The Complete and Essential Jack the Ripper

by Paul Begg

  The mystery of how nobody – particularly police officers on the beat – saw or heard anything of the assault remains, for the unresolved question of what happened to Smith immediately after the attack lingers too. If she was assaulted a little after 1.30 a.m. then a period of anything up to three hours must have passed before she arrived at 18 George Street, which was little more than 200 yards away. Of course, there is a possibility that she was incorrect about the timing of the attack, although the fact that she said she had passed St Mary’s Church at 1.30 a.m. could suggest she had got the time from the church clock. Had she been lying in the street unconscious or at the least in great pain and distress for that amount of time, surely somebody would have seen her. The streets might have been described as ‘quiet’, but in the aftermath of a bank holiday Monday, with the scene of crime being so close to a well-used thoroughfare like Brick Lane, surely they could not have been entirely deserted. Linked to this is Emma Smith’s reluctance or inability to describe her attackers in any great detail. There may be reasonable explanations for this – she might not have had a good look at them under the traumatic circumstances, or she might not have been able to recall small details on account of shock and pain from the injuries. But there is also the possibility that, whereas an assault most definitely took place, it might well have been under different circumstances. Was Emma Smith attacked by a gang as she claims, or was it a single assailant? Was robbery the motive (as it appears) or was it the work of a dangerously violent client? There is even the possibility that she had a pimp who turned nasty, inflicting what might have been unintentionally fatal injuries as a warning. We cannot rule out the fact that Emma Smith might have been telling the truth (and why wouldn’t she?), but the strange circumstances of her death leave matters open to speculation. Obfuscation, intentional or otherwise, on Smith’s part and the dearth of official reports by investigators leave us in the dark.

  Emma Elizabeth Smith was buried in a pauper’s grave at the City of London Cemetery (Little Ilford) on 12 April 1888. For all we know, this unfortunate woman’s funeral might have been attended by very few people; perhaps her lodging house friends were there; maybe the two children made an appearance; maybe nobody came at all. In the aftermath of what transpired to be a shocking attack even by the rough and tough standards of the East End, the culprits were never apprehended, the act itself no doubt becoming a terrible ‘one-off’ to the residents of Whitechapel and the few newspapers that gave the incident column inches. With the general acceptance that Emma Smith’s death was the result of a gang attack, one newspaper felt compelled to make comment:

  The state of our London streets at night is an old subject and a sore one. It cannot be said that at any time within memory of living man their condition has been particularly creditable to the greatest capital in the world. Still, there certainly was a time, and that not very long ago, when things were very much less disgraceful than they are now. The seamy side of London life which is revealed to anybody whose homeward way lies through Regent-street or Piccadilly at midnight is positively shameful. Cases (one in particular our readers will remember which is not yet decided) are continually arising of riot and assault by women as well as men; and the police are powerless to prevent solicitation and annoyance.10

  Nobody could foresee that within a few months more brutal crimes would shock the sensibilities not just of those immediately affected, but also of the nation and ultimately the world. The death of Emma Smith would soon be seen as the beginning of the world’s most infamous series of killings: the Whitechapel murders.

  In June or July of 1888, Martha Tabram, a sometime flower hawker and prostitute, began staying at Satchell’s lodging house at 19 George Street, immediately next door to Emma Smith’s former residence. John Satchell had been the owner of the three-storey tenement for nearly twenty years and owned numerous other doss houses in the immediate vicinity. Martha Tabram would have been one of anything up to fifty or more lodgers who would be spending that summer in the cramped house, paying fourpence a night for a single bed and using a communal kitchen on the ground floor shared with no. 18.11 The series of life events which culminated in her arrival in the East End has been well documented.

  Martha White was born at 17 Marshall Street, Southwark, on 10 May 1849, the youngest of five children, two boys and three girls, born to Charles White and his wife Elisabeth. Charles and Elisabeth’s marriage was not to last, and for reasons unknown they separated in 1865, whereupon Charles took lodgings in the Pitt Street home of Rebecca Glover. He was not in good health at this time; unable to work because of a weak back, he complained of diarrhoea, bad circulation and cold as well as admitting that the family situation troubled him. In October of that year, Elisabeth visited him for the first time since the separation and by November was seeing him regularly. Such visits perhaps cheered him, and he was in a good frame of mind on 15 November, when his estranged wife and daughter Mary Ann had supper at his lodgings. A little later, he made ready for bed and, while undressing, collapsed and died.12

  On Christmas Day 1869, at Trinity Church in Newington, Martha married Henry Tabram, a furniture packer, and soon after set up home in Marshall Street, close by the White family home. The marriage produced two sons, Frederick John in 1871 and Charles Henry, born in December the following year, but the marriage was to soon feel the strain of Martha’s heavy drinking, and the couple separated in 1875.13 For the first three years of their estrangement, Henry gave Martha an allowance of twelve shillings per week, but felt compelled to reduce it to two shillings and sixpence after she began pestering him for money on the streets. Martha took out a warrant against him; perhaps exasperated by her behaviour, he cut off all financial support in 1878, when he discovered she was living with a man.14

  The man in question was probably William Turner, a carpenter of slovenly appearance who would go on to live with Martha on and off for the remainder of her life. The unstable nature of their relationship was usually down to her drinking, and it was not unusual for her to go out at night, returning at all hours (or not at all) on a fairly regular basis, blaming fits and subsequent arrests for her lateness. Turner claimed to have seen these fits, which invariably happened when she was drunk.15 In fact he would later underline her lack of sobriety when he confessed: ‘Since she has been living with me, her character for sobriety was not good. If I give her money she generally spent it in drink.’16

  In 1881, Martha Tabram was recorded as being an inmate at the Whitechapel workhouse infirmary in Thomas Street, where she was registered as a flower hawker,17 and it was this trade, selling trinkets and menthol cones among other things, which she shared with Turner when he was out of regular work. Eventually, they took up lodgings at 4 Star Place, Commercial Road, the home of Mary Bousfield, who described Martha as somebody who would ‘rather have a glass of ale than a cup of tea’ but observed that she was not a perpetual drunkard.18 The situation came to an end in the early summer of 1888, when the couple separated, Turner taking up residence in the Victoria Working Men’s Home in Commercial Street. Martha left Star Place without informing Mrs Bousfield, owing two weeks’ rent money, but her conscience must have played on her mind as, a while later, she returned secretly one night to drop off her door key.19 It was around this time that Martha must have taken lodgings at Satchell’s lodging house in Spitalfields. The last time Turner saw her was on Saturday 4 August in Leadenhall Street, when he gave her some money to buy trinkets to trade.20

  The following Monday, 6 August, was a bank holiday. Perhaps in keeping with the cliché of English bank holidays, the weather was not spectacular, rather cool for the time of year (20 degrees centigrade) with occasional light rain. Regardless, it evidently failed to prevent the populace from getting out and about – thousands apparently flocked to venues such as the Crystal Palace and Alexandra Palace as well as the museums of South Kensington and Madame Tussaud’s. The Zoological Gardens at Regent’s Park were well patronized, as were the Tower of London and, further afield, Win
dsor Castle. And as those places closed, the people of London would descend on the theatres and music halls and, of course, the pubs.21

  It is to that latter option that Martha Tabram was drawn; it is not clear how she spent the best part of her day, but as the evening drew near she went out drinking, and most of what we know about that night comes from the testimony of her companion, Mary Ann Connelly. Unmarried and aged about fifty, Connelly was a prostitute going by the nickname of ‘Pearly Poll’, a big woman, deep-voiced and with a face reddened by drink22. She was at that time a resident of Crossingham’s lodging house at 35 Dorset Street, Spitalfields, and had known Martha Tabram for about four or five months, though by the name of ‘Emma’.23 According to Connelly, she and Martha had met two soldiers – a private and a corporal – at about 10.00 p.m. and proceeded to trawl the pubs of Whitechapel with them. The only other sighting of Martha was made by her sister-in-law, Ann Morris, who believed she saw her alone and sober, going into the White Swan pub at 20 Whitechapel High Street at about 11.00 p.m.24 The absence of Mary Ann Connelly and the two soldiers in this sighting is troublesome, and, assuming that Mrs Morris was not mistaken in her identification (and as she was her sister-in-law this is unlikely), the timing may have been incorrect, or it might have just been a brief sighting when Martha’s three companions had been out of sight or already in the pub. The last time Martha was seen alive was at 11.45 p.m., when, on Whitechapel High Street, the group split into pairs. Connelly took the corporal into a tiny thoroughfare called Angel Alley, while Martha went into George Yard with the private.25 Connelly soon concluded her business and, re-entering Whitechapel High Street, left the corporal at the corner of George Yard and walked off in the direction of Whitechapel, while he departed towards Aldgate.

  George Yard26was a mean, narrow, cobbled passageway entered from the High Street via a covered arch next to the White Hart pub. Its poor reputation throughout much of the nineteenth century was sealed owing to the slum tenements and common lodging houses that lined it, and its secluded location made it an ideal escape route for criminals and a conveniently isolated venue for prostitution. Following some piecemeal slum clearance in the late 1870s,27 two ‘model dwellings’ were built on the western side, essentially homes for the very poor, yet respectable, working classes. One of those, George Yard Buildings, sat at the north-west corner with Wentworth Street, a four-storey tenement of forty-seven rooms which were accessed by a communal staircase running through the centre of the building. These stairs were usually lit, but all lights were extinguished as a rule at 11.00 p.m.

  It was at 1.40 on that morning of Tuesday 7 August when residents Joseph and Elizabeth Mahoney trudged up those dark stairwells to their room at no. 47, right at the top of George Yard Buildings. Like so many others, they had made a long day of the bank holiday and were now weary. They were probably hungry too, as, a mere five minutes later, Elizabeth left to go to a chandler’s shop in nearby Thrawl Street to buy some supper. On all the occasions that she ascended and descended the stairs in the building she saw nothing out of the ordinary.28

  But as the Mahoneys casually wound down their day of leisure with more domestic concerns, they appeared to be blissfully unaware of a major disturbance that was taking place nearby. At about 11.30 p.m. a commotion broke out in George Street, just across the way from where George Yard met Wentworth Street. This fracas was heard by John Reeves, a waterside labourer, and his wife Louisa, who lived at 37 George Yard Buildings and whose rooms were accessible from a top-floor balcony at the rear of the dwelling. Further disturbances kept them awake until the situation eventually calmed down after 2.00 a.m. Considering the fact that John Reeves would have to leave for work in a little over two hours’ time, the couple must have been relieved.29 At 2.00 a.m. Police Constable Thomas Barrett was patrolling Wentworth Street when he came across a soldier loitering at the corner with George Yard. Barrett described him as being a private in the Grenadier Guards, aged between twenty-two and twenty-six years, 5 feet 9 inches tall, with a fair complexion, dark hair, a small brown moustache turned up at the ends and sporting a good-conduct badge (but no medals). The soldier told Barrett that he was ‘waiting for a chum who had gone with a girl’.30

  At 3.30 a.m. Alfred Crow, a twenty-one-year-old cab driver who lived with his parents at 35 George Yard Buildings, on returning home, ascended the stone staircase. As he passed the first-floor landing, he noticed somebody lying on the ground in the poor light but, as he was accustomed to seeing the occasional person sleeping rough there, he took little notice. Once home, he went to bed and slept undisturbed until 9.30 a.m.31 It was only when John Reeves left after his disturbed night to look for work at 4.45 a.m. that Crow’s sighting took on considerable significance; Reeves found the body of Martha Tabram on that first-floor landing, lying in a pool of blood. Obviously alarmed at what he had found and without touching the body, he ran into the street looking for assistance, which soon came in the form of PC Barrett; the two men returned to the scene.32 PC Barrett later noted that the woman’s clothes ‘were turned up as far as the centre of the body, leaving the lower part of the body exposed; the legs were open, and altogether her position was such as to suggest in my mind that recent intimacy had taken place’.33 Barrett then went to fetch Dr Timothy Killeen of 68 Brick Lane, who arrived at George Yard buildings at 5.30 a.m. He pronounced life extinct, after which arrangements were made to have the body taken to the small, inadequate ‘shed’ off Old Montague Street which was officially the Whitechapel workhouse mortuary and was at that time the only such facility in the parish. A violent attack had obviously taken place without any residents being alerted to it; Francis Hewitt, the superintendent of George Yard Buildings, slept a mere twelve feet from where the body was found and had heard not a sound.

  As the body of the woman had yet to be identified, a portrait photograph was taken. Dr Killeen conducted the required post-mortem examination, his findings revealing a uniquely horrific attack. There were a total of thirty-nine stab wounds on the body. He estimated that Martha Tabram had been dead for about three hours by the time he had arrived at the scene, putting the time of murder at approximately 2.30 a.m. He estimated that her age was about thirty-six and stated that the body was very well nourished. The left lung was penetrated in five places, and the right lung was penetrated in two places. The heart was penetrated in one place, an injury that would have been sufficient to cause death on its own. The liver was penetrated in five places, the spleen in two places, and the stomach in six places. Dr Killeen did not think all the wounds were inflicted with the same instrument, surmising that thirty-eight were from a small implement like a clasp knife or penknife, whereas the remaining one, which had penetrated the breastbone, was inflicted by a much larger and sturdier weapon, such as a dagger or even a sword bayonet. He disagreed with PC Barrett’s observation that recent sexual activity had taken place and felt that all the wounds had been inflicted when Martha was still alive.34 Interestingly, he also stated, when asked, that one of the injuries could have been made by a left-handed person.35

  The inquest opened on Thursday 9 August at the Working Lads’ Institute beside Whitechapel Underground station, presided over by Deputy Coroner George Collier. Giving evidence were witnesses Alfred Crow, John Reeves, PC Barrett and Dr Killeen, watched over by Local Inspector Edmund Reid, now heading a murder investigation on behalf of the Metropolitan Police. A woman carrying a baby attended the institute early and asserted that she knew the murdered woman and, after seeing the body in the mortuary, identified her as ‘Martha Turner’.36 Mr Collier felt that, as the circumstances of the identification appeared vague at best, despite the fact that it was as good as correct, the woman was not called to testify at the inquest, and thus the identity of the murdered woman remained, for a while at least, elusive.

  That same day, Mary Ann Connelly presented herself at Commercial Street police station and furnished them with the details of her night out with Martha Tabram. By this time, PC Barrett had attended two ident
ity parades at the Tower, consisting of a number of Grenadier guardsmen. At the first parade on 7 August he failed to pick any as the soldier he had seen on the night of the murder. The process was repeated again the following day with guardsmen who had been on leave at the time, and Barrett picked out two men. The first was allowed to go when Barrett admitted he had made a mistake, and the second, John Leary, was found to have an impeccable alibi for his movements of the night of the 7th. Now it was Mary Ann Connelly’s turn – agreeing to attend a parade at the Tower on 10 August, she failed to turn up, but was found staying at her cousin’s home in Fuller’s Court, Drury Lane, two days later. On 13 August Connelly finally made it to the Tower but could not identify anybody. She also mentioned that the two soldiers she had been with that night had white bands on their caps, meaning that they were Coldstream Guards stationed at Wellington Barracks, and so, on 15 August, Connelly was taken there for another attempt. It failed, as she picked out two men who, under questioning, were able to give a more than satisfactory account of their movements on 7 August.37 All further attempts to locate any potential witnesses who may have seen Martha Tabram and her companions on the night of her death ground to a frustrating halt.

  The body of Martha Tabram was probably already buried by the time her estranged husband came forward to identify her for definite.38 The second day of the inquest took place after a lengthy break on 23 August, with Henry Tabram, William Turner, Mary Bousfield, Ann Morris and Mary Ann Connelly testifying. Mr Collier, in his summing-up, said that ‘the crime was one of the most brutal that had occurred for some years. For a poor defenceless woman to be outraged and stabbed in the manner which this woman had been was almost beyond belief.’39 The jury delivered their verdict of ‘wilful murder by some person or persons unknown’, a result that would become frustratingly familiar in the coming months.