by Paul Roland
‘I just write to say that 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. 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 alright and the boy has work. So good-bye for the present. –
From yours truly POLLY
Answer soon, please, and let me know how you are.’
A fatal error
However, the demon drink bedevilled Polly and during a moment of weakness she gave in to temptation, stealing a bundle of clothes from her employers for which she was summarily dismissed. On the night of her death she was turned away from her old lodgings in Thrawl Street because she didn’t have the 4d for the room. Undaunted, she told them to hold her bed for her and that she would be back shortly with the money.
‘I’ll soon get my doss money,’ she laughed as she staggered down the street. ‘See what a jolly bonnet I’ve got now!’
Polly was proud of her new black straw bonnet with the black trim. Beneath it her brown hair was turning prematurely grey, framing her sallow skin and brown eyes. She wore a rustic brown, double-breasted overcoat, a new frock of the same colour, a white chest flannel, black stockings and side-spring boots with steel-tipped heels to save wear and tear.
At the corner of Whitechapel Road and Osborn Street she chanced to meet her former room-mate, Ellen Holland, who vainly tried to persuade Polly to come back with her. ‘I’ve had my lodging money three times today and I’ve spent it,’ Polly boasted. ‘It won’t be long before I’ll be back.’ It was 2.30am when they parted. Ellen was the last person to see Polly alive.
Just over an hour later two workmen walking down the narrow north end of Bucks Row towards the Board School where the street widens came upon what they assumed to be a tarpaulin discarded on the pavement by the entrance to Brown’s Stable Yard. In the early-morning gloom, with only a feeble street lamp across the way, they couldn’t make out what it was until they stood over it. It was the body of a woman lying on her back with her skirts up around her waist. They adjusted them to afford her some dignity before summoning a policeman, PC Mizen. ‘She looks to me to be either dead or drunk,’ said one, urging the constable to investigate. ‘But for my part I think she is dead.’ Meanwhile, another policeman, PC Neil, stumbled upon the body and was shortly joined by the two workmen and PC Mizen.
She was indeed dead, although no one realized the extent of her mutilations until she had been removed to the mortuary for closer examination. In the early-morning light all the police knew was that her throat had been cut so violently that her head had been almost severed from her body. Her eyes were wide open, gazing up at the blood-red sky. When the horse-drawn ambulance came to take her away her new black bonnet was tossed into the cart beside her.
Polly Nichols, who was murdered on 31 August 1888, was found sprawled in the street, gutted like a pig
The Whitechapel murders
The following extract from The Times, 3 September 1888, is of special interest as it is the first indication that the police were considering that the murders might be the work of a serial killer. It also highlights the question of how the Ripper managed to elude a strong police presence in the area.
‘Up to a late hour last evening the police had obtained no clue to the perpetrator of the latest of the three murders which have so recently taken place in Whitechapel, and there is, it must be acknowledged, after their exhaustive investigation of the facts, no ground for blaming the officers in charge should they fail in unravelling the mystery surrounding the crime. The murder, in the early hours of Friday morning last, of the woman now known as Mary Ann Nichols, has so many points of similarity with the murder of two other women in the same neighbourhood – one Martha Tabram, as recently as August 7, and the other less than 12 months previously – that the police admit their belief that the three crimes are the work of one individual. All three women were of the class called “unfortunates,” each so very poor, that robbery could have formed no motive for the crime, and each was murdered in such a similar fashion, that doubt as to the crime being the work of one and the same villain almost vanishes, particularly when it is remembered that all three murders were committed within a distance of 300 yards from each other.
These facts have led the police to almost abandon the idea of a gang being abroad to wreak vengeance on women of this class for not supplying them with money. Detective Inspector Abberline, of the Criminal Investigation Department, and Detective Inspector Helson, J Division, are both of opinion that only one person, and that a man, had a hand in the latest murder. It is understood that the investigation into the George-yard mystery is proceeding hand-in-hand with that of Bucks Row. It is considered unlikely that the woman could have entered a house, been murdered, and removed to Bucks Row within a period of one hour and a quarter. The woman who last saw her alive, and whose name is Nelly Holland, was a fellow-lodger with the deceased in Thrawl Street, and is positive as to the time being 2:30. Police constable Neil, 79 J, who found the body, reports the time as 3:45. Bucks Row is a secluded place, from having tenements on one side only. The constable has been severely questioned as to his “working” of his “beat” on that night, and states that he was last on the spot where he found the body not more than half an hour previously – that is to say, at 3:15.
The beat is a very short one, and quickly walked over would not occupy more than 12 minutes. He neither heard a cry nor saw any one. Moreover, there are three watchmen on duty at night close to the spot, and neither one heard a cry to cause alarm. It is not true, says Constable Neil, who is a man of nearly 20 years’ service, that he was called to the body by two men. He came upon it as he walked, and flashing his lantern to examine it, he was answered by the lights from two other constables at either end of the street. These officers had seen no man leaving the spot to attract attention, and the mystery is most complete . . .
The deceased was lying lengthways, and her left hand touched the gate. With the aid of his lamp he examined the body and saw blood oozing from a wound in the throat. Deceased was lying upon her back with her clothes disarranged. Witness felt her arm, which was quite warm from the joints upwards, while her eyes were wide open. Her bonnet was off her head and was lying by her right side, close by the left hand. Witness then heard a constable passing Brady Street, and he called to him. Witness said to him, “Run at once for Dr. Llewellyn.” Seeing another constable in Baker’s Row, witness despatched him for the ambulance . . .
[PC Neil] had not heard any disturbance that night. The farthest he had been that night was up Baker’s Row to the Whitechapel Road, and was never far away from the spot. The Whitechapel Road was a busy thoroughfare in the early morning, and he saw a number of women in that road, apparently on their way home. At that time any one could have got away. Witness examined the ground while the doctor was being sent for. In answer to a juryman, the witness said he did not see any trap in the road. He examined the road, but could not see any marks of wheels . . .
Mr. Henry Llewellyn, surgeon, of 152, Whitechapel Road, stated that at 4 o’clock on Friday morning he was called by the last witness to Bucks Row . . . On reaching Bucks Row he found deceased lying flat on her back on the pathway, her legs being extended. Deceased was quite dead, and she had severe injuries to her throat. Her hands and wrists were cold, but the lower extremities were quite warm . . . He should say the deceased had not been dead more than half an hour . . . There was very little blood round the neck, and there were no marks of any struggle, or of blood as though the body had been dragged . . . That morning he made a post mortem examination of the body.
It was that of a female of about 40 or 45 years. Five of the teeth were missing, and there was a slight laceration of the tongue. There was a bruise running along the lower part of the jaw on the right side of the face. That might have been caused by a blow from a fist or pressure from
a thumb. There was a circular bruise on the left side of the face, which also might have been inflicted by the pressure of the fingers. On the left side of the neck, about 1in. below the jaw, there was an incision about 4in. in length, and ran from a point immediately below the ear. On the same side, but an inch below, and commencing about 1in. in front of it, was a circular incision, which terminated in a point about 3in. below the right jaw. That incision completely severed all the tissues down to the vertebrae. The large vessels of the neck on both sides were severed. The incision was about 8in. in length. The cuts must have been caused by a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence.
No blood was found on the breast, either of the body or clothes. There were no injuries about the body until just below the lower part of the abdomen. Two or three inches from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. The wound was a very deep one, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. There were also three or four similar cuts, running downwards, on the right side, all of which had been caused by a knife which had been used violently and downwards. The injuries were from left to right, and might have been done by a left-handed person. All the injuries had been caused by the same instrument.’
Bloodhounds
Shortly before Christmas 1887, Detective Inspector Frederick George Abberline had been honoured with a presentation dinner at the Unicorn Tavern in Shoreditch to commemorate his 25 years’ service in the Metropolitan Police, the past 14 of which he had spent in the East End. It was a grand affair with effusive speeches, good food and plenty of locally brewed beer, at the end of which the modest and meticulous West Country career policeman was presented with a gold watch by a grateful citizens’ committee and his many colleagues at H Division in recognition of his contribution to keeping a cap on crime in the roughest district in London. Abberline, who was by then 45 years old, was looking forward to taking up his new post at Scotland Yard to which he had been seconded at the request of the top brass at the newly formed Criminal Investigation Division, or CID as it became known. He could not have imagined that within a year he would be called back to Whitechapel to lead the hunt for a multiple murderer who would ultimately elude both himself and the most experienced detectives in the country.
Abberline knew all the shady characters in every back street of the East End and he didn’t attain such knowledge sitting behind his desk. But when he returned to his old hunting ground in the autumn of 1888 he was portly and balding, with a soft-spoken manner no self-respecting villain would have found intimidating. Colleague Walter Dew (another member of the Ripper team) thought he looked more like a bank manager or solicitor, but Abberline was a copper of the old school, a human bloodhound who wouldn’t give up on a trail once he’d got the scent. If anyone could catch the Whitechapel murderer he could.
A dangerous labyrinth
Abberline was initially optimistic about catching the man responsible for the deaths of Martha Tabram and Polly Nichols. But it soon became clear that the quarry knew the labyrinth of alleyways in even more detail than he did. The scale of the problem can be gleaned from a contemporary account written by American journalist R. Harding Davis, who was taken on a tour of the murder sites by another member of Abberline’s team, Inspector Henry Moore.
Moore cut a formidable figure in the East End. He was muscular and evidently able to handle himself, but even so he carried a maple-coloured cane of solid iron in anticipation of trouble, ‘for those who don’t know me’. He told Davis:
‘I might put two regiments of police in this half-mile of district and half of them would be as completely out of sight and hearing of the others as though they were in separate cells of a prison. To give you an idea of it, my men formed a circle around the spot where one of the murders took place, guarding, they thought, every entrance and approach, and within a few minutes they found fifty people inside the lines. They had come in through two passageways which my men could not find. And then, you know, these people never lock their doors, and the murderer has only to lift the latch of the nearest house and walk through it and out the back way . . .
‘What makes it so easy for him is that the women lead him of their own free will to the spot where they know interruption is least likely. It is not as if he had to wait for his chance; they make the chance for him. And then they are so miserable and so hopeless, so utterly lost to all that makes a person want to live, that for the sake of four pence, enough to get drunk on, they will go in any man’s company, and run the risk that it is not him. I tell many of them to go home, but they say that they have no home, and when I try to frighten them and speak of the danger they run, they’ll laugh and say, “Oh, I know what you mean. I ain’t afraid of him. It’s the Ripper or the bridge for me [meaning suicide]. What’s the odds?” and it’s true; that’s the worst of it.’
It was customary for Scotland Yard to send experienced men to assist the local police when their resources were stretched during a serious investigation. So it was not considered a sign of impatience or lack of confidence in local Inspector Edmund Reid and his men when Chief Inspector Moore and his two colleagues, inspectors Abberline and Andrews, arrived at the Commercial Street police station in Whitechapel with a number of assistants in tow, one of them being Detective Walter Dew, who was later to find fame as the man who arrested Dr Crippen. Their arrival was intended to signal that the investigation was to be stepped up a gear and it also served to repair the damage done to morale by the recent resignation of Assistant Commissioner James Monro, who had quarrelled with his superior, Sir Charles Warren. Monro’s replacement was to be Dr Robert Anderson, but ill health prevented Anderson from taking up his post before the beginning of October so Moore, Abberline and Andrews were effectively in charge of the manhunt under the supervision of Chief Inspector Donald Swanson back at Scotland Yard.
Of the three Yard men sent down to Commercial Street, the most overlooked is Inspector Walter Andrews, who had been described by Dew as a ‘jovial, gentlemanly man’. He was 41 years of age when he was assigned to the Ripper case and, though he is not featured at all in the official records, it is believed that it is because he was on the trail of one particular individual, a previously unnamed suspect whose file mysteriously went missing from the archives.
As Walter Dew was later to note in his memoirs, ‘There are still those who look upon the Whitechapel murders as one of the most ignominious police failures of all time. Failure it certainly was, but I have never regarded it other than an honourable failure.’
And he defended the reputations of the three CID detectives sent to assist the local officers. ‘I am satisfied that no better or more efficient men could have been chosen. These three men did everything humanly possible to free Whitechapel of its Terror. They failed because they were up against a problem the like of which the world had never known, and I fervently hope, will never know again.’
Horrible murder in Hanbury Street
‘Dark Annie’ Chapman was a short, heavy-set woman who had lived most of her life on the streets of the East End. Never an attractive woman, by the time she had turned 45 she looked as if life had knocked her about a bit and she had the bruises to prove it. The first of her three children had died, the second had been institutionalized and the third confined in a home for cripples. Her husband had reputedly drunk himself to death and Annie looked set to follow him. By September 1888 she was destitute and down to borrowing a couple of shillings from her brother to pay for a cheap room and a meal with the promise to pay him back when she went hop-picking in Kent. But as always, it was just talk. She never left the city.
In the early hours of Saturday 8 September 1888 she was turned away from her lodgings at 35 Dorset Street because she didn’t have the necessary 4d for a bed and tottered down nearby Hanbury Street in search of a customer. Some time between 5.30 and 6am she became yet another victim of Jack the Ripper.
Body in a back yard
Her body was discovered in the
back yard of number 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, by an elderly resident who immediately ran for help. Inspector Joseph Chandler was summoned from Commercial Street police station and was the first officer to examine the body, together with police surgeon Dr George Bagster Phillips. Both had seen their share of violent murders but neither was prepared for the gratuitous mutilations in evidence that morning.
The final resting place of Annie Chapman
While neighbours leaned out of their rear windows overlooking the yard, Dr Phillips made an initial examination to determine the time and cause of death. Annie was lying on her back along the fence with her head a few centimetres from the bottom step leading from the back door into the yard. Her blood-smeared hands had stiffened in her death agony as if clutching at her throat, which was wrapped in a handkerchief that the killer might have used to stem the flow of blood, and her legs were drawn up as if she had been having sex when she was killed. The throat had been severed by a ragged cut and the small intestine had been removed and thrown over the right shoulder. Two more portions of the belly wall had been peeled back over the left shoulder and the belly wall with the navel, the womb, the uterus and a portion of the bladder had been removed. Dr Phillips was of the opinion that the killer had a rudimentary grasp of anatomy and that he had used a narrow-bladed knife of 15–20cm (6–8in) in length such as a slaughterman might use – or a surgeon specializing in amputation.
A gruesome search
A search of the yard yielded what appeared to be a number of significant clues, the most promising of which was a wet leather apron hanging a few feet from a dripping tap which it was thought might have been used by the murderer to protect his clothes from being spattered with blood. But inquiries determined that it belonged to the son of one of the residents who had washed it and left it to dry a couple of days earlier. Similarly, a portion of an envelope bearing the seal of the Sussex Regiment and the letters ‘M’ and ‘Sp’ looked promising. The envelope contained pills and was postmarked ‘London, August 23’. But it too proved a false lead. Witnesses had seen Annie pick up a discarded envelope from the floor of her lodging house which answered the description of the portion found near the body and the pills had been hers.