Complete History of Jack the Ripper

by Philip Sudgen

  A noticeable reduction in the number of prostitutes out after dark was not the only effect of the murders. Respectable women, even men, began to shun the East End. There was a rumour that emigrants, en route for the West, were refusing to be located in Whitechapel. And traders complained of a loss of business. On 3 October Mr R. Rycroft told a meeting of the parish vestry of St Mary, Whitechapel, that trade had fallen off in the district by nearly 50 per cent during the past month. Presumably the problem was exacerbated in the middle of October when parts of the metropolis, including the East End, were enveloped in a dense, smoke-laden fog. About that time more than 200 Whitechapel traders, through Samuel Montagu, memorialized the Home Secretary for an increase in the number of police in the district. ‘The universal feeling prevalent in our midst,’ they declared, ‘is that the Government no longer ensures the security of life and property in East London and that, in consequence, respectable people fear to go out shopping, thus depriving us of our means of livelihood.’4

  This atmosphere of fear and suspicion was heightened by the antics of irresponsible simpletons who delighted in impersonating the Ripper by brandishing knives in the faces of defenceless women. There was a spate of such incidents in the aftermath of the double murder. One victim was Mrs Sewell, a cleaner, of 2 Pole Street, Stepney Green. On the night of 4 October, while walking to a temperance meeting at the Great Assembly Hall in Mile End Road, she was scared by a man who came up behind her, suddenly and noiselessly, in dark Redman’s Road. She turned round sharp and confronted him. ‘Did I frighten you, missus?’ he inquired. Of course he had, but striving to calm her pounding heart and control the tremor in her voice, Mrs Sewell assumed her boldest expression and told him that he had not. The man was tall and bearded. He wore a brown overcoat and a felt hat and was accompanied by a white dog. And he held something that glittered up against his sleeve. At this moment a young man came up and the bearded stranger made off, ‘very quickly and silently . . . I could hardly hear his feet.’ ‘Did you see what he had, missus?’ asked the young man. Mrs Sewell hadn’t, so the young man told her. ‘That was a knife,’ he said, ‘and the blade was a foot long.’5

  Inevitably, perhaps, the terror claimed victims beyond the mutilated dead. On 17 September a young butcher named Hennell cut his own throat at the house of his parents, 76 Enfield Buildings, Ashford Street, in Hoxton. He had, it was said, ‘repeatedly expressed the fear that they “were after him for the Whitechapel murder”.’ Sarah Goody, a forty-year-old needlewoman committed to an asylum by Thames Magistrates’ Court a month later, was haunted by a similar delusion. In her fantasies she was being followed about London by murderers and these spectres of the imagination had so terrified her that she could neither eat nor sleep. On 10 October Mrs Sodeaux, the wife of a silk weaver, hanged herself from the stair banisters of No. 65 Hanbury Street, not far from the Chapman murder house. This poor woman had been depressed and, it was reported, had become ‘greatly agitated’ since the murders. Truly there seemed no end to the tragedies that autumn and the ripples of fear spread wide from Whitechapel. In Kilkeel, County Down, a certain Miss Milligan, just twenty-one years of age, died, supposedly from the effects of shock, a fortnight after a knife-wielding practical joker pounced out at her declaring himself to be Jack the Ripper.6

  Such tragedies did nothing to deter entrepreneurs large and small from exploiting the commercial possibilities of the situation. Newspapers enjoyed massive sales and broadsheets, some in verse and sung by hawkers to popular tunes, appeared in almost every street. The crowds of sightseers played host to swarms of parasites: omnibus and cab companies that shunted them about Whitechapel, costermongers who plied them with eatables, householders who rented them seats at windows overlooking the fatal spots, even the committee of the International Working Men’s Club which charged them a small fee for admission to its premises. On 6 October a pavement artist attracted immense crowds in Whitechapel Road with his graphic delineations of the murders. And a Daily News correspondent, doing a round of the hiring fairs in the Midlands that month, found entertainments inspired by the atrocities at every one. A penny at one such bought three shies at a door with the object of bringing out Jack the Ripper or ‘one of them from Whitechapel’. In the heart of the murder district there was profit in fear. One woman did a brisk trade in swordsticks. ‘Here you are, now,’ she would cry, carrying about an armful, ‘sixpence for a swordstick. That’s the sort to do for ’em!’

  Overwhelmingly, though, East Enders united in sympathy for the slain. The educated and propertied classes expressed it via the correspondence columns of the press, in renewed calls and schemes for social reform, the labouring and destitute poor by turning out en masse to honour their dead. ‘Long Liz’, far from her native Sweden, was quietly buried in a pauper’s grave in East London Cemetery on Saturday, 6 October. But on the following Monday the funeral of Kate Eddowes generated some of the excitement and emotion of a state occasion.

  At about 1.30 p.m. the cortège left the mortuary in Golden Lane. First, in an open hearse, Kate’s body, ensconced in a handsome coffin of elm bearing a plate inscribed in letters of gold. Then, in a mourning coach, the chief mourners, all neatly attired in black. They included John Kelly and four of Kate’s sisters – Harriet, Emma, Eliza and Elizabeth. And bringing up the rear in a brougham, representatives of the national and local press. To all which one unconfirmed report added mention of a bevy of women, mostly dressed ‘in a style not at all befitting the occasion’ and riding in a large wagon. If they existed they were almost certainly Kate’s old comrades from Flower and Dean Street, clothed in the only habiliments they had.

  The crowds of spectators, swollen by workers taking their dinner-hour, were prodigious. In the vicinity of the mortuary they filled the windows and clambered about the roofs of adjoining buildings as well as choked the route of the procession. ‘Never, perhaps, has Golden Lane and the precincts of the mortuary presented a more animated appearance,’ noted the Observer. ‘The footway was lined on either side of the road with persons who were packed in rows five deep, the front row extending into the roadway. Manifestations of sympathy were everywhere visible, many among the crowd uncovering their heads as the hearse passed.’ With police clearing a way, the cortège rumbled slowly along Old, Great Eastern and Commercial Streets and turned into Whitechapel High Street. There, lining the route on both sides as far as St Mary’s Church, was another dense crowd. The Observer again: ‘The sympathy shown here was more marked than at any other point of the route, the majority of the women having no covering to their heads, whilst a number of rough-looking labouring men removed their caps as the body passed.’

  Shortly before 3.30 Kate’s body reached its final resting place – the City of London Cemetery at Ilford. Hundreds more people, many of the women carrying infants in their arms, gathered about the grave to see her buried. In the chapel and at the graveside the service was performed by the Rev T. Dunscombe, the cemetery chaplain. The City authorities, who owned the burial ground, remitted the usual fees and George Hawkes, vestryman and undertaker of St Luke’s, paid the funeral expenses.7

  The community united, too, in a cry for retribution, a cry quickly taken up by broadsheet hacks who vied with each other in devising suitable fates for the murderer:

  ‘as anyone seen him, can you tell us where he is,

  If you meet him you must take away his knife,

  Then give him to the women, they’ll spoil his pretty fiz,

  And I wouldn’t give him twopence for his life.

  Now at night when you’re undressed and about to go to rest

  Just see that he ain’t underneath the bed

  If he is you mustn’t shout but politely drag him out

  And with your poker tap him on the head.

  But before the Ripper could be punished he had to be caught. And the inquest proceedings provided few grounds for optimism that that was about to happen.

  On 4 October the inquest into the death of Kate Eddowes commenced a
t the City Mortuary in Golden Lane before Samuel Frederick Langham, the City Coroner. It was adjourned to the 11th but Langham did not consider it necessary to prolong the inquiry further in the hope of procuring more evidence and at the end of the second day advised the jury to return their verdict and leave the matter in the hands of the police. Since Langham assured them that the medical evidence proved that only one man could have been implicated, the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against some person unknown. Obviously the public were greatly disappointed in the result and the Daily News spoke for most when it complained: ‘Practically the world knows nothing more of this crime than it did on the morning when it was first announced. We have some details about the victim, few or none about the murderer. The “person unknown” has every right to his designation.’8 Wynne Baxter, who opened the Stride inquest at the vestry hall of St George-in-the-East in Cable Street on 1 October, was a man of a very different stamp to Langham. As was his wont, his examination of the witnesses was nigh exhaustive, his summing-up meticulous. The inquiry was adjourned no less than four times. But it made no difference. Terminating the proceedings on 23 October, Baxter felt obliged to acknowledge his sorrow that the time of the court had not succeeded in unmasking the killer and his jury then returned the usual verdict of wilful murder by some person or persons unknown.

  The failure of the police to catch the Ripper fuelled a fierce clamour for a government reward. Kate Eddowes had died in the City and on 1 October, upon the recommendation of Colonel Sir James Fraser, Commissioner of the City Police, the Lord Mayor authorized a reward of £500 for anyone who could provide information leading to the discovery and conviction of her murderer.9 Repeated attempts to persuade Henry Matthews to follow suit were spearheaded by the Mile End Vigilance Committee.

  Hoping that the double murder had wrought a change of heart at the Home Office, Mr B. Harris, the committee secretary, wrote on 30 September requesting Matthews to reconsider their former application for a reward. Three days later the Home Office penned its reply: the Secretary of State saw no reason to alter his previous decision. Undaunted, the committee tried again on 7 October. This time George Lusk, the president, called not only for a substantial government reward but also for a free pardon to any accomplice who would inform against the killer. And he pointed out ‘that the present series of murders is absolutely unique in the annals of crime, that the cunning, astuteness and determination of the murderer has hitherto been, and may possibly still continue to be, more than a match for Scotland Yard and the Old Jewry combined, and that all ordinary means of detection have failed.’ It was all to no avail. Once again the offer of a reward was rejected outright. And although that of a pardon received strong support from Sir Charles Warren all the Home Office would promise was to keep the matter under review.10

  Other bodies were similarly rebuffed. On 1 October Harry Marks, editor of the Financial News, sent Matthews a cheque for £300 on behalf of some of his readers, requesting him to offer the money in the name of the government for the discovery of the murderer. The cheque was promptly returned. Again, Sir Alfred Kirby, Colonel of the Tower Hamlets Battalion, Royal Engineers, offered £100 on behalf of his officers as well as the services of up to fifty members of his corps. Both gestures were politely declined.

  Bewildered and exasperated by the Home Secretary’s obduracy, private donors went where Matthews feared to tread and by 2 October it was being reported that £1,200 already awaited anyone who could put a name to the Ripper.11

  The Mile End Vigilance Committee did more than lobby and collect subscriptions for a reward. Dissatisfied with the degree of protection afforded by the police, it inaugurated a system of amateur patrols. Picked men from the ranks of the unemployed patrolled the streets of the East End from shortly before midnight to between four and five the next morning. Each man was assigned a particular beat, equipped with a police whistle, a stout stick and a pair of galoshes, and paid a modest wage by the committee. The committee met nightly at nine in an upstairs room of the Crown, Mile End Road, and when the house closed at 12.30 members themselves took to the streets to inspect and supplement the patrols. To advise them in the organization and supervision of all this amateur police work the committee hired the services of Grand & Batchelor, a private detective agency in the Strand.

  To judge from news reports it was at midnight on Wednesday, 3 October, that the patrols of the Mile End Vigilance Committee first trooped into the streets. This committee largely consisted of small tradesmen. Its members included a builder, a cigar manufacturer, a tailor, a picture-frame maker, a licensed victualler and an actor. But soon its patrols were being reinforced by those of the Working Men’s Vigilance Committee. Little is known about this organization. Apparently a child of the waterfront trade unions, it held meetings at the Three Nuns, Aldgate, and is said to have established fifty-seven patrols by 9 October.12

  It was all beyond doubt a most praiseworthy effort. But was it productive of any good? Grand & Batchelor did the Whitechapel investigation no service when they unearthed the charlatan Matthew Packer. In one sense, too, vigilance committee patrols made life harder rather than easier for the regular police. For the constable on the beat was now confronted with more strange men on the streets at night than ever before and it must, at least in the early days of the patrols, have been a full-time job checking out their credentials. This was certainly Inspector Dew’s view of the matter, and although his comments perhaps reflect the contempt of the professional for the amateur there is some support for it in contemporary news reports. Thus, a week after the double murder, the Daily News commented that ‘in several instances some of the plain clothes [police] men who were strange to the neighbourhood were watched by members of the Vigilance Committee, while they in their turn came under the scrutiny of the detectives.’13 On the other hand the Mile End committee at least regularly passed on information about suspicious characters and the state of the streets to the police and the increased surveillance of the district, to which the private patrols contributed, may well have acted upon the Ripper as a deterrent. It would be nearly six weeks before he struck again and then it would be in the squalid back room of a house, not on the open streets.

  Inevitably the double murder lashed the press into fresh volleys of vituperation against the Metropolitan Police and its masters. Matthews’ refusal to sanction a government reward was condemned on all sides. The Daily Telegraph, so representative of Conservative opinion, denounced the Home Secretary as a ‘helpless, heedless, useless figure’ while the radical Star accused him of ‘philandering with pot-house Tories at Birmingham while God’s poor are being slaughtered wholesale in London.’ ‘We do not ask what is the duty of the Home Secretary,’ said the Pall Mall Gazette scathingly, ‘because whatever it is he will not do it.’ Criticism of the police, too, transcended political alignments. The Star predictably damned the entire force as ‘rotten to the core.’ But even Conservative journals castigated the CID. The Daily Telegraph fumed about the ‘notorious and shameful shortcomings of the Detective Department, or rather of the botched-up makeshift which does duty for a Detective Department at Scotland Yard’ and the East London Advertiser considered that there was ‘no detective force in the proper sense of the word in London at all.’14. It was widely believed that under Warren the energies, resources and organization of the police had been subverted from the prevention and detection of crime to the politically motivated containment of outcast London. A huge placard, exhibited at a meeting of the unemployed in Hyde Park on 2 October, summed it all up: ‘The Whitechapel Murders. Where are the Police? Looking after the Unemployed!’

  Part of the trouble was that police secrecy made it impossible for press or public to judge how adequately the force was discharging its responsibilities. Sir Charles Warren, replying on 3 October to a plea from the Whitechapel District Board of Works for improved policing of the area, assured the board that ‘every nerve’ was being strained to detect the murderer. But, he added, ‘you will agree wi
th me that it is not desirable that I should enter into particulars as to what the police are doing in the matter. It is most important for good results that our proceedings should not be published.’15 Curiously, newspaper reporters often contrasted the silence and churlishness of Metropolitan officers with the courtesy and co-operation of their counterparts in the City. Yet both forces embraced the secrecy principle. Thus when Joseph Lawende was called before the Eddowes inquest on 11 October, his description of the suspect was suppressed at the express wish of Henry Crawford, City Solicitor, appearing on behalf of the City Police. In 1888 such tactics effectively blindfolded the press. Now, a century after the crimes, confidential Home Office and Metropolitan Police files have been opened and we can see that despite the ultimate failure of the Ripper hunt a great deal was done.

  One of Warren’s first actions after the double killing was to draft extra men into the district. These were transferred temporarily from duties in other divisions. One of them was Frederick Porter Wensley, then a uniformed constable of but nine months’ standing in the Lambeth Division, later to rise to the rank of Chief Constable of CID. In his book, Detective Days, published more than forty years later, Wensley recalled his Whitechapel interlude: ‘In common with hundreds of others I was drafted there and we patrolled the streets – usually in pairs – without any tangible result. We did, however, rather anticipate a great commercial invention. To our clumsy regulation boots we nailed strips of rubber, usually bits of old bicycle tires, and so ensured some measure of silence when walking.’16