East End Murders

by Neil Storey

  East End

  MURDERS

  From JACK THE RIPPER

  to RONNIE KRAY

  East End

  MURDERS

  From JACK THE RIPPER

  to RONNIE KRAY

  NEIL R. STOREY

  First published 2008

  The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port

  Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

  www.thehistorypress.co.uk

  Reprinted 2010, 2011, 2013

  This ebook edition first published in 2013

  All rights reserved

  © Neil R. Storey, 2008

  The right of Neil R. Storey to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and

  conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 8445 7

  Original typesetting by The History Press

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  1.

  The Ratcliffe Highway Murders

  1811

  2.

  The Businessman, the Actress & the Dismembered Mistress

  Henry Wainwright, 1875

  3.

  To Kill an Angel

  Israel Lipski, 1887

  4.

  The Autumn of Terror

  Jack the Ripper, 1888

  5.

  Jack’s Back?

  The Murder of Frances Coles, 1891

  6.

  The Whitechapel Newspaper Shop Murder

  Conrad Donovan & Charles Wade, 1904

  7.

  Blood on the Streets

  The Tottenham Outrage, the Houndsditch Murders & the Siege of Sidney Street

  8.

  Second Time Around

  William Cronin (1897 & 1925)

  9.

  Axe Murder at the Palace

  John Frederick Stockwell, 1934

  10.

  Murder at The Blind Beggar

  Ronald Kray, 1966

  Select Bibliography

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The author would like to express his gratitude to the following: above all my thanks go again to Stewart P. Evans for his enduring friendship, knowledge and generosity. It would be remiss of me not to thank the wonderful Rosie too for her kind and thoughtful hospitality. Again it has been a pleasure and privilege to meet such fascinating people while indulging in some of the darkest research; I would particularly like to acknowledge Don Rumbelow for his advice on the chapter ‘Blood on the Streets’. I would also like to thank Tower Hamlets Local Studies Library, Whitechapel Library, Dr Stephen Cherry, Colin and Rachel Stonebridge, Les Bolland, Clifford Elmer Books, Philip Hutchinson, Robert ‘Bookman’ Wright, Elaine Abel, Great Yarmouth Library and of course my dear family, beloved Molly and son Lawrence for their support and love for this author and his research.

  INTRODUCTION

  In this volume I shall be taking you on a journey through the history of murder in the East End. Tragically murder, manslaughter, accidents and suicides have brought death to these streets on many occasions, be it wrought in the pursuit of crime – perhaps a theft, a rape, a robbery gone wrong – or perhaps during a drunken brawl; some of these crimes are bizarre, vengeful, gross, debauched, mad or just plain bad. All happened here. I do not attempt to retell every one of them but I have chosen what, I trust you will find, are a selection of the more fascinating cases, from the Regency period to the Swinging Sixties, every one of them infamous, some of them terrifying the populace in their day and all of them with some curious aspects and twists of fate or horror to intrigue the modern reader.

  So often while I pursue and investigate the stories of crime in the nineteenth and early twentieth century I would like to be able to travel back in time and ask a question, examine the site for myself before time changed it beyond recall and talk to the investigating officers. When considered in contrast to the long scale of history these cases are often, frustratingly, fairly recent. We can be fairly certain visits were made by criminologists in the days, years or decades after the crimes while events were still in living memory, but these visits are seldom recorded… but I have found one.

  Come back with me to 19 April 1905, when a young barrister named S. Ingleby Oddie met up with his friend Dr Gordon Brown at the Police Hospital, Bishopgate. Oddie was allowed to bring some friends with him, and the entire party consisted of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Professor Churton Collins, Harry Brodribb ‘H.B.’ Irving, Dr Crosse and three detectives from the City of London Police. Thus were gathered together some of the finest crime writers and medical experts of their day – who then embarked upon a tour of the Jack the Ripper murder sites led by Dr Brown, the man who had conducted the post-mortem on Catherine Eddowes. He also examined the body of Alice Mackenzie, and took part in the investigation into the Pinchin Street torso, accompanied by detectives well versed in the case. Tragically one can only imagine the conversation as the group made their journey around the murder sites little changed since the blood first ran across the cobbles in 1888; however, in his book Inquest (1941), Oddie did record his impressions of the places they visited and undoubtedly reflected some the comments and impressions shared by the other members of the group:

  The scenes of the murders all presented one common characteristic. They were all dark and obscure and secret as possible. Nearly all of them, however, were evidently selected as being places from which it would be easy to slip away unobserved. In Buck’s Row for example there were easy alternative exits. In Mitre Square there were no less than five. In Hanbury Street, the scene was the back yard of a common lodging-house, approached by a passage giving a ready exit into any one of three neighbouring backyards, and thence into the street… Miller’s Court in Dorset Street seemed to be a trap, yet one had to remember that in this case the Ripper went into the victim’s own single room instead of conducting his operations, as in other cases, in the open street. This latter place was a dismal hole seen on a dark, wet, gloomy afternoon. It consisted of one very small room, with a very small window, a fire, a chair and a bed. It was sombre and sinister, unwholesome and depressing, and was approached by a single doorstep from a grimy covered passage leading from Dorset Street into a courtyard. Indeed, it would be just the sort of mysterious and foul den in which one would imagine dark, unspeakable deeds would be done. Yet it was only a stone’s throw from the busy Whitechapel Road. It was here Mary Kelly was done to death… I saw the police photograph of the mass of human flesh which had once been Mary Kelly, and let it suffice for me to say that in my twenty-seven years as a London Coroner I have seen many gruesome sights, but for sheer horror this surpasses anything I ever set eyes on.

  It was to be almost seventy-five years before that same dread picture was seen by the British public for the first time. In this book that now-infamous photograph is reproduced and accompanied by the transcriptions of the post-mortem examinations of the bodies of the other victims. When reading these reports it is hardly surprising that these killings stood out as different, even to East End residents and police who had become hardened to death and murder – they were more explicitly horrible than anything they had ever encountered before. Even in this modern world of criminal profiling so many questions remain unanswered: what was
the mental state of Jack the Ripper, for example? Was he truly insane, or was he pretending to be mad? Was he schizophrenic, or a living embodiment of Jekyll and Hyde (a character portrayed on stage by American actor Richard Mansfield at the Lyceum at the time of the murders)? The depiction certainly pricked the darker corners of concern in the minds of upstanding members of Victorian society, perhaps particularly among those who were outwardly respectable but secretly debauched and violent behind closed doors, or at least away from the gaze of decent people… perhaps in the shadows of the East End.

  Harry Brodribb ‘H.B.’ Irving – actor and notable crime writer.

  What intrigues me is to consider if Jack knew the dark corners of the East End intimately. Could he stalk the streets looking for victims in the most vulnerable places known to him? Did he plan his attacks knowing the escape routes he would use? Or were the warren of back streets and shadowy corners of the East End merely a convenient place to carry out his nefarious deeds, leaving him to get away more through luck than judgement?

  Despite attempts to suggest conspiracies and present apparently robust and well-researched theories about who Jack was and why he committed the murders, I do not believe that after this distance of time we will ever be able to conclusively prove this or that person was Jack the Ripper – but I don’t think we will stop looking for him either. So I present the lion’s share of this volume as an overview of the Jack the Ripper crimes, the most infamous murders in history. But, dear reader, do not neglect the other tales in this volume; terror and infamy were nothing new to the East End.

  Walk with me to the Ratcliff Highway and read of a series of horrible murders – and consider if you think the man accused of the killings acted alone. Meet Henry Wainwright, pillar of Whitechapel society, with two wives and two families – one public, one very private. When the cost of his high living caught up with him, one of them had to go. Then, after our main investigation of Jack the Ripper, there is the case of tragic Frances Coles, who had her throat slashed in the dingy tunnel passageway known as Swallow Gardens – was she another victim of Jack the Ripper? Other murderers in this volume include the infamous William Cronin – but should he have hanged in 1897 rather than 1925?

  Further cases from the twentieth century put the darkest side of life in the East End on the covers of the world’s press – including the Houndsditch Murders, which led to the infamous Siege of Sidney Street. Armed pursuits on foot and by all manner of vehicles took place, bullets rattled through the air, civilians were caught in the crossfire and brave police officers fell in the line of duty, all of which culminated in a siege which drew attention and comments from the international press.

  The final story sees the close of a chapter in the East End’s history. The Krays were violent hard men of the East, but they knew ‘their manor’ and abided by a certain ‘code’ among felons and between rival gangs. Despite both being murderers, their killings were seen as gangland actions against those who grossly transgressed ‘the code’, and with their smart suits and high profile, fostered by a series of iconic photographs, the Krays caught the imagination of the wider public. When they died they were given a ‘full East End honours’ send off and thousand lined the streets to watch the funeral cortège pass.

  Neil R. Storey

  2008

  1

  THE RATCLIFFE

  HIGHWAY MURDERS

  1811

  The Ratcliffe Highway runs from East Smithfield to Shadwell High Street. In Old and New London, Walter Thornbury wrote:

  Ratcliffe Highway, now called St George Street, is the Regent Street of London sailors, who, in many instances, never extend their walks in the metropolis beyond this semi-marine region. It derives its name from the manor of Ratcliffe in the parish of Stepney … The wild beast shops in this street have often been sketched by modern essayists. The yards in the neighbourhood are crammed with lions, hyenas, pelicans, tigers. As many as ten to fifteen lions are in stock at any one time, and sailors come here to sell their pets and barter curiosities.

  J. Ewing Ritchie was far less flattering when he said in The Night Side of London (1858):

  I should not like a son of mine to be born and bred in Ratcliffe-highway…(there) vice loses all its charms by appearing in all its grossness. I fear that it is not true generally to the eyes of the class she leads astray, that:

  Vice is a monster of such hideous mien,

  That to be hated, needs but to be seen.

  Exotic animals may be one fascination, the darker corners of the street the haunt of whores, harpies and footpads, but the Ratcliffe Highway was tainted with blood and infamy years before.

  At about midnight on the night of Saturday 7 December 1811 a certain Timothy Marr (24), a wholesale mercer dealing in lace and pelisse at 29 Ratcliffe Highway, sent his servant girl, Margaret Jewell, out to buy some oysters for supper and pay the bill from the baker. As Jewell left the Marr’s, Mrs Celia Marr was suckling their fourteen-week-old baby, Timothy junior, while Mr Marr was preparing to close his shop. Jewell found the oyster dealer had closed: she tried elsewhere but could find no oysters for sale, so she went to the baker to pay the bill. After about twenty minutes the girl returned and rang the bell, but received no answer. No lights were apparent in the building. Wondering what could have happened, she listened at the keyhole and believed she could hear ‘a foot on the stairs and I thought it was my master coming to let me in; I also heard a child cry in a low tone of voice. I rang then again and again, and knocked at the door with my fist.’

  The Ratcliff Highway, renamed St George’s Street, pictured around 1896, described as ‘the Regent Street of London sailors’ and scene of the most notorious early nineteenth-century murders in the capital.

  Margaret was clearly distressed so George Olney, a nightwatchman who called the time every half hour and knew the Marrs, came over to enquire what was going on. He also knocked on the door and called out to Marr through the keyhole, but received no response. Olney had good reason to be concerned. At midnight he had passed the shop and spoken to Marr and apprentice Gowan as they were shuttering up the shop. On his return he had noticed one of the pins in the iron crossbar of the window shutters was loose. He rapped on the door and called out what he had found, and was answered by what he thought was a strange voice, that said, ‘That’s alright.’ Unperturbed, at least at that time, Olney walked on, but now those events troubled the watchman.

  A contemporary map of the scene of the Marrs’ murder.

  Next-door neighbour John Murray, a pawnbroker, was woken by the commotion and shouting. He got up and went to the shop front, where Jewell explained that she had been locked out. Hearing what Olney had to say, Murray decided to investigate. He climbed over the dividing wall between his yard and the Marrs’. Once in their yard he was attracted by a light on the landing place and discovered the back door was open. He took the light and – with some trepidation – entered the building. He first encountered the body of the shop apprentice James Gowan (14) lying dead in a pool of blood and gore on the floor and, as stated in the Newgate Calendar (1818), ‘with his brains knocked out, and actually dashed, by the force of the murderous blow, against the ceiling.’

  Murray called out for help and made his way to the street door, where he discovered Celia Marr laying face down, dreadfully wounded and lifeless. He let Watchman Olney in and together they searched for Timothy Marr. They found him behind the counter, blood still oozing from his hideously battered head. They then went to the kitchen, where, as the Newgate Calendar continues; ‘petrified with horror they saw the little babe in the cradle, with one of its cheeks entirely knocked in with the violence of a blow, and its throat cut from ear to ear.’

  The watchman sounded the alarm by springing his rattle, a hue and cry was raised and the Thames River Police were soon on the scene; the first officer present was Charles Horton. The findings of the investigation of the murder were reported before the magistrates of the Shadwell Police Office. A search of the house first
revealed a long iron ripping chisel, about 20in in length, but this had no stains of blood upon it. However, the next tool, a ship carpenter’s maul, with an iron head ‘somewhat in the shape of an anvil’ – and broken at the point – was found covered with fresh blood and a few hairs.

  The bloodstained ship’s carpenter’s maul used in the murders at the Marr household.

  As two sets of tracks were discovered in the yard, it was deduced that there must have been two attackers. The footprints were of two different sizes and the heels turned to the rear of the houses as if running away. The footsteps were marked with sawdust and blood – the sawdust had been caused by carpenters working in the shop during the day. It was thought the killers had come into the shop under the pretence of purchasing goods, as it was clear Marr had been reaching down for some stockings when he had been struck. No money was found missing from the till and cash to the tune of £160 was found about the house.

  Within hours a number of arrests were made (mostly of sailors who had been in the area during the hours in question), but each suspect had a solid alibi and was released – and soon the public were all too aware that two killers were on the loose. As the horrific details of the murders circulated by word of mouth, in the press and on lurid broadsides, the people of London were said to have been gripped by fear. Macaulay recalled the state of panic in London, ‘the terror which was on every face; the careful barring of doors; the providing of blunderbusses and watchmen’s rattles. We know of a shopkeeper who on that occasion sold 300 rattles in about 10 hours.’