1. Weather conditions The Times, 2 January, and Penny Illustrated Paper, 7 January. Elizabeth Gibbs’ case in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880130-291.
2. The homicide statistics are taken from the Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis for the Year 1888 [Parliamentary Papers], Table 15, p.32. Alternatively the ‘Fifty-first annual report of the Registrar General for the Year 1888’, based on the final resolution of each case, gives a total of sixty-nine homicides for London (thirty male, thirty-nine female). The Judicial Statistics for the year ending 29 September 1888 gives a total of 150, with sixty-one murders (including thirty-one infanticides) and eighty-nine manslaughters for the Metropolitan Police District, and two murders and three manslaughters for the City of London.
3. Dalrymple quoted in Curtis, P.L., Jack the Ripper and the London Press, p.11. Cobb quote from the review of Marie Besnard in A Second Identity (1969).
4. Jubilee exclamations found in McKenny, H.G., A City Road Diary, p.64.
5. Quotations from the Queen’s journal in Buckle, G. ed., Letters of Queen Victoria, 3rd series, Vol. I (1930), p.369. The number 1888 also has an ominous ring to it – written in Roman numerals it has thirteen letters, and it is the UN identifying number for chloroform, drug of choice for several murderers.
6. ‘The Fastest Ship in the World’, Belfast Newsletter, 4 January 1888; advert for the Orient Line, the Standard, 4 January. The cheapest one-way ticket cost £13 13s.
7. Two months later, on 29 October, the British would yield control of the waterway and agree to its neutrality under the Convention of Constantinople.
8. The International Meridian Conference in Washington DC had chosen the Royal Greenwich Observatory as the location of the Prime Meridian four years earlier in October 1884. For a contemporary account of travelling from London to Australia, see the Diary of John Rawes, Journey from London to Adelaide,transcribed at: www.rawes.co.uk/rawes/corres/c018.htm.
9. Details of Tilbury from Greeves, I., London Docks, p.13.
10. Gandhi’s arrival told in Hunt, J.D., Gandhi in London, pp.2, 7, 8, 32; and Gandhi, M.K., An Autobiography (2001), pp.54, 61. Much of the story of John King is adapted from the transcript of the trial at the Old Bailey, Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, 22 October 1888, reference t18881022-963.
11. According to the census, John King was born in Co. Antrim, but he had married a Scottish woman, lived in Scotland and worked in Scotland, most likely at J. & J. White’s chemical works in Shawfield. They produced 70 per cent of the UK’s chromate products until closing in 1967. Much of the story of John King is adapted from the transcript of the trial at the Old Bailey, Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, 22 October 1888, reference t18881022-963.
12. Contemporary press reports used for this account include Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 16 & 23 September; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 16 & 28 September; Glasgow Herald, 16 & 22 September and 23 & 27 October; The Times 17, 22 & 26 September and 4 & 27 October; Leeds Mercury, 26 September; Morning Post, 26 September & 27 October; Illustrated Police News, 3 November. McKill and King family history culled from UK censuses between 1871 and 1901; US Federal Census, 1930; and 1920 New York passenger list.
13. Pascoe, C.E., London of To-Day, 1888, p.15 and pp.20-5.
14. ‘The Streets of London’, Woman’s World, 1888, Vol. I, p.481.
15. In 1888 Tower Bridge was under construction and former Prime Minister William Gladstone gave his backing for a Channel Tunnel between England and France.
16. Gloved hand quote from Richardson, J.H., Police!, p.247.
17. Piccadilly Circus and Eros in Hibbert-Page, C., The London Encyclopaedia, p.275, 639. ‘Cheapest form of travelling’ quote from London of To-Day, 1888, p.393. Heyday of the omnibus, Barker, T.C., A History of London Transport, Vol. I, p.241. London General Omnibus Company versus the Road Cars, Pope, The Story of the Star, p.6.
18. Dickens, C., Dictionary of London (1888), pp.97, 196. London of To-Day, 1888, p.303. Hibbert-Page, C., London Encyclopaedia, p.638. Queen Victoria quote from Mason, M., Walk the Lines, p.285.
19. Accident figures in Richardson, J.H., Police!, p.248.
20. Account of James Langley case gathered from the Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880227-363, and reports in The Times, 14 February and 3 March; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 5 February; Morning Post, 9 February.
21. Williamson case details from Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference number t18881022-972. Reports in The Times, 25 September and 15 October.
22. Dickens, C. Dictionary of London (1888), p.233.
23. Cabs were regulated by the public carriage department at Scotland Yard. There were 2,000 applications for licences every year and some drivers were in their eighties. To get a licence you had to provide two certificates of character, be able to read and write, and pass the nineteenth-century equivalent of the Knowledge. From Richardson, J.H., Police!, p.250-2.
24. David Cavalier case culled from the Old Bailey Proceedings, reference t18880917-833; The Times, 21 September; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 23 September.
25. The Gibbs case uses details from the Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880130-291, and reports in The Times 5–6 January; the Standard, 5 January, Censuses for 1861 to 1901. Bayfordbury Mansion was used by Dr Barnardo Homes during the Second World War.
26. Fatal bicycle accident reported in the Morning Post, 8 February.
27. Nott-Bower, Fifty-two Years a Policeman, p.311; Bell, R., The Ambulance, pp.23, 47.
28. Panton, J.E., From Kitchen to Garrett (1888), pp.2-3.
29. Details of the Hare murder case from The Times report 28–29 August; the Standard, 28 August; the Morning Post, 29 August; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 2 September.
30. Davidson, Cecil Rhodes and his Time, p.62. In 1888, Rhodes was negotiating for mining rights from the Matabele tribe and meeting the Irish MP Charles Stewart Parnell to discuss a plan for Home Rule. Two years later, he took office as Prime Minister of the Cape colony. Rotberg, R., The Founder, p.230-231; Robb, G., Rimbaud, p.390.
31. Although Major Hare’s personal estate on his death was valued at £41, when his wife died five years later she left more than £1,200. In 1891, aged sixty-three, she was living with her two youngest sons and two servants in Parklands, Surbiton Hill.
32. Shenley is home to Arsenal FC’s training ground. The village is now covered by the Hertfordshire police rather than the Met.
33. Details of the Bignall case are taken from the depositions at the National Archives, ASSI 36/32, and newspaper reports in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 11 March; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 11 & 18 March; the Morning Post, 13 March; The Times, 1 August; the Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, 4 August; Daily News, 17 August.
34. Pears soap details from ‘Ancient Pompeii in Modern London’, Ipswich Journal, 2 July; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 8 January.
35. Procter case details from Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880528-556, and reports in the Birmingham Daily Post, 19 April; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 22 April and 3 June; The Times, 24 & 30 April and 1 June; Lancaster Gazette, 25 April.
36. Marjoram case from Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880528-586, and reports in The Times, 15 May; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 20 May and 3 June.
37. East London Advertiser, 6 October. Details on Watney market from: www.stgite.org.uk/media/watneymarket.html.
38. Talbot case details from reports in The Times, 14 July; Daily News, 14 July; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 15 July; the Standard, 21 July.
39. Hibbert-Page, C., London Encyclopaedia, p.191; Dickens, C., Dictionary of London (1888), p.82.
40. Reports of Best case in The Times, 28–29 September and 2 & 6 October; Daily News, 6 October; Illustrated Police News, 6 October; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 7 October; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 7 October.
41. Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis for the year 1888, p.27. In 2001 the Metropolitan Police made more than 20,000 arrests for drunk and disorderly behaviour. The introduction of on-the-spot fines in 2004 has reduced this figure to around 5,000 a year.
42. Details of the Kellar case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18890107-137 and reports in Morning Post, 4 & 10 January; the Standard, 4 January; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 6 & 13 January.
43. Details of the Walker case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880730-773, and reports in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 8 July; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 8 July; and The Times, 20 July. Agency copy carried in the York Herald, 6 August, focused more on the Old Bailey judge’s remarks than the depositions taken by the coroner, which were ‘illegible’ and ‘might as well be written in Egyptian’.
44. Callaghan statement in Evans, S.P. & Skinner, K., Letters From Hell, p.161. Later research suggests Bell Smith left for New York several days before the murder of Mary Kelly (see http://www.jtrforums.com/archive/index.php/t-2921.html).
45. Wilson, G., Alcohol and the Nation, p.331.
46. Details of the Shorting case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880702-684, and reports in the York Herald, 30 May; The Times, 30 May and 6–7 June; Reynolds’s Newspaper,10 June; Morning Post, 5 July. In another coincidence, Elizabeth Fisher, the sister of ‘Ripper’ victim Catherine Eddowes, lived near the Hatcliffe Arms at No.33 Hatcliffe Street.
47. White, J., London in the 19th Century, p283; Sims, G., How the Poor Live, p.79; The Autobiography of Margot Asquith, p.43.
48. Astell case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880528-546, and reports in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 29 April; Morning Post, 9 & 16 May; Reynolds’s Newspaper 13 & 20 May; The Times, 16 May; and the Pall Mall Gazette, 31 May. If the source of the quarrel between the two women emerged at the inquest it was not revealed in the newspapers. The Standard said that the evidence of the husband and a friend of Mrs Astell ‘made the origin of the quarrel perfectly clear’.
49. Besant’s article ‘White Slavery in London’ was published in The Link magazine, Issue 21 (23 June 1888). Report on the end of the strike in Reynolds’s Newspaper, 22 July 1888. Further details from Raw, L., Striking a Light, pp.129-53, 231, and Pelling, H., A History of British Trade Unionism, p.97.
50. Stanley, H.M., In Darkest Africa, p.247; Liebowitz, D., The Last Expedition, pp.117, 159, 177. Stanley was equipped with a prototype of the world’s first self-powered machine gun, invented by Hiram Maxim in 1884 and manufactured in Hatton Garden, London.
51. Savages quote by Julian Huxley in 1888, taken from Fishman, W.J., East End 1888. Lord’s daughter anecdote in Rideal, C.F. & Moser, M., Stories from Scotland Yard. The princess’ visit to Merrick is told in Howell, M. & Ford, P., The True History of the Elephant Man, pp.151-5. Merrick had previously been displayed at a shop in Whitechapel Road.
52. Sims, G., How the Poor Live, p.3; Goldsmid, H.J.J., Dottings of a Dosser, p.9; Kapp, Y., Eleanor Marx, Vol. II, p.263.
53. Furore for social facts quote from Tempted London, p.215; Booth’s poverty line in Fishman, W.J., East End 1888, p.4.
54. Illustrated London News, 22 September 1888, p.352; East London Observer, 15 September 1888, quoted in Curtis Jr., P., Jack the Ripper and the London Press, p.130.
55. Ex-Detective Inspector John Sweeney wrote in his 1904 memoir, At Scotland Yard, about his personal experience of the ‘native population’ being driven out by the influx of foreigners, pp.300, 313. See Fishman, W.J., East End 1888, for a more detailed picture of Jewish immigration.
56. Report on the Lords Sweating Committee, Reynolds’s Newspaper, 18 November. Report from the Select Committee on emigration and immigration (foreigners), 1888, p.40; Gainer, B., Alien Invasion, p.60; White, J., Problems of a Great City, p.144.
57. Report of the select committee on immigration and emigration (foreigners) pp.40-42; Booth, London Labour, Vol. I, part 3, pp.543, 550.
58. Details of boot finishing from report on House of Lords committee on sweating and Reynolds’s Newspaper, 18 November. Scene at soup kitchen from Israel Zangwill’s 1892 novel Children of the Ghetto, p.11.
59. Potzdamer story found in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 5 February; Aberdeen Weekly Journal, 4 February; The Times, 4 February; Morning Post, 2 & 4 February. The Jewish witnesses at the inquest required an interpreter. To put Potzdamer in perspective, some of these papers also carried a report of a chemist who poisoned his wife, six children and himself in Salford.
60. Quote on the Mint by Thomas Miller in Godfrey Malvern, p.226, quoted in White, J., London in the 19th Century, p.9; Fuller, R., Recollections of a Detective, p.34; Goldsmid, H.J., Dottings of a Dosser, p.63; Divall, T., Scoundrels and Scallywags, p.31.
61. Statistics on Post Office, http://postalheritage.org.uk/page/statistic; Dickens, C., Dictionary of London (1888), p.200.
62. Hall case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18890107-178, and reports in The Times, 12 December; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 16 December and 13 January; Morning Post 22 December and 10 January, 1889.
63. Household Words, Vol. II (1850), p.463; White, J., London in the 19th Century, pp.85, 88, 106, 116.
64. Flanders, J., The Invention of Murder, p.77; Report of the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis for the year 1888, p.3.
65. Dew, W., I Caught Crippen, pp.1, 85; Leeson, B., Lost London, pp.17, 30; Wensley F.P., Detective Days, xii, pp.1-2, 8, 13; Sweeney, J., At Scotland Yard, pp.1, 13; Divall, T., Scoundrels and Scallywags, pp.11,13; Fuller, R., Recollections of a Detective, p.23; Carlin, F., Reminiscences of an ex-Detective, p.18; Neil, A., Forty Years of Man-Hunting, pp.51, 277; Cavanagh, T., Scotland Yard Past and Present, pp.2, 24. The Report of the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, 1888, states that 2,291 suspects were taken into custody for assaults on police, with 2,230 summarily convicted or held to bail, thirty-three discharged by magistrates and twenty-eight committed for trial (of which twenty-one were convicted and seven acquitted).
66. Rothenstein, W., Men and Memories (1931), p.167. The correspondence of James McNeill Whistler: www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk. In June 1888 Whistler resigned from the Society of British Artists after a feud with other members.
67. Lewis case details from Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880702-656, and reports in the Morning Post, 2 June; the Standard, 2 & 5 June; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 3 June; The Times 5 & 23 June and 7 July; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 10 June. According to Richardson, J.H., Police!, p.101, widows of constables killed on duty received a pension of £15. According to the Report of the Commissioner of Police for the year 1888 there were 547 constables assigned to B Division.
68. Smalley G.W., London Letters, Vol. II, pp. 369-376.
69. Goldsmid, H.J., Dottings of a Dosser, pp.136-7.
70. Bosanquet, B., Social Work in London, p.327. The ‘Classes against the Masses’ slogan is referred to in McKenzie N. & J. ed., The Diary of Beatrice Webb, p.149.
71. Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, trial of Burns and Cunninghame-Graham, reference t18880109-223.
72. Browne D.G., The Rise of Scotland Yard, p.204; The Story of the Star, pp.9-19. The figure of 10,000 is generally accepted, (see East End 1888, p.266), while the figure of 150,000 was given in the Reynolds’s Newspaper, 8 January, in a report of the funeral of one of the marchers.
73. Besant, An Autobiography, p.423. Pall Mall Gazette, 16 November 1887: ‘The Tory Terror. Notes from Trafalgar Square.’ Other accounts of the riots can be found in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, Burns case reference t18880109-223. The police claimed that seventy-seven constables were injured. The figures of three dead, 200 injured is from East End 1888, p.266
74. Reynolds’s Newspaper, 8 January; Morning Post, 9 & 17 January 1888; Pall Mall Gazette, 10 December 1887, refers to another fatality, John Dimmick, who was hit over the head and died after developing pneumonia.
75. East End 1888, p.266; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 11 March 1888; Birmingham Daily Post, 7 May; Morning Post, 16 July; The Times, 12 November and 13 December 1888.
76. Allason, R., The Branch, p.9; Prothero, W., The History of the CID, p.128. The Rise of Scotland Yard, p.209; The Times, 13 November.
77. Anderson, R., The Lighter Side, p.133.
78. Gray, D., London’s Shadows, p.225; The Times editorial calling for use of bloodhounds, 1 October. Warren’s statement, the Cobbe letter and reports on use of bloodhounds also in The Times, 10 October 1888.
79. ‘The Police of the Metropolis’ in Murray’s Magazine, November 1888.
80. ‘The Metropolitan Police and its management’, a reply to Sir Charles Warren’s article in Murray’s Magazine, by a PC, 1888.
81. The Rise of Scotland Yard, p.209; The Times, 13 November.
82. Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis for the year 1888.
83. The Illustrated Police News, 17 November, published the first in a series on unsolved cases, beginning with the 1838 murder of Eliza Grimwood.
84. The Times reports, 12 September and 3, 6, 8 & 13 October 1888; Daily News, 9 October 1888; Trow, M.J., The Thames Torso Murders, pp.45-55. There are also articles on all the cases discussed at the Casebook: Jack the Ripper, www.casebook.org. The ‘narrow escape of detectives’ was reported in the Birmingham Daily Post, 4 October.
85. Shadwell drowning case of George Montel, Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 3 June 1888. Cooper death from the Standard, 30 August 1888.
86. Thames body figures for 1882 from Thames Torso Murders, p.19. Missing person’s numbers from Stories from Scotland Yard, p.86. The Times reports, 12 September and 8 October.
87. Evening Standard, 29 September. Ripper letter, 5 October, quoted in Begg, P., The Facts, p.200; Police!, p.134.
88. Conan Doyle, A., A Study in Scarlet, pp.12, 15, 18. The short story ‘Scandal in Bohemia’ is in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It was unusual for Doyle to give a full date.
89. French case details from Daily News, 24, 26 & 30 July 1888; Manchester Times, 28 July; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 29 July; The Times, 31 July; Morning Post, 31 July and 20 August; the Standard, 9 August; Huddersfield Daily Chronicle, 19 September. The ‘Walthamstow Mystery’ case was illustrated in the Illustrated Police News, 28 July and 4 August.
90. The Smith family are shown living at No.16 Hemsworth Street in the 1871 census and at No.33 in the 1881 census. Albert was born in Suffolk and Ann in Wales. They had at least eleven children. Reports on the case in The Times 26,28 & 30 April and 1,2,7 & 9 May; Daily News, 28 & 30 April; the Standard, 28 April; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 29 April and 13 May; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 6 May; Penny Illustrated Paper, 5 May; Illustrated Police News, 5 May. The initial description of the case as an ‘outrage and murder’ in the East End may have been an over-enthusiastic attempt to shock readers just three weeks after the prostitute Emma Smith was sexually assaulted and murdered in Whitechapel. Coincidentally, the ‘Ripper’ victim Annie Chapman was born Annie Eliza Smith.
91. The Morning Post, 29 October; Birmingham Daily Post, 29 October 1888; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 9 August 1891.
92. Invention of Murder, p.166. Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis for the year 1888, p.32.
93. Sidney Herbert sent Florence Nightingale out to the Crimea during the war and supported her movement for reform. In 1888 ‘the Lady with the Lamp’ was sixty-eight years old and still campaigning from her home at No.10 South Street off Park Lane. Nightingale died in 1910. Details of the Clark case from The Times, 25 & 28 January; Morning Post, 27 January; Daily News, 28 January; Bristol Mercury, 28 January; the Standard, 28 January; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 29 January; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 29 January and 5 February; Penny Illustrated Paper, 4 February. Some accounts give her first name as Louisa and her surname as Clarke, but her death certificate is in the name of Lucy Clark aged forty-nine.
94. Canonbury in Hibbert et al., London Encyclopaedia, p.128. Details of the Frances Wright case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18881022-977; and newspaper reports from The Times, 17, 18, 19 & 24 May and 21, 22 & 29 September and 6,13, & 20 October; the Standard, 23 May, and 13 November; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 23 September; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 14 October; Penny Illustrated Paper, 3 November. Details of life of Charles Cole Wright and wife Frances from censuses and birth, marriage and death records.
95. Bright case in The Times, 22 May 1888, and Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880917-832. Earlier in the year, Maria Bright had given evidence in the trial of Thomas Callan and Michael Harkins, two Irish terrorists accused of plotting to assassinate Queen Victoria during the 1887 Jubilee celebration. The statistic of 26 per cent is quoted in Invention of Murder, p.166. Wiener M., Men of Blood, p.3-4; Emsley, C., Crime and Society in England, p.102; Wright, T., The Great Unwashed, p.131-4. Nevinson, M., Life’s Fitful Fever, p.91.
96. Newman case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880702-635.
97. Roberts case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18881022-954, and reports in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 21 October; the Standard, 22 & 24 October; The Times, 22 October; Paull Ripley, M.A. , Vermont Hall.
98. Dickens quote from Our Mutual Friend in Hibbert, London Encyclopaedia, p.703. Description of Paradise Street from Booth’s Poverty Map and Steele, J. ed., The Streets of London, South East, p.129. Donne Place no longer exists, having been replaced by the Millpond Estate. Healey case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18881022-999, and reports in Morning Post, 28 August and 5 September; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 2 and 16 September; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 2 September; Daily News, 20 September.
99. Discussion of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ wives, the ‘right of chastisement’ and increase in convictions for murder, Men of Blood, p. 207.
100. White case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880423-481, and reports in the Standard, 5 and 7 March; Penny Illustrated Paper, 10 March, featuring the ‘nagging wives’ summary; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 11 March; The Times, 2 May; Daily News, 3 May.
101. Barrell case in the Standard, 4 July; and Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 8 July 1888.
102. Case details in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880730-783.
103. Reports in The Times, 20 & 21 June and 4 August; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 24 June and 5 August; Morning Post, 4 August. Mary Sandford was said to be the daughter of a Buckinghamshire farmer, although both her parents were dead. In the 1881 census William S. Jeffery, aged forty-two, architect, is listed as living at No.33 Rollo Street with Mary Jeffery, aged thirty-nine. A retired architect by the name of William Septimus Jeffery died in 1896.
104. Description of Regency Street area of Wesminster in Booth, C., London Labour, Vol. II, p.4. Brown case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18881022-955; and reports in The Times, 1,2,4,10 & 26 October 1888; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 14 October; Birmingham Daily Post, 4 October.
105. Morrison, W.D., Crime and its Causes, p.154. Crime and Society, pp.98, 103; Alcohol and the Nation, p.308; and Men of Blood, p.290.
106. ‘Incomplete beings’ from Pauline Tarnovsky, ‘Anthropological Study of Prostitutes and Female Thieves’ (1889), quoted in Rafter, N. ed., The Origins of Criminology, p.179.
107. Logan, W., The Great Social Evil, pp.6, 96, 179; Greenwood, J., Seven Curses of London, p.272. Walkowitz, J., City of Dreadful Delight, p.23; Crime and Society in England, p.150.
108. Police estimate given in Vicinus, M. ed., Women in the Victorian Age, p.77. Return of number of prostitutes apprehended from Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis for the Year 1888, p.33; London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. III, pp.215-260.
109. Argyll Rooms in Scotland Yard Past and Present, p.198; Crime and Society, pp.96-8. Charrington in East End 1888, p.249; and London’s Shadows, pp.153-5.
110. The Elizabeth Cass case in proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18871024-1058. Statistics for arrests of prostitutes from Report of the Commissioner of the Police for the Metropolis 1888, p.33.
111. Common lodging houses in Rule, F., The Worst Street in London, pp.50,78. Report of the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis for the year 1888, p.6.
112. Smith case in The Facts, pp.28-31; Casebook: Jack the Ripper, www.casebook.org/victims/emmasmit.html; The Times, 9 April; Belfast Newsletter, 9 April.
113. I Caught Crippen, pp.91-5; MacNaghten, M., Days of My Years, p.57; Nott-Bower, J.W., Fifty-two years a Policeman, p148.
114. Casebook: Jack the Ripper; The Facts, pp.25-8.
115. The coroner at the Emma Smith inquest, Wynne E. Baxter, similarly declared in that case that ‘it was impossible to imagine a more brutal and dastardly assault’. Tabram murder in The Facts, pp.32-8, and Casebook: Jack the Ripper. Reports in The Times, 8, 10 & 24 August. Interestingly, but most likely irrelevantly, a Henry Tabram, said to be a costermonger from Islington, was charged with using threatening and menacing language to a Martha Tabram in October 1869 (Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 10 October 1869). This Martha Tabram was said to have a family of six children. The complaint was dismissed.
116. Polly Nichols details from The Facts, pp.39-53, and Casebook: Jack the Ripper, www.casebook.org/victims/polly.html; Dottings of a Dosser, p.26. Also reports in The Times, 31 August and 1,3, 4 & 18, 24 (description of clothing) September.
117. The Facts, pp.65-85; Casebook: Jack the Ripper, www.casebook.org/victims/chapman.html. Baxter’s summing up quoted in The Times, 27 September.
118. A theatrical version of Jekyll and Hyde was staged in London in 1888 and starred the American actor Richard Mansfield but was closed early because of the Ripper murders.
119. Hughes, M., A London Family, p.362; Mackenzie, C., My Life and Times, Octave One, pp.164-5. Account of noisy crowds shouting ‘Down with the Jews’ in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 9 September.
120. The Times, 10 & 27 September; Perry Curtis Jr, Jack the Ripper and the London Press, p122-39; Dew, I Caught Crippen, p.107; MacNaghten, Days of My Years, p55; Diary of John Burns, 1888; British Library manuscripts add. 46310.
121. Stride details from The Facts, pp.136-64; Casebook: www.casebook.org/victims/stride.html ; Night and Day, Issue 129, November 1888, p.120.
122. The writing was rubbed off on the orders of Sir Charles Warren for fear it would incite further anti-Semitic feeling.
123. A more famous ear-clipping took place on 23 December 1888, when Van Gogh took a razor to himself at his cottage in Arles. He gave the severed ear to a girl named Rachel at a local brothel. See Gayford, M., The Yellow House, p.285. Details on Eddowes case from The Facts, pp.165-83 and Casebook: Jack The Ripper, www.casebook.org/victims/eddowes.html; TheTimes, 1 October 1888.
124. The Facts, pp.267-313; I Caught Crippen, p.86. Lyrics of Kelly’s song from Casebook: Jack the Ripper, www.casebook.org/victims/mary_jane_kelly.violets.html; Jack the Ripper and the London Press, p.204; Buckle, G. ed., Letters of Queen Victoria, 3rd series, Vol. I, pp.447-9.
125. Barnado quoted from Night and Day, Issue 129, November 1888, p.101. Details of lodging house in Flower and Dean Street from Night and Day pp.124,141 in Issue 130, December 1888. Booth’s request was reported in The Times, 11 December 1888. The Home Secretary announced in Parliament the government could not assist eight days later. Criticism of memorial in letter to The Times from J. Llewelyn Davies, of Christ Church, Lisson Grove, 25 December. Booth’s plan outlined in Booth, W., In Darkest England.
126. Letter to Editor, The Times, 17 October from Brooke Lambert, Chairman, The Vicarage, Greenwich. ‘Surgical genius’ mentioned in letter to The Times from E. Fairfield of South Eaton-place on 1 October 1888. Reference to George Bernard Shaw’s letter to the Star, 24 September; Weintraub S. ed., George Bernard Shaw, The Diaries, Vol. I. The Graphic, 6 October 1888, p.358. James J. Cooke’s letter printed in War Cry, 1 December 1888, under heading ‘The Latest Whitechapel Murder’.
127. Mylett case from reports in The Times, 22,24 & 26 December 1888 and 10 January 1889; Daily News, 22 December; the Standard, 26 & 28 December 1888 and 3 January 1889; the Star, 24 & 27 December; Birmingham Daily Post, 27 December; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 20 December 1888 and 13 January 1889. As in previous cases, the details given in newspaper reports are often contradictory. Alice Graves’ case from The Times, 28 December 1887, and Morning Post, 4 January 1888. See also Casebook: Jack the Ripper: www.casebook.org/victims/mylett.html; and research into Mylett history at http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=1071; The Facts, p.314. Dew quote in I Caught Crippen, p.158. Anderson in The Lighter Side of My Official Life, p.136.
128. Rose, L., Massacre of the Innocents, p.86; McLaren, Dr T., Prescription for Murder, pp.78-9, 83.
129. Gorman case in The Times, 28 March; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 1 April 1888.
130. Emma Wakefield was the youngest of nineteen children. On her death only two remained alive. She earned 9s a week at Mr Homan’s factory at No.93 Charrington Street. Reports in Reynolds’s Newspaper, 7 October; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 14 October; the Star, 10 October. Westcott was a freemason and founding member of ‘The Esoeric Order of the Golden Dawn’ in 1888.
131. Schummacher case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880917-864, and reports in Birmingham Daily Post, 3 July and 25 September; the Standard, 3-4 July and 17 & 23 August; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 8 July; Morning Post, 18 July, 17 August and 25 September; The Times, 18 July, 17 August and 25 & 26 September; Daily Telegraph, 25 September; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 30 September. Depositions in case and dying declaration at National Archives, CRIM 1/30/6. James Gloster’s role in Matabele Gold Fields Limited in Freeman’s Journal, 23 January 1895. In 1881 Schummacher was living in Charlwood Street with her one-year-old son. He died the following year.
132. Statistics from fifty-first annual report of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, 1888. Out of a total of sixty-nine homicides in London, thirty-two victims were aged between zero and three months. It has also been calculated that between 1863 and 1887 more than 60 per cent of all homicide victims were less than twelve months old; Massacre of the Innocents, p.7.
133. Irish exhibition details in The Times, 4 June 1888. Ruth Newman case from depositions in the National Archives, CRIM 1/30/3; the Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880917-823, and reports in The Times, 17 & 23 August and 20 September; Morning Post, 18 August; the Standard, 18 & 23 August; Bury and Norwich Post, 21 August. A report in the Reynolds’s Newspaper for 1 January 1888, reveals that another dead baby boy was found under the seat of a third-class carriage at Mansion House station on Friday, 23 December 1887. The police were unable to track down the mother and the jury returned an open verdict. In March 1888, twin baby girls were found in a basket under the seat of a third-class carriage at New Cross station. They had been left on the train in Brighton by eighteen-year-old waitress Sabina Tilley, who claimed they had suffocated during breastfeeding. She was found not guilty at the Sussex Assizes.
134. Wheatsheaf Alley case in Illustrated Police News, 12 May 1888. Wapping case in Illustrated Police News, 2 June. Spring Gardens case in The Times, 9 July. Limehouse case in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 29 July.
135. Estimated suspicious infant deaths from Invention of Murder, p.224. It was reported in one newspaper that 200 children a year died by accidental suffocation in Central Middlesex, during an inquiry into the death of a five-month-old girl at her home in Drury Lane after sleeping in the same narrow bed as her mother and father. Woolwich mutilation case in Pall Mall Gazette, 13 November 1888; and Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 18 November; Blanchard case in The Times, 30 May 1888, and Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880702-636. Robson case in Illustrated Police News, 26 May 1888; The Times, 23 June 1888.
136. Morgan case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880730-766, and reports in The Times, 28 July and 4,8, & 10 August; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 29 July; Western Mail, 6 August.
137. Burbridge case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880917-910. Reports in Reynolds’s Newspaper, 8 July; The Times, 2 August and 21 September. Depositions in National Archives, CRIM 1/30/5.
138. It was part of a distinctive red-brick terrace designed by Ernest George and completed in 1887. Number 104F was later occupied by the Irish MP Wilfrid Scawen Blunt in 1892 and the Conservative MP George Wyndham in 1898. The young Winston Churchill lived at No. 105 in 1902.
139. Magson case in The Times, 31 July and 9 August 1888. Depositions at Marlborough Street Police Court in National Archives, CRIM 1/30/2.
140. Lambert case in The Times, 16 May 1888; and the Standard, 16 May; and Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880702-642. Home Office baby case in The Times, 8 and 22 November 1884.
141. Hart case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880423-454 and reports in Reynolds’s Newspaper, 12 February 1888; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 12 February, 18 March and 6 May; Daily News,30 March; The Times, 27 & 29 April.
142. Skidmore Street, off White Horse Lane near Stepney Green, no longer exists. Lovett case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880227-332. Reports in The Times, 4 & 29 February. Depositions at inquest in national Archives, CRIM 1/29/1.
143. Israel case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18881119-22; and reports in the Birmingham Daily Post, 31 October 1888; Illustrated Police News, 3 November; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 11 November.
144. NSPCC, A History of the NSPCC (2000).
145. In 1891 Longman was in the convict prison at Gillingham, aged twenty. Details of the case from Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18891118-53. Depositions in National Archives, CRIM 1/32/4. Reports in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 22 April 1888; Daily News, 23 April 1888 and 25 November 1889; The Times, 18 October 1889 and 23 & 25 November 1889; Morning Post, 23 November 1889.
146. Wells, H.G., An Experiment in Autobiography, p.228.
147. Reynolds’s Newspaper case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880917-824, and reports in the Morning Post, 11 August; and The Times, 20 September.
148. Mulchay (also spelt Mulcahy in some reports) case details from Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, refence t18881210-98 and reports in the Morning Post, 21 November 1888; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 25 November; the Standard, 28 November. Dickens at Marylebone Workhouse, Tomalin, C., Charles Dickens, xxxix-xlvi; Dickens, C., ‘A Walk in a Workhouse’, Household Words, 25 May 1850. See also details of workhouse at http://www.workhouses.org.uk/StMarylebone.
149. Spickernell case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18890204-214, and reports in the Daily News, 31 December 1888; The Times, 31 December 1888 and 2 January 1889; the Standard, 2 January 1889; Morning Post, 14 January. For more on the Submarine Telegraph Co. see http://atlantic-cable.com/stamps/Cableships/indexstc.htm.
150. Aston case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880319-407, and reports in the Morning Post, 22 February 1888; the Standard, 22 February and 21 March; The Times, 22 & 28 February; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 4 March.
151. Pierrepoint was still in prison in 1893, according to the ‘Return of persons sentenced to death for the crime of murder in England and Wales’, Parliamentary Papers, 25 April 1893. Details of case in Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880702-691, and reports in The Times, 28 & 31 May and 6 July, 1888. Neate Street was the home to a ginger beer, ale and mineral water factory belonging to the R. White firm.
152. Rumbold case details from Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880730-759. The 1881 census suggests that Rumbold was born in January 1867 and lived in East Street, Marylebone, with his mother and two brothers. His mother Susan, a widower, died in 1886.
153. Letter to The Times from ‘Regents Park’, 29 May, and letter from Romanes to The Times on 31 May 1888. This initiated a debate about whether the park gates should be locked. There were also calls for ‘an inquiry into the arrangements of the park generally, to be followed by the passing of an act of Parliament’. See letters from John Lloyd and W.R.W. on 2 June. For discussion of park in Parliament see The Times, 8 & 13 June 1888.
154. Report of further feuding in The Times, 31 July 1888.
155. Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 5 August 1888.
156. Galletly was still serving his sentence in 1893, according to the ‘Return of persons sentenced to death for the crime of murder in England and Wales’, 1893, Parliamentary Papers. He is listed in the Census of 1891 as being a twenty-year-old labourer at Portland Prison. The execution date was reported by Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 12 August. Galletly was reported to have behaved well since his detention at Newgate Prison and was being visited twice a day by the chaplain. ‘He asserts that the temptation to use the knife was quite sudden, and he committed the act without thinking of the consequences.’ Report of reprieve in North Eastern Daily Gazette, 15 August 1888.
157. The Times, 4 August 1888; Sentences of Cole and others in the Standard, 6 August 1888.
158. The Times editorial, 3 August 1888.
159. Report on gangs in Pall Mall Gazette, 13 October 1888.
160. Lawyers ridiculed the Queen for failing to understand the concept of mens rea. See Walker, Crime and Insanity, pp.188-190; St Aubyn, Queen Victoria, pp.421-2.
161. Clark, R., Capital Punishment in Britain, p.258.
162. Mr Justice Hawkins quoted in The Times, 5 July 1888. Evidence in Charles Latham trial from Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18880702-635.
163. Quotes from Proceedings of the Old Bailey online reports on the cases of Emma Aston, Charles Latham, Mary Ann Reynolds, John Brown and Julia Spickernell.
164. Depositions to Greenwich Police Court and coroner’s inquest at National Archives, CRIM 1/29/1. Reports in the Morning Post, 14 January; Birmingham Post, 14 January; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 15 January; the Standard, 20 January and 2 February 1888; York Herald, 4 February.
165. It has since been suggested that Kelly is a candidate for Jack the Ripper because of his mental illness, apparent dislike for prostitutes, history of violence towards women and his claim to have visited the East End after his escape in 1888. Further details in Tully, J., The Secret of Prisoner 1167; and papers relating to Kelly held at the National Archives, HO 144/10064.
166. Description of procedure and execution taken from Berry, J., My Experiences as an Executioner, pp.12, 30-2, 38-46; and reports of The Times, 14 November 1888; and Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 18 November 1888.
167. Details of the Bartlett case from Proceedings of the Old Bailey online, reference t18881022-953.
168. Before 1837 the monarch was more directly involved in deciding the fate of condemned men and sat with the Privy Council, known as the ‘hanging cabinet’, to consider the recommendations of the Recorder of London. Queen Victoria was happy to delegate the decision to the Home Secretary, Capital Punishment in Britain, p.246. Newspaper coverage of verdict in The Times, 25 October 1888, and Morning Post, 26 October. Reports on execution date in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper and Reynolds’s Newspaper, 11 November.
169. The death sentence was also being passed on Newgate Prison itself. Less than a month later the Corporation announced that the City Lands Committee had unanimously agreed to demolish both the gaol and the Central Criminal Court. The plan was to replace it with a ‘grand new sessions house, suitable for modern requirements, as well as a fine row of shops’, according to The Times, 11 December 1888. The new Central Criminal Court opened in 1907.
170. The Times, 1 January 1889.
171. Walkowitz, J.R., City of Dreadful Delight, p.191. Quote of ‘a series of unique atrocities’ from Liverpool Mercury, 29 December 1888.
172. Liverpool Mercury, 29 December 1888.
173. The modernist poet T.S. Eliot and John Logie Baird, the inventor of the television, were both born in 1888.
174. Salisbury pledge to Queen Victoria on two power standard in Porter, R., London: A Social History, p.539.
175. In 1888 the state of New York agreed to replace hanging with electrocution.
176. The Story of the Star, pp.7, 19.
177. Cornish, G.W., Cornish of the Yard, p.1.