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Jack the Ripper Walking Tour
JACK THE RIPPER HISTORY
THE TRUE STORY
CLICK HERE FOR JACK THE RIPPER TOUR DATES AND BOOKINGS.
With the Jack the Ripper Tours you will find that most of our competitors want
to take your money before they'll give you any information about the London Walking
Tours they offer. We like to be different. In the pages that follow you will
find an account of the major events that surrounded the mystery of the Whitechapel
murders. You can see the police officers whose names you will hear in the course
of your walk and see pictures of the poor, unfortunate victims. The reason we
do this is that we want you to enjoy your Jack the Ripper tour and so we honestly
believe that it is best that you are conversant with the full history of the
Whitechapel murders before you join our London walk. This way you will not be
bombarded with facts that you might not remember and which might not mean anything
to you. As they say, 'forewarned is forearmed' so by becoming familiar with the
major facets of the Jack the Ripper history you will be in a far better position
to ask questions and to understand how every piece of the puzzle slots in to
place.
Although Jack the Ripper was not the world’s first serial killer, he was
certainly its first media murderer. His crimes took place in an era when literacy
amongst the general populace was increasing and the press at large was very much
a catalyst for social change. Articles about the murders appeared in the newspapers
on a daily basis and fostered a general fascination that, at times, bordered
on hysteria. Indeed, the very name “Jack the Ripper” was probably
the invention of a journalist and it was press coverage that helped turn the
murders into a phenomenon and transformed a sordid back street killer into
an international legend.
THE FIRST JACK THE RIPPER MURDER
It all began at around 3.40am on August 31st 1888, when a carter
named Charles Cross was making his way along Bucks Row Whitechapel,
when he noticed a bundle
lying in a gateway. Presuming it to be a tarpaulin, and thinking that it might
prove useful, he went to examine it. As he got closer he froze in horror when
he saw that it was in fact the body of a woman. As he stood rooted to the spot
he hear footsteps behind him and turned to see another Carter, Robert Paul,
approaching. "Come
and look over here," said Cross, "there's a woman lying on the pavement."
It was with a great deal of trepidation that the two men bent down to examine
the woman. She was lying on her back, her skirts pulled up almost to her stomach.
Nervously, Cross felt her hands and found them to be cold. "I believe
she's dead," he told his companion, who was crouching over her, trying
to hear whether or not she was breathing. She wasn't. But when he felt her
breast he
thought he detected a slight movement. "I think she's breathing" he
exclaimed, "but very little if she is." Paul wanted to sit her up,
but Cross demurred and refused to touch her. Late for work and not wishing
to lose anymore time, the two men attempted to pull down the woman's skirts,
and
went on their way intending to inform the first police officer they encountered
of their discovery. What neither man had noticed, however, was that her throat
had been cut so savagely that her head had almost been severed from her body.
That discovery was made by PC John
Neil as he walked his beat along Bucks Row at approximately 3.45am.
He had passed the site thirty minutes earlier and noticed nothing out
of the ordinary. This time he found the body,
and with
the aid of
his lantern was able to examine the woman more closely than Paul and Cross
had been able to do. He told the subsequent inquest into her death that he
noticed "blood
oozing from a wound in her throat. She was lying on her back, with her clothes
disarranged. I felt her arm, which was quite warm from the joints upwards.
Her eyes were wide open. Her bonnet was off and lying at her side, close
to the left
hand..."
Moments later Neil noticed PC John Thain passing a nearby street, and flashed
his lantern at him to attract his attention. " Here's a woman with her throat
cut", he called across, "run at once for Dr Llewellyn." As Thain
hurried off to fetch the medic, PC Mizen, who had been alerted by Cross and Paul,
came hurrying to the scene, and Neil despatched him to summon an ambulance. Llewellyn
arrived soon afterwards, and following a cursory examination, told the officers
to "move her to the mortuary. She is dead, and I will make a further examination
of her there." The body was duly lifted onto an ambulance and taken to the
mortuary in Old Montague Street. It was there that Inspector Spratley, whilst
taking down a description of the deceased, lifted her skirts and discovered something
that everyone had so far missed. Beneath her blood soaked clothing, a deep gash
ran along her stomach - she had been disembowelled. Jack the Ripper’s
reign of terror had begun.
The woman was Mary Ann Nicholls, a forty - three - year - old prostitute,
who had been ejected from her lodging house just two hours earlier, because
she
didn’t
have the money to pay her rent. “I’ll soon get my doss money” ,
she had confidently predicted, “See what a jolly bonnet I’ve got..” That
bonnet now lay trampled and bloodstained in a Whitechapel gateway.
ANNIE CHAPMAN THE SECOND OF JACK THE RIPPER'S VICTIMS
In the week that followed the murder, the press began to publish
lurid and sensational stories. They had wrongly blamed
two earlier killings, that of
Emma Smith on
3rd April 1888 and of Martha Tabram (or Turner as she was
also known) on the 6th August 1888 on the murderer of Mary Nicholls.
They had even come
up with
a possible suspect in the form of a man whom the local prostitutes
had nicknamed “Leather
Apron” and whom, they were claiming, had been making violent threats toward
them, including that he was going to “rip them up”. Unfortunately
they didn’t know his name, couldn’t provide an
address and the only description they could give was that
he habitually
wore a leather
apron
and that
he sometimes wore a deerstalker cap.
Just such a man was seen at 5.30am on 8th September 1888,
talking to prostitute Annie Chapman, in Hanbury Street. At
around 6am
market porter,
John Davis,
went into his backyard at 29 Hanbury Street and discovered “dark Annie’s” mutilated
body. Her dress had been pulled up around her knees, exposing
her striped stockings. A deep cut had slashed across her
throat; her
intestines
had been tugged out
and laid across her shoulder. Missing from the body were
the uterus and part of the bladder. The contents of her pocket
were found
lying in a
neat pile
near to the body. The brass rings that she had been wearing
at the time of her murder,
had evidently been torn from her fingers and were never discovered.
And, just a few feet away from the body, there lay a folded
and wet leather
apron.
Since the leather apron was the standard garment worn by
a wide range of Jewish workers from butchers to tailors,
the
finding
of just such
a garment
in the
backyard of 29 Hanbury Street, coupled with the frenzy that
was being created by the press,
caused the neighbourhood to erupt into anti - Semitism. Innocent
Jews were attacked by angry mobs claiming that no Englishman
was capable
of committing
such murders.
The media frenzy would come to an end on the 10th September,
when Sergeant William Thick went round to 22 Mulberry Street,
and arrested
thirty
- six - year old
John Pizer maintaining that he was “Leather Apron”. Pizer, however
had cast iron alibi’s for the nights of both murders
and was quickly eliminated from the enquiry.
In the streets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, the intensification
of police activity had seen a dramatic downturn in the crime
rate. There
were newspaper
reports that “ a dreadful quiet has descended onto the East End of London”,
and by the end of September people began to wonder if the murders had come to
an end. With the last day of September just two hours old the “beast of
Whitechapel” had proved them horrifyingly wrong by
murdering twice in less than an hour.
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS CONTINUE
At around 1am on 30th September 1888, hawker Louis Diemshutz, returned
to Berners Street, having spent the day hawking cheap jewellery
at Crystal Palace.
As he
turned his pony and cart into the yard of the Jewish
Socialist Club at number 30 Berners Street, the pony suddenly reared
in alarm
and pulled to the left.
Looking around to find what had distressed the animal,
Diemshutz saw what appeared to be a pile of clothes lying on
the ground. He poked at them with
his whip and
then lit a match. The flame flickered for a brief moment
before being extinguished by the breeze. But in that brief seconds
light Diemshutz saw that it was
the body of a woman, and he ran for the police.
The woman’s name was Elizabeth Stride (sometimes known as “Long Liz
Stride”) and her throat had been slashed. But the
fact there were no mutilations to the body led the police
to conclude
that
the murderer
had been
interrupted
as he went about his bloody business. Is it possible
that, as he stooped over his victim, the cart entering
the yard
had disturbed
him, causing
him to move
back quickly into the shadows? Perhaps it was this sudden
movement that had startled the pony? And, with Diemschutz
distracted
by his grisly
find, the
killer had
slipped quickly and quietly away, as the news of another
murder and the ensuing frenzied excitement, helped cover
his escape.
JACK THE RIPPER WALK THE NIGHT OF THE DOUBLE MURDER
At around 8.30am the previous evening PC Louis Robinson
of the City Policehad arrested forty - six - year
- old, Catharine Eddowes
on Aldgate High
Street and charged her with being drunk and disorderly.
She was taken to Bishopsgate
police
station, placed in a cell and left to sober up.
As Elizabeth Stride was meeting her murderer, Catharine
was heard singing
and was deemed
sober
enough for
immediate release. Leaving the station at around
1am, she turned to the desk sergeant
and spoke her last recorded words “Cheerio me old cock” she
called, and stepped out into the early morning. At approximately
1.35pm three Jewish
men
were leaving the Imperial Club at 16 - 17 Duke Street.
They noticed a man and a woman talking with one another
at the
corner of Church
Passage.
One
of the
three, Joseph Lawende, would later give the police a
detailed description of this mystery man and maintain
that the woman
whom he saw was
definitely Catharine
Eddowes.
At 1.45am PC Watkins walked his usual beat into
Mitre square and, by the light of his bull’s - eye lamp, discovered her mutilated body. He would later
state “I have been in the force for a long while but I never saw such a
sight. The body had been ripped open, like a pig in the market.” If
the killer had been denied his satisfaction of mutilating
the body of Elizabeth Stride, his appetite had been more
than sated
on the
unfortunate Catherine
Eddowes. Her
body lay on its back, head turned toward the left shoulder.
The throat had
been cut back to the spine; the lobe of the right ear
was cut through; a V had been
cut into her cheeks and eyelids; the tip of the nose
was detached; her
abdomen had been laid open; the intestines tugged out
and laid over her shoulder, while
missing from the body were the uterus and left kidney.
The murderer had then left the scene and headed off into
the
Streets of Spitalfields.
We know this
because, on this one night, the beast of Whitechapel
would leave behind him a tantalising clue.
Let us put his escape that morning into context.
There had been an earlier murder in Berners Street.
Word
was spreading throughout the neighbourhood
that the beast
had struck again. All the police activity now centred
on flushing him out and hunting him down. Yet,
having murdered
Catharine Eddowes, he did not
escape to
the relative safety that he might find West of
the district, but instead, went straight into the
area
where the activity
was directed toward his apprehension.
He could have only escaped if, as he went through
the neighbourhood, he fitted in. In other words
he was
not thought suspicious,
or out of place, by those
who
may have seen him.
THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE ON THE WALL
In Goulston Street there still stands a sturdy
building that in 1888 provided accommodation
for Jewish traders
who dealt in second
- hand clothes on
Petticoat lane or traded shoes at the footwear
market on Wentworth Street. Known as
The “Wentworth
Model Dwellings”, it was here in a doorway, at 2.45am , that PC Alfred
Long discovered a section of Catherine Eddowes apron. There were bloody finger
marks on it and it was evident that the blade of a bloodied knife had been wiped
clean upon it. This clue, tells us exactly where the murderer was heading, and
confirms the theory that he was an East - Ender living in the area. But the doorway
also contained a much more famous and, subsequently promoted, none clue. For,
scrawled in chalk on the wall above the apron, was the message “The Juwes
are the men That Will be blamed for nothing” (although several observers
remembered slightly different wording to the Graffito). Sir Charles Warren, the
metropolitan police commissioner, fearful of a resurgence of the anti - Semitism
that had swept the neighbourhood in the wake of the “Leather Apron” scare,
ordered that the message be rubbed out, and it was duly
erased at 5.30am before a photograph could be taken of
it.
THE JACK THE RIPPER LETTERS FROM HELL
On the 1st October 1888 the Daily News published
a letter which had been received by the head
of the Central
News
Agency on 27th September. Dated
25th September
1888 the letter read:-
Dear Boss
I keep on hearing the police have caught
me but they wont fix me just yet. I have
laughed
when
they look
so clever
and talk about
being on the right
track. That joke about Leather Apron gave
me real fits. I am down on whores and I
shant
quit ripping them till I do get buckled.
Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady
no time
to squeal.
How
can they catch
me now. I love
my work
and
want to start again. You will soon hear of
me with my funny little games. I saved
some of the proper red stuff in a ginger
beer bottle over the last
job to write with but it went thick like
glue and I cant use it. Red ink
is fit
enough I
hope ha ha. The next job I do I shall clip
the ladies ears off and send to the police
officers just for jolly wouldnt you. Keep
this letter back till I do a bit more work,
then
give it out straight. My knife’s
so nice and sharp I want to get to work right
away if I get a chance.
Good luck.
Yours Truly
Jack the Ripper
Don't mind me giving the trade name wasnt good enough to
post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse
it.
No luck yet. They say I’m
a doctor now ha ha.
With the publication of this letter, the
murderer was given the name that would launch
him into
legend. A
name that
would become so well known the
world over
that the very mention of it, even to those
who have little knowledge of the actual murders,
could summon
up vivid
images of gas lit, foggy streets and
of an unknown
terror stalking the night shadows on a murderous
and chilling quest. The legend of Jack the
Ripper
was born.
On the 16th October 1888 Mr George Lusk,
president of the Whitechapel Vigilance
Committee sat
down to his dinner
table. A small cardboard
box was delivered
in the evening mail. Opening it he discovered
a letter addressed “From Hell” and
wrapped inside it, half a human kidney. The letter read:-
Mr Lusk
Sor
I send you half the Kidne I took from one
women prasarved it for you tother piece
I fried and
ate it was very
nise I may send you the bloody knif that
took it
out if you only wate a whil longer
signed
Catch me when you can
Mishster Lusk
But did either letter actually come from
the murderer? The “Jack the Ripper” letter
certainly did not. Indeed several of the senior Police officers maintained that
the letter was the work of an “enterprising London journalist” with
one adding that the journalists identity was “known to senior Scotland
Yard detectives”. And the Kidney, according to
the City pathologist Dr Sedgewick Saunders was unlikely,
as had,
and
has, been claimed,
to be the one
removed from Catharine Eddowes. Indeed he declared that
the fact the Kidney was sodden in alcohol suggested that
the
Kidney had
come from
a hospital
dissecting room, where it would obviously have been preserved
in Spirits of alcohol
MARY KELLY THE LAST OF THE VICTIMS OF JACK
THE RIPPER
In the aftermath of the “Double Event” police activity intensified
throughout early October. The “Jack the Ripper” correspondence had
led to great media speculation. The East End was in the grip of panic coupled
with a grim curiosity that saw morbid crowds gathering at the murder sites to
speculate on the killer’s identity and motives.
As the Star of the East informed its readers:
" The district of Whitechapel and Aldgate is.. in a state of ferment and
panic. All night long there have been people in the streets,
standing round coffee stalls
and at other points.....talking of the .latest horrors,
and even the men seemed to be in a state of terror. Extra police have patrolled
the streets.. and the
police authorities... have come to the conclusion that
publicity
is
the greatest aid to the detection of the perpetrator.. and all
information is cheerfully
imparted to the Press.”
Despite lurid rumours and several scares,
the intensification of police activity
appears to have deterred the “Ripper” and
October passed with no further murders, although the atmosphere
remained tense. As one newspaper article
pointed out:-
" The police were nervously apprehensive that the night would not pass without
some startling occurrence. The most extra-ordinary precautions
were taken in consequence, and so complete were the measures adopted..
that it seemed
impossible for the murderer to make his appearance in the East
End without detection.
Large bodies of plain - clothes men were drafted to the
Whitechapel district from other
parts of London, and these, together with the detectives,
were so numerous that in the more deserted thorough - fares almost every
man met
with was a police
officer..”
And thus, November 1888 was ushered
in on a wave of panic and terror that
held
the
Streets
of
the East
End in a
steely grip.
At 2am
on the 9th November
George
Hutchinson met twenty - five- year
- old Mary Kelly on Commercial Street.
She cheerfully
asked him
for sixpence,
to which Hutchinson
replied
that even this
amount was beyond his modest means.
She
laughed, told him she’d “just
have to find it some other way” and continued to the junction with Thrawl
Street, where she met with another man. Hutchinson saw the two chat a little,
then watched as Mary led the man into Dorset Street, where they entered her room
in Miller’s Court. Forty five minutes later neither had emerged from the
room and Hutchinson left the scene. Shortly before 4am several of Mary’s
neighbours were woken by a cry of “Murder!” but
all chose to ignore it.
At 10.45am when Thomas Bowyer called
to collect her overdue rent and discovered
her body.
She lay upon
her bed, her
head turned
to the left.
The whole
of the surfaces of the abdomen and
thighs had been removed and the abdominal
cavity
emptied. The breasts had been cut off,
the arms mutilated by several jagged
wounds
and
the face
hacked beyond
recognition. The uterus
and the kidneys,
together
with one breast, were found beneath
her head. The other breast lay by her
right
foot. The
liver had
been placed
between
her
legs, and
the spleen
by
the left
side of the body.
The murderer had left the tiny room in Miller’s Court and disappeared into the early morning. What no -one gazing upon the body of poor, unfortunate Mary Kelly could have realised was that, in the blood-bath of Millers Court, the Ripper’s reign of terror would end as suddenly and mysteriously as it had begun. As he left the bloody scene in that tiny room that morning, the Whitechapel Murderer may have performed his swansong, but the legend of Jack the Ripper was only just beginning.
We hope you have enjoyed this history
of the Jack the Ripper murders and we hope to soon welcome you onto
our world famous tour.
If you would like to delve further into this fascinating mystery you
may be interested in our exciting new DVD 'Unmasking Jack the Ripper.'
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