The gruesome ‘Jack the Ripper’ slayings of 1888 sparked a pandemic of panic and fear, unlike any London had seen before. The identity of the killer still perplexes and fascinates history buffs today. But despite a wealth of conspiracy theories and numerous investigative books, it seems we’re still no closer to discovering who was responsible.
To mark the 121-year anniversary of the murders, and to separate the myths from the facts, findmypast.com has turned to the newly-completed 1881 census, which offers a snapshot of the victims’ lives just seven years before they met their tragic end.
Modern cinema has portrayed the victims as young, lifelong prostitutes, struck down in the prime of their lives. But the 1881 census shows that by the time of their deaths they were mostly in their 40s, and had previously been living – at least on paper – respectable family lives.
Catherine Eddowes, who appears on the 1881 census as ‘Kate Conway’, is listed as a ‘charwoman’ and was living in Chelsea with her common-law husband, Thomas Conway (a ‘hawker’), plus their two children:
Elizabeth Stride, who is believed to be the third victim, had worked as a prostitute in her 20s. But by 1881 (then aged 37), it seems she had escaped that life, and was living in Bow with her husband John stride, a carpenter:
Annie Chapman – whose story is perhaps the most tragic – was staying with her parents on the night of the 1881 census with her three children. She is listed as a ‘stud groom’s wife’. (Her husband, John Chapman, was living above stables in Berkshire, where Annie and the children later joined him):
Annie and John Chapman’s eldest child, Emily Ruth Chapman, died in 1882 of meningitis, aged just 12. In the wake of the tragedy, both parents took to drink, which probably precipitated their separation, and started Annie Chapman’s descent into prostitution.
Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols, and Mary Jane Kelly (the only victim in her 20s), are not found on the 1881 census, so they may have been walking the streets on the night it was taken. But Nichols, at any rate, was married with three children at the time of the 1871 census, so the reality, once again, has not been faithfully depicted by Hollywood.
According to contemporary newspapers, by the time of their deaths, none of the three victims we found on the 1881 census were living with their husbands. Poverty was rife in the East End of London, so it’s likely, following the breakup of their marriages, that these women turned to prostitution simply to survive – a decision which, ironically, led to their untimely deaths.
Can you confirm or deny the following census record identification of Mary Jane Kelly?
In the 1881 census we have:
1861 England Census
5 Bostock St., Liverpool
Mary Jane Kelly
age 7, born in Liverpool
Father John 41
Mother Mary 42, born in Ireland
Brother Henry 13, Brother William 18, Sister Ann Amelia 9
http://jacktheripper.de/forum/index.php/topic,248.0.html
Mary Jane Kelly married Robert Wilson - St Nicholas, Liverpool on 9
September 1872.
1881 Dwelling: Penrhyn St 7 Ct 19, Liverpool, Lancs
Robert Wilson, Head, age 27, a baker
Mary Wilson, Wife, age 26
Robert Wilson, son age 7
Christina Wilson, daur age 10 (weeks or months)
John Kelly, visitor, age 57 from Ireland.
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ENG-LIVERPOOL/2006-05/1147649833
Although the first example is interesting, unfortunately Mary was alleged to have been born in about 1864, making that candidate about 10 years older.
I have long been fascinated by the Jack the Ripper murders, and when I ‘retired’ to France five years ago decided to fulfill a life-long ambition of writing crime novels. My three Victorian crime novels, THE MALVERN MURDERS (2006), THE WORCESTER WHISPERERS (2008) and THE LEDBURY LAMPLIGHTERS( to be published by Robert Hale in Nov.2009)all feature the victorian detective Samuel Ravenscroft. The crimes of Jack the Ripper are includes in all three books and the identity of the killer is also revealed. Mary Jane Kelly is also mentioned in two of the books.
These may be of interest to your readers.
I am currently reading The Whitechapel Conspiracy by Anne Perry which is following an interesting theory regarding the murders. Excellent timing of this article. Thank you.
very interesting Ripper thoughts etc. I imagine that your researcher is right about sheer poverty being the reason for their ultimate plight. Our lives are so different; we don’t know we’re born, most of us. All those poor children. We know where they would have ended up.
The victims were largely alcolholics and their addiction probably was the reason they ended up where they did.
The children of the victims went on to lead respectable lives and in Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes cases there are each about 30 living relatives of all ages alive today.
The census records and the rest of the lives of the Jack the Ripper victims has been well-known now for the last 20 years due to my own research on the victims of Jack the Ripper.
My recently published book “The Victims of Jack the Ripper” gives full details of what happened to Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Eddowes, with only Kelly being an elusive enigma.
There is also the only known photograph of a Jack the Ripper victim, namely Annie Chapman, available for the public to see too.
Neal Shelden
Hi Neal,
My name is Rhiannon Jones and I am making a documentary about the enduring fascination with Jack the Ripper, with the emphasis on the victims rather than Jack. The story has become almost a myth known the world over; I want to question this fascination and bring the focus onto the reality of these women’s lives as opposed to Jack’s possible identity.
I am the recipient of the New Pathways Film Fund and the film will be screened at the East London Film Festival.
I have read your book ‘The Victims of Jack the Ripper’ and have found it a fantastic source of information. I feel that you could bring to life these women’s lives and therefore I am asking if you could contribute to my film as an interviewee. I have been trying to find a means of contacting you and this has been my closest lead. If you are interested please reply here or to rhiannonlara@hotmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you,
Best wishes,
Rhiannon
re Jack the Ripper
Please read Jean Overton Fuller’s book Sickert and the Ripper Crimes (published long before Patricia Cornwell’s book in which she does not acknowledge Ms Overton Fuller).
It is very interesting.
My great grandmother who died when I was a very small child, always insisted to the rest of the family that her father and his colleagues knew who Jack the Ripper really was. This was always dismissed as the ramblings of an old lady and no-one too any notice of her.
In my reasearches into my family history, I found that her father (my great great grandfather) was a police counstable at Shadwell satation at the time of the murders and was quite likely involved in the investigation into at least one of the murders. Which has come as a great suprise to some people in my family who had dismissed what she had said. Unfortunately, no-one remembers who she had insisted “Jack” was!
So who was Jack the Ripper? One theory was propounded by my gt gt uncle George Kebbell who represented William Grant Grainger and was convinced that he was The Ripper as he had had medical training. There is quite a bit about Grainger on http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=770
I have posted correspondence by Kebbell on a website
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=haydencowan&id=I1389
Funny you should bring this up because I was watching Vic Reeves Investigates: Jack the Ripper the other day and wondered as he was looking through Records whether the Victims were mentioned anywhere, plus I always wonder what happened to their poor children.
As I have noted on above post, the children of the victims went on to lead respectable lives, and their mothers life histories and theirs are fully documented now.
It would be interesting to know if DNA samples could be collected from the evidence that remains in the police museum.
Descendants of people living in Whitechapel and surrounding areas could be asked to give voluntary saliva samples (to be destroyed immediately after the test) and possibly identify who Jack was?
It might not be possible to to come up with a definite name, but if the family could be identified genealogy researchers could do the rest?
I suppose a few problems could arrise here the top of the list being, who would want the world to know that their Great Grandad was Jack the ripper?
I was interested in John Netley, the reported coachman on the Prince of Wales, as he is related to my grandfather. In the 1881 census he was living with his parents and siblings, his twin brother had died not long after his birth….I have also traced him on the 1891 and 1901 census he continued to live with his father after his mother’s death and never married. He was killed by his own coach.
I have watched many programmes on this subject and believe non of the suposed candidates for the ripper is correct. i do not think they know his identity at all. An interesting thing to do would be to look at the census for flower street and look for a man about 30 + married or not, who was a butcher or similar, who for some reason left the area soon after the last killing or indeed died, be interested if anyone does this
I give illustrated talks on Jack the Ripper, and have given my talk to the district attorney and his detectives in a court house in New York. I have studied the ‘Ripper Murders’ for some years now, and every year seems to produce another Ripper revealed or even the definitive Ripper. All of course are theories with not a shred of evidence to support them. Like all ‘Ripperologists’ I have my own theory to the identity of the perpetrator. My vote falls on one John Druitt, his own family were convinced he was the Ripper, his family members had a long history of insanity. He was found in the Thames four weeks after the last murder with stones in his pocket….there were no more murders from that date. Can I prove that he was the one? No of course I cannot. Jack The Ripper was not the most prolific of serial killers….his everlasting fascination is the fact that he was never caught. I am of the opinion that the police of the time, had a good idea whom the killer was , but did not have the necessary proof to arrest.
If the Loch Ness Monster or the identity of Jack The Ripper were ever solved, two multi million pound businesses would go bankrupt.
To all ‘Ripperologists’ keep going… you never know !!!!
prolific
I’m also interested in anything “Jack The Ripper” as I’m distantly related to Andy Parlour (author of “The Jack The Ripper Whitechapel Murders”), and he is distantly related to Mary Ann Nichols - Jack’s alleged first victim….!
Incidentally - the following website is superb:
http://www.casebook.org/index.html
hello alison,
have just found this very interesting chat site. note you say you are distantly related to me-how distantly?
andy
I’ve read Patricia Cornwell’s ‘Portrait of a Killer’. Sickert was a strange person, but was living in Camden around the time of the Camden Murder (hence his paiting). While interesting, I would recommend people read ‘The Diary of Jack the Ripper’, by Shirley Harrison. It is based around a ‘diary’ found in Liverpool belonging to James Maybrick. He was poisoned, then murdered by his wife: This was a big court case in its own right. There are some very interesting facts in it, which also fit with the Ripper murders. A Ripper Tour Guide posited that it was leather Apron, based on police papers issued in 2006.
At the end of the day, who knows…
I cant see what all the mystery is about. The Man in charge of the case, Sir Robert Anderson, clearly wrote in his book the lighter side of my official life, the identity of the Ripper was a “Definitely Ascertain Fact”.
So you can all rest in peace and go back to the day jobs..
Pirate Jack
apparently there were murders in New York shortly after the last murder in England took place. There were newspaper reports and all sorts. The New Yorkers thought that Jack the Ripper was then in America. The murderer had exactly the same modus operandi. Any thoughts?
Pardon? My cyrillic is not too good nowadays.