Jack The Ripper - The Definitive History Part 4

The summer of 1888 had been one of the coldest and wettest on record. On the night of 30 August there was a storm, the rain was sharp and frequent and was accompanied by peals of thunder and flashes of lightning. The drama of the evening was increased by a dull red glow in the night sky caused by a terrible fire in the London docks. Shortly before 8.30pm a smell of burning was noticed and shortly afterwards there was an immense burst of flames from the top of one of the huge South Quay warehouses. Whitechapel Fire Station did not receive the alarm until after 9.00pm and the response was immediate, not just from Whitechapel but from every district in London, but by this time the fire was extremely fierce, raging through the upper floors of a building 150 yards long and half as broad. As the East London Advertiser reported: The flames could not have broken out in a more dangerous part of the docks than the site of this fire. They were crammed with colonial produce in the upper floors, and brandy and gin in the lower floors. Through the great iron-barred windows the fire could be seen raging like a furnace, and the enormous tongues of bluish and yellowish flames which constantly burst up with great roars pointed to the fact that spirits were aiding the progress of the flames.1 It was an exciting spectacle, visible for miles and it drew people from across London. An enormous crowd had gathered around the dockyard gates to watch as firemen, policemen and dock officers battled to extinguish the blaze. By 11.00pm the fierceness of the fire diminished, but by midnight the firemen were still at work and it was some hours before the fire would be extinguished.

The clock of Whitechapel Church was striking 2.30am when Mary Ann Nichols was seen by her friend Mrs. Emily Holland outside a grocer's shop on the corner of Whitechapel Road and Osborn Street, opposite Whitechapel Church. Nichols was leaning against a wall and was very drunk. Holland stopped to talk for six or seven minutes and tried to persuade her friend to return to the lodging house, but Nichols refused, saying, 'I've had my lodging money three times today and I've spent it. It won't be long before I'm back'. And with that optimism she staggered off into the night.

Mary Nichols was 5ft 2in tall, her hair was greying and she had grey eyes and small delicate features with high cheekbones. A small scar on her forehead was a reminder of a childhood accident, and her front teeth were slightly discoloured,2 four of them missing. She was in her mid forties, but had a youthful appearance remarkable given the privations she must have undergone and the abuse she had suffered, self-inflicted through the bottle as well as possible others we need only imagine. A journalist viewing her body estimated her age as between 30 and 353 but at her inquest her father said that 'she was nearly 44 years of age, but it must be owned that she looked ten years younger'.4 Emily Holland described Mary Ann as 'a very clean woman' who always seemed to keep herself to herself.5 She was born on 26 August 1845 in Shoe Lane off Fleet Street, 6 the daughter of a blacksmith named Edward Walker and his wife Caroline. She married William Nichols, a printer from Oxford, on 16 January 1864 at St. Bride's Parish Church. The couple had five children Edward, Percy, Alice, Eliza and Henry, the last born in 1879 but the marriage was marked by a series of separations and in 1880 or 1881 the couple separated for good. William Nichols claimed that the separation had been caused by Mary Ann's heavy drinking, but her father, whilst acknowledging that she drank heavily,7 alleged that William Nichols had taken up with the woman who had nursed Mary Ann through her last confinement.

Poor Mary Ann's life over the next few years is recorded in various workhouse records. Apart from a short time between late March and the end of May 1883, when she lived with her father, she was resident at Lambeth Workhouse. Then in June 1886 she began living with a man named Thomas Stewart Drew, a blacksmith with a shop at 15 York Street, Walworth. Later that month, respectably dressed, she had attended the funeral of her brother (presumably Henry Alfred) who had been burned to death when a paraffin lamp exploded. Her father had seen her at the funeral, but he had not spoken with her. 'He was not friendly with her', he said.8 The relations.h.i.+p with Drew ended in 1887 and Mary Ann appears in the workhouse records again, at St. Giles Workhouse and the Strand Workhouse, Edmonton. By the end of the year she was sleeping rough in Trafalgar Square, but when the vagrants were cleared from there in mid December she was revealed to the authorities to be dest.i.tute and without means of subsistence. She was accordingly re-admitted to the Lambeth Workhouse, where she spent Christmas 1887. In the fateful new year she spent until early April at Mitcham Workhouse and from mid April until early May was back at Lambeth, where she met Mary Ann Monk, described as a young woman with a 'haughty air and flushed face', who would identify Mary's body for the police. Another friend in the Lambeth Workhouse was a Mrs. Scorer, the separated wife of James Scorer, an a.s.sistant salesman in Spitalfields Market.

Perhaps with help from the workhouse authorities, Mary Ann Nichols secured employment as a servant for Samuel and Sarah Cowdry at 'Inglseside', Rose Hill Road, Wandsworth. Samuel was the Clerk of Works in the Police Department. Mary wrote to her father on 17 April 1888: I just write to say you will be glad to know that I am settled in my new place, and going on all right up to now. My people went out yesterday, and have not returned, so I am left in charge. It is a grand place inside, with trees and gardens back and front. All has been newly done up. They are teetotallers, and religious, so I ought to get on. They are very nice people, and I have not too much to do. I hope you are all right and the boy has work. So goodbye for the present. From yours truly, Polly Answer soon, please, and let me know how you are.9 Mr. Walker had sent a nice, conciliatory letter back, but did not receive a reply and had no further contact with his daughter. Mary's silence was probably because she had stolen clothing from her employers and absconded.

In August 1888 Mary Ann Nichols was living in a lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street. For 4d a night she shared a room with four other women, one of them being 50-year-old Emily Holland.10 She moved from there on 24 August to a lodging house known as the White House at 56 Flower and Dean Street.

At the rear of Whitechapel tube station there was a short thoroughfare known as Buck's Row. It was a quiet, rather nondescript street, although at one end was the grim and imposing structure of a board school and almost opposite was a slightly grand structure called Ess.e.x Wharf, as was spelt out along its side in ornate brickwork. It was described by Leonard Matters in 1929 when he visited the area while researching his book The Mystery of Jack the Ripper: Buck's Row cannot have changed much in character since its name was altered.11 It is a narrow, cobbled, mean street, having on one side the same houses possibly tenanted by the same people which stood there in 1888. They are shabby, dirty little houses of two storeys, and only a threefeet pavement separates them from the road, which is no more than twenty feet from wall to wall.

On the opposite side are the high walls of warehouses which at night would shadow the dirty street in a far deeper gloom than its own character in broad daylight suggests.

All Durward Street is not so drab and mean, for by some accident in the planning of the locality if ever it was planned quite two thirds of the thoroughfare is very wide and open.

The street lies east and west along the London and Northern Railway Line. It is approached from the west by Vallance Street, formerly Baker's Row. On the left are fine modern tall warehouses. I was interested to note that one of them belongs to Messrs. Kearly and Tongue, Ltd. in front of whose premises in Mitre Square another murder was committed on September 30th. On the left side of the street is a small wall guarding the railway line, which lies at a depth of some twenty feet below ground level. Two narrow bridge roads lead across the railway to Whitechapel Road. The first was called Thomas Street in 1888, but now is Fullbourne Street. The other is Court Street. By either of these two lanes, no more than two hundred and fifty yards long, the busy main artery of the Whitechapel area can be reached from the relatively secluded Buck's Row.

Going still further east, an abandoned London County Council school building breaks the wide and open Durward Street into narrow lanes or alleys. The left hand land retains the name of Durward Street 'late Buck's Row', and the other is Winthrop Street. Both are equally dirty and seemingly disreputable . . .12 Leonard Matters painted a rather depressing picture of Buck's Row as it was when he visited it, but The Times in 1888 reported that the short row of houses were tenanted by a 'respectable cla.s.s of people superior in many ways to many of the surrounding streets'.

As Matters wrote, the eastern end of the road as entered from Vallance Road is very wide, but at the board school divides into Winthrop Street on the right and Buck's Row on the left. Pa.s.sing the board school into Buck's Row, there were some gates on the right leading to a stables owned by a Mr. Brown. Next to the gates was the first in a short row of houses that led down to the intersection with Brady Street, on the corner of which was a pub called the Roebuck. The house next to the gates was a more recent structure than the rest of the street, having been built after a number of the cottages had been demolished when the East London Railway had been put in in 187576. This house was called New Cottage and it was demolished along with the neighbouring house sometime before 1948 and replaced by a garage-like structure (now also demolished, but which appears in some of the more recent surviving photographs of the street). In 1888 it was occupied by a widow, Mrs. Emma Green, her two sons and a daughter. One of the sons had retired to bed at 9.00pm, the other at 9.45pm and Mrs. Green and her daughter, who shared a room at the front of the house, had gone to bed at 11.00pm. She claimed to be a light sleeper and said that she had not been disturbed by any unusual sounds. Opposite New Cottage was Ess.e.x Wharf. Walter Purkiss, the manager of the wharf, lived here with his wife, children and servant. He and his wife had their bedroom on the second floor, at the front of the building. They had retired about 11.0011.15pm and slept fitfully. Awake at various times during the night, they had heard nothing.

In Winthrop Street, which ran adjacent to Buck's Row, was Barber's Yard, a slaughteryard owned by a Mr. Barber. At midnight two workers, Harry Tomkins and Charles Britten, left the yard and walked to the end of the street. Apparently they were away for about an hour, so presumably they walked on a bit further, stopped for a smoke and a chat, or perhaps nipped to the Roebuck for a drink. Neither saw or heard anything unusual. As they returned to their work, Walter Purkiss in Ess.e.x Wharf woke up and heard nothing. Buck's Row, he said, was unusually quiet.

This said, several newspapers, among them The Star and East London Advertiser, carried accounts of a reported disturbance that night: 'Several persons in the neighbourhood state that an affray occurred shortly after midnight, but no screams were heard, nor anything beyond what might have been considered evidence of an ordinary brawl'.13 The New York Times carried a more detailed story which s.h.i.+fted the time of the a.s.sault to about 3.00am and portrayed a far more serious disturbance: The victim was a woman, who, at 3 o'clock, was knocked down by some man, unknown, and attacked with a knife. She attempted to get up, and ran a hundred yards, her cries for help being heard by several persons in the adjacent houses. No attention was paid to her cries, however, and when found at daybreak she was lying dead in another street, several hundred yards from the scene of the attack.14 The fact that this story didn't get wider coverage suggests it was either a fiction or the woman concerned wasn't Nichols. Nichols' body was reportedly warm when discovered, so she had only recently been murdered. We do not know if anyone ever came forward and identified themselves as the person attacked, but it wouldn't necessarily have been reported in the press or been mentioned in the severely depleted police case papers.

At 3.20am Charles Cross15 left his home at 22 Doveton Street, off the Cambridge Heath Road, and began walking to work at hauliers Pickford and Co. in Broad Street. Twenty-five minutes later he turned into Buck's Row and walked up the warehouse-lined north side of the street. In the gloom he saw across the road something lying against the gates leading to the stables next to New Cottage. He later told the inquest: I could not tell in the dark what it was at first; it looked to me like a tarpaulin sheet, but stepping into the road, I saw it was the body of a woman. Just then I heard a man about 40 yards off approaching from the direction that I myself had come from. I waited for the man, who started to one side as if afraid that I meant to knock him down. I said, 'Come and look over here, there's a woman'.

The other man was Robert Paul. It was very dark and the two men couldn't see much, though they noted that the woman's clothes were raised almost to her stomach. Cross felt her hands, which were cold and limp. 'I believe she's dead', he said. Paul had felt her face and found it warm. Trying to find a heartbeat, he detected a faint movement. 'I think she's breathing', he said, 'But it's very little if she is'. He suggested that they try to sit her up, but Cross objected and the two men decided to head off in the direction of work and see if they could find a policeman on the way.

Perhaps within seconds of their leaving Buck's Row, PC Neil entered the street on his beat and walking up the south, cottagelined side of the street he found the body as Cross and Paul had left it. He shone the light of his bullseye lamp onto her face and her open, lifeless eyes gazed back. He also saw, as Cross and Paul in the darkness had not, that blood had oozed from a wound in her throat. Lying by the right side of the body was a bonnet, the one of which Mary Ann Nichols had been so proud only a few hours before.

Within four or five minutes of leaving the body Cross and Paul met PC G. Mizen, 56 H, at the corner of Hanbury Street and Baker's Row, 300 yards from Buck's Row. PC Mizen16 headed for Buck's Row and Cross and Paul continued on their way to work, parting company at the Commercial Street end of Hanbury Street, where Paul turned into Corbett's Court and Cross walked on alone to Broad Street.

At 3.47am PC Thain, on his beat along Brady Street, pa.s.sed the entrance of Buck's Row and was heard by PC Neil, who signalled with his lamp. Thain went down to his colleague, who said, 'For G.o.d's sake, Jack, go fetch a doctor'. Or so PC Thain said. PC Neil recalled that his actual words were, 'Here's a woman has cut her throat. Run at once for Dr. Llewellyn'. Whatever the precise words, PC Thain immediately went to the surgery of Dr. Rees Ralph Llewellyn17 at 152 Whitechapel Road (going via the slaughter yard to retrieve his cape and telling Harry Tomkins about the murdered woman while doing so).18 Harry Tomkins went with another slaughterman named James Mumford to view the body, later being joined by Charles Britten. They remained there until the body was taken away and for a while they would be suspects and subjected to long and detailed interviews by the police, but were able to account for themselves.19 They were soon after joined by Patrick Mulshaw, a night porter employed by the Whitechapel District Board of Works at some sewage works 70 yards or so from the slaughter yard in Winthrop Street, who had been told by a pa.s.sing man: 'Watchman, old man. I believe somebody is murdered down the street'. Mulshaw immediately went round the corner into Buck's Row.20 In the meantime, PC Mizen, having arrived in Buck's Row, had been sent by PC Neil to fetch an ambulance. PC Thain returned with Dr. Llewellyn, who made a very cursory examination of the body, p.r.o.nounced the woman dead and directed that the body be taken to the mortuary in Old Montague Street. PC Mizen arrived with the ambulance basically a hand-cart and together with PC Neil lifted the body onto it. PC Thain noticed that there was a lot of blood on the back of the body and a.s.sumed that this had run down from the neck. When he a.s.sisted in lifting the body aboard the ambulance he got a lot of blood on his hands. He also noticed a spot of congealed blood about 6 inches in diameter underneath the body that had begun to run towards the gutter.

Inspector John Spratling, J Division, heard about the murder when in the Hackney Road and he hastened to the murder scene, arriving there just after the body had been removed to the mortuary. PC Thain pointed out the spot where the body had been found, then the two men went together to the mortuary, which was locked, the body still on the ambulance in the mortuary yard. The keys to the mortuary had been sent for, and whilst he waited for them Spratling began taking down a description of the body, pausing when the mortuary attendant, a pauper inmate of the Whitechapel Workhouse named Robert Mann, arrived with the keys and the body was moved indoors. Continuing to take down the description, Spratling discovered that Nichols had suffered severe injuries to the abdomen and sent for Dr. Llewellyn.

At 6.30am James Hatfield and another inmate of the Whitechapel Workhouse arrived at the mortuary and despite instructions from Detective Sergeant Enright not to touch the body Hatfield and Robert Mann stripped it and washed it down, dumping Nichols' clothing in the yard. Returning to the mortuary, Inspector Spratling noticed that Nichols' petticoats bore a stencil stamp of the Lambeth Workhouse. The Workhouse matron was immediately summoned to view the body, but was unable to identify it and said that the petticoats might have been issued any time during the past two or three years.21 At 10.00am Dr. Llewellyn made a full post-mortem examination of the body. His description of the injuries given at the subsequent inquest makes grim reading: He deposed that on Friday morning about four o'clock he was called up by a policeman, with whom he went to Buck's-row. He there found the deceased lying on her back with her throat deeply cut; there was very little blood on the ground. She had apparently been dead about half-an-hour. He was quite certain that the injury to her throat was not self-inflicted. There was no mark of any struggle either on the body or near where it was found. About an hour afterwards he was sent for again by the police, and going to the mortuary, to which the body had been carried, found most extensive injuries on the abdomen. At ten o'clock that (Sat.u.r.day) morning, in the presence of his a.s.sistant, he began a post-mortem examination. On the right side of the face was a recent and strongly-marked bruise, which was scarcely perceptible when he first saw the body. It might have been caused either by a blow from a fist or by pressure of the thumb. On the left side of the face was a circular bruise, which might have been produced in the same way. A small bruise was on the left side of the neck, and an abrasion on the right. All must have been done at the same time. There were two cuts in the throat, one four inches long and the other eight, and both reaching to the vertebrae, which had also been penetrated. The wounds must have been inflicted with a strong-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence. It appeared to have been held in the left hand of the person who had used it. No blood at all was found on the front of the woman's clothes. The body was fairly well nourished, and there was no smell of alcohol in the stomach. On the abdomen were some severe cuts and stabs, which the witness described in detail. Nearly all the blood had drained out of the arteries and veins, and collected to a large extent in the loose tissues. The deceased's wounds were sufficient to cause instantaneous death.

Questioned by jurymen, the witness said the deceased was a strong woman. The murderer must have had some rough anatomical knowledge, for he seemed to have attacked all the vital parts. It was impossible to say whether the wounds were inflicted by a clasp knife or a butcher's knife, but the instrument must have been a strong one. When he first saw the body, life had not been out of it for more than half-an-hour. The murder might have occupied four or five minutes. It could have been committed by one man so far as the wounds were concerned.22 Later recalled, Dr. Llewellyn added that 'no part of the viscera was missing'.23 A slightly more detailed account of Dr. Llewellyn's initial opinions was reported in The Times: The weapon used would scarcely have been a sailor's jack knife, but a pointed weapon with a stout back such as a cork-cutter's or shoemaker's knife. In his opinion it was not an exceptionally long-bladed weapon. He does not believe that the woman was seized from behind and her throat cut, but thinks that a hand was held across her mouth and the knife then used, possibly by a left-handed man, as the bruising on the face of the deceased is such as would result from the mouth being covered with the right hand. He made a second examination of the body in the mortuary, and on that based his conclusion.24 The important points in Dr. Llewellyn's testimony were that the knife appeared to have been held in the murderer's left hand, that the murderer 'must have had some rough anatomical knowledge' and that it had taken no more than four or five minutes for the injuries to have been inflicted.

Not mentioned by Dr. Llewellyn but widely reported in the press on 1 September was that one of Mary Ann Nichols' fingers bore the impression of a ring which was missing, apparently removed. It is not known whether Nichols was wearing a ring on the night of the murder or whether she or her murderer had removed it, but the next victim of the Whitechapel murderer, Annie Chapman, had worn two cheap bra.s.s rings that appeared to have been forcibly removed from her fingers.

A journalist working for The Star newspaper was allowed into the mortuary to view the body of Mary Ann Nichols and at 11.30am filed a story: The body appeared to be that of a woman of 35. It was 5ft. 3in. in height and fairly plump. The eyes were brown, the hair brown, and the two centre upper front teeth missing, those on either side being widely separated. This peculiarity may serve to identify the deceased, of whom at present writing nothing is known. Her clothing consisted of a well-worn brown ulster, a brown linsey skirt, and jacket, a gray linsey petticoat, a flannel petticoat, dark-blue ribbed stockings, braid garters, and side spring shoes. Her bonnet was black and rusty, and faced with black velvet. Her whole outfit was that of a person in poor circ.u.mstances, and this appearance was borne out by the mark 'LAMBETH WORKHOUSE, P.R.', which was found on the petticoat bands. The two marks were cut off and sent to the Lambeth inst.i.tution to discover if possible the ident.i.ty of the deceased. The brutality of the murder is beyond conception and beyond description. The throat is cut in two gashes, the instrument having been a sharp one, but used in a most ferocious and reckless way. There is a gash under the left ear, reaching nearly to the centre of the throat. Along half its length, however, it is accompanied by another one which reaches around under the other ear, making a wide and horrible hole, and nearly severing the head from the body.25 Another journalist gave the following account: The Whitechapel Mortuary is a little brick building situated to the right of the large yard used by the Board of Works for the storage of their material. Accompanied by Mr. Edmunds, the keeper, our reporter visited the temporary resting place of the victim on Friday morning. The first evidence seen of the tragedy on arriving in the yard was a bundle of what were little more than rags, of which the woman had been divested, and which were lying on the flagstones just outside the mortuary. They consisted of a dull red cloak already mentioned, together with a dark bodice and brown skirt, a check flannel petticoat which bore the mark of the Lambeth Workhouse, a pair of dark stockings, and an old pair of dilapidated-looking spring-side boots, together with the little and sadly battered black straw bonnet, minus either ribbons or tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. Contrary to antic.i.p.ation, beyond the flannel petticoat, and with the exception of a few bloodstains on the cloak, the other clothing was scarcely marked. The petticoat, however, was completely saturated with blood, and altogether presented a sickening spectacle. Entering the deadhouse, with its rows of black coffins, the keeper turned to the one immediately to the right of the door, and lying parallel with the wall. Opening the lid, he exposed the face of the poor victim. The features were apparently those of a woman of about thirty or thirty-five years, whose hair was still dark. The features were small and delicate, the cheek-bones high, the eyes grey, and the partly opened mouth disclosed a set of teeth which were a little discoloured. The expression on the face was a deeply painful one, and was evidently the result of an agonising death. The gash across the neck was situated very slightly above the breastbone; it was at least six inches in length, over an inch in width, and was clean cut. The hands were still tightly clenched. The lower portion of the body, however, presented the most sickening spectacle of all. Commencing from the lower portion of the abdomen, a terrible gash extended nearly as far as the diaphragm a gash from which the bowels protruded . . . The body, with the exception of the face was covered with a white sheet and a blanket.26 Apart from the small bundle of clothing, Mary Ann Nichols' only other possessions were a comb and a piece of a looking gla.s.s found in her pockets.27 The petticoats had inscribed on them 'Lambeth Workhouse P.R.' This indicated the workhouse at Princess Road. It had been abandoned as the main Lambeth Workhouse for some years, but in 188788 it was used for the construction of a new 'test' workhouse for 200 men and 150 women. The aged and infirm were left at the workhouse in Renfrew Road, whilst the able bodied moved to Princess Road where they were required to endure a particularly strict regime and perform work such as stone-breaking and oak.u.mpicking in order to receive relief. Each s.e.x was segregated into three cla.s.ses, according to their previous known conduct and character. Those cla.s.sified as being of bad character performed their work in isolation from one another. The workhouses were joyless places which most people tried hard to avoid.28 Lambeth Workhouse achieved fame because in 1895 Charles Chaplin (then aged 7) became an inmate together with his mother and his younger brother Sydney. The two children were later transferred to Hanwell School for Orphans and Dest.i.tute Children, while Charlie's mother, who had suffered a mental breakdown, was sent to the Cane Hill Lunatic Asylum. In 1922, the workhouse and infirmary were amalgamated and renamed Lambeth Hospital and in 1930 its administration was taken over by the London County Council. The infirmary and most of the workhouse have now been demolished.

As the day wore on and news of the murder spread numerous women visited the mortuary to view the body, which was eventually recognised as that of a woman who had lodged at 18 Thrawl Street and was known as Polly. People from the lodging house were summoned and among those who turned up was Emily Holland, who told about her meeting with 'Polly' at 2.30am. It was not until 7.30pm, however, that Mary Ann Monk, an inmate of Lambeth Workhouse, came to the mortuary and identified the body as that of Mary Ann Nichols, otherwise known as Polly.

By the end of the day two theories were given wide circulation. One was that the murder had been committed by one of the gangs known to operate in the area and extort money from the local prost.i.tutes. Little is known about these gangs, although one which achieved notoriety was the 'Old Nichol Gang' who hailed from an area known as the Old Nichol in Bethnal Green. This idea had been dismissed very quickly, however, and both Inspector Helson and Inspector Abberline were reported as expressing the opinion that a single perpetrator was responsible.

The other idea which is still current among theorists today29 is that the murder was not committed in Buck's Row. The Times reported: Viewing the spot where the body was found, it seems difficult to believe that the woman received her death wounds there . . . if the woman was murdered on the spot where the body was found, it is almost impossible to believe that she would not have aroused the neighbourhood by her screams.30 However, Inspector Helson reported that there 'was no doubt but that the murder was committed where the body was found'.31 By the early hours of Sat.u.r.day afternoon Mary Ann Nichols' husband had been contacted and with one of his sons taken to the mortuary, where he was greatly distressed by the sight of his wife. 'I forgive you, as you are, for what you have been to me', he said.

In the afternoon the inquest was opened before Wynne E. Baxter, Coroner for the South-Eastern Division of Middles.e.x, at the Working Lads' Inst.i.tute in Whitechapel Road. Detective Inspectors Abberline and Helson and Sergeants Enright and G.o.dley watched the case on behalf of the Criminal Investigation Department. The foreman of the jury, Mr. h.o.r.ey, and the jury members were sworn in, then taken by Mr. Banks, the Coroner's a.s.sistant, to view the body. On their return the proceedings opened. Wynne Baxter was seated at the head of a long table, around him a.s.sorted doc.u.ments and sheets of paper onto which to write the witnesses' depositions.

On the afternoon of Thursday 6 September, Mary Ann Nichols was buried: The arrangements were of a very simple character. The time at which the cortege was to start was kept a profound secret, and a rouse was perpetrated in order to get the body out of the mortuary where it has lain since the day of the murder. A pair-horsed closed hea.r.s.e was observed making its way down Hanbury-street and the crowds, which numbered some thousands, made way for it to go along Old Montague-street, but instead of doing so it pa.s.sed on into the Whitechapel-road, and, doubling back, entered the mortuary by the back gate, which is situated in Chapman's-court. Not a soul was near other than the undertaker32 and his men, when the remains, placed in a polished elm coffin, bearing a plate with the inscription, 'Mary Ann Nichols, aged 42; died August 31, 1888' were removed to the hea.r.s.e, and driven to Hanbury-street, there to await the mourners. These were late in arriving, and the two coaches were kept waiting some time in a side street. By this time the news had spread that the body was in the hea.r.s.e, and people flocked round to see the coffin, and examine the plate. In this they were, however, frustrated, for a body of police, under Inspector Allisdon, of the H Division, surrounded the hea.r.s.e and prevented their approaching too near. At last the cortege started towards Ilford, where the last scene in this unfortunate drama took place. The mourners were Mr. Edward Walker, the father of the deceased, and his grandson, together with two of the deceased's children. The procession proceeded along Baker's-row and pa.s.sed the corner of Buck's-row into the main-road, where police were stationed every few yards. The houses in the neighbourhood had the blinds drawn, and much sympathy was expressed for the relatives.33 The funeral took place on Thursday, when the polished elm coffin was deposited in a hea.r.s.e supplied by Mr. H. Smith, of Hanbury-street, and driven to Ilford Cemetery, in company with two mourning coaches containing the father of the deceased and his grandson, together with two of the deceased's children. There was a very large number of spectators present, who evinced the greatest sympathy.34 The police investigation stalled very quickly, perhaps unsurprisingly as random murders are very difficult to detect, but the idea that the Whitechapel Murders had been committed by a gang seems to have been quickly abandoned, or so most of the newspapers reported on 1 September, saying that similarities in the crimes had caused the police to believe that they were the work of one individual,35 'a maniac haunting Whitechapel'.36 The Manchester Guardian reported that by the evening of 4 September the police believed they had a clue to the perpetrators of the crime and were maintaining surveillance on 'certain persons',37 the use of the plural perhaps suggesting that belief in a single perpetrator may not have been universally held.

The following day there were hints of reticence by the police: 'Whatever information may be in possession of the police they deem it necessary to keep secret, but considerable activity is being exercised in keeping a watch on suspected persons. It is believed that their attention is particularly directed to two individuals, one a notorious character known as "Leather Ap.r.o.n", and the other a seafaring man'.38 The mysterious Leather Ap.r.o.n was very well described and very well known, Of this individual the following description is given: He is 5ft. 4in. or 5ft. 5in. in height, and wears a dark close-fitting cap. He is thickset, and has an unusually thick neck. His hair is black, and closely clipped, his age being about 38 or 40. He has a small black moustache. The distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of his costume is a leather ap.r.o.n, which he always wears, and from which he gets his nickname. His expression is sinister, and seems to be full of terror for the women who describe it. His eyes are small and glittering. His lips are usually parted in a grin, which is not only not rea.s.suring, but excessively repellent. He is a slippermaker by trade, but does not work. His business is blackmailing women late at night. A number of men in Whitechapel follow this interesting profession. He has never cut anybody, so far as is known, but always carries a leather knife, presumably as sharp as leather knives are wont to be. This knife a number of the women have seen. His name n.o.body knows, but all are united in the belief that he is a Jew or of Jewish parentage, his face being of a marked Hebrew type. But the most singular characteristic of the man is the universal statement that in moving about he never makes any noise. What he wears on his feet the women do not know, but they agree that he moves noiselessly. His uncanny peculiarity to them is that they never see him or know of his presence until he is close by them. 'Leather Ap.r.o.n' never by any chance attacks a man. He runs away on the slightest appearance of rescue. One woman whom he a.s.sailed some time ago boldly prosecuted him for it, and he was sent up for seven days. He has no settled place of residence, but has slept oftenest in a four penny lodging-house of the lowest kind in a disreputable lane leading from Brick Lane. The people at this lodging house denied that he had been there, and appeared disposed to s.h.i.+eld him. 'Leather Ap.r.o.n's' pal, 'Mickeldy Joe', was in the house at the time, and his presence doubtless had something to do with the unwillingness to give information. 'Leather Ap.r.o.n' was last at this house some weeks ago, though this account may be untrue. He ranges all over London, and rarely a.s.sails the same woman twice. He has lately been seen in Leather Lane, which is in the Holborn district.39 But the reality was that there was absolutely no evidence against him. Leather Ap.r.o.n was identified as John or Jack Pizer, a man who the prost.i.tutes claimed extorted money from them. According to a report made by Inspector Helson: The inquiry has revealed the fact that a man named Jack Pizer, alias Leather Ap.r.o.n, has, for some considerable period been in the habit of ill-using prost.i.tutes in this, and other parts of the Metropolis, and careful search has been, and is continued to be made to find this man in order that his movements may be accounted for on the night in question, although at present there is no evidence whatsoever against him.40 But the mysterious Leather Ap.r.o.n achieved wide circulation and was sensationally reported, especially in US newspapers: The crime, committed last Friday night, has shocked the whole of England, and is generally charged to a short, thickset, half crazy creature, with fiendish black eyes, and known as 'Leather Ap.r.o.n'. He frequented the dark alleys, and like a veritable imp haunted the gloom of the halls and pa.s.sage ways of Whitechapel, and lived by robbing the female Arabs who roamed the streets after nightfall. Of powerful muscle, carrying a knife which he brandished over his victims, the London murder fiend was too terrible an a.s.sailant for the victim that cowered beneath the glitter of cold steel.41 In the London press, however, it was early wondered whether Leather Ap.r.o.n was 'a mythical outgrowth of the reporter's fancy':42 a theory exists that 'Leather Ap.r.o.n' is more or less a mythical personage, and that he is not responsible for the terrible crimes with which his name has been a.s.sociated. All the same, the details of his appearance have been widely circulated with a view to his early apprehension, and all the police in the vicinity are on the look-out for him.43 The week pa.s.sed, then Jack the Ripper struck again.

Notes.

1. East London Advertiser, 1 September 1888.

2. East London Observer, 1 September 1888.

3. East London Observer, 1 September 1888.

4. East London Observer, 8 September 1888.

5. East London Observer, 8 September 1888.

6. Rumbelow, Donald (1975) The Complete Jack the Ripper. London: W. H. Allen, p.41. Rumbelow cites a statement made by Nichols to the authorities at Mitcham Workhouse that she was born in August 1851 and married William Nichols on 16 January 1864 when she would have been only 12.

7. Inquest testimony. For a short time in 1883 Mary Ann Nichols had lived with her father. He said that although she was not in the habit of staying out late at night and not, he thought, 'fast' with men, she had been a heavy drinker and this had led to friction and they'd had an argument. The following morning Mary had left.

8. Inquest testimony, East London Observer, Sat.u.r.day 8 September 1888.

9. Extensively cited in the press: East London Observer, Sat.u.r.day 8 September 1888; Woodford Times (Ess.e.x), Friday 7 September 1888. Edward Walker confirmed that the handwriting was his daughter's and it is interesting that Mary Ann was literate.

10. Emily Holland had two convictions at the Thames Magistrate Court for being drunk and disorderly. Some newspapers gave her name as Jane Oram (see The Times, 4 September 1888) and Jane Hodden (see the Manchester Guardian, 4 September 1888) and Inspector Abberline calls her Ellen Holland (MEPO 3/140 fol.246). She was described as the lodging house keeper at 18 Thrawl Street in the Woodford Times, Friday 7 September 1888.

11. Buck's Row had been renamed Durward Street by the time Leonard Matters wrote.

12. Matters, Leonard (1929) The Mystery of Jack the Ripper. London: Hutchinson.

13. The Star, 31 August 1888; East London Advertiser, 1 September 1888; Weekly Herald, 7 September 1888.

14. New York Times, 1 September 1888. Also reported in British Daily Whig (Canada) on 1 September 1888.

15. Charles Cross's name is erroneously given as George Cross in The Times and this has been followed by several writers. Others have called him William Cross. Other accounts, notably that given by Donald McCormick are entirely fictional, including details that did not and could not have happened, and entirely fictional narratives. Such literary embellishments were acceptable literary conventions at the time. (McCormick, Donald (1959) The Ident.i.ty of Jack the Ripper. London: Jarrolds.) 16. There is some confusion over this incident. At the inquest PC Mizen said that he had been approached by two men who told him, 'You are wanted in Buck's Row by a policeman; a woman is lying there'. He denied that either man had said the woman was dead. Cross and Paul, however, said that Cross had said the woman 'looks to me to be either dead or drunk', Paul adding, 'I think she's dead'. Cross was asked at the inquest if he'd told Mizen he was wanted by a policeman, and had replied, 'No, because I did not see a policeman in Buck's Row'. There seems no reason to disbelieve Cross.

17. Dr. Llewellyn (18511921) was a local physician who died aged 70 at Toxteth Lodge, 108 Stamford Hill, Middles.e.x, on 17 June 1921.

18. It is curious how the same event can be reported differently in the newspapers. The Times (18 September 1888), calling PC Thain PC Phail, reported that 'he did not take his cape to the slaughterer's but sent it by a brother constable'.

19. Report by Inspector Abberline dated 19 September 1888, MEPO 3.140 fol.249.

20. The expression 'old man' is common enough not to elicit any real suspicion, but it is interesting to note that Matthew Packer, who claimed to have sold some fruit to a later Ripper victim named Elizabeth Stride, said that a man had addressed him: 'Well, what's the price of the black grapes, old man?' And on being told, had replied, 'Well, then, old man, give us a half a pound of the black'.

21. The Times, 1 September 1888.

22. The Times, 8 September 1888.

23. The Times, 18 September 1888.

24. The Times, 1 September 1888.

25. East London Advertiser, Sat.u.r.day 1 September 1888.

26. East London Observer, 1 September 1888.

27. The Times, 1 September 1888.

28. The workhouses were rather notorious establishments, particularly in the early part of the century. The London Medical Gazette records the inquest held at Norwood in Surrey on 26 January 1838 on a boy named Henry Bailey who had been flogged to death at Lambeth Workhouse. The boy, whose age is not stated, had been flogged by a Mr. Rowe to a degree where the back, thighs, legs and arms were nearly covered with black marks and there was also a bruise on the forehead. Still alive, he had then been taken from the workhouse to the House of Industry at Norwood, used for the infant poor of the Parish of Lambeth where he died six days later. Mr. Rowe, in a manner unstated, apparently died on the morning the boy was taken to Norwood and was thus beyond punishment. But what was remarkable was that the inquest set about debating whether the boy had died from the severity of the whipping or from a disease of the lungs discovered during the post-mortem examination. Or whether death was caused by the latter exacerbated by the former. A 'very nice legal point', observed Mr. W. Street, a surgeon giving evidence, with some sarcasm. (The London Medical Gazette, Vol. 21, 183738, p.1053.) 29. It is integral to the Royal conspiracy theory presented by Stephen Knight in Jack the Ripper: the Final Solution and reiterated in several books and movies since then, most notably Murder By Decree (1979), Jack the Ripper (1988) and From h.e.l.l (2000).

30. The Times, 1 September 1888.

31. Inspector Helson's report dated 7 September 1888 is in MEPO 3/140 fol.237.

32. The undertaker was a Mr. H. Smith of Hanbury Street according to the East London Observer, 8 September 1888.

33. East London Advertiser, Sat.u.r.day 8 September 1888.

34. East London Observer, Sat.u.r.day 8 September 1888.

35. The Times, 1 September 1888.

36. The Star, 31 August 1888.

37. Manchester Guardian, 5 September 1888.

38. Manchester Guardian, 6 September 1888.

39. Manchester Guardian, 10 September 1888.

40. MEPO 3/140, ff.2358 report from Inspector Helson, Local Inspector, CID, J Division, to Scotland Yard, 7 September 1888.

41. Austin Statesman, 5 September 1888. An interesting article that drew a comparison with 'the servant girl murderers in Austin in 1885, which latter remains a mystery as profound and unravelled as that of Whitechapel. All were perpetrated in the same mysterious and impenetrable silence, and what makes the coincidence more singular is that the Austin murder fiend, who was seen on one occasion, was, like "Leather Ap.r.o.n", a short, heavy set personage'.

42. Leytonstone Express and Independent, Sat.u.r.day 8 September 1888.

43. Manchester Guardian, 10 September 1988.

Chapter Seven.

The Maiden Tribute.

Victorian society appeared to be respectable, controlled and above the vices prevalent on the continent, and this view existed into the mid twentieth century, enabling the distinguished historian Sir Robert Ensor to write as late as 1934 in his authoritative England 1870 1914, 'it is very significant that when well-to-do Victorians gave way to vice they commonly went to Paris to indulge it'.1 It was widely believed that the Empire was built upon the hard work and clear-eyed vision of men who channelled their s.e.x drive into other things, a view again echoed by Sir Robert Ensor: A school of recent writers, concerned to paint the Victorians as hypocrites, has suggested that behind a facade of continence their men were in fact profligate and over-s.e.xed. Religious restraints, it argues, did not really check physical impulse. The view may, like any other, be backed by particular instances. But as a generalisation it misunderstands the age. The religion-ruled Englishmen then dominant in the governing, directing, professional, and business cla.s.ses spent, there can be little doubt, far less of their time and thought on s.e.x interests than either their continental contemporaries or their twentieth century successors; and to this saving their extraordinary surplus of energy in other spheres must reasonably be in part ascribed.

He went on to state that, 'Probably at the bottom of society there was a greater amount of coa.r.s.e prost.i.tution than now, just as there was of drunkenness, of physical squalor, and of ruffianly crime'.

It was rather more than a probability.

It is well known that an open sewer of vice and s.e.xual exploitation lay barely hidden behind those pillars of middle-cla.s.s Victorian respectability the sanct.i.ty of the family, moral virtue, a strong Protestant work ethic, thrift, a deep commitment to religious belief, prudishness to the point of repressiveness and restraint or preferably abstinence in the use of stimulants; 'duty, industry, morality and domesticity . . .' as Lytton Strachey put it.2 The question still debated by historians is whether middle-cla.s.s respectable Victorians were aware of the sewer beneath this facade and hypocritically chose to pretend it wasn't there; or whether vice, like Father Brown's postman, was so visible that it pa.s.sed unnoticed. Certainly the extent of prost.i.tution was not realised, nor were its causes and effects. Prost.i.tutes, like paupers, were moral failures, self-made degenerates undeserving of help, charity or understanding, who preferred to walk the streets in their paint and ragged finery rather than embrace work, thrift and self-improvement. They were consequently of no greater interest or worthy of attention than are the ants scurrying about their business underfoot on the pavement. And, of course, prost.i.tution wasn't a subject suitable for discussion. In polite circles it did not exist.

But during the first half of the nineteenth century eyes began to be opened, at first to the dangers of prost.i.tution and later to the suffering and shame with which it was a.s.sociated. From the 1850s onwards prost.i.tution became the subject of fierce debate in the highest political circles and down through all strata of society, except perhaps in the lowest where it was a daily reality rather than a subject for shocked and outraged discussion. In 1885 a series of articles about child prost.i.tution, called 'A Maiden Tribute to Modern Babylon', in the ever-campaigning Pall Mall Gazette, shook the nation. The articles painted a horrifying picture of children and young women being enticed or forcibly abducted into brothels at home and abroad, to be used, exploited and discarded by the debauched rich who used their influence in government and law to protect the procurers and the brothel keepers from justice.

Moral degeneracy in the slums was portrayed as having reached such a level that a mother would sell her child for prost.i.tution in a foreign land. The articles were shocking, appalling, broke the conventions of journalism, caused a sensation, stimulated discussion, opened eyes, horrified minds and focused attention on the slum areas that had hitherto been largely ignored.3 It obviously wasn't intentional, but the campaigns against prost.i.tution and the 'Maiden Tribute' articles highlighted the poverty ridden, prost.i.tute-filled and slum-ridden East End streets. When Jack the Ripper struck against the very cla.s.s of woman whose existence had been the subject of moral, social and political clamour, and when the police failed to catch the killer, it seemed to confirm that the police weren't interested in protecting poverty-stricken East End prost.i.tutes, that the lower orders didn't matter.

The East End and prost.i.tution seem to go hand in hand and neither has ever been far removed from scandal. As far back as 1303 two local women, Alice la Faleyse and Matilda the wife of Thomas Bat, had houses within the precinct of St. Mary Spital and were suspected of running brothels visited by the canons and perhaps run by the Prior, Robert de Cerne.4 Just over 500 years later the East End was still noted as the primary location of low lodging houses that acted as brothels. Henry Mayhew noted, 'In order to find these low houses it is necessary to journey eastwards, and leave the artificial glamour of the West End, where vice is pampered and caressed. Whitechapel, Wapping, Ratcliffe Highway, and a.n.a.logous districts, are prolific in the production of the infamies'.5 Here were women recorded for posterity by Mayhew with colourful names such as China Emma, Lus.h.i.+ng Loo, Cocoa Bet and Salmony-faced Mary Anne.

Prost.i.tution was available across London, from the East End to the West End, and was equally available in other British cities, but it was invisible to all but the eyes of those who wanted to see it and it simply wasn't discussed. Religious organisations had campaigned against prost.i.tution, as they campaigned against all kinds of fornication and almost any kind of entertainment, but the extent of prost.i.tution was unknown partly because it was often impossible to distinguish between regular prost.i.tutes and women who accepted gifts and money in return for s.e.xual favours. There was a fine but clearly drawn distinction: women who acknowledged that they supplied s.e.x for money did not consider themselves prost.i.tutes, especially if they did not regard the money as their primary source of income, and even if it was their only source of income. The problem of prost.i.tution began to be quietly discussed from the 1830s onwards and a few organisations sprang up like the Society for the Suppression of Vice (otherwise the London Society for the Protection of Young Females and Prevention of Prost.i.tution). Several important books were also written. In 1839 Michael Ryan, in Prost.i.tution in London, drew attention to the extent of prost.i.tution he estimated that one in five women in London between the ages of 15 and 50 was a prost.i.tute, estimated that 8 million was spent on prost.i.tution and warned of the danger such wanton degeneracy had on young men. Further publications tried in various ways to engender public support for the suppression of prost.i.tution. These included Magdalenism by William Tait, a survey of prost.i.tution in Edinburgh in 1842, Lectures on Female Prost.i.tution by Ralph Wardlaw in 1842 and The Miseries of Prost.i.tution by J.B. Talbot in 1844. But it was the publication in 1850 in the Westminster Review of an article by William Rathbone Greg (republished as a pamphlet in 1853 ent.i.tled The Great Sin of Great Cities) that proved enormously shocking and volunteered a radical concept with far-reaching implications. Greg argued that prost.i.tution spread venereal disease and also that prost.i.tution was so deeply rooted in and so much a part of conventional society that abolition was impossible. That venereal disease was a growing problem was shocking in itself; that prost.i.tution was out of control in Britain was an admission unsuspected and unimagined. What was totally radical thinking for Britain, however, was Greg's opinion that venereal disease could only be controlled by the state regulation of prost.i.tutes. He suggested that they only be allowed to operate if certified by the government, that they be imprisoned if they prost.i.tuted themselves without certification and that certificates could only be obtained following regular medical inspections, with compulsory detention in a special hospital called a Lock Hospital if found to be diseased. This wasn't unique thinking, since many countries employed similar systems, and Greg did not push the point. That was left to William Acton.

William John Acton was a pioneering s.e.xologist, author of a hugely influential book called Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive System,6 and the recognised authority on venereal disease. Some of his ideas that s.e.m.e.n was a rare and valuable commodity, that women 'are not very much troubled by s.e.xual feeling of any kind' and that male masturbation led to insanity7 have caused his reputation to suffer somewhat over time, but his books are extremely valuable historical sources because Acton supported his advocacy of state-regulated prost.i.tution by providing facts and figures derived from police returns. In his book Prost.i.tution8 he states that in 1839 there were 6,371 prost.i.tutes in the metropolitan area, in 1841 there were 9,409 and by the middle of 1857 8,600. And these figures, he pointed out, did not include casual prost.i.tutes or women suspected, but not certainly known, to be prost.i.tutes. If such women were included, he said, 'the estimates of the boldest who have preceded me would be thrown into the shade'.

But all this was relatively small beer. The call to action was an editorial in the Lancet in 1858 which observed that venereal disease was rife among the military one-fifth of the fighting force of the country, it said, was in hospital being treated for venereal disease and it suggested that since treating the men was almost a losing battle, it would make more sense to treat the women.

Cases of venereal disease had been increasing in the military since 1823 (in fact it was established in 1864 that a third of all sick cases among soldiers were venereal in origin) and in the wake of the disastrous performance of the British Army in the Crimean War (185356), when looking to blame something other than outrageous military incompetence and government parsimony, the authorities settled on venereal disease as the scapegoat and set up a Royal Commission to inquire into the health of the army. It reported in 1857, the same year in which Acton's Prost.i.tution was published and the Lancet estimated that one house in 60 in the capital was a brothel and one woman in every 16 was a wh.o.r.e. Two views emerged: one posited that venereal disease among soldiers could be reduced if they were provided with improved recreational facilities and allowed to marry; the other advocated the regulation and enforced examination of prost.i.tutes. The government took the view that improved recreational facilities were expensive9 and that marriage would sap the fighting spirit, so elected to regulate prost.i.tutes.

The result was the Contagious Diseases Act and the first of the three Contagious Diseases Acts was introduced to a poorly attended parliament as the last item of business on 20 June 1864, where, according to Gladstone, it was pa.s.sed 'almost without the knowledge of anyone'10 and thought by many of those who did notice it to have had something to do with cattle disease. A little over five weeks later it became law and was applied to the garrison and dockyard towns of Portsmouth, Plymouth, Woolwich, Chatham, Sheerness, Aldershot, Colchester, Shorncliffe, Cork, Queenstown and the Curragh. Two extensions to the Bill pa.s.sed in 1866 and 1869 added Canterbury, Dover, Gravesend, Maidstone, Winchester, Windsor and Southampton. The Act allowed for a woman suspected by the police of being a prost.i.tute to be brought before a magistrate and on his authority be subjected to medical examination. If found to be diseased she could be forcibly detained in a Lock Hospital for treatment for a period of up to nine months.

On the face of it the Contagious Diseases Act was very sensible. Being numerically fewer than the soldiers and sailors who were their customers, prost.i.tutes were less expensive to treat and wouldn't deplete the available fighting force when locked away for treatment. However, moralists and purity campaigners, among them quite a large number of religious fanatics, saw the Contagious Diseases Acts as the legalisation of prost.i.tution and the first step on a downward path to moral degeneracy. Another and affiliate group perceived the Acts as a dangerous infringement of personal liberty, an offence to women and, as Florence Nightingale wrote to Harriet Martineau the 'deaf, eccentric economist with her famous ear trumpet beloved by Victorian reminiscers'11 'any honest girl might be locked up all night by mistake'.

Nothing might have happened, however, had the Contagious Diseases Acts been restricted to docks and garrison towns, but their success in those places encouraged the supporters to advocate the application of the Acts to the country as a whole. Soon any woman, anywhere, could be stopped on suspicion of being a prost.i.tute itself enough to damage a woman's reputation and be subjected to the humiliation of appearing before a magistrate and perhaps even being forcibly examined. It was undeniably a bad law, but no voice was raised against it because prost.i.tution was the most unmentionable of unmentionable subjects and the objectors were far too discreet, prudish and respectable to discuss, let alone campaign about, anything so distasteful. If the opposition was to be heard, it needed to find a voice.

And it did through Josephine Butler.

It began in a small way in 1869 when an obscure South s.h.i.+elds headmaster, Reverend Hoopell,12 successfully challenged the extensionists (as those who wanted the Acts applied to the country as a whole were called) at a meeting in Newcastle. A press report of the meeting was read by a Nottingham doctor, Charles Bell Smith, who in turn organised a meeting of abolitionists at the Social Science Congress held in Bristol in October that year. This meeting was attended by Elizabeth Wolstenholme, who when it finished sent an urgent telegram which successfully solicited the support of her friend Josephine Butler.13 Josephine Elizabeth Butler, a second cousin to the former prime minister Lord Grey, was married to George Butler, the son of a former headmaster of Harrow who himself became vice princ.i.p.al of Cheltenham College and princ.i.p.al of Liverpool College. She was a mother of four14 and an early feminist, inspired by what she believed was a divine call 'to the moral elevation of her s.e.x'. In 1866 she moved with her husband and settled in Liverpool, where she became leader of the local branch of the North of England Council For Promoting the Higher Education of Women, which is where she met Elizabeth Wolstenholme, who was the leader based in Manchester. She also began to establish homes and refuges for homeless and troubled women, including prost.i.tutes. In 1869 she was appointed secretary of the Ladies' National a.s.sociation for Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts and her 14 year campaign to get the Acts repealed would turn her from a relatively quiet housewife into a national heroine. Thereafter she began to campaign on the continent, causing reforms in the law affecting the state regulation of vice. She visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Norway and Belgium where in 1880 she revealed in the newspaper Le Nationale how the police des meurs (the police department charged with regulating vice in Belgium) were involved with the illegal detention in brothels of under-age English girls. In 1886, the same year in which the Acts were repealed, the serious illness of her husband, who died in 1890, prevented further public activity. However, she continued her prolific writing, including her Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade,15 and after her husband's death lived near her eldest son in Northumberland, where she died on 30 December 1906. Her work awakened Britain to the existence of prost.i.tution, but more importantly did much to make it a subject that could be discussed. 'The agitation was important: first because it saved England from a bad system of vice-regulation . . .; secondly because it greatly advanced the idea of a single standard of virtue for men and women; and thirdly, because it powerfully stimulated the more general movement for women's rights'.16 The campaign to get the Contagious Diseases Acts repealed had kicked off in late 1869 with the first of four articles in the Westminster Review and the formation of two organisations, the National Anti-Contagious Diseases Acts a.s.sociation and the Ladies' National a.s.sociation for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Meanwhile, Harriet Martineau had drawn up an official protest against the Acts17 which was signed by a number of influential women, among them Florence Nightingale, reformer Mary Carpenter, suffragist Lydia Becker18 (co-founder with Elizabeth Wolstenholme and Emily Davies of the Manchester Women's Suffrage Committee) and Josephine Butler. This protest was published in full in the Daily News19 and was greeted with severe criticism from those who thought it indecent that women should discuss such a delicate subject. Thereafter the media fell quiet, perhaps frowning on the campaign, hoping to kill it through silence, or not wis.h.i.+ng to air such an unsavoury topic in their pages. In response Dr. Hoopell began publis.h.i.+ng in March 1870 the campaign's own journal, The s.h.i.+eld.

The campaign moved into a full but curiously self-destructive gear in October 1870 with the death of Gordon Rebow, the Liberal MP for the Ess.e.x garrison town of Colchester. The Liberals chose Lieutenant General Sir Henry Storks as their candidate in the by-election and victory was regarded as a foregone conclusion. His victory was also essential to the government, his support being needed for controversial reforms being pushed through Parliament by Viscount Cardwell, the Secretary for War. However, Storks was a fervent supporter of the Contagious Diseases Acts and had introduced such a system in Malta, where he had been Governor. It had been so successful that he advocated applying it to officers' wives! The National a.s.sociation decided to oppose Storks with a rival candidate of their own. They chose Dr. J. Baxter Langley, who they all agreed had little chance of winning and who stood more or less as a publicity stunt. What happened was as extraordinary as it was outrageous. At a public meeting Dr. Langley was threatened and intimidated by crowds of roughs. They tried to shout him down, they hurled rotten vegetables, chairs, a sack of lime or plaster and lumps of mortar at Langley and other anti-CDA speakers. Josephine Butler was targeted by crowds who gathered outside the hotels where she stayed, in one case hurling stones through the windows and in another threatening to set fire to the place. Worse, Storks' committee members were seen to be organising and supporting the hired muscle. It became so dangerous that on one occasion Butler was strongly urged to cancel an engagement and felt alarmed enough to almost give in, but as she weakened 'it suddenly came over me that now was just the time to trust in G.o.d, and claim His loving care'. Thus fortified, she dressed as a working woman, managed to sneak into the hall and gave her talk, escaping afterwards through a back window. Unfortunately she and her companion got lost and found themselves in the midst of the mob on the High Street. Eventually the exhausted Josephine was given refuge, in a cheerfully lighted grocer's shop, where a very kind, stout grocer, whose name we knew a Methodist welcomed us, and seemed ready to give his life for me. He installed me among his bacon, soap and candles, having sent for a cab; and rubbing his hands