East End Murders

by Neil Storey

  The press announced the police were questioning slaughtermen. Boot finisher John Pizer, a man known in the Whitechapel area as ‘Leather Apron’ was wanted for questioning in connection with murders because of his reputation for ‘ill-using prostitutes.’ A Polish Jew, Pizer – who gained his nickname because of his habit of wearing his work apron on the street – was well known to locals and to the police. On 10 September 1888 Pizer was arrested by Sergeant Thick and several sharp, long-bladed knives were found on his premises at 22 Mulberry Street – but that is hardly surprising, as his trade involved the use of such tools. Pizer was taken to Leman Street police station: fearing for his life, his friends joined him, confirmed his alibi and he was released the following day. However, the broadsheets still demanded the capture of ‘Leather Apron’ – no longer a name just for Pizer but a generic term for the Whitechapel Murderer, thought to be a slaughterman or tradesman skilled with his knife (such as a cork worker or cobbler). But we must not get ahead of ourselves, because by the time Pizer had been arrested, there had already been another murder.

  Mortuary photograph of Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols. (Stewart P. Evans)

  One of the sightings of a Jack the Ripper suspect depicted in The Illustrated Police News, shortly after the ‘Hanbury Street Horror’ murder of Annie Chapman.

  Annie Chapman was 47. She had once enjoyed a good standard of living, was married and had three children, but, as ever, it seems the ‘demon drink’ claimed another family and she and her husband separated under claims she led a drunken and immoral lifestyle. Her husband was known as a heavy drinker too. John Chapman supported his wife with regular payments of 10s a week, but these stopped when he died on Christmas Day 1886. Up to that time Annie had been living with another man, but he too left her – probably because the regular money dried up. Annie was then left to fend for herself, but despite having another relationship she had no means of earning, so she turned to prostitution and regularly resided at ‘Crossingham’s’, a lodging house catering for about 300 people at 35 Dorset Street, Spitalfields.

  At 1.35 a.m. on Saturday 8 September 1888 Annie arrived at Crossingham’s. She had been in and out of the lodging house a number of times during the evening, and was sporting a black eye after a fight with another woman a few days earlier. She had been drinking and was eating a baked potato. John ‘Brummy’ Evans, the lodging house’s elderly nightwatchman, was sent to collect her bed money but she went upstairs to see Timothy Donovan, the deputy in charge, in his office. Annie told him, ‘I haven’t sufficient money for my bed, but don’t let it. I shall not be long before I’m in.’ Donovan chastised her, saying, ‘You can find money for your beer and you can’t find money for your bed.’ Nonplussed, Annie stood in the doorway for two or three minutes before adding, ‘Never mind, Tim, I’ll soon be back.’ She left peaceably. Donovan later recalled, ‘She walked straight. Generally on Saturdays she was the worse for drink.’ As Annie left she saw Watchman Evans again and said, ‘I won’t be long, Brummy. See that Tim keeps the bed for me.’ Evans watched her leave and enter Little Paternoster Row, heading in the direction of Brushfield Street; he finally lost sight of her as she turned towards Spitalfields Market.

  The last witness to see Annie alive was Mrs Elizabeth Long, who passed her when she was a few yards from 29 Hanbury Street. On the fourth day of the inquest before the coroner, Mr Wynne Baxter, on Wednesday 19 September 1888, she stated:

  On Saturday 8 September, about half past five o’clock in the morning, I was passing down Hanbury Street, from home, on my way to Spitalfields Market. I knew the time, because I heard the brewer’s clock strike half-past five just before I got to the street. I passed 29 Hanbury Street. On the right-hand side, the same side as the house, I saw a man and a woman standing on the pavement talking. The man’s back was turned towards Brick Lane, and the woman’s was towards the market. They were standing only a few yards nearer Brick Lane from 29 Hanbury Street. I saw the woman’s face. Have seen the deceased in the mortuary, and I am sure the woman that I saw in Hanbury Street was the deceased. I did not see the man’s face, but I noticed that he was dark. He was wearing a brown low-crowned felt hat. I think he had on a dark coat, though I am not certain. By the look of him he seemed to me a man over forty years of age. He appeared to me to be a little taller than the deceased.

  Street of infamy: Dorset Street.

  Baxter: Did he look like a working man, or what?

  Long: He looked like a foreigner.

  Baxter: Did he look like a dock labourer, or a workman, or what?

  Long: I should say he looked like what I should call shabby-genteel.

  Baxter: Were they talking loudly?

  Long: They were talking pretty loudly. I overheard him say to her ‘Will you?’ and she replied, ‘Yes.’ That is all I heard, and I heard this as I passed. I left them standing there, and I did not look back, so I cannot say where they went to.

  The body of Annie Chapman was discovered in the early hours of Thursday 26 September 1888, in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields.

  On Monday 10 September 1888, at the Working Lads’ Institute on Whitechapel Road, Mr Wynne Baxter opened the inquest into the death of Annie Chapman. The jury viewed the corpse at the mortuary in Montague Street, but all evidences of the outrage to which the deceased had been subjected were concealed. The clothing was also inspected. These and a few tragic effects were listed as:

  • A long black-figured coat that came down to her knees

  • A black skirt

  • Brown bodice

  • Another bodice

  • Two petticoats

  • A large pocket worn under the skirt and tied about the waist with strings (empty when found)

  • Lace-up boots

  • Red and white striped woollen stockings

  • Neckerchief, white with a wide red border

  • Scrap of muslin

  • One small tooth comb

  • One comb in a paper case

  • Scrap of envelope containing two pills bearing the seal of the Sussex Regiment postmarked ‘London, 28, Aug., 1888’ inscribed is a partial address consisting of the letter M, the number 2 as if the beginning of an address and an S

  • Curiously, Annie was known to have worn two brass rings on her middle finger: these were missing after her murder

  The circumstances of the discovery of Annie’s body were given by John Davies, who was employed as a carman at Leadenhall Market:

  I have lodged at 29 Hanbury-street for a fortnight, and I occupied the top front room on the third floor with my wife and three sons, who live with me. On Friday night I went to bed at eight o’clock, and my wife followed about half an hour later. My sons came to bed at different times, the last one at about a quarter to eleven. There is a weaving shed window, or light across the room. It was not open during the night. I was awake from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. on Saturday, and then fell asleep until a quarter to six, when the clock at Spitalfields Church struck. I had a cup of tea and went downstairs to the back yard. The house faces Hanbury Street, with one window on the ground floor and a front door at the side leading into a passage which runs through into the yard. There is a back door at the end of this passage opening into the yard. Neither of the doors was able to be locked, and I have never seen them locked. Anyone who knows where the latch of the front door is could open it and go along the passage into the back yard.

  Baxter: When you went into the yard on Saturday morning was the yard door open or shut?

  Davies: I found it shut. I cannot say whether it was latched – I can’t remember. I have been too much upset. The front street door was wide open and thrown against the wall. I was not surprised to find the front door open, as it was not unusual. I opened the back door, and stood in the entrance.

  Baxter: Will you describe the yard?

  Davies: It is a large yard. Facing the door, on the opposite side, on my left as I was standing, there is a shed, in which Mrs Richardson keeps her wood. In the right-h
and corner there is a closet. The yard is separated from the next premises on both sides by close wooden fencing, about 5ft 6in high. From the steps to the fence is about 3ft. There are three stone steps, unprotected, leading from the door to the yard, which is at a lower level than that of the passage. Directly I opened the door I saw a woman lying down in the left-hand recess, between the stone steps and the fence. She was on her back, with her head towards the house and her legs towards the wood shed. The clothes were up to her groins. I did not go into the yard, but left the house by the front door, and called the attention of two men to the circumstances. They work at Mr Bailey’s, a packing-case maker, of Hanbury Street. I do not know their names, but I know them by sight. Mr Bailey’s is three doors off 29, Hanbury Street, on the same side of the road. The two men were waiting outside the workshop. They came into the passage, and saw the sight. They did not go into the yard, but ran to find a policeman. We all came out of the house together. I went to the Commercial Street police station to report the case. No one in the house was informed by me of what I had discovered. I told the inspector at the police-station, and after a while I returned to Hanbury Street, but did not re-enter the house. As I passed I saw constables there.

  Baxter: Have you ever seen the deceased before?

  Davies: No.

  Baxter: Have you ever seen women in the passage?

  Davies: Mrs Richardson has said there have been. I have not seen them myself. I have only been in the house a fortnight.

  Baxter: Did you hear any noise that Saturday morning?

  Davies: No, sir.

  Davies was also asked if he was the first person up on the morning in question: he was not, and stated there was a lodger named Thompson, who was called at half-past three. However, Thompson had not seen or heard anything untoward; neither had John Richardson, of John Street, Spitalfields, a market porter who assisted his mother in her packing-crate business at 29 Hanbury Street. He had gone to 29 Hanbury Street between 4.45 a.m. and 4.50 a.m. to check the cellar was secure as a matter of routine after they had suffered a robbery where some tools had been taken from the cellar.

  Baxter: Was the front door open?

  Richardson: No, it was closed. I lifted the latch and went through the passage to the yard door.

  Baxter: Did you go into the yard?

  Richardson: No, the yard door was shut. I opened it and sat on the doorstep, and cut a piece of leather off my boot with an old table-knife, about 5in long. I kept the knife upstairs at John Street. I had been feeding a rabbit with a carrot that I had cut up, and I put the knife in my pocket. I do not usually carry it there. After cutting the leather off my boot I tied my boot up, and went out of the house into the market. I did not close the back door. It closed itself. I shut the front door.

  Baxter: How long were you there?

  Richardson: About two minutes at most.

  Baxter: Was it light?

  Richardson: It was getting light, but I could see all over the place.

  Baxter: Did you notice whether there was any object outside?

  Richardson: I could not have failed to notice the deceased had she been lying there then. I saw the body two or three minutes before the doctor came. I was then in the adjoining yard. Thomas Pierman had told me about the murder in the market. When I was on the doorstep I saw that the padlock on the cellar door was in its proper place.

  Baxter: Did you sit on the top step?

  Richardson: No, on the middle step; my feet were on the flags of the yard.

  Baxter: You must have been quite close to where the deceased was found?

  Richardson: Yes, I must have seen her if she had been there.

  Baxter: You have been there at all hours of the night?

  Richardson: Yes.

  Baxter: Have you ever seen any strangers there?

  Richardson: Yes, plenty, at all hours – both men and women. I have often turned them out. We have had them on our first floor as well, on the landing.

  Baxter: Do you mean to say that they go there for an immoral purpose?

  Richardson: Yes, they do.

  Cover of The Illustrated Police News, September 22 1888, depicting the story of the murder of Annie Chapman – ‘The Hanbury Street Horror’.

  Once news got out of another ‘East End Horror’ crowds came to view the body and site of the killing; local residents charged a penny to anyone wishing look out of the windows of adjoining properties to views the back yard murder scene. But no one could have anticipated the comments delivered later in the proceedings when Mr George Baxter Phillips, divisional surgeon of police, gave his evidence.

  On Saturday last I was called by the police at 6.20 a.m. to 29 Hanbury Street, and arrived at half-past six. I found the body of the deceased lying in the yard on her back, on the left hand of the steps that lead from the passage. The head was about 6in in front of the level of the bottom step, and the feet were towards a shed at the end of the yard. The left arm was across the left breast, and the legs were drawn up, the feet resting on the ground, and the knees turned outwards. The face was swollen and turned on the right side, and the tongue protruded between the front teeth, but not beyond the lips; it was much swollen. The small intestines and other portions were lying on the right side of the body on the ground above the right shoulder, but attached. There was a large quantity of blood, with a part of the stomach above the left shoulder. I searched the yard and found a small piece of coarse muslin, a small-tooth comb, and a pocket-comb, in a paper case, near the railing. They had apparently been arranged there. I also discovered various other articles, which I handed to the police. The body was cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, in the body. Stiffness of the limbs was not marked, but it was commencing. The throat was dissevered deeply. I noticed that the incision of the skin was jagged, and reached right round the neck. On the back wall of the house, between the steps and the palings, on the left side, about 18in from the ground, there were about six patches of blood, varying in size from a sixpenny piece to a small point, and on the wooden fence there were smears of blood, corresponding to where the head of the deceased laid, and immediately above the part where the blood had mainly flowed from the neck, which was well clotted. Having received instructions soon after two o’clock on Saturday afternoon, I went to the labour-yard of the Whitechapel Union for the purpose of further examining the body and making the usual post-mortem investigation. I was surprised to find that the body had been stripped and was laying ready on the table. It was under great disadvantage I made my examination. As on many occasions I have met with the same difficulty, I now raise my protest, as I have before, that members of my profession should be called upon to perform their duties under these inadequate circumstances.

  Baxter: The mortuary is not fitted for a post-mortem examination. It is only a shed. There is no adequate convenience, and nothing fit, and at certain seasons of the year it is dangerous to the operator. As a matter of fact there is no public mortuary from the City of London up to Bow. There is one at Mile End, but it belongs to the workhouse, and is not used for general purposes.

  Phillips: The body had been attended to since its removal to the mortuary, and probably partially washed. I noticed a bruise over the right temple. There was a bruise under the clavicle, and there were two distinct bruises, each the size of a man’s thumb, on the fore part of the chest. The stiffness of the limbs was then well-marked. The finger nails were turgid. There was an old scar of long standing on the left of the frontal bone. On the left side the stiffness was more noticeable, and especially in the fingers, which were partly closed. There was an abrasion over the bend of the first joint of the ring finger, and there were distinct markings of a ring or rings – probably the latter. There were small sores on the fingers. The throat had been severed. The incisions of the skin indicated that they had been made from the left side of the neck on a line with the angle of the jaw, carried entirely round and again in front of the neck, and ending at a point about midway b
etween the jaw and the sternum or breast bone on the right hand. There were two distinct clean cuts on the body of the vertebrae on the left side of the spine. They were parallel to each other, and separated by about half an inch. The muscular structures between the side processes of bone of the vertebrae had an appearance as if an attempt had been made to separate the bones of the neck. There are various other mutilations of the body, but I am of opinion that they occurred subsequently to the death of the woman and to the large escape of blood from the neck. [The witness pauses.] I am entirely in your hands, sir, but is it necessary that I should describe the further mutilations? From what I have said I can state the cause of death.

  Baxter: The object of the inquiry is not only to ascertain the cause of death, but the means by which it occurred. Any mutilation which took place afterwards may suggest the character of the man who did it. Possibly you can give us the conclusions to which you have come respecting the instrument used?

  Phillips: You don’t wish for details. I think if it is possible to escape the details it would be advisable. The cause of death is visible from the injuries I have described.

  Baxter: You have kept a record of them?

  Phillips: I have.