It was the lull before the storm. On the morning of Saturday, 8 September, the East London Advertiser ventured a prediction that was pregnant with foreboding. ‘The murderer must creep out from somewhere,’ it ran, ‘he must patrol the streets in search of his victims. Doubtless he is out night by night. Three successful murders will have the effect of whetting his appetite still further, and unless a watch of the strictest be kept, the murder of Thursday will certainly be followed by a fourth.’32
So it proved. For in the early hours of that same morning, after those words had been written but before they appeared on the streets, the body of another woman was discovered in the back yard of a house in Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. She had been mutilated more horrendously than any of the others. Close by, saturated with water, lay what appeared to be a clue. It was a piece of a leather apron.
5
Dark Annie
TO HER FRIENDS the fourth victim was known simply as ‘Dark Annie’.
She is identified in police records as Annie Chapman, alias Annie Siffey. A sad, broken-down little prostitute, she lived a precarious and semi-nomadic existence on the streets and in the common lodging houses of Spitalfields. She was forty-seven years old.1
At one time Annie’s future must have seemed secure enough. On 1 May 1869 she married a coachman named John Chapman. The place of residence of both is recorded on the marriage certificate as 29 Montpelier Place, Brompton, where Annie’s mother lived until her death in 1893, but the newly weds soon set up home at 1 Brook Mews North, Bayswater, and then at 17 South Bruton Mews, Berkeley Square. By 1881 they had moved to Clewer, in Berkshire, where John had taken a position as coachman to Josiah Weeks, a farm bailiff, at St Leonard’s Hill Farm Cottage. There were children. Emily Ruth was born in 1870, Annie Georgina in 1873 and John in 1880.
But tragedy dogged Annie throughout the eighties and her life disintegrated under a catalogue of disasters. Her little boy was a cripple and Emily Ruth died of meningitis when she was only twelve. In 1888 John junior was said to be in the care of a charitable school and Annie Georgina travelling with a performing troupe or circus in France. Then, after the death of her firstborn, Annie’s marriage, like those of Martha Tabram and Polly Nichols, ended in tatters. Police records indicate that her intemperate habits were to blame but John himself was a heavy drinker and the misfortunes of the children must have imposed strains upon the union. Whatever the cause, the couple lived apart for three or four years during which time Annie received an allowance of 10s. a week from her husband. In 1886 she was lodging at 30 Dorset Street, Spitalfields, with a man who made wire sieves, and for this reason was sometimes known as ‘Mrs Sievey’. But the death of John Chapman and the loss of her allowance that same year robbed her of her remaining financial security.
Chapman died on 25 December 1886, at 1 Richmond Villas, Grove Road, Windsor. The cause of death was registered as cirrhosis of the liver, ascites and dropsy. He was only forty-two. One of Annie’s friends during her last years was Amelia Palmer, a charwoman and the wife of a dock labourer named Henry Palmer. In testifying before the inquest into Annie’s own death she spoke of the great effect that John Chapman’s death seemed to have had upon Annie, emotionally as well as financially. The termination of her allowance, which came by postal order made payable at Commercial Road Post Office, was the first indication Annie received that something was wrong. She then learned, upon inquiry of one of John’s relatives living in London, that her husband was dead. Annie cried as she told Amelia about it. And two years later Amelia remembered how she had often seemed downcast when speaking of her children and how ‘since the death of her husband she has seemed to give way altogether.’
Very possibly the sieve maker’s interest in Annie disappeared with her allowance. At any rate he left her and moved to Notting Hill soon after the death of John Chapman. Annie struggled on alone. At times she seems to have benefited from the charity of relatives. Her brother, Fountain Hamilton Smith, last saw her in Commercial Street a week or two before her death. She did not tell him where she was living but said that she was not doing anything and needed money for a lodging. Smith gave her 2s. On the last evening of her life she may also have borrowed money from other relatives at Vauxhall. Yet there must have been limits to such sponging. Amelia Palmer knew that Annie had a mother and sister living at Brompton but did not think that they were on friendly terms. ‘I have never known her to stay with her relatives even for a night,’ she informed the inquest.
Annie did crochet work, made antimacassars and sold flowers. On Fridays she would take what she had made to Stratford to sell. When sober she was industrious but she was overfond of liquor: ‘I have seen her often the worse for drink,’ said Amelia. She turned, too, to prostitution although, to judge by her photograph and police records, her appearance was unprepossessing. She was plump but only five feet tall. Her complexion was fair. Her hair was wavy and dark brown, her eyes blue. She had a large, thick nose, and two teeth were missing from her lower jaw.
About four months before her death Annie took up residence at Crossingham’s lodging house, 35 Dorset Street, Spitalfields. Timothy Donovan, the deputy, remembered her as an inoffensive woman who never caused them any trouble and was on good terms with the other lodgers. Her main weakness was drink. Possibly her Stratford money was squandered on liquor. At least Donovan said that Annie was generally drunk on Saturdays.
Annie paid 8d. for a double bed. Her only regular visitor, however, was a man Donovan knew only as ‘the pensioner’. In Annie’s life ‘the pensioner’ is something of a mystery. If we are to believe the deputy he regularly came to the lodging house with Annie on Saturdays and stayed until the following Monday. More, he instructed Donovan to turn Annie away on any night that she tried to bring another man home with her. The pensioner, said Donovan, sometimes dressed like a dock labourer and at others had a gentlemanly appearance.
His real name was Ted Stanley. He lived at 1 Osborn Place, Osborn Street, Whitechapel, and he was not, in fact, a pensioner at all. In the inquest proceedings he is described as a bricklayer’s labourer. We also know from police records that, on the night Polly Nichols was killed, Stanley was on duty at Fort Elson, Gosport, with the 2nd Brigade, Southern Division, Hants., Militia.
On 14 September 1888 Stanley made a statement at Commercial Street Police Station. Five days later he appeared as a witness at the inquest. Yet, he was scarcely forthcoming about his relationship with Annie. On the one hand, despite the repeated assertions of Timothy Donovan, he insisted that he had only visited Annie once or twice at the lodging house and absolutely denied telling Donovan to turn her away if she came with other men. On the other he admitted to having associated with her in other places and to having known her for about two years. Whatever the exact nature of their relationship Ted Stanley shunned any involvement once he knew that Annie was dead. On the day of the murder he turned up at the lodging house to verify a rumour he had heard from a shoeblack that she had been killed. Assured that the news was true, he turned and walked straight out without another word.
Annie must have heard and talked about the Whitechapel murders but, crushed by ill health and poverty, and frittering most of the little she had on drink, she found herself regularly back on the streets. To judge by the testimony of the doctor who performed the post-mortem examination she was tuberculous and, although plump, had suffered great privation. A week or more before her death she was involved in a fight. It was the only fracas Donovan could remember her in and the date and details are vague.
Annie’s antagonist was Eliza Cooper, a hawker and fellow lodger at 35 Dorset Street. On 19 September she gave her version of the debacle to the inquest. The trouble started, explained Liza, on Saturday, 1 September. Annie brought Ted Stanley to the lodging house. When she began asking around for a piece of soap she was referred to Liza who loaned her one. Annie handed it to Stanley and he went out to get washed. Later that day Liza met Annie again and asked for the return of the soap. ‘I will see y
ou by and by’ was the airy reply. On the following Tuesday the two women saw each other in the lodging house kitchen. Liza once more asked for her soap but Annie testily threw a halfpenny down on the table and said, ‘Go and get a halfpennyworth of soap.’ There was a quarrel which flared up again later in the day at the Britannia, on the corner of Dorset and Commercial Streets. On this occasion Annie slapped Liza’s face and snapped: ‘Think yourself lucky I did not do more.’ Liza replied by striking Annie in the left eye and on the chest.
It is probable that, several weeks after the incident, Liza’s memories of this sordid little squabble were already becoming confused. We may suspect, too, that she contrived to make herself the aggrieved party. Certainly, even if Annie was drunk, it is difficult to see in the vindictive, combative Annie of Liza’s tale anything of the meek, inoffensive little woman of the other witnesses. John Evans, the nightwatchman at 35 Dorset Street, spoke at the inquest of the fight only two days after Annie’s death. He confirmed the cause of it (a piece of soap) but said that it took place in the lodging house kitchen. In two particulars at least Eliza was mistaken. The fight cannot have taken place as late as 4 September. Ted Stanley noticed that Annie had a black eye on Sunday, 2 September, and the next day Annie showed her bruises to Amelia Palmer. Timothy Donovan, moreover, told the inquest that Annie was not at the lodging house during the week preceding her death. The best evidence that we have places the fight in the middle of the previous week. Donovan said that it occurred about Tuesday, 28 August, and that two days later Annie was sporting a black eye from the encounter. ‘Tim, this is lovely, ain’t it?’ she chirped. John Evans deposed that the incident took place on 30 August. It is also clear that Annie sustained bruises to the chest and right, rather than left, temple, a point that will prove of some significance when we come to consider the post-mortem evidence.
In the week previous to her murder Annie was not at the lodging house. The only glimpses we get of her come from her friend Amelia Palmer. On Monday, 3 September, Amelia met her in Dorset Street and noticed a bruise on her right temple. ‘How did you get that?’ she asked. By way of reply Annie opened her dress. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘look at my chest.’ And she showed Amelia a second bruise. Their talk passed from Annie’s fight to other things. ‘If my sister will send me the boots,’ declared Annie, ‘I shall go hopping [i.e. hop-picking].’
The next day Amelia saw Annie again near Spitalfields Church. Annie said that she felt no better and that she should go into the casual ward for a day or two. Amelia remarked that she looked very pale and asked if she had had anything to eat. ‘No,’ replied Annie, ‘I haven’t had a cup of tea today.’ Amelia gave her 2d. to get some but told her not to spend it on rum.
Amelia last saw Annie alive on Friday, 7 September. At about 5.00 p.m. they met in Dorset Street. ‘Aren’t you going to Stratford today?’ queried Amelia. ‘I feel too ill to do anything,’ said Annie. Some ten minutes later Amelia found her standing in the same spot, it’s no use giving way,’ Annie said, ‘I must pull myself together and get some money or I shall have no lodgings.’
Earlier that same day, the last of Annie’s life, she had turned up again at 35 Dorset Street. Between two and three in the afternoon she arrived at the lodging house and asked to be allowed to sit downstairs in the kitchen. Donovan asked her where she had been all week and she told him that she had been ‘in the infirmary’.2 Annie seems to have been coming and going for the rest of the day. Soon after midnight she came in saying that she had been to Vauxhall to see her sister. A fellow lodger told a newspaper that she went to ‘get some money’ and that her relatives gave her 5d.3 If so it was quickly expended on drink. John Evans informed the inquest that upon her return she sent one of the lodgers for a pint of beer and then popped out again herself.
At about 1.30 or 1.45 a.m. on Saturday, 8 September, Annie was sitting in the kitchen, enjoying the warmth, eating potatoes and gossiping with the other lodgers. Donovan sent Evans to ask for her lodging money. Annie came up to the office. ‘I haven’t sufficient money for my bed,’ she told the deputy, ‘but don’t let it. I shall not be long before I am in.’ Donovan was scarcely sympathetic. ‘You can find money for your beer,’ he admonished her, ‘and you can’t find money for your bed.’ But Annie was not dismayed. She would get the money. Leaving the office, she stood two or three minutes in the doorway. ‘Never mind, Tim,’ she repeated, ‘I shall soon be back. Don’t let the bed.’ Evans, who had followed Annie upstairs now saw her off the premises. As she left the house, he told the inquest two days later, he watched her go. Not drunk but slightly the worse for drink, she walked through Little Paternoster Row into Brushfield Street and then turned towards Spitalfields Church. It was about 1.50 a.m.4
A little after six Annie’s dead and mutilated body was discovered in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, just three or four hundred yards away from her lodging.
No. 29 was a three-storeyed house on the north side of the street. Built for Spitalfields weavers, it had been converted into dwellings for the labouring poor after steam had banished the hand loom. By 1888 the toll of time was beginning to show on its facade. It was a dingy property flanked by equally dingy neighbours, on one side a dwelling house and on the other, its yellow paint peeling from its walls like skin disease, a mangling house. Yet a discerning observer might have detected remnants of pride about No. 29. A signboard above the street door proudly proclaimed in straggling white letters: ‘Mrs A. Richardson, rough packing-case maker.’ And the windows of the first floor front room, in which Mrs Richardson slept, were adorned with red curtains and filled with flowers.
At the time of the murder No. 29 was a veritable nest of living beings. Mrs Amelia Richardson, a widow, rented part of it and sublet some of the rooms. She slept with her fourteen-year-old grandson in the first floor front room and used two other rooms. The cellar in the backyard housed her packing case workshops. In the ground floor back room she did her cooking and held weekly prayer meetings. The front room on the ground floor was a cats’ meat shop. The proprietress, Mrs Harriet Hardiman, slept in the shop with her sixteen-year-old son. Mr Waker, a maker of tennis boots, and his adult but mentally retarded son occupied the first floor back. The second floor front was tenanted by Mr Thompson, a carman, his wife and their adopted daughter. Two unmarried sisters who worked in a cigar factory lived in the back room on the same floor. The front room in the attic housed John Davis, another carman, together with his wife and three sons. While Mrs Sarah Cox, a ‘little old lady’ who Mrs Richardson maintained out of charity, occupied a back room in the attic. No less than seventeen persons thus resided permanently at No. 29. Others had legitimate business there. John Richardson, Amelia’s son, and Francis Tyler, her hired hand, for example, both assisted her in her packing case business and used the cellar workshops.5
There must have been much coming and going and on market mornings at least the day began early. On Saturday, 8 September, the morning of the murder, Thompson went out for work at about 3.50. Mrs Richardson, dozing fitfully on the first floor, heard him leave and called out ‘good morning’ as he passed her room. Between 4.45 and 4.50 John Richardson visited the house on his way to work in Spitalfields Market. He called in to check on the security of the cellar. John Davis got up at 5.45 and went down to the backyard about a quarter of an hour later. And Francis Tyler, the hired help, should have started work at six. He was, however, frequently late. On the fatal Saturday he had to be sent for and didn’t turn up until eight.
Intruders might also be found on the premises. By the shop door in Hanbury Street was a side door which gave access to the rest of the building from the street. It opened into a twenty or twenty-five foot passage. A staircase led to the upper floors and at the end of the passage was a back door giving access to the backyard. Most of the houses in the area, like No. 29, were let out in rooms and many of the tenants were market folk, leaving home early in the morning, some as early as one. It thus became the general practice to leave stre
et and back doors unlocked for their convenience and the inevitable result was the regular appearance in these houses of trespassers. One morning Thompson challenged a man on the stairs of No. 29. ‘I’m waiting for the market,’ said the man. ‘You’ve no right here, guv’nor,’ replied Thompson. Prostitutes and their clients also used the premises. John Richardson told the inquest that he had found prostitutes and other strangers there at all hours of the night and had often turned them out.
In taking his victim into the backyard of No. 29, therefore, the murderer, perhaps unknowingly, exposed himself to some risk. Yet the regular traffic in and out of the house also facilitated his purpose. For the permanent residents would scarcely have suspected anything amiss in the stealthy footsteps of the killer and his victim.
Complete History of Jack the Ripper Page 13
