caused by the ‘rumours about the individual “Leather Apron”‘.
It is therefore open to question whether the reported anti-Jewish feelings were a manifestation of anti-Semitism or a con-
sequence of the Leather Apron story.
Ms. Kershen later concludes that ‘Perhaps what is remarkable is not that a member of the immigrant Jewish community
was suspected, but that the suspicions were not pursued for any length of time….’
I should point out that in saying a Jew was suspected, Kershen doesn’t have any specific suspect in mind. Indeed, she
seems wholly unaware of Anderson’s Polish Jew suspect, but more of that in a moment. It’s her claim that the Jew-as-the-
Ripper idea was ‘not pursued for any length of time’ that bothers me. I’m not sure what she means by that because the
police seem to have paid special attention to Jews, at one time even specifically searching Jewish residences, and Robert
Anderson came to believe that a Jew was Jack the Ripper, a theory which remains at the forefront of Ripper studies today,
and Jack-the-Ripper-as-a-Jew was used in Nazi propaganda and, regrettably, is used on moronic anti-Semitic websites today.
The contention that the ‘suspicions were not pursued for any length of time...’ could therefore do with explanation.
This aside, Anne Kershen’s essay gives a good basic background to alien immigration and society and is one of the best in
the book. It is also one of the worst essays in the book because Kershen barely makes the effort to link her topic to Jack
the Ripper. She doesn’t mention the Polish Jew suspect or explore anti-Semitism within the police in general or Anderson
specifically. She doesn’t mention Leather Apron or John Pizer or the press use of the Ritter case, or the cry ‘Lipski’ or the

possible significance of a murder beside the Berner Street Club. In fact, one suspects that Anne Kershen knows nothing
whatever about Jack the Ripper and the Jews beyond the general idea that the alien quality of the crimes allegedly sparked
anti-Jewish feeling.
Louise A Jackson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh,
which on the face of it doesn’t seem to qualify her to write an essay about East End policing in the late 19th century, and
one doesn’t feel reassured on learning that her previous publications are about child sexual abuse in Victorian England and
Women Police in the Twentieth Century. Why weren’t Donald Rumbelow and Stewart Evans approached? (Because they’re
not professional academics, perhaps?) As it happens, Jackson’s essay, ‘Law, Order and Violence’, is quite good, although it
is again a general overview of Victorian policing (with slight feminist overtones—‘The Whitechapel murders took place in a
context in which male violence to women was still endemic…’. Moreover, it completely misses the opportunity to discuss
one of the few real legacies left by Jack the Ripper, albeit indirectly: It can be argued that Warren and Monro represented
the almost incompatible policing philosophies of crime prevention and crime detection and that Warren’s resignation
enabled the emphasis to be placed on the latter so that even today the detective reigns supreme.
Richard Dennis, Reader in Geography at UCL and specialist in urban geography, contributes the very best essay in the
book, ‘Common Lodgings and “Furnished Rooms”: Housing in 1880s Whitechapel’. He firmly links his discussion of doss hous-
es and rented rooms to the area of the Ripper murders, discussing in some depth Dorset Street and landlords like McCarthy
and Crossingham. He goes into what properties they owned, what their rents were, and even why McCarthy allowed Kelly
to get into arrears. He clearly has more understanding of how his subject connects with the Ripper, and he’s even done
some research, citing postings to the Casebook by Fiona Rule and a Ripperologist article by Gerry Nixon. Excellent stuff.
Dr Laura Vaughn, Senior Lecturer and Director of the MSc Advanced Architectural Studies at the Bartlett, UCL, and a
member of the Space Syntax Laboratory, provides a short essay, ‘Mapping the East End Labyrinth’, which takes a look at
various maps, such as Charles Booth’s maps of poverty and the Goad Fire Insurance maps, and what they can tell us about
the area.
She subjects these maps to space-syntax analysis and whilst I can only assume that space syntax produces some scintil-
latingly fresh insights into all manner of things, I didn’t come away from this essay with the feeling that space syntax actu-
ally told us anything that hasn’t always been perfectly obvious to ordinary historians.
In fact, I must confess that once or twice I thought that space syntax in this context was a fancy name and technique for
reaching otherwise obvious conclusions. A brief look at Booth’s maps may show that prosperity declined from squares and
avenues to rookeries—‘squares and avenues were more prosperous than thoroughfares, roads and streets, which were more
prosperous than alleys, courts and yards, which were not as poverty stricken as dead ends and rookeries’—but isn’t this such
an obvious point that it’s barely worth making? Who in their right mind would choose to live in an overcrowded, vermin-
infested rookery if they could afford to live in an airy square or a tree-lined avenue?
Two final essays complete the book. Ellen Ross, Professor of History and Women’s Studies at Ramapo College, New Jersey,
provides one of the more interesting essays, ‘“Deeds of Heroism’: Whitechapel’s Ladies’. It has absolutely nothing to do
with Jack the Ripper, which perhaps goes without saying, but is a brief account of the numerous broadly philanthropic
organizations which were based in the East End and the well-to-do philanthropic women who bravely entered the alleys
and rookeries to ‘do good’. That they did this during the Ripper crimes is about the only link with Jack the Ripper, although
there are one or two untapped sources (like the Methodist Recorder) that could add some insight into the lives of the East
End prostitutes and some general colour. I wonder, though, what her sources are for the claim that the area was known as
‘murderland’ and that new locks were put on Hanbury Street lodging houses, the tenants being given new keys.
Clive Bloom, Emeritus Professor of English and American Studies at Middlesex University, rounds the book off with a look
at Jack in movies and fiction, ‘Jack the Ripper: A Legacy in Pictures’, which in a long opening preamble nicely returns us
to John Marriott’s opening essay. That is, Bloom argues that Ripper movies are ‘rarely if ever shot on location’ because the
East End of the movies isn’t the East End of reality. I think the reality probably has more to do with the narrow passages
and courts and the rookeries portrayed in the movies having fallen prey to developers old and new and to the Blitz, to say
nothing of the high costs and general difficulties of filming what have in the main been low-budget movies in London.
Overall, with a different title and a different premise this would be a reasonably good collection of essays about the late
19th century East End, and, of course, the book is liberally illustrated with some fantastic photographs, but if the bottle

says you are buying a 1976 Dom Romane Conti and the contents turn out to be 420 Volcanic you may be disappointed and
very angry (the point being that the first is a very expensive wine and the second is a very expensive bottled water and no
matter how good the bottled water may be, if it ain’t the wine then it ain’t what’s on the label and it ain’t what you were
led to believe you were buying).
Adventures In Paranormal Investigation

by Joe Nickell
Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2007
www.kentuckypress.com
292pp, index, illus, references
$29.95
Joe Nickell is a Senior Research Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a profession-
al debunker, and in this highly readable book he takes the bunk out of 40 assorted mysteries, rang-
ing from alien autopsies to second sight, embracing Patricia Cornwell as he goes in a chapter that
perhaps has rather less to do with her theory about Sickert than with her approach to historical
research—he concludes, ‘Cornwell is well known as a writer of entertaining fiction. She continues
that tradition with Portrait of a Killer.’
The book is great, although Nickell irritates me slightly by his frequent claims to have helped
expose the so-called Maybrick diary as a hoax. He was a member of Kenneth’s Rendell’s team,
hired by Warner Books, to examine the diary back in the early 90s, and which pretty much began
its investigation having already concluded from a reading of an early draft of Shirley Harrison’s
text that it was a fake. Nickell brings up the diary again in this short chapter, claiming that ‘con-
clusive handwriting evidence’ and other suspicious features ‘revealed the diary to be an obvious
forgery’; that Mike Barrett ‘confessed that he had faked’ it using ‘a reproduction Victorian ink’,
and that although Barrett retracted his confession, tests on the ink performed by ‘friend and fellow investigator Melvin
Harris confirmed the presence of a modern preservative’. This is a little disturbing because whilst it isn’t necessarily
wrong, it’s rooted in 1993. Barrett’s confession means nothing, for example, and Harris’s ink tests have been questioned
and this suggests that Nickell hasn’t kept up to speed with the unfolding story.
The same sort of thing emerges here: okay, everyone, even Patricia Cornwell herself, recognises the deficiencies in
Portrait of a Killer, but Cornwell really did no more than many a Ripperologist before her (namely, she tried to build a
case against a suspect) and at least she began with what must have seemed like a solid-gold tip when Walter Sickert
was suggested to her. (It’s odd, isn’t it, how investigations of both Joseph Sickert’s story and Walter Sickert came from
sources at the Yard?) And the case against Walter Sickert isn’t entirely devoid of merit. Walter Sickert had a known
interest in the Ripper murders that it is thought stems from having taken rooms which he said his landlady thought had
been formerly occupied by Jack the Ripper. Further, Sickert depicted the bedroom in a painting, calling the work ‘Jack
the Ripper’s Bedroom’, but we only have Sickert’s word for the story about a previous tenant and no part of it has been
confirmed. Thus, who’s to say that he didn’t invent it to explain his interest, and who’s to say the painting isn’t a con-
fession? And Sickert did write Ripper letters to the authorities, at least according to forensic paper examiner Peter
Bower, who has identified some Ripper letters as coming from the same very small batch as some letters written by
Sickert.
Whether or not the Sickert theory really has a leg to stand on, an investigator, especially a professional debunker
like Nickell, should consider both sides of the coin instead of just his side.

Paul Begg, Robin Odell and Stewart Evans take questions from the audience at
the Museum at Docklands' Who Was Jack The Ripper? event on 17 May.

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What is the purpose of Ripperologist magazine?

What is the purpose of Ripperologist magazine?

What are some of the topics covered in the magazine?

What are some of the topics covered in the magazine?

RIPPEROLOGIST MAGAZINE

Issue 91, May 2008

Features Book Reviews

Editorial Team Consultants Advertising

Adam Wood – Executive Editor

Chris is a Liverpudlian and an avid supporter of Liverpool FC.

Don Souden – Editor

Ripperologist 91 May 2008 1

He was formerly the Executive Editor and is a sometime cotributor to

He has appeared on numerous television programmes about Jack the Ripper in

Eduardo Zinna was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he read

In later years Eduardo lived in New York, USA, Puerto Cabezas,

Eduardo Zinna – Editor at large

Jennifer Pegg – Managing Editor

Ripperologist 91 May 2008 2

Jane has been working on Ripperologist as designer and contributing editor

Jane Coram – Art Director

Chris Scott – Contributing Editor

Wilf Gregg – Contributing Editor

The Beadle Prize

The main problem seemed to be the lack of information for visitors to

Ripperologist 91 May 2008 4

Ripperologist 91 May 2008 5

1 Jack the Ripper: The Simple Truth Bruce Paley

2 Unfortunates Shannon Christopher Privately pub-

3 Birth certificates exist for three of the five Barnett

Ripperologist 91 May 2008 6

4 Billingsgate porters’ licenses are on file in the Guildhall, London EC2.

Ripperologist 91 May 2008 7

‘In Commercial Street. We then had a drink

Mary was, of course, working as a prostitute

5 The Daily Telegraph - 13th November 1888,

Ripperologist 91 May 2008 8

which illustrates life in London’s slums.

Ripperologist 91 May 2008 9

Was she, generally speaking, of sober habits?

9 The Daily Telegraph - 13th November 1888

Copyright Jane Coram

the two broken window panes. The top one would

seem to have been broken by Mary in a quarrel and

the smaller lower one was used to gain entry to the

Mr. George Bagster Phillips, at the inquest stated:

Two panes in the lesser window were broken, and as

the door was locked I looked through the lower of

the broken panes

(See www. casebook. org - Message Board thread:

At the inquest the Coroner asked Barnett:

Did she express fear of any particular individual?

Ripperologist 91 May 2008 11

Copyright Jane Coram

11 Statement made to the police on the 9th November,

12 The St. James Gazette 12th of November 1888,

Ripperologist 91 May 2008 13

The Daily Telegraph of November 10th reported:

Ripperologist 91 May 2008 14

In her statement to the police though Julia says: ‘