Mary Kelly has been depicted as separate from the other canonical victims since the time of her murder. The fact that she was killed in her own room and that the Ripper mutilated her body far beyond anything previously seen was part of it, but her youth and apparent beauty and intelligence also tend to come into discussions. If she is seen as the last victim, there is the question of why the murders stopped, and—since the initial narrative of Dr. Stanley—it has been common to conclude that she was in fact the desired victim while the others were stand-ins, obstacles, or mistakes. For two authors in the 1990s, Mary Kelly was the cause of the murders in a new way: the Ripper meant to control her.
In his 1991 book, Jack the Ripper: The Mystery Solved, Paul Harrison casts judgment on all of the women involved and not just Mary Kelly herself. When Polly Nichols separates from her husband it is because she “was not up to the permanent responsibilities of a family.”13 Her husband has done nothing wrong—or at least nothing worth mentioning—and Harrison places Polly on the street even during her marriage, drunk and soliciting. It is as though she is already practicing for life on her own in the East End, and the one possibly positive assessment Harrison makes of Polly is that she was hardy enough to withstand life as a prostitute in Whitechapel. He even ends his discussion of her by making the point that, even though she was no longer alive, Polly was making trouble for others, especially her family.
Despite the brevity of Polly’s biography, Harrison manages to convey that Polly’s death, although troublesome, proved to be no great loss. He condemns her by saying that she “had been given every opportunity to better herself which she failed to accept.”14 Despite the fact that Polly seemed to bounce back every time life knocked her down, Harrison traces each of these instances of failure to her alcoholism. Even when he depicts her as lost in the East End, just one face among many, completely anonymous and overlooked until her death, the cause of her presence there and her situation overall is still her alcoholism. If Polly had been able to triumph over the bottle she might have even recovered from the dissolution of her marriage, since she was given the opportunity to work in a respectable position. Respectability and dependability were apparently beyond Polly, and, no matter how many people reached out to help her, she made a mess of every opportunity.
Eliza Ann Chapman does not fare much better. Like Polly, Harrison’s Annie is drinking and going with other men before her marriage is over. Annie even takes it a step further, since she “was prone to throwing anything within her grasp at her better half”15 during their arguments, many of which were about her drinking. In this case “better half” takes on a deeper meaning, since John Chapman was indeed better than his drinking, whoring, violent wife. This is proven when, even after they separated, he paid her an allowance that was enough to cover her room and board. John Chapman is the wronged party, having done nothing to deserve such a banshee of a wife, and yet he still provided for her after she left him.
Although Annie’s allowance was enough to keep her fed and sheltered, it was not also meant to support her drinking habit. Further, when John Chapman died, the payments stopped altogether and Annie found herself in the position of having to earn her own living and keep herself in drink. Since she had already been unfaithful to John Chapman while they were married, it is perhaps not surprising that Annie decided that engaging in prostitution was preferable to remaining sober. Harrison, at least, thinks it was the next logical step for her, as it had been to so many East End women. Despite the troubles she caused John Chapman, however, and the fact that her murder simply added to the mystery of Jack the Ripper, Harrison allows that Annie “slipped quietly from the world in much the same way she led her life with little fuss.”16 In spite of the fact that she was an unfaithful, alcoholic wife who liked to throw things at her husband, Annie was somehow not nearly so much trouble as Polly had been.
There is not much information reported on Elizabeth Stride, although Elizabeth, like Polly and Annie before her, was an alcoholic. A Swede, she came to London after the deaths of her parents and was married for a while before she ended up on the street. Harrison reports that Elizabeth and her husband were meant to have had nine children, ending this proclamation with an exclamation point. His surprise is not that the couple was meant to have reproduced so quickly in such a short amount of time—indeed, the timeline does not arise in this discussion—but presumably that Elizabeth would have allowed herself to have become pregnant so frequently. Certainly none of these children makes an appearance either for her funeral or at the coroners’ inquest, so perhaps it might also be surprise that Elizabeth managed to have alienated all nine offspring.
Elizabeth’s relationship at the time of her death was an inconstant one, broken up through her drinking and prostitution—which means that her boyfriend, Michael Kidney, presumably disapproved of both. Despite this, he also apparently took her back every time, likely once she had sobered up or earned a suitable amount of coins. Harrison does not mention whether Kidney made use of her earnings or if it was his intent to support her fully without her having to walk the streets. Like many other authors, Harrison does end his discussion of Elizabeth with the judgment that she “was a fantasist who could not contain herself to the truth,”17 although the lack of evidence for her nine children does allow readers to wonder why Harrison might have believed that particular tale and not others.
Harrison’s Kate Kelly follows a similar path as Polly and Annie before her, being accused of “flirtatious habits”18 during her initial common-law marriage to Thomas Conway. This is interesting on two levels. First, the fact that he accuses Kate of flirtations instead of soliciting places this offense on a different level than that of Polly or Annie. His choice of language seems to indicate that there was not necessarily any physical contact between Kate and other men at the time of her relationship with Conway, and thus Conway might be interpreted to be acting as an overly jealous and controlling husband. Kate’s drinking habits are not discussed until later, during her relationship with John Kelly.
The second oddity about this declaration is that Harrison refers to Kelly’s flirtatious habits. Many authors continually refer to Kate by her maiden name of Eddowes, since they fail to find evidence that she ever married Conway and her relationship with Kelly was likewise common-law. Further, at the time of her relationship with Conway, Kate had yet to meet Kelly. Granted, she did use John Kelly’s last name while she was involved with him, as evidenced by pawn tickets and testimony from those who knew her, but Harrison’s choice to refer to her continually as Kelly is a strong statement for her relationship with the man and therefore places him clearly in the position of widower, although presumably much more distraught than William Nichols.
When Kate it shown to be drinking it is with John Kelly, who likely joins in. She does not feel the need to leave him in order to do her drinking, the way Elizabeth left Kidney, and she presumably also did not get drunk in order to solicit other men or throw things at Kelly. Harrison is skeptical of Kelly’s claim that he did not know Kate was a prostitute, both giving Kelly credit for being aware of their situation and suggesting that Kate would not have been able to keep her activities hidden. The only alternative to prostitution Harrison offers these women, outside of marriage, is when Polly was given work as a maid. There is nothing in the East End that these women could do to support themselves beyond selling themselves, since apparently even having a steady man was not security enough.
Now we come to Mary Kelly, who is at the center of Harrison’s narrative. He downplays this at the start, saying she lives “with her lover called John or Joseph or some other similar sounding name.”19 This man is, of course, Joseph Barnett, who had been living with Mary for over a year and whom Harrison never refers to as simply Joe. Joseph Barnett is Harrison’s choice for Jack the Ripper.
Harrison’s narrative of Mary Kelly is really a description of how she sunk her claws into Joseph Barnett and dragged him down into a life he had been working hard to avoid. This Mary clearly meant to only us
e Barnett, noting that he seemed more respectable and hardworking than many men in the East End. This was, according to Harrison, Barnett’s reaction against the life he had as a child and to what he saw in his parents. Even the coroner at Mary’s death inquest commented on how Barnett clearly exceeded his expectations, much in the same way that these comments are often made about Mary herself. This Mary, though, is not nearly as respectable as she appears.
She hides her prostitution from Barnett, knowing his opinion of prostitutes and likely how much his sense of self was bound up in being able to support the two of them on his own. Barnett was “obsessed with her,”20 likely because of the façade that led others to describe her as intelligent and not of the same class as the rest, and Mary knew this. She was simply a beautiful woman who was not above using Barnett’s money not just on herself and on her friends, but on clients, as well. This declaration does, however, seem rather confusing, since it brings up the question of what, exactly, she was meant to have paid for while soliciting. The couple was behind on the rent of their small room, and it was generally accepted that the man in search of a prostitute would be the one giving the coins or paying for a drink. Why would Mary have spent money on the clients who should have been paying her?
In an attempt to control Mary, or perhaps in an attempt to regain the control he thought he had once had, Barnett set about murdering prostitutes in order to scare her off the street. If she would simply give up prostitution, then the two of them would be able to sort things out and make a proper living together. Because Barnett lived in the East End and was known to be living with Mary, he would not have appeared to be a threat to the other women—and further, Mary herself is no longer a complete idiot for inviting the Ripper into her room. If Jack the Ripper had been living with her for months and still coming around to offer her money when he could, then it would make sense for her to have invited him in.
In 1998 Bob Hinton proposes a similar situation in his book From Hell…. The Jack the Ripper Mystery although the man intent on scaring Mary Kelly off the street and into his arms is George Hutchinson. Hutchinson came forward after the inquest into Mary’s death with a description of a man he had seen go with her into her room on the night of her death—a very lengthy description that raises suspicion because of the sheer amount of detail Hutchinson is meant to have seen during a brief glimpse at night. His testimony is often questioned because he knew Mary personally and must have been exceedingly jealous of the stranger in order to have remembered such an exact description of his clothing. Due to the timing of the death inquest, Hutchinson was never publicly questioned about what he was doing lingering in Miller’s Court for so long that night.
Hutchinson as the Ripper is not meant to have murdered five random prostitutes, however. Yes, Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman were chosen as victims because they were indeed prostitutes, thrown out of their doss houses because they lacked money. Since Hinton describes neither of them as being particularly attractive, perhaps Hutchinson was in luck with crossing their paths because they would not have been in high demand, especially not at such a late hour. Polly and Annie are indeed the typical alcoholic East End prostitutes, attempting to support themselves because their marriages had failed, both adhering to the well-known and well-worn narratives of the Ripper victims.
Hinton does not present Liz Stride as a Ripper victim, and thus Hutchinson cannot claim her. The fact that Liz was seen with a man for most of the night of her death, apparently simply walking and talking suggests to Hinton that Liz was not actively soliciting. After all, “[p]rostitutes do not waste time canoodling and talking to their clients,”21 and any woman who was in desperate need of money would not spend an entire evening with one man when she could have completed multiple transactions in that time. Liz and this mystery man were discovered by Michael Kidney, a fiercely jealous and violent man, and whoever the mystery man was, his departure left a scorned Kidney alone with Liz. Hinton suggests that Liz had been at the receiving end of Kidney’s domestic violence before and thus did not make more of a scene because she expected it to take its usual course. Instead, this was the last straw for Kidney, who murdered her and was able to pawn off blame on the Ripper.
Although Catherine Eddowes’ friends, like Liz Stride’s, argued against her having been a prostitute, Kate benefited from having a steady man who was a loyal “gentleman and obviously fond of Kate.”22 Although her marriage had failed and Kate’s drinking was to blame, according to both her sister and her daughter, her relationship with John Kelly was steady and positive. Granted, the observation that Kate was the more intelligent of the pair is more of a backhanded compliment and a reflection of Kelly than of Kate, but Hinton shows the couple obviously working together, especially in the last few days of Kate’s life. The fact that they did demonstrate a clear partnership as they managed to get food and lodging for themselves is evidence not only for their relationship, but for the argument that Kate did not work as a prostitute. Again, if prostitution were a common means for the couple to earn money, why would they have done everything else in their power to make some coins and not fallen back on it? Even John Kelly, gentleman that he was, would have been expected to keep his boots and wait for his girlfriend’s earnings rather than pawn them and leave himself barefoot.
Therefore Hinton’s Kate was not in Mitre Square on the night of her death in order to service a client. Her apparent intelligence, however, must come into question, since Kate managed to get herself released early from being held for drunkenness in order to meet and then blackmail Jack the Ripper. Her claims that she knew his identity were true, since he was a local man, and, being poor, Kate clearly thought that setting up a private meeting between the two of them in the dead of night would be the best way to earn money. Although she had bragged that she knew the Ripper and would earn the reward money, Kate had decided to meet him on her own, without telling anyone what she was up to, and thus found herself to be his next victim. Hinton’s scenario helps explain why Kate’s body was mutilated to such an extent, because this murder was personal. The Ripper had to kill her in order to retain his anonymity—a tactic that clearly worked, since Hinton is only accusing Hutchinson more than a century later.
It is once again Mary Kelly at the center of this narrative, and although Joe Barnett is perhaps not so honorable as John Kelly, he is not the murderer this time. Instead he is simply a “friend”23 of hers, willing to live together and fully aware that she was working as a prostitute the entire time. This Mary Kelly does nothing to keep her profession a secret and shows herself to be more than a bit of a user. Current and past boyfriends always seem to hang around, willing to give her money. Barnett himself, although no longer living with her, joined the ranks of those who continued to give her both attention and coins.
Hinton states it bluntly: “She naturally expected the world to revolve around her, and probably because of this—it did!”24 With her confidence, youth, and apparent looks, she never seemed to lack for anything. He adds that she was described as being stout and thus, along with having money for drink and shelter, she also presumably didn’t lack for food. Mary Kelly was a prostitute, but she was not necessarily desperate for clients, since she had a string of men ready to jump at her slightest need. One of these men, at least in the beginning, was George Hutchinson. He is most often known as the man who dallied in Miller’s Court and gave a detailed description of the last man seen going inside number 13 with Mary Kelly, but Hinton agrees that this description is entirely fabricated. Mary Kelly the user made the mistake of attempting to capture the attention of George Hutchinson, the obsessive.
Hutchinson became a stalker, brutally murdering any who reminded him of the object of his obsession. Because of the disparity between the appearances and ages of Mary Kelly and the other women, Hinton rushes to explain that this similarly need not be entirely physical. Because Hutchinson was obsessed with—and continually rejected by—a prostitute, he turned his anger on prostitutes. Mary Kelly’s habit of using m
en and stringing them along backfired when she chose to use the wrong man. On November 9, 1888, Hutchinson went to Mary’s room and woke her in one last attempt to convince her to run away with him. This was when Hutchinson was finally confronted with the fact that the woman he had thought he could rescue “was a foul mouth, drunken whore, lying in fifth”25 and rejecting him one final time.
For the second time in his narrative, Hinton invites the reader into the mind of the Ripper himself. The first time was after Polly’s murder when he suggested readers place them in the murderer’s position when he was in need of escape, perhaps only moments from being caught. In the case of Mary Kelly, Hinton asks readers to imagine his emotions around the time of the murder, perhaps even to justify his reaction. Hutchinson may have been obsessed, but Mary Kelly was the one who led him on. “Put yourself in Hutchinson’s shoes,”26 Hinton urges, because apparently readers need not feel the same obsession to understand his reaction. It is this realization that Mary Kelly is indeed what she has been all along and has never pretended not to be, not even to Barnett: a prostitute. Hutchinson has traveled a long distance and has been standing around in the rain in order to see Mary Kelly, but has been rejected because he spent his last coins to make this journey and has none left to give her. It is in this rejection and this realization that Hinton asks his readers to imagine themselves in his position, asking them to empathize with the killer in his final and most vicious act.
This identification with Hutchinson is reflected as well when Hinton suggests that any effort that has been put into researching the victims themselves has been a complete waste of time: “For example, what is the point in establishing the family tree of the victims? What possible use is it to know where they were born or what school they went to?”27 What Hinton really means is, how would this information at all help to inform the identity of the Ripper? Indeed the history and biography of these women is generally thought to have little or nothing to do with the Ripper, since the murders are thought to have been committed by a stranger and thus the Ripper would not be found in their past. Clearly, since the reader is meant to empathize with the killer, there is no room left for empathy of the victim—especially when she is a user who brought her own murder and mutilation on herself.
The Ripper's Victims in Print Page 17