The Worst Street In London Part 3

The Russian Government pandered to the anti-Jewish feeling and pa.s.sed a hastily-written act that was designed to remove any of the power and status held by Jews that so upset the rest of the population. This act, known as the 'May Laws' required all Jews to live only in urban areas. Even the owners.h.i.+p or purchase of countryside land was forbidden. In addition, restrictions were applied to Jewish businesses, university quotas for Jews were halved and Jews were no longer allowed to practice professions such as medicine or law.

The May Laws, coupled with the constant fear of violence resulted in a ma.s.s exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe. Between 1880 and 1914, nearly three million Jews emigrated from Russia and her neighbouring countries. Most went to America but 150,000 came to Britain.

Once admitted to Britain, many of the Eastern European immigrants headed for the East End, mainly because there were established Jewish communities there where they could buy kosher food, speak languages they understood and perhaps even meet up with old friends. Spitalfields had a well-established Jewish community by the 1880s and so seemed to be a perfect destination for the newly arrived immigrants. However, not all Spitalfields Jews welcomed the new arrivals.

By the late-19th century, London's Jewish community had created a comfortable niche for itself. Wealthier Jews held office in parliament and were even part of the Royal family's inner circle. Working-cla.s.s Jews had to work no harder than their non-Jewish counterparts in order to make a living. Most importantly, Jews could live in London without fear of anti-Semitism ruining their lives. The arrival of the Eastern European Jews, many of whom were peasant country folk, worried the British Jewry. Many felt their position in society was jeopardised. Others were simply embarra.s.sed by their country cousins. Even the Chief Rabbi urged his counterparts in Eastern Europe to dissuade the population from travelling to Britain. However, their attempts at restricting the amount of Jews arriving at the ports failed miserably.

Although the British Jews were understandably wary of the sudden rush of Jewish immigrants, once the immigrants arrived, they did their very best to help them. In much the same way as the Huguenots had operated 200 years previously, the Jews set up schools, adult education centres and employment agencies to help the new arrivals integrate into English society as easily as possible. Much of this work was funded by established families such as the Rothschilds. However, the sheer numbers of Jewish immigrants flooding into areas such as Spitalfields caused problems with the existing population, mainly because there was already very little room to spare. The Jewish immigrants did their best to cram as many people as they could into the s.p.a.ce available, causing one wit to note, 'give a Jew an inch and he'll put a bed in it; give him two and he'll take in a lodger.'

Chapter 16.

The Controllers of Spitalfields.

By the 1880s, living conditions in Dorset Street and many other roads in Spitalfields had reached an all-time low. The area was vastly overcrowded, extremely poor and largely ignored by the authorities. Unable to take on the labouring jobs available to men, poor, single women fared the worst and as we have seen, many resorted to selling themselves on the street in order to put food in their stomachs and a roof over their head.

The women roamed the badly-lit streets and alleyways of Spitalfields for hours on their nightly quest for bed money. They couldn't afford to be choosy when it came to punters and copious amounts of alcohol helped to dull their judgement. These sad, desperate women were sitting ducks for any man with a s.a.d.i.s.tic streak and a.s.saults were common. However, the autumn of 1888 brought with it the spectre of something much more sinister, that would leave an indelible mark on Dorset Street, Spitalfields and its people for well over a century.

The women who were forced to prost.i.tute themselves tended to live in the roads to the east of Commercial Street plus Dorset Street, Whites Row and further north, the Great Pearl Street area. Due to the distinctly brutal and lawless nature of many of the inhabitants, these roads became known as the 'wicked quarter mile'. Amazingly, it was from this tiny area that virtually every character involved in the Jack the Ripper mystery came.

By 1888, the vast majority of the 'wicked quarter mile' was owned or let by just six families of lodging house proprietors. The area to the north of Spitalfields Market, bordered by Quaker Street, Commercial Street and Grey Eagle Street fell under the control of a man named Frederick Gehringer, who lived in Little Pearl Street. Gehringer, who was from German stock, also ran a very successful haulage business from his premises and no doubt had business connections at nearby Spitalfields Market. In addition to this, he also ran the City of Norwich public house in Wentworth Street.

The southern end of Brick Lane was largely run by longstanding resident and erstwhile greengrocer Jimmy Smith and his son (also Jimmy), who resided for much of the 1880s in their common lodging house at 187 Brick Lane. Jimmy Smith Junior was to become one of the most influential figures on the streets of Spitalfields. As a young lad, he had shown the enterprising side to his nature by setting up a small coal dealers.h.i.+p, selling mainly to the residents of nearby Flower and Dean Street (where he rented a coal shed). Realising that many residents were too weak to carry the coals back to their rooms, he offered a delivery service, thus enabling him to sell the coal at quite an inflated price.

By the time he reached adulthood, Jimmy Smith had also gained a reputation for being the man who 'straightened up the police', especially when it came to illegal street gambling. Local resident Arthur Harding remembered Jimmy's antics thus: 'The street bookies gave him money to share out among the different sergeants and inspectors and they relied on him to keep out strangers. He had a good team against anybody who caused trouble. He was the paymaster the police trusted him and the bookies trusted him. He was a generous man, always good for a pound when anybody was hard up. He was the governor about Brick Lane.'

After the Cross Act-induced slum clearance at the western end of Flower and Dean Street, the remaining slums and lodging houses were run by Jimmy Smith's sister Elizabeth and her husband Johnny c.o.o.ney, who lived at number 54. These lodgings were among the most notorious in Spitalfields and it was common knowledge that many operated as brothels. Like Fred Gehringer, c.o.o.ney also had interests in the beer trade and ran the Sugar Loaf in Hanbury Street. The pub was a popular meeting place for music hall artistes not least because it was frequented by c.o.o.ney's cousin, the most famous music hall star of them all Marie Lloyd.

The lodgings in nearby Thrawl Street and George Yard were controlled by Irishman Daniel Lewis and his sons. Little is known of the Lewis family. They had close links with the Smith and c.o.o.ney clans and may even have been related but this cannot be confirmed.

Dorset Street, by this time the worst street of the lot, was presided over by another Irishman the ex-Borough resident Jack McCarthy and his close friend and colleague, William Crossingham, an ex-baker from Romford in Ess.e.x. Jack McCarthy had endured an impoverished childhood on the streets of The Borough but his entrepreneurial spirit had enabled him to climb out of the gutter at a relatively early age. While working in the building trade as a bricklayer, he supplemented his income by dealing in old clothes and then used the money to set himself up as a letting agent of furnished rooms along Dorset Street and in Miller's Court. As more money was earned, McCarthy progressed from agent to proprietor and by the time he was 50, owned a considerable amount of slum property throughout the East End.

Probably through his fellow landlord Johnny c.o.o.ney of Flower and Dean Street, Jack McCarthy became involved in the Music Halls. His involvement in the theatre inspired his offspring and he became the founder of quite a theatrical dynasty, which included music hall celebrities, variety performers and even a Hollywood star (of which more will be written later.) Jack McCarthy also developed an interest in boxing and, together with the Smith family of Brick Lane, was involved in the organisation of prize fights in the London area. These fights proved to be extremely popular and attracted hundreds of spectators eager to gamble their hard-earned cash in the hope of backing the winner. However, the fights did not pay particular attention to the Queensberry Rules and the gambling that was inherent to the event was illegal. As we have seen, Jimmy Smith was adept at bribing the local Spitalfields police to turn a blind eye to his exploits; however, officers from further afield were more difficult to handle. Consequently, fights held outside the Spitalfields area often received unwanted attention from the local constabulary.

In 1882, Jack McCarthy and Jimmy Smith's brother Richard were involved in an ugly confrontation with the police during an illegal prize fight they had organised at St Andrew's Hall in Tavistock Place. Both men were arrested and eventually found themselves in front of the judge at the Middles.e.x Sessions House in Clerkenwell. Although neither man could deny they were present at the fight, Jimmy Smith managed to persuade Sergeant Thicke of the Whitechapel Division to give both men glowing character references, thus saving them from incarceration. Instead, McCarthy was fined and Smith (who had a.s.saulted a policeman during the fracas) was bound over to keep the peace and made to pay 5.

The final man who exerted control over the mean streets of Spitalfields was Jack McCarthy's neighbour and business a.s.sociate, William Crossingham. Like most of his fellow landlords, Crossingham was not native to Spitalfields and had been brought up in semi-rural Ess.e.x before coming to London in his early twenties to work as a baker. After a stint of living in Southwark (possibly where he first met McCarthy), Crossingham married and changed his career to lodging-house keeper. He enjoyed a close relations.h.i.+p with the McCarthy family for many years his daughter married McCarthy's brother, Daniel but always maintained a link with his birthplace; he moved back to Romford in the early 1900s but retained an interest in Dorset Street until his death.

Being a landlord of some of the most notorious properties in London required a fearless temperament combined with shrewd business sense. In this, the Spitalfields landlords did not disappoint. They were hard men who had no qualms about forcing their tenants to live in often filthy, degrading and hopeless conditions. They thought nothing of forcing the sick, elderly and infirm out onto the street if they had insufficient money for a bed. They remained unmoved as desperate women were forced to prost.i.tute themselves in order to pay their rent. However, as the State offered absolutely no a.s.sistance to those on the bottom rung of society, the landlords also provided an invaluable service. Were it not for the common lodging houses, many Spitalfields residents would be forced to sleep rough every night. The neighbourhood recognised this and consequently the landlords enjoyed grudging respect from their tenants and more importantly, the freedom to run their businesses as they pleased with little or no interference from the authorities.

A feature of the Spitalfields landlords was the additional services they provided for their tenants. Both the McCarthy and the Smith families ran general shops close to their lodging houses that sold all manner of essentials, from soap to string, at highly inflated prices. These shops operated long hours and were in many ways the forerunners of today's corner shops. They were generally open every day (except Sundays) and many only closed for a couple of hours (at around 2am) before opening again to catch the market porters on their way to work. These long hours meant that members of the family would take it in turns to work in the shop and, while McCarthy and Smith's children were small, local people were employed to help out.

As we have seen, another service provided by the lodging house keepers was that of the public house. There were an incredibly large number of pubs in Spitalfields during the latter part of the 19th century. Dorset Street alone had the ma.s.sive Britannia at the Commercial Street end, the particularly rough Horn of Plenty at the Crispin Street end and the Blue Coat Boy slap bang in the middle. The Blue Coat Boy was a relatively small concern when compared to the gin-palace grandeur of some East End pubs but it held the honourable distinction of being the only building along Dorset Street that never changed usage.

Built during the halcyon days of the silk weaving boom, the pub was run by a variety of owners and landlords throughout the 19th century. In 1896, it was sold to the City of London Brewery for the princely sum of 2,000. By this stage, the pub was beginning to show irreparable signs of decay and in 1909 was torn down and completely rebuilt. It survived another 20 years before falling victim to the London County Council's redevelopment plans for Spitalfields Market. The Britannia pub was run for a large part of the 19th century by the Ringer family, who let the upper floors as furnished rooms and eventually took over the building next door. These properties became collectively known as 'Ringer's Buildings' and over the years played host to some particularly suspicious tenants including a couple of spinsters who appear to have run a brothel comprised of under-age girls.

While the general shops and public houses provided an additional (and legal) revenue stream for the Spitalfields landlords, other opportunities presented themselves that were not so above board. As we have already seen, the very nature of the landlords' clientele meant that opportunities to fence stolen property, run protection rackets and pimp for the local prost.i.tutes existed in abundance.

As each Spitalfields landlord bought up more property and expanded his miniature empire, divisions began to appear on the landscape. This was primarily due to the latest influx of Jewish immigrants. All of a sudden, the Irish (including McCarthy, Lewis and c.o.o.ney) were no longer the new kids on the block. While some Irishmen joined forces with their old enemies the English in order to make the newly arrived Jews feel as unwelcome as possible, many agreed it was less trouble to try to get along with their new neighbours. However, cultural differences meant that by the end of the 1880s, Spitalfields was far from an integrated society.

The Jews, believing there was safety in numbers, began to heavily populate the streets to the south of Dorset Street such as Butler, Freeman, Palmer and Tilley Street. Rothschild Buildings was only let to Jews. Thus, all the non-Jews that had previously lived on these streets got pushed north towards the market and the common lodging houses became unbearably overcrowded. Displaced youths became furious at the Jews for taking over what had been their homes and roads such as Dorset Street became so full of anti-Semitic feeling that some Jews couldn't walk past the end of the road without being called 'Christ killers', let alone venture down it.

As these new divisions embedded themselves within Spitalfields' society, youths began to form gangs, partly out of mutual distrust, partly for their own safety. Admission rules to the gangs were strict: the Jews only accepted Jews; the Irish c.o.c.kneys only accepted non-Jews. Gang members were fiercely protective of their own kind and socialising between the two factions was strictly prohibited. Heaven help any Irish girl who became friendly with a Jewish boy as both would be ostracised by their respective peers. However, these gangs often tired of racial warfare and began to look for other forms of entertainment, one of which was ha.s.sling, robbing and sometimes violently a.s.saulting the local prost.i.tutes.

Whether English Protestant, Irish Catholic or Eastern European Jew, all the gang members held a pretty dim view of the local prost.i.tutes. This was not without cause. Far from being exotic ladies of the night such as were found further west, the vast majority of Spitalfields prost.i.tutes were middle-aged, rough women. For many, a love affair with alcohol had driven them away from their families to a life living hand-to-mouth in the common lodging houses. Needless to say, these were not women who commanded respect from any quarter. They plied their trade in and around the pubs and most 'tricks' comprised taking their client up the nearest alley for a 'fourpenny touch', thus earning themselves enough money for a lodging house bed or another hour in the pub.

Many chose the latter option. Some women took up with thieves and lured unsuspecting clients down dark pa.s.sages to be promptly robbed by their accomplice. Others worked for brothels that specialised in charging hugely inflated prices for services rendered. Any punter that protested was robbed, threatened with violence and thrown out, sometimes without his clothes.

Part Three.

INTERNATIONAL INFAMY.

Chapter 17.

Jack the Ripper.

Due to their unsavoury profession and dishonest ways, the Spitalfields prost.i.tutes seemed fair game for the gangs of young men. However, sometimes their taunting of the women went much further. On 8 December 1887, Margaret Hames, a prost.i.tute from Daniel Lewis's lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street was plying for trade when she was set upon by a gang of men who beat her so badly on the face and chest that she was admitted to Whitechapel Infirmary and wasn't released until after Christmas. Four months later, her neighbour Emma Smith suffered a worse fate...

Emma Smith was a 45-year-old alcoholic who, like so many other Spitalfields women, had resorted to prost.i.tution in order to fund her habit. At the time of the attack, she had been living at Lewis's lodging house for about 18 months. On the evening of 2 April 1888, Emma left her lodgings on her usual quest for money and alcohol. By the early hours of the next morning she had made her way to the Whitechapel Road and as she ambled down the thoroughfare, she noticed a group of men outside Whitechapel Church. Naturally wary of male gangs, Emma crossed the road to keep her distance but the men turned and followed her. By the time she had reached the corner of Osborn Street, the men had caught up with her. En ma.s.se, they violently a.s.saulted her, beating her around the face and ripping her ear (possibly in an attempt to steal her earrings). The a.s.sailants then took away her money and as a parting gesture, rammed an unidentified blunt instrument into her v.a.g.i.n.a with such force that it ruptured the peritoneum and other organs. Satisfied with their work, they turned and left, leaving Emma bleeding and trembling on the pavement.

Although in utter agony, Emma had the presence of mind to try to get back to her lodgings where she could be a.s.sured of help and unbelievably, she managed somehow to stagger the short distance to 18 George Street where she was met by the deputy, Mary Russell. Mrs Russell was so horrified by Emma's injuries that she decided to take her to hospital immediately and enlisted the a.s.sistance of another lodger named Annie Lee. Once at the hospital, Emma was seen by the house surgeon, Dr h.e.l.lier and immediately admitted. Sadly however, peritonitis had set in and she died of her injuries the following day.

Considering the rough and constantly dangerous atmosphere that pervaded Spitalfields, it is interesting to note that the press thought the murder of Emma Smith, who was, after all only a common prost.i.tute, notable enough to report on. In fact, the murder made the front page of Lloyds Weekly News on the Sunday following her death, suggesting that, despite its dreadful reputation, Spitalfields was not host to as many incidents of extreme violence as one might have expected.

Emma's murder no doubt had a profound effect of her fellow prost.i.tutes, not least because the attack seemed to be completely random. But as the women still had to eat and find shelter each night, they had little choice but to risk taking to the streets unless they could afford their own room in one of the many ramshackle houses, which, of course, cost more than a bed in a lodging house. One way of affording a private room was by getting a boyfriend who could not only pay half the rent, but could also offer some degree of protection should the need arise. Recognising the benefits of such a set up, many prost.i.tutes paired up with any man that would have them.

Some time in January 1888, one such prost.i.tute arrived in Dorset Street and made her way to Jack McCarthy's shop. Claiming her name was Mary Kelly, she introduced her male companion as her husband and asked if McCarthy had any suitable rooms to let.

Mary Kelly was unlike the majority of her colleagues inasmuch as she was a good twenty years younger than most of them and was reasonably attractive. Brought up in Wales, she had married very young (about 16) to a man named Davis who worked at the local coal mine. However, soon after their marriage, Davis was killed in a pit explosion and Mary was left to fend for herself. She went to Cardiff and, with her cousin as a companion, got sucked into prost.i.tution.

After a stint on the streets of Cardiff, the bright lights and wealthy punters of London's West End beckoned and Mary moved to the capital, taking up residency in one of the many brothels that existed close to the theatres and night life. Whilst working there, she met a man who made her an offer she couldn't refuse.

During the mid-to-latter part of the 19th century, there was a huge demand for English girls to work in brothels across the channel. The ports of Boulogne, Havre, Dieppe and Ostend had large English communities and were also, of course, a stop-off point for sailors. Consequently, an equally large number of brothels or 'maisons de pa.s.se' existed in these towns and English girls were much in demand to work in them. The only problem was that very few girls wanted to go and work across the Channel, in a land where they didn't understand the language and were far away from their friends and family. In a bid to satisfy the burgeoning demand (and to line their own pockets) the brothel owners resorted to nefarious methods of procuring English prost.i.tutes.

Men and women representing the brothels were sent to London with the instruction to use any means necessary to entice new girls over to France. Some procurers posed as wealthy gentlefolk looking for below-stairs staff to join them on a trip to the Continent. Others were more direct, explaining that although the establishment they represented was a brothel, the girl could expect to earn so much money that, once they had their fill of Continental life, they could return to England and set up their own business (such as a cafe) with their earnings.

In reality, the maisons de pa.s.se were little more than open prisons. The girls that worked in them were given board and lodging in return for services rendered to their clients, but the fabulous earnings they had been promised never materialised. Worse still, once a girl entered a maison de pa.s.se, she found it extremely difficult to leave. Every prost.i.tute in the house was watched closely at all times. They were not allowed out of the house unless chaperoned. In all probability, it was to such a house that Mary Kelly was taken.

Of course, the girls incarcerated in the maisons de pa.s.se dreamed of escape and the lucky ones (including Kelly) managed to run away, usually by enlisting the help of one of their clients, without whom they could not evade the beady eye of the chaperone. This obviously meant that a great deal of trust had to be placed on the integrity of the man and no doubt some girls were betrayed. However, if a good relations.h.i.+p existed between girl and client, it was possible to plan an effective escape. Once away from the brothel, most of the escaped girls were forced to rely again on the generosity of their client or the mercy of the British Consul in order to gain safe pa.s.sage back to England.

Mary Kelly only stayed in the maison de pa.s.se for a few weeks before returning to London. However, once back in the capital, she considered it too dangerous to return to the West End for fear of b.u.mping into one of the procurers. Consequently, she eschewed the comparative comfort and safety of Theatreland in favour of the rough, poor and dangerous East End Docks.

After staying at several addresses around St George in the East, Kelly became one of the girls at a house of ill-repute in Breezer's Hill; a mean side street just off the Ratcliffe Highway. The house at Breezer's Hill catered almost exclusively for sailors as it was within very easy walking distance of the north quay of the London Docks. The road it stood in was (and still is) very short and contained only four houses. The rest of the street was taken up with warehouses in which the goods from the s.h.i.+ps were stored.

No records exist that reveal who was running the brothel at Breezer's Hill during the time Mary Kelly stayed there. However, by the time the national census was compiled in 1891, the head of the household was one John McCarthy, a 36-year-old dock labourer. McCarthy was living in the house with his wife Mary and three female boarders, all of whom are described as 'unfortunate', a Victorian euphemism for a prost.i.tute.

The fact that Kelly had two landlords named John McCarthy over the period of approximately three years could, of course, be pure coincidence. Indeed, no conclusive evidence exists to confirm that both Johns were part of the same family. However, circ.u.mstantial evidence suggests that they were related, probably cousins and both working for the same 'firm'. Firstly, both John McCarthys were brought up in the mean alleys that ran off Borough High Street in Southwark. Secondly, they lived (or had lived) a ten minute walk away from one another in the Docks. Thirdly, both John McCarthys let (or sub-let) their properties to prost.i.tutes. In addition to this, John (known as Jack) McCarthy of Dorset Street had several business interests in this part of town and it is quite possible that, in the mid-1880s, Breezer's Hill was one of them. Finally, as will become apparent very soon, Jack McCarthy's (of Dorset Street) behaviour towards Mary Kelly suggests that she was not a complete stranger to him.

As is still the case today, the profession of prost.i.tution was peripatetic and during her time in St George's, Mary Kelly moved around, sometimes living with boyfriends, sometimes going it alone. During this time, there were two significant men in her life: a man named Morganstone, with whom Kelly lived near the Stepney Gas Works and one Joseph Flemming, a mason's plasterer who lived on Bethnal Green Road.

By early 1887, Kelly had left the brothel in Breezer's Hill and was plying her trade up and down Commercial Street, no doubt servicing the market workers that proliferated in that area. It was here that she met the man who was to become a significant figure in her life: Joseph Barnett was a fish porter at nearby Billingsgate Market. He had lived in and around Spitalfields all his life and evidently had few qualms about taking up with a girl who made a living from getting intimate with other men.

Barnett and Kelly's courts.h.i.+p was brief. When they first met in Commercial Street, Barnett took her for a drink in one of the local pubs and the pair arranged to meet the next day. Days later, they agreed that they should live together. This decision was most probably made out of necessity on Kelly's part; Barnett had a steady job with enough wages to allow her a break from prost.i.tution. There is little doubt that l.u.s.t was a deciding factor for Barnett.

The pair immediately took lodgings in George Street, the street that was also home to Margaret Hames and Emma Smith. Due to the proximity of their homes and the fact that these two women shared the same profession as Kelly, it is likely that the four were at least on nodding terms with one another.

For the remainder of 1887, nothing further is known of Kelly and Barnett's movements. No doubt they, like everyone else in the street, were shocked at the violent attack sustained by Margaret Hames that December. However, whether this precipitated their move to Dorset Street remains a mystery.

By the time Kelly and Barnett showed up on Jack McCarthy's doorstep, they had been living together for ten months. Although they were not legally married, they presented themselves as man and wife to keep up appearances. McCarthy had learned not to ask too many questions about prospective tenants anyhow. Barnett's steady job combined with Kelly's attractiveness and previous experience in prost.i.tution made the couple a comparatively safe bet when it came to letting them a room. No doubt McCarthy reasoned that even if Barnett should lose his job, his 'wife' could raise sufficient funds to pay for the room herself. He may even have seen Kelly as a potential educator in the ways of the world for his fourteen-year old son. Whatever, his reasons, McCarthy decided to keep Kelly and Barnett close to his own home at 27 Dorset Street. So close that he could see their comings and goings from the back room of his shop.

McCarthy offered Kelly and Barnett the back room of the house next door to his. This house (officially known as number 26 Dorset Street) had been built at the same time as number 27. Originally designed for the long departed silk weavers, its Mansard roof had large windows that threw light into the attic in which once stood the weaver's loom. When the silk weavers left in the early 1800s, the house had been home to a variety of people including locksmiths, painters, coal porters and slipper makers. In the 1860s, the house was purchased by a Jewish gla.s.s blower named Abraham Barnett.

Barnett worked hard and built up his business until he was able to move west to the leafier, more salubrious surroundings of Maida Vale. However, he kept hold of number 26 Dorset Street as an investment and by 1880, had let the property out to John McCarthy. When necessary, McCarthy used number 26 as an extension of his own home, allowing friends and family to stay there. In 1881, his friend and business a.s.sociate William Crossingham's step-daughter Alice lived there with her first husband and children and ten years later, McCarthy's younger brother Daniel lived there with his new wife while they were waiting to move into their own home.

Whether McCarthy selected number 26 for Kelly and Barnett because he knew them is a moot point. The fact remains that early in 1888, the young couple moved into the back parlour at a rent of 4/6 per week. Their room was quite small, measuring little more than 10-foot square. Nowadays, letting agents would describe it as having character because it retained original features such as wall panelling and a working fireplace, complete with surround. Back in 1888, this room would simply be described as old. It had two windows, which overlooked what had once been the back garden but for many years had been two rows of cottages either side of a narrow alley known as Miller's Court. What had originally been the back door to the house was now the only means of access to the room because McCarthy had nailed up the interior door, thus blocking any means of escape for tenants who couldn't afford to pay their rent. Because the door to the room was down the alleyway, McCarthy decided to rename it 13 Miller's Court.

Like most of the rooms down Dorset Street, 13 Miller's Court was spa.r.s.ely furnished, the main pieces of furniture comprising an ancient bed and two rickety tables. The fire was multi-purpose, acting as a room heater, a cooker, a storage cupboard and a clothes drier. Over the mantelpiece hung a cheap print ent.i.tled 'The Fisherman's Widow'. The floorboards were bare and clothing was hung at the windows in place of curtains. The door had a lock that was most probably a relic of better days; no one renting the room in 1888 would have possessed anything worth stealing. This was Mary Kelly and Joe Barnett's new home.

While Mary and Joe were settling into their new premises, events in their erstwhile home, George Street, took a turn for the worse. On 7 August 1888, John Reeves, a waterside labourer, left his room at 37 George Yard Buildings in the early hours of the morning. Like so many of his cla.s.s, Reeves regularly left home at this time in order to join the queues of men at the Docks hoping to be picked to help unload the s.h.i.+ps. As he reached the first floor landing, he came across a horrifying discovery. At his feet lay the body of a woman in a pool of blood.

Reeves immediately ran out into the street to find a policeman and quickly returned with PC Thomas Barrett who in turn sent for Dr Killeen, who lived nearby in Brick Lane. Dr Killeen arrived quickly, examined the body and p.r.o.nounced life extinct. The woman had been victim to a frenzied knife attack, the like of which had rarely been seen before. In total the body had 39 stab wounds, one of which had pierced the heart. That wound alone would have been sufficient to cause death. G.o.d only knew what had been going through the perpetrator's mind as he had clearly lost all control when inflicting the wounds on the poor woman.

One of the saddest aspects of this horrific murder was that for some time, no one seemed to know who the victim was. Three women viewed the body but each one gave a different name. Eventually, the body was identified by Henry Tabram of River Terrace, East Greenwich, as that of his estranged wife, Martha. His wife had left him many years ago and he understood that she had long since been earning her living as a prost.i.tute. Henry Tabram's identification was further confirmed by a Mary Bousfield, otherwise known as Mrs Luckhurst, of 4 Star Place, Commercial Road, who had been Martha's landlady for a period of time after she left her husband.

As time went on, Martha's final movements became known. Immediately prior to her death, she, like Margaret Hames, Emma Smith and, until recently, Mary Kelly and Joe Barnett, had been living in George Street (number 19). As her estranged husband suspected, when money was tight, she worked as a prost.i.tute in order to pay the rent. Until three weeks before her death, she had been living with her long-term partner Henry Turner. Their reasons for splitting up are unclear, but it appears that Turner was the one that moved out. Police found him renting a bed at the Victoria Working Men's Home in Commercial Street; a popular residence for local men who were single. One would a.s.sume that Turner would be the major suspect in the murder enquiry, but it appears he must have had some sort of alibi as the police apparently spent very little time interviewing him.

As time went on, the police a.s.signed to the murder inquiry despaired of ever finding the killer. Like the murderers of Emma Smith, Martha Tabram's a.s.sailant seemed to have vanished into the East End smog, leaving behind no clues to their ident.i.ty. However, their despondency was temporarily lifted on 9 August when a prost.i.tute named Pearly Poll (real name Mary Ann Connelly) appeared at the police station.

According to Pearly Poll, she and Martha had picked up two soldiers on the night of the murder. One was a corporal, the other a private. She did not know what regiment they belonged to but remembered they both had white bands around their caps. The foursome spent a short amount of time together and then each couple went their separate ways. Pearly Poll took her man up Angel Alley but did not know where Martha was planning to take her conquest. Either the soldiers never told the women what their names were or Pearly Poll had decided not to divulge them.

Spurred on by this new and important witness, the police hurriedly set up an identification parade at the Tower of London (the closest barracks to Spitalfields). In the line-up were all privates and corporals who were on leave on the night of the murder and the police were optimistic that they would secure a positive identification of at least one of the men. They were however to be disappointed. Pearly Poll decided not to turn up for the first parade and it took two days and the involvement of the CID before she was found. A second parade was organised and this time Pearly Poll did show up, but immediately discounted all the soldiers because they didn't have a white band around their caps.

Undaunted, the police tracked the uniform Pearly Poll described to the Wellington Barracks and organised another parade. This time Pearly Poll picked out two men. However, the two soldiers she identified had cast-iron alibis for the night of the murder. The police were back to square one and their unreliable witness fled to Dorset Street where she disappeared into one of the many overcrowded, anonymous lodging houses, never to be heard of again apart from a brief appearance at the inquest. Left with no clue, no motive and no other witnesses, the murder inquiry ground to a halt and the inquest jury were forced to return a verdict of wilful murder against some person, or persons unknown.

Pity the police of H Division. Not only did they have to contend with law enforcement of a district renowned for its lawlessness, they now had two unsolved, and particularly violent, murders to deal with. At a time when forensic science was in its infancy, the chances of bringing a murderer to justice when there were no witnesses and no clues left at the scene of the crime were virtually nil. But their already difficult and frustrating job was about to get worse. Much worse.

On 31 August, less than four weeks after the Tabram murder, a carman named Charles Cross was on his way to work along Buck's Row, just off the Whitechapel Road, when he noticed something lying across a gateway that looked like tarpaulin. As he got closer, he realised it was the body of a woman. As Cross approached the body, he was joined by another carman named Robert Paul who was also on his way to work. The two men knelt down by the body to get a closer look. It was still dark and difficult to see. Cross felt the woman's hand, which was cold and told Paul, 'I believe she is dead'. Paul put his hand over her heart and thought he could detect breathing, albeit very shallow.

After deciding against moving the body, the two men went to get help and soon found PC Mizen on his beat in nearby Baker's Row. The three men returned to Buck's Row and found another policeman, PC Neil, already there. PC Neil felt the woman's arm and noticed that it was still quite warm above the elbow, suggesting that the woman had not been dead long. Indeed, there was a very slim chance that she was still alive. Dr Llewellyn, who lived nearby on the Whitechapel Road, was fetched without further ado and came immediately. However, by the time he arrived, whatever little life may have been left in the woman was now extinguished and she was p.r.o.nounced dead.

While arrangements were being made to move the body to the mortuary, PC Neil went to the nearby Ess.e.x Wharf to ask if anyone there had heard any sort of disturbance. No one had.

The woman's body was taken on an ambulance (in those days, a stretcher on wheels) to the mortuary, where Inspector Spratling from H Division took a description of the deceased and then began a thorough examination of the body in an attempt to find a clue to the perpetrator. As he lifted up the woman's skirts he made the most horrific discovery. The woman had been disembowelled.

Inspector Spratling's discovery made it clear that the murder was unlikely to be the result of a domestic dispute or a disagreement over payment for services rendered. Poor Martha Tabram's injuries had been horrific enough, but they paled in comparison to the damage inflicted on the latest victim.

Understandably convinced that no one could be disembowelled on a London street without anyone noticing, the police began an exhaustive search of the area surrounding the murder site. PC Thain was sent to examine all the premises close by while Inspector Spratling and Sergeant G.o.dley searched the nearby railway embankments and lines and also the Great Eastern Railway yard. As with the two previous murder sites, nothing that looked even remotely like a clue could be found. Stranger still, no one in this densely populated part of the metropolis seemed to have seen or heard anything untoward. A policeman who had been on duty at the gate of the Great Eastern Railway yard, only about 50 yards away from where the body was found, had neither seen nor heard anything suspicious.

Emma Green, who lived opposite the murder site and was awake at the estimated time of the murder hadn't heard any sound. Neither had Mrs Purkis, a neighbour who had also been awake since the early hours of the morning. The employees of Barber's slaughter-yard, a mere 150 yards away from the murder site, had neither seen nor heard anything that could be described as unusual or suspicious. Even the police, who were still reeling from having to deal with the violent death of Martha Tabram, had failed to notice anyone or anything that might be connected with the terrible, savage attack.

With no witnesses and no clues left at the scene of the crime, the police turned their attention to the victim's ident.i.ty, in the hope that it might help them catch her murderer. Items of her clothing bore the mark of the Lambeth Workhouse so the police made enquiries at this establishment and found out that the woman's name was Mary Ann Nichols, commonly known as Polly.

Polly's story echoed that of Martha Tabram. She had been married to a man named William Nichols, a machine printer, for some years. However Polly developed alcoholism and in consequence, the couple split up about nine years before she died. To begin with, her husband paid her an allowance but in 1882, he discovered she was working as a prost.i.tute and so the payments stopped.

From that time on, Polly drifted through various workhouses throughout London until 12 May 1888, when she was offered a position below stairs at a house in Wandsworth. This new job, which later turned out to be Polly's last opportunity to get her life back on track, did not work out and on 12 July, she absconded from the house, taking 3-worth of clothing with her. Like so many of her kind, Polly then found herself in the rookeries of Spitalfields, taking nightly beds at common lodging houses in Thrawl Street and Flower and Dean Street.

On the night of 30 August, Polly was seen plying her trade on the Whitechapel Road, a popular haunt of streetwalkers. At around midnight, she visited the Frying Pan public house in Brick Lane for some liquid refreshment and then visited one of her preferred lodging houses at 18 Thrawl Street where she tried to secure a bed for the night unsuccessfully on account of the fact that she had spent all her money in the pub. The last time Polly was seen by anyone who knew her was at approximately 2.30am on the morning of 31 August when her friend and fellow lodger Ellen Holland encountered her on the corner of Osborn Street; pretty much the exact spot where Emma Smith had been fatally a.s.saulted four months previously. Ellen Holland found Polly to be very drunk but determined to obtain the money for her bed and the two women parted company. Polly set off in the direction of Bucks Row. Just over an hour later, she was dead.

The police were once again baffled regarding both the killer and the motive. Polly had no money, so it was inconceivable that she was the victim of a violent robbery and all her friends and family said she was an affable person who had no enemies.

Clutching at straws, the police re-interviewed anyone who they considered to be the slightest bit suspicious. Suspects included workers at the nearby slaughterhouse in Winthrop Street and an odd character named John Piser, commonly known as 'Leather Ap.r.o.n'. Piser was well known among the Spitalfields prost.i.tutes' fraternity because he regularly tried to blackmail the women and would a.s.sault them if they didn't comply with his requests. The press, who by now were beginning to see the opportunities for increased circulation in reporting on the murders, leapt on the Piser story and virtually convicted the man before he had even been interviewed by police.

Not surprisingly, Piser went to ground and when police eventually found him (on 10 September) it turned out that he had a cast-iron alibi for the night of the Nichols murder. The police were back to square one, this time with the added problem of unwanted attention from the press. Polly Nichols' inquest did not shed any further light on either murderer or motive, despite interviewing virtually anyone who had any sort of connection with the murder. The jury was forced to reach a verdict of 'wilful murder against some person or persons unknown' for the third time in little over four months.

The three murders that had occurred in Spitalfields during the first eight months of 1888 had brought a lot of unwelcome attention to the lodging houses and furnished rooms of the area. So far, most attention had been given to the residents of George Street, Thrawl Street and Flower and Dean Street because they were the roads in which the victims had resided prior to their untimely deaths. Consequently, the residents of Dorset Street had gone relatively undisturbed. Landlords McCarthy and Crossingham were no doubt relieved that this was the case as they would have benefited from the relocation of erstwhile residents of the victims' lodgings who were keen to avoid police interest at all costs. This is not to say however, that anyone who avoided the police did so because they were involved in the murders.

On the contrary, although Spitalfields was notorious for its lawlessness, murder (particularly that of a woman) was rare. The tenants of the lodging houses, although considered the lowest of the low by the chattering cla.s.ses, were no doubt horrified that such violence was being perpetrated on their doorstep. In addition to this, their livelihoods were threatened by the murders; since the murder of Polly Nichols, the police were more vigilant than they had ever been before, thus making the crimes of theft and burglary more difficult. The prost.i.tutes' job had become fraught with danger too and the women were more wary of strangers, until they were too drunk or desperate for a bed to care.

Throughout August 1888, Crossingham and McCarthy reaped the benefits of the migration away from the east side of Commercial Street, blissfully ignorant of the fact that within a matter of days, they too would become embroiled in what the press had now christened the 'Whitechapel Murders'.

At about 2am on 8 September, Timothy Donovan, the deputy in charge of William Crossingham's lodging house at 35 Dorset Street was visited by one of his regular lodgers. Annie Chapman (otherwise known as Siffey) was 45 years old. Like Martha Tabram and Polly Nichols before her, she had left her husband at the beginning of the 1880s, the break-up being precipitated by her addiction to alcohol. Since that time, Annie had wandered aimlessly through life (unknowingly with a potentially fatal disease of the brain) until she found herself on the streets of Spitalfields. Timothy Donovan was well acquainted with Annie. According to him, she had been working as a prost.i.tute for well over a year and had become a regular at 35 Dorset Street some four months previously.

Annie's reason for seeing Donovan on the 8th was to try to blag a bed for the night, despite the fact that she had no money to pay for it. Donovan was well used to pleas for mercy such as this and refused. However, he did allow her to have a rest in the communal kitchen before resuming her hunt for punters. As she left, Annie told him not to let the bed as she would be back soon. It was the last time Donovan saw her alive.

About four hours after Annie had left Crossingham's lodging house, John Davis stepped out of the back door of a crowded, terraced house he shared at 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields and got the shock of his life. Lying at the bottom of the back steps was the body of a woman. Fearing the worst, Davis stumbled back through the house and out into Hanbury Street where he found two men on their way to work at Bailey's packing case factory, which was situated a few doors away. The two men followed Davis down the side pa.s.sage of the house, took one look at the body and immediately went to fetch a policeman, telling several colleagues about their gruesome discovery on the way.

The men ran up Hanbury Street and soon found Inspector Joseph Chandler, who was on duty in Commercial Street. Inspector Chandler returned to the yard with the men. He found quite a few neighbours and pa.s.sers-by loitering in the pa.s.sage, but thankfully, all of them seemed too scared to approach the body in the yard. Seeing that the woman was either dead or dying, Inspector Chandler wasted no time in sending for the Divisional Surgeon, Dr Bagster Phillips, who lived in Spital Square.

Once the doctor was on site, it became obvious that the woman had been violently and ruthlessly a.s.saulted. Her throat was deeply cut and she had been disembowelled, just the same as Polly Nichols. Unlike Nichols however, her internal organs had been savagely hacked and strewn around her corpse. Following a closer examination, it was found that some organs, including her womb and part of her bladder, were missing, presumably taken away as trophies by the murderer.

Still reeling from the shock of this latest brutal slaying, the police set about attempting to identify and apprehend the perpetrator, hoping they would meet with considerably more success than last time. They interviewed all the residents of number 29 Hanbury Street and searched their rooms. When nothing incriminating was found, they widened their search to the surrounding houses and sent officers to all common lodging houses in the area to find out if any of the deputies had admitted anyone that morning who either looked suspicious or was acting strangely. Again, nothing. Usual suspects were rounded up and interviewed, prost.i.tutes were questioned, statements were examined and re-examined. Nothing yielded any clue. The Whitechapel Murderer had claimed another victim. And this time, Dorset Street was right in the thick of the police enquiry.