Whitechapel murders

The **Whitechapel murders** is the name for a number of  murders which happened in the Whitechapel district of London, between 1888 and 1891. The district lies in what is called the East End of London. Over time, up to 11 murders have been counted as "Whitechapel murders". They happened between 3 April 1888 and 13 February 1891. None of the murders have been resolved.

Some, or all of the murders have been attributed to an unidentified serial killer called Jack the Ripper.  At the time when the murders happened, people living in the area were poor.

Most, if not all, of the victims—Emma Elizabeth Smith, Martha Tabram, Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Jane Kelly, Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, Frances Coles, and an unidentified woman—were prostitutes. Smith was sexually assaulted and robbed by a gang. Tabram was stabbed 39 times. Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, Kelly, McKenzie and Coles had their throats cut. Eddowes and Stride were murdered on the same night, within approximately an hour and less than a mile apart; their murders are known as the "double event". This was a phrase in a postcard sent to the press by someone who claimed to be the Ripper. The bodies of Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly had abdominal mutilations. Mylett was strangled. The body of the unidentified woman was dismembered, but the exact cause of her death is unclear.

The Metropolitan Police, City of London Police, and private organisations such as the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee were actively involved in the search for the person or people who committed the murders. There were several enquiries, and several people were arrested. In the end,  the people who committed the crimes were not found. The murders were never solved. The Whitechapel murders drew attention to the poor living conditions in the East End slums, which were improved later. The enduring mystery of who committed the crimes has captured public imagination to the present day.

## Background

In the late Victorian era, Whitechapel was known as an area where many poor people lived. There was also a lot of crime in the area.  The area around Flower and Dean Street was described as "perhaps the foulest and most dangerous street in the whole metropolis"; Dorset Street was called "the worst street in London". Assistant Police Commissioner Robert Anderson recommended Whitechapel to "those who take an interest in the dangerous classes" as one of London's prime criminal "show places". Robbery, violence and alcohol dependency were common. There was extreme poverty, sub-standard housing, poor sanitation, homelessness, drunkenness and prostitution.

There  were 233 common lodging-houses within Whitechapel, in which approximately 8,500 people slept on a nightly basis. They provided cheap communal lodgings for the desperate, the destitute and the transient, among whom were the Whitechapel murder victims. The nightly price of a single bed was 4d () and the cost of sleeping upon a "lean-to" rope stretched across the bedrooms was 2d for adults or children.

All the identified victims of the Whitechapel murders lived within the heart of the rookery in Spitalfields, including three in George Street (later named Lolesworth Street), two in Dorset Street, two in Flower and Dean Street and one in Thrawl Street.

Police work and criminal prosecutions at the time relied heavily on confessions, witness testimony, and catching people in the act of committing an offence or in the possession of obvious physical evidence that clearly linked them to a crime. Forensic techniques, such as fingerprint analysis, were not in use, and blood typing had not been invented. Policing in London was—and still is—divided between two forces: the Metropolitan Police with jurisdiction over most of the urban area, and the City of London Police with jurisdiction over about a square mile (2.9 km<sup>2</sup>) of the city centre. The Home Secretary, a senior minister of the British government, controlled the Metropolitan Police, whereas the City Police were responsible to the Corporation of London. Beat constables walked regular, timed routes.

Eleven deaths in or near Whitechapel between 1888 and 1891 were gathered into a single file, referred to in the police docket as the Whitechapel murders. Much of the original material has been either stolen, lost, or destroyed.