The Jack the Ripper Location Photographs: Dutfield's Yard and the Whitby Collection

by Hutchinson, Philip

  Larry Lingle was a child of the depressed 1930s in the Southern States of America. He lives out his retirement in Houston, Texas, having graduated with a History Masters and later running a gay bookshop. Today, he supplements a meagre income by selling original and unique photographs on eBay under the name ‘linglelobo’, an occupation he has been undertaking for over a decade. Most of his sales are images with an historic connection; either press syndicated professional shots from the first half of the twentieth century or vast amounts of early carte de visites from the time of the American Civil War. He also buys old photograph albums at auctions and sells the images within individually.

  Thus it was that, at 2:09am GMT on 13 November 2007, Larry listed an auction with the banner heading ‘1890s PHOT SCENE OF INFAMOUS WHITECHAPEL MURDERS LONDON’. The auction listing read as follows : ‘Vintage, original silver gelatine photograph, 3.5” x 4.5”, of a street in the Whitechapel area of London in the 1890s, scene of the infamous series of murders of prostitutes, some of which at least were connected with Jack the Ripper. In very good condition.’ The image alongside it was small and not instantly recognisable as anywhere well-known in the Ripper case. Buildings were visible in the background and there were many people crowding around the camera, leaving a space in the middle to look down the street or alley in which they were standing. It just appeared to be yet another unidentifiable East End location.

  Larry Lingle at home with his bassets (Courtesy Larry Lingle)

  Nevertheless, my interest piqued, I placed a single bid on the photograph at the opening price of $4.95 (the equivalent of £2.44 in 2007). When it closed overnight on the 20 November I had been the only bidder and thus became the owner of whatever the image was. I paid the nominal shipping sum and within two weeks a hardback envelope had arrived from Larry.

  The picture within had clearly been formerly affixed to a photograph album because of the small amounts of rough, cream paper still adherent to the reverse. When seeing it for the first time, something instantly looked familiar but I could not equate it with the rest of the image. Something about the arrangement of the buildings in the background made me sure I had seen a location very much like it before. It looked like drawings I had seen from the period of Dutfield’s Yard, running at the side of 40 Berner Street – the site of the murder of Elizabeth Stride (presumably by Jack the Ripper) at approximately 1 am on 30 September 1888. At this point, however, I just thought it a coincidence and had decided that the sale of the image linking it to the Whitechapel Murders was nothing more than a sales pitch (some sellers on eBay put Jack the Ripper in the banner heading simply because the item they’re selling dates from 1888 and may not even have any connection to London, let alone the case). There were several reasons for doubt at this stage.

  Mortuary photograph of Elizabeth Stride (Courtesy Stewart P. Evans)

  Some things did not match some of the line drawings from the time of the murders, reproduced in the likes of the gratuitous Illustrated Police News and The Penny Illustrated Paper. The staircase at the rear of the picture was not in the same place in which it was sometimes seen in illustrations. There was only one door on the right hand side of the buildings stretching away from the photographer, yet most of the sketches showed a series of doorways. Most oddly of all, this alleyway appeared to be far longer than one would expect Dutfield’s Yard to be.

  Dating the Image

  I could not really get a handle on the exact date of the photograph, so I contacted Dennis Weidner who is the webmaster of a US-based site dealing with boys’ historical clothing, as several boys were in the image and one was facing full-length into the camera. Dennis’s reply indicated that he felt the image dated to the late 1890s because of the mix of long and short trousers worn by the boys in the photograph. His knowledge on clothing styles is such that he knew shorter length trousers worn with stockings became fashionable in the UK during the final years of Victoria’s reign. However, he pointed out that one boy wearing a cap on the right, standing a few people down from the camera and looking away into the yard, was wearing long trousers. A much closer inspection of the image, however, revealed that this was actually a grown man (bearded!) with knarled hands that just happened to be quite short and was wearing a style of cap one would expect to see more often on a child. Thus, I concluded that no boys in the image were wearing full-length trousers. Likewise, the younger girls in the image are identifiable by their calf-length skirts, a fashion deemed unthinkable for adult women in such an age of prudery. Finally, Dennis suggested that amateur exterior photography was quite rare before the 1890s, although it was known to exist if the photographer was fairly affluent. It is likely that the matter would have rested at that point had I not continued corresponding with Larry Lingle.

  Larry informed me that he still had the majority of the album from which the photograph had been extracted. Three photographs (one of an Italian street urchin, one of the site of the Guillotine in Paris and one of the actor Anton Lang) had already been sold to other buyers and it is now very unlikely these will ever be found. However, most of the album was still in his possession. Some of the pages had been torn out, awaiting auction listing, and these were no longer in any order. Several photos had been removed from their backing in the album. I arranged to purchase the rest of the album from Larry for a respectable but sensible sum and this was delivered in late December 2007.

  Tower Bridge, from the album

  Her Majesty’s Horseguard, from the album

  Two things within the album instantly informed me that the Dutfield’s Yard image was taken between 1894 and 1901. Firstly, there is a photograph of Tower Bridge in use. The bridge was not opened until 1894. Secondly, there is a photograph of a Horseguard, identified by military historian Peter McClelland as being from The Royal Horseguards and 1st Dragoons (now better known as the Household Cavalry Regiment Mounted). Peter pointed out that the presence of a rifle would date this to the time of the Boer War and the type of sword scabbard just visible to the rider’s left was replaced in 1902. More telling was the fact that the owner of the photograph album had, in antiquity, written ‘Her Majesty’s Horseguards’ on the page, clearly dating the image to no later than 1901 with the death of Queen Victoria and the Royal line then continuing with King Edward VII. This album page has been lost, but Larry had written the wording on the back of the photograph pending auction listing.

  All this detective work came to fruition when, much later in the album, I found the (now empty) page that had once held the missing photograph of the actor Anton Lang. In very faded ink at the bottom of the page was the words ‘Anton Lang, Christus of Oberammergau Passion Play 1900’. Lang, a potter, was almost certainly the best-known of all the many actors who have played the role of Christ at the world-famous German event, consisting of a cast of local people, over the many years it has taken place. He played the role several times in the early 20th century in 1900, 1910 and 1922. Thus the date of 1900 was virtually confirmed.

  Anton Lang

  The Album

  The album containing the photographs is now extremely fragile. It measures 8” x 6.5” x 1.25”. The cover is very brittle and is made of board, backed with a white cotton weave and fronted with a dark brown knobbled and textured veneer. The spine is missing but traces of the same veneer still exist where it once lay. It is held together with three round-headed pins on the front face of the album. The back has warped and appears to have some water damage. A label is affixed to the bottom left corner of the inside back page, reading ‘MFD BY THE HEINN SPECIALITY CO. MILWAUKEE, WIS. BADGER ALBUMS’, with the number ‘642’ stamped in red ink in a small cartouche beneath. The whole album gives off a curious strong scent of sherbet.

  The front of the photograph album

  The Heinn label in the album

  The paper inside, cream but yellowing with age, is dry, thick and textured, similar to the paper one would find in a scrapbook today. The binding is still tight in spite of the damage to the album. It consisted o
f 82 pages and only the last 12 pages are unused. The last nine photographs clearly date to a later period than the rest of the album, as they are all postcard-style, on card with white borders. The last nine images are also American in origin, whereas all the other images (save the first in the album) were taken throughout Europe.

  Reconstruction of the album was a slow process. Thankfully, nearly all the images from the European tour had explanatory notes (sometimes extensive) on the pages if the photograph had been removed. All matched with tears on the paper or with an explanation of the subject. Once these had been grouped and reglued, the loose pages were replaced in their original locations. This could only be achieved by comparison of the tears close to the binding and on the pages themselves. Thankfully, all of them had slight deviations which made accurate matching easier.

  Once this process was completed, it was discovered that only one sheet of the album was missing. That sheet was the page from which the Horseguards image had come. There was no sign of the image that would have once been affixed to the other side of the sheet and this initially gave rise to some curiosity. The preceding images had come from the photographer’s time in London, and the next complete sheet continued in Ireland. Was the missing image a London photograph and, if so, did it have a connection to the Whitechapel Murders? Such possibilities were brought to an end when, in early 2009, Larry discovered the missing image and forwarded it to me – a street scene in Dublin.

  This made a total of 58 remaining photographs of the European section of the album. The photographs were all centred on their pages and appeared to largely (but not exclusively) be in some kind of order, generally grouped by country – and there were many countries covered. Most of the images had taken on a strange yellow-purple-brown tint over the years. Silver gelatine prints are known to be unstable and liable to alter their hues, sometimes fading completely. Indeed, several of the prints in the album had faded a great deal, whereas others retained their full tonal range in spite of the general colour shift. Thankfully, the important photograph falls into the second category.

  The photographs were on thin photographic paper and all appeared to have been carefully cut by hand, mostly being of slightly different sizes. Initially, I had suspected that the photographs had previously been kept in a different album with apertures for viewing the images as many of the photos had thin lines of the print flaked off a little way from the edges. I later discovered that each section of damage corresponded exactly with the placing of the print on the page next to it. This is because the photographs were originally glued on their backs right up to the edges and small amounts of adhesive had clearly seeped over the rear face of the photographs and touched the front of whatever was placed on top of, or below, it. Sadly, this also affected the main photograph in the series and it took a great deal of work with editing software to repair these faults. The tiny flakes pulled from the image in antiquity are still affixed to a photograph of St James’s Park on the opposite page. Unfortunately, the Dutfield’s Yard image appears to have suffered more damage in this way than any other photograph in the album.

  Detail of damage to the Dutfield’s Yard photograph

  It is generally agreed by all who have seen the photographs that they were taken with an early Box Brownie, with a fixed length lens. All the images are clear and sharp except when subjects are very close (two metres or less) from the camera.

  Authentication of the Image

  Initially, I informed a small circle of Ripper and East End historians known to me personally about the possible discovery. The work of some, most notably my co-author on The London of Jack the Ripper Then and Now, Robert Clack, and Jake Luukanen was to prove extremely useful.

  Dutfield’s Yard, circa 11:30 am, late June – early July 1900 (Photographic restoration 2008-9 © Philip Hutchinson)

  The same spot today

  Firstly, I had to work out why this alleyway looked a great deal longer than we know Dutfield’s Yard to have been. It quickly became obvious. The individuals were not lining the alleyway at all, but most of them were standing at the entrance and well into the road of Berner Street itself. This instantly made sense because of the change in the direction of the setts on the floor and, most tellingly, shadows cast by the first half-dozen people on the left. If they had been standing inside the yard, backs against the wall, these shadows would not have been cast. Indeed, a solid shadow runs right across the yard just beyond here. Thus, three people were standing where the pavement breaks to allow vehicular access and three actually in the main road. The photographer would have been closer to the other side of Berner Street than the side being photographed. At the bottom left, there are two further shadows of people not seen in the photograph, forever immortalised as no more than silhouettes. Researcher Neil Bell has estimated from these shadows that the photograph was taken at approximately 11:30 am. It is likely to have been sometime close to the middle of the year because, although the males are largely suited as was the fashion, the girls and women are not generally wearing coats, shawls or jackets.

  Having established the date as 1900, the next step was to confirm with other researchers that this was indeed Dutfield’s Yard. Firstly, there was the issue of the single doorway on the right hand side, when some illustrations show a series of doors. This was easily explained away as artistic errors. It is known from maps and descriptions that there was but one doorway into the building on this side. Illustrations, later erroneously repeated, marked the numerous windows as being doorways. It always was, of course, extremely unlikely that there would be a whole series of irrelevant doors right next to each other down the length of the building. Next, there was the issue of the staircase and doorway at the end of the yard, placed next to the left-hand corner. Whenever they were shown in illustrations, they had been on the right-hand side. Inspection of Goad’s fire insurance maps quickly confirmed that the illustrations were all wrong, and the staircase and doorway had always been where they appeared in the photo. Finally, it was understood that at the time of the Stride murder, the alleyway had been largely unpaved and was muddy. Indeed, one side of Stride’s body was found to have mud on it where she had been dropped in a gutter. Why do we see it paved here? Well, the meeting place of the International Workers’ Educational Club (the building at the rear with the many windows) was deemed unsafe by the Buildings Inspector in 1892 and it is probable that the shoring of the building (spanning the top of the photograph) and the paving date from this time. The three lengths of rope hanging from the forward beam, terminating at least 10’ above the ground, are less easy to explain.

  Detail from the Goad’s fire insurance map, May 1899 (Courtesy Robert Clack)

  Berner Street, showing the entrance to Dutfield’s Yard, 7 April 1909

  The same view, now Henriques Street, in 2009

  So much for having to account for the supposed inconsistencies; now for further confirmation of the location. Researcher Tom Wescott undertook an exhaustive study of Berner Street which was published in Ripper Notes in 2007.

  According to his work, the entrance onto Berner Street was 9’ 2” wide. Although there were wooden doors at the time of the murder, by the time the famous image of Berner Street was taken on 7 April 1909 (shortly before demolition) they had been replaced by metal gates. The gates visible in the famous Berner Street photograph of 1909 image seem to be a perfect match for the gates shown in 1900. Although the lower diagonal strut on the right gate appears to run in a different direction to the gate in the 1909 photograph, the later image actually shows the left gate. Likewise, the rounded stone at the entrance – designed to prevent carriages hitting the wall as they came into the yard – is evident. In front of the two small children standing in the middle of the yard there is a squat metal stopper, maybe about 6’ long. This would have been set in the ground to prevent the gates from swinging open outwards.

  Detail of the Dutfield’s Yard gates, 7 April 1909

  Inside Dutfield’s Yard from The Weekly Dispatch, 7 October
1888 (Courtesy Robert Clack)

  Dutfield’s Yard from Famous Crimes Past & Present, 1903 (Courtesy Thomas Schachner)

  Dutfield’s Yard from The Pictorial World, 6 October 1888 (Courtesy Robert Clack)

  Down the yard on the left is a wall-mounted lamp, matching contemporary descriptions. Just before it, a thin shaft of light is visible, breaking the shadow cast by 42 Berner Street. This was a known gap between the main building and those behind it, as is recorded in all descriptions and plans. Beyond that, the alley widens and there can clearly be seen a row of smaller buildings with at least one chimney on show beyond. This is a set of three cottages, converted from one older building, just after a lavatory at the back of 42 Berner Street.

  Just beyond the smiling man standing at the end of the gateway on the right, we see a rough gutter. Some stones run up against the wall and a pair of setts are matched running down towards the steps beyond. This spot – where no one is standing, for an obvious reason – is where Elizabeth Stride was killed. At the end of the gutter is a grille set into the lower wall of 40 Berner Street. This gave light and ventilation to the basement room and is clearly seen in all illustrations from the period. Straight after this is the door into the club building. What appears to be a partition two-thirds of the way up is actually where an overhead fanlight was situated, again known from all the descriptions from the time. Beyond this is a set of four windows of irregular height. As mentioned, these are sometimes incorrectly illustrated as doorways (such as in the famous Harold Furniss illustration from Famous Crimes Past & Present, published in 1903) and the chances are that this was an assumption made from an illustration published in The Pictorial World of 6 October 1888 where Louis Diemschutz, who is historically credited with discovery of the body, is covering the bottom of the windows beyond. In fact, this earlier illustration clearly shows the windows along the side of the building matching almost exactly the windows evident in the 1900 photograph.