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Web master: Helen Boiling

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JACK THE RIPPER

 

Jack the Ripper strikes............!

The Mysterious Monster of London's East End has struck!

 

Between the months of August and November, 1888, the Whitechapel area of East London played witness to a series of horrific murders, which remain to this day unsolved.

The unknown assailant, formerly known as "Leather Apron", later to be referred as "Jack the Ripper", stalked the dimly lit, fog blanketed streets of the East End of London with a single , brutal ambition..............MURDER MOST HORRID.

With malice aforethought, undercover of darkness he lurked within the shadows, awaiting his prey......"the street women" of Old London Town.......the despicable diar!

FRIDAY 31st AUGUST, 1888 y of death had begun......

The Star newspaper reported "No murder was ever more ferociously and more brutally done" MARY ANN NICHOLS had been slain in BUCKS ROW. Last seen leaving the "Frying Pan" Public House in Brock Lane, drunk and looking for her next customer, "Polly" was to meet her grisly end, found lain on the old cobblestones, first victim of the beast who was to become England's most notorious knife man.

 


SATURDAY 8th SEPTEMBER, 1888. From the back yard of number 29, Hanbury Street, Albert Cadoche was thought to have overheard the muffled sounds of an assault. Shortly before 6.00 a.m. ANNIE CHAPMAN'S mutilated body lay exposed in the dank morning air. The Mysterious monster had struck again. The police begged the question - could it be a tall foreign stranger whom "Dark Annie" was seen approaching earlier that misty morning?

SATURDAY 30th SEPTEMBER, 1888. A day of double murder in London. From "Leather Apron" had now spawned the cursed "JACK THE RIPPER", a "trade name" he had aptly adopted in his alleged letter to the police, again Jack was at large, his blade "nice and sharp" and "ready to get to work". At 1.00 a.m. in Duffield's Yard, BERNER STREET, the body of ELIZABETH STRIDE was discovered, cut from ear to ear. Had Jack been disturbed?.....almost caught blood-red handed?....but again evaded capture, shrinking back into the shadows cast by dim gas lamps and the ice glow of a deathly full moon.

He reappeared to claim another victim in MITRE SQUARE,Aldgate. Merely 10 minutes on foot from Berner Street, through the acrid alleyways of Goodmans Fields, an area Jack knew well, with murderous intent, he struck again. At almost 1.45 a.m. CATHERINE EDDOWES bloodied corpse was found, silently slaughtered by the fearsome, and now, clearly practiced killer.

It was on this fearful night that the chalked message appeared on a wall in GOULSTON STREET next to a bloodied piece of Kate Eddowes apron. The message read "The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing" A sinister confession perhaps? A false accusation? Inspector Frederick Abberline was again left to ponder.

FRIDAY 9th NOVEMBER,1888. the month of October had passed with no further clues as to the identity of the infamous Ripper. Indeed, had the murders ceased? Sadly for MARY JANE KELLY, Jack would strike for a fifth and final time in a frenzied yet clinical assault that would shock even the most hardened criminologist. Jack had more time to indulge in his brutal blood lust this time, slaying the pretty 25 year old behind closed doors.

At number 13 MILLER'S COURT, the savaged remains of MARY KELLY were discovered. A young irish girl, led astray by the East End way of life, of drink and prostitution, "Black Mary" was believed to be the Rippers last victim. The attack was so dreadful, police believed that the killer's taste for macabre murder and thirst for blood had finally been satisfied.

With the last entry in the diary of death complete, the devil in disguise crept silently back into the shadows as stealthily as whence he first carved his infamy into the heart of Whitechapel.

Baffled detectives were left to puzzle over half clues and supposed suspects. Theories and arguments still rage to this day, as to the true identity of Jack the Ripper.

East End London has been left with the chilling reminder of a man who singlehandedly terrorized one of the worlds greatest cities.

His final mocking blow at the police was taunted in a letter he wrote.... "How can they catch me now? I love my work and want to start again....soon" Good Luck Yours Truly

 

 

THE VICTIMS

MARY ANNE NICHOLS

 

"Polly" Nichols as she was known to many, was aged 42 when Jack the Ripper's icy hand took her life. The estranged wife of a printer, Polly had borne five children before husband William eloped with one of her friends in 1877. It was then that she became trapped in the downward spiral of drink and prostitution, her final days spent living in the squalid conditions of the "White House" doss-house on Flower and Dean Street. She was laid to rest at Ilford cemetery on September 6th 1888.

 

ANNIE CHAPMAN

 

"Dark Annie" met her death on a foggy night, alone, undernourished and suffering from brain and lung diseases which would soon have claimed her if Jack's Knife hadn't. Annie wandered the East End Streets penniless following the death of her husband in 1886. Cruelly treated by life, Annie had two daughters, one of which died in 1882, and a son who was crippled. Living off immoral earnings and selling matches and flowers, Annie was a street hardened rogue. She was buried in secret, at Manor Park on September 14th 1888, by her family.

 

ELIZABETH STRIDE

 

"Long Liz" was born in Gothenburg, Sweden in November 1843, named Elizabeth Gustafsdotter. After becoming a registered prostitute and giving birth to a still born girl, she moved to London in 1866 and married John Thomas Strise, a carpenter, supposedly living in Gower Street, London. The Strides allegedly kept a coffee shop prior to the breakdown of their marriage in 1882. long Liz was to have had eight convictions for drunkenness before her fatal appointment with Jack the Ripper. Elizabeth Stride was buried in a paupers grave in the East London cemetery aged 44 years.

 

CATHERINE EDDOWES

 

Born in 1842, the daughter of a tin plate worker, Catherine Eddowes came to London's Bermondsey district at the age of two. She returned to her native Wolverhampton, with Thomas Conway, a pensioner, who was to father her three children. The couple separated in 1880, victims of habitual drinking. "Kate" left for London once more, where she resided in Flower and Dean Street. Following a hop picking venture in Kent, Kate was sadly to embark on her final tragic journey via Bishopsgate police cells into the clutches of the evil Ripper. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Ilford on 8th October 1888, witnessed by hoards of onlookers, aged 44

 

MARY JANE KELLY

 

"Black Mary" was unlike the other victims. At 25 she was young and attractive, and as a prostitute would have better served the prestigious West End clients as opposed to working the grim streets of the East End. Mary was born in Limerick, Ireland and moved to Wales where she married a collier who was tragically killed in a pit disaster. After turning to prostitution in Cardiff, she moved south to London where she worked in a West End brothel. "Fair Emma" came to lodge at various abodes around Dorset Street, London, the "Wicked Quarter Mile", and it was at Millers Court that she was found brutally murdered. She was buried at Walthamstow R.C. cemetery on 19th November

 

 

JACK THE RIPPERS VICTIMS

TWO OF THE RIPPER LETTERS

So.....who was Jack the Ripper?

 

Over the years since that ill-fated November in 1888 the media has periodically resurrected interest in this most infamous of characters.............Jack The Ripper.

Films have been made, books have been published, newspapers have been sold.............people have talked about and debated who really perpetrated these vicious and heinous crimes over 100 years ago.

In recent years......the press in the UK and indeed the world over waited with baited breath for the release of "official UK government" archives which were originally marked "Secret..not to be opened until 1988"...............only to find that no further clues were forthcoming, and some information had mysteriously gone missing!

The truth is that we are nowhere near finding out who the culprit was than we were in 1888, perhaps we shall never know the truth.

 
  • SOME OF THE MANY SUSPECTS IN THE RIPPER MURDERS

JOSEPH BARNETT

JILL THE RIPPER

WALTER SICKART

PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR

THE LODGER

SEVERIN KLOWOWSKI

THE ROYAL CONNECTION

JAMES MAYBRICK

THE FOLLOWING EXTRACT IS FROM A FANTASTIC BOOK CALLED ” HAUNTED LONDON” BY RENOWNED HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR , RICHARD JONES         www.haunted-britain.com

Ghost of Jack the Ripper. Ten Bells ,Pub

One of the more frequently asked questions about the Jack the Ripper murders that we get asked on the tour is "are any of the jack the Ripper murder sites haunted?" The answer to that is, supposedly. The Ten Bells Pub on Commercial Street has changed little since the days of Jack the Ripper, and it most certainly has over the years enjoyed more than its fair share of ghostly activity.

Ten Bells Pub. Commercial Street E1.

Jack the Ripper’s Local.

The Ten Bells Pub is indelibly linked with the legend of Jack the Ripper. Its interior, resplendent with a magnificent tiled wall panel depicting the days when this area was countryside outside the City of London, has hardly changed since the early hours of November 9th 1888, when Mary Kelly, Jack the Ripper’s final victim, left the pub. Her horrifically mutilated body was discovered next morning in Millers Court of Dorset Street on the opposite side of the road from the Ten Bells. Indeed, for many years in the 1970’s and 1980’s the pub was renamed the Jack the Ripper, until, thanks largely to a landlord who was tastefully selling dark red "Ripper Tipple’s", the brewery decided to return it to its original name in 1989.

In the late 1990’s live in staff whose bedrooms were on the upper floors of the building, were complaining of alarming encounters with a ghostly old man dressed in Victorian clothing. They would often be awoken by an uneasy feeling in the dead of night, and turning over, find his phantom form lying beside them on the bed! No sooner would they cry out in shock than the figure would disappear. Staff with no previous knowledge of his ghost would often report seeing him, and their descriptions would always be the same. Nobody had any idea who he was and those who had occasion to live on the premises, learnt to just accept him as the oldest resident.

In June 2000, however, a new landlord took over the pub and decided to clear out the cellar. He found an old metal box hidden away in a corner, and opening it, discovered it contained the personal effects of a man named George Roberts. The items dated from the early 1900’s and with them was a brown leather wallet, inside which was a press cutting of the same period that talked of his having been murdered with an axe in a Swansea Cinema. Further research revealed that a man named George Roberts had indeed kept the pub in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the landlord concluded that it was his ghost whom staff had been encountering.

A tenant who lived on the premises in 2001 would often hear footsteps followed by a faint peal of laughter outside his door, even when he was the only person on the premises. Whenever he went to investigate he would find the corridor outside empty. Going down into the bar to investigate further he would often be pushed hard on the back by an invisible hand.

A psychic was once brought to the pub to see what she could pick up on the premises. Having reached the top floor, she paused outside one of the rooms and refused to go any further. She said that she could sense that something terrible had happened in the room and was almost certain that it involved the brutal death of a baby in the 19th century. Lindsay Siviter, a leading researcher and expert on the Jack the Ripper Crimes, was being shown around the pub a few years later and had been allowed access to the roof space. She noticed some material embedded in the floor behind the water tank and pulling at it found it was a sack tied at the top. Opening it she found it contained a mouldy set of Victorian baby clothes that appeared to have been slashed with a knife. Intriguingly the tank was directly over the room that the psychic had refused to enter.

 

THE TEN BELLS PUB WHERE JACK THE RIPPERS VICTIMS DRANK THEIR LAST DRINK!!

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