The Five
Page 36
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* Before entering a casual ward, tramps often hid or buried their belongings and cash in secret locations, to return for them upon release. This was done to avoid losing valuables, which might be confiscated.
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* Ellen Holland was called Emily Holland, Jane Oram or Jane Oran, and Jane Hodden.
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* Peter Burroughs, “An Unreformed Army? 1815–1868,” in The Oxford History of the British Army,edited by David Chandler and Ian Beckett (Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 173. Cavalry soldiers were paid marginally better than ordinary foot soldiers and at midcentury earned one shilling and three pence per day.
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* With the arrival of a second child and the solemnizing of their union in 1842, Ruth and George also decided to have Annie baptized, on April 23, at Christ Church, St. Pancras.
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* Servants and the working classes consumed low-alcohol beer, or small beer, rather than water, because London’s water supply was considered potentially hazardous. Servants in some urban households were also expected to buy their own refreshments from the local pubs and shops.
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* This address at Montpelier Place was around the corner from Thomas Smith and his wife, who lived at 36 Montpelier Row. George and Ruth do not appear on the 1851 census, but the birth certificate of Miriam in 1851 gives their address as 29 Montpelier Place, confirming that the family had lived here earlier.
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* The Chapmans lived for at least three years at 17 South Bruton Mews, off Berkeley Square (near to Bond Street), as well as at 69 Onslow Mews, behind Onslow Square, in Belgravia, and at 4 Wells Street, off Jermyn Street in Piccadilly. Neither the Chapmans nor the address, 17 South Bruton Mews, appears on the rate books for the period they lived there, which suggests that the property may have belonged to part of a larger holding, which paid rates separately. This would support the suggestion that John was employed by a nobleman—as of yet to be identified.
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* Miriam Smith’s letter asserted that Annie gave birth eight times, though to date, it has been possible to identify seven of the children she bore. The other child may not have been carried to term or was a stillbirth, which didn’t require registration.
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* Caroline Elsbury is cited on the death certificate as having witnessed the death.
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* In 1884, after the death of “Miss Antrobus,” Spelthorne was taken over by the order of St. Mary the Virgin in Wantage, an Anglican convent. Interestingly, this order also had links with the Anglican Sisters of Mercy in Clewer, an organization concerned with the rehabilitation of “fallen” and troubled women. The order had a large presence in Clewer during Annie’s residence at St. Leonard’s Hill, and it is possible that the sisters there offered some assistance or advice in dealing with her behavior.
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* Amelia Palmer was not always reliable in recalling details about Annie’s family, and it’s likely that her in-laws did not live on or near Oxford Street in Whitechapel, but rather on or near New Oxford Street in Holborn. John Chapman’s brother Alfred and his wife, Hannah, were the only members of his family who lived in London, and according to the 1871 and 1881 censuses, they seemed to be settled at addresses in Holborn. When the police made inquiries on and near Oxford Street in Whitechapel, they were unable to find anyone who knew or was related to John Chapman.
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* Some casual wards loosely applied the two-night rule, and the facility at Colnbrook was believed to be one of them.
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* This is now St. Leonard’s Road, New Windsor.
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* Though John did drink, it is questionable whether his decline was due to this habit or another cause, such as hepatitis or a genetic condition. If he did drink excessively, it had not impaired his ability to work, and his extremely vigilant sister-in-law failed to spot any hint of dependency.
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* Phillips was brief about the nature of Annie’s illness because it played no role in her death. His entire (paraphrased) statement was that she displayed a “Disease of the lungs (which) was long standing, and there was disease of the membranes of the brain.” Recently, a number of authors have, without any evidence, stated that Annie suffered from syphilis, because of this mention of damage to the brain. The type of damage that Phillips reported is known to occur in cases of tuberculosis, as the bacteria spread to various parts of the body. If Annie had been exposed to syphilis, signs of brain degeneration, or the neurosyphilis that occurs in the tertiary phase of the illness, would not have appeared for at least ten to thirty years after the initial exposure. There is no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Annie engaged in prostitution as a teen or through her married years, or that she was ever exposed to syphilis.
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* The Brompton Hospital, in Chelsea, treated those with respiratory illness, specifically tuberculosis. It catered to people of all classes, from the rich to the very poor. It’s possible that Annie went there for treatment and Amelia recalled this association.
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* In the past, notwithstanding the wealth of contradictory newspaper summaries of witness statements, those who have written about the murder of Annie Chapman have always selected the versions that support the presumption that all the victims were prostitutes.
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* Donovan was accused by some of the newspapers for having a hand in Annie’s death because he turned her out onto the street rather than extending her credit for her bed.
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* Shortly after Annie’s death, a man was found sleeping rough in the very place where she was killed.
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* The now antiquated term månadskarlhad two distinct meanings: literally it means “a worker who is hired on a monthly basis,” but in western Sweden it was also used to describe a caretaker or manager.
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* It is likely that the person transcribing her answers confused her response with the age at which she had come to Gothenburg.
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* Göteborgsposten,25 September 1888. Also: SE/0258G/GSA 1384-1/D1. Elisabeth’s miscarriage may have been a result of the treatment she received or the disease itself.
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* SE/GLA/13187/P/10. At this time in Sweden, the traditional surname for women, based on a father’s first name and the suffix “dotter,” or daughter, was being gradually replaced with a single version of the family name, with a “son” suffix. Gustafsdotter became Gustafsson.
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* Elisabeth’s name became Anglicized to Elizabeth when she moved to London, and it appears in English records as such from the time of her relocation.
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* Elizabeth Watts had been married to a wine merchant in Bath, but it appears his family disapproved of the union and set about trying to get rid of her. She was placed in an asylum, and her children were taken away from her. Her husband eventually moved to the United States, though she seemed to be under the impression that he had died.
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* “Baby-farming,” as it was called in the nineteenth century, was the practice of accepting the care of an infant or infants while the mother worked. Parents, who paid a small fee for the child to be looked after, often never returned to reclaim it, thereby making this a convenient way of disposing
of an unwanted baby. As the care of the abandoned child eventually outstripped the fee originally paid, a caretaker might find that it was more expedient to let the infant die from neglect or sell the child on to someone else. The practice of baby-farming continued into the twentieth century.
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* After Mary Malcolm gave her testimony, the real Elizabeth Watts, the sister from whom she’d been estranged, appeared. It turned out that she had been living with a new husband (her third), a Mr. Stokes who worked at a brickworks in Tottenham, in North London. She confirmed that she had not seen Mrs. Malcolm in years and that Elisabeth Stride must have been impersonating her. In the course of the inquest it also emerged that her first husband, whom she thought was dead, was actually alive and well in the United States and that Elizabeth Watts was now married bigamously.
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* In 1896 the wrongful conviction of Alfred Beck by witnesses who all incorrectly identified him as the notorious fraudster called John Smith assisted in demonstrating the fallibility of the witness identification procedures used by the police during this period.
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* The question as to whether Elisabeth Stride was murdered by the Ripper or by someone else has long been a subject of debate among experts.
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* This is roughly one pound, seven shillings, and five pence to two pounds, two shillings in about 1820. The sum above accords with the full-time wages Edward Perry was paying in 1842.
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* George Eddowes was the third of twelve children.
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* Both John and William died within a few months of birth. On nineteenth-century birth certificates, the cause of an infant’s demise is often described as “convulsions,” a term that seems to report what a parent observed in the last moments of a child’s life. A different cause appears on John’s documentation: “cyanosis,” a condition caused by abnormalities of the heart, the lungs, or the blood. In the case of a young child, the cyanosis would have been congenital or brought on by external conditions. The sulfur-laden coal smoke of urban industrial districts and the damp, close living quarters sucked the vitality from many adults and children, leaving their weakened lungs vulnerable to respiratory disease.
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* Birth records, the 1851 census, and later, workhouse examinations have the family living at 35 West Street from 1849 until at least 1851, 7 Winter’s Square in July 1854, and 22 King’s Place from roughly April through December 2, 1857.
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* According to the census-taking practice in that year, children were designated as “scholars” if they were “above five years of age and daily attending school, or receiving regular tuition under a master or governess at home.”
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* George J. Barnsby, Social Conditions in the Black Country(Cheshire, UK, 1980), pp. 14–15. Curiously, nearly three-fourths of women under the age of twenty in the industrial regions of the Midlands were employed as servants rather than in factory work, so Kate herself may have been surprised to discover where circumstance had landed her.
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* It is possible that Conway had asthma, a medical condition not properly recognized until the 1960s. It is also likely, as the medical officer’s notes seem to imply, that while in India he had contracted rheumatic fever, which weakened his heart.
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* It is also believed that when Kate returned to Wolverhampton, Elizabeth and William banned her from the house and sent her to live for a short while with her recently widowed grandfather, around the corner.
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* According to the Times, 5 October 1888, Kate was noted for singing. Singing and music were also taught to all pupils at the Dowgate School.
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* Frederick William Eddowes was born at Greenwich Union Workhouse infirmary on February 3, 1877. Kate, who had been claiming she did not have a husband or male partner to support her from the time she first started accepting relief from Greenwich Union, had to continue with this charade by not disclosing the identity of Frederick’s father. If she had given the name of the child’s father, the parish would have pursued Thomas Conway for support (which he was unable to provide) and inevitably discovered Kate’s ongoing deception.
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* Sarah Ann was not so fortunate. She appears to have developed a mental disorder and was removed to an asylum.
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* Wandsworth Prison, Surrey: Register of Prisoners, Series PCOM2 Piece number 284; Wandsworth Prison, Surrey: Register of Prisoners, Series PCOM2 Piece number 288. Kate also appears in the prison records for August 1878 on the same charge, drunk and disorderly behavior. In 1877 she took Frederick, her infant, with her. I am indebted to Debra Arif for this information.
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* Workhouse admission records also indicate that Kate was pregnant during the summer and autumn of 1877 for the sixth time. There is no indication that the pregnancy was brought to term or resulted in a live birth.
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* It’s worth noting that there were in fact two Mill Lanes relatively near to each other: Mill Lane in Woolwich, which ran alongside the army barracks, and Old Mill Lane in Deptford, known as one of the area’s worst slums. On October 17, 1877, Kate was brought into the local workhouse and an unusual note was written next to her entry on the admissions ledger: “pesters Mill Lane.” This likely refers to Mill Lane near the barracks, where a military maternity hospital was located. Kate had recently given birth to Frederick, and it is recorded that he was with her when she was admitted on the seventeenth. In addition to hawking and begging along that road, it is possible that Kate made a nuisance of herself outside the maternity hospital, in hope of receiving charity.
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* Eliza bore three children, two of whom died before maturity.
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* Worcestershire Chronicle, 6 October 1888. It’s also possible that Kelly and Kate met through Charles Frost. Both men claimed to work transporting and selling fruit in some capacity.
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* Although John Kelly claims he was not a heavy drinker, a statement echoed by Frederick Wilkinson, the deputy lodging-house keeper, Kelly’s answers at Kate’s inquest indicate that when he had money, he drank to excess.
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* Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper,7 October 1888. Although these women were able to identify Kate, they were not asked to testify at the inquest, nor did the police, who were searching for a murderer of prostitutes, seem to consider their statements to be important.
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* The autopsy performed on Kate revealed that she was suffering from Bright’s disease. Today this is referred to as acute nephritis and subdivided into three distinct forms, all of which result in significant damage to the kidneys. The disease’s causes are not entirely known; it may be hereditary or brought on by other diseases such as lupus, strep, or other bacterial infections. Symptoms may include exhaustion, blood or protein in the urine, and water retention. In the nineteenth century, the disease was erroneously linked to alcoholism.
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* Unlike the inquests for Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, and Elisabeth Stride, some of the official reports from the coroner’s inquest into Catherine Eddowes’s death have survived.
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* In the course of their wanderings in Kent, Kate had met with a woman calling herself Emily Burrell, who had given her a pawn ticket for a man’s flannel shirt. Bot
h the tickets for the boots and the shirt were kept at Joseph Jones’s shop at 31 Church Street.
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* John’s response to the question about the anomaly of Kate’s early release from Mile End was reported variously in a number of newspapers. In the account in the Timesof October 5, it was said that he didn’t know what the rules were at Mile End and if she could have discharged herself when she liked. It was also suggested that her early discharge was due to “there being some bother at the casual ward.” In truth, John Kelly, as a habitué of London casual wards, would have known very well what was the routine for discharge at Mile End. It is almost certain that he was covering for his own negligence in allowing her to sleep on the streets.
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* Morning Post, 5 October 1888; also, the Times, 5 October 1888.Like so many statements made in the course of the inquests, this one too had been transcribed in a variety of ways. John’s statement has also been written as “I mean that if we had no money to pay for our lodgings we would have to walk about all night.”