by Paul Begg
Sometime after 2.20 a.m., the body was conveyed to the mortuary on Golden Lane and stripped, Inspector Collard making a list of her clothing and possessions. Dr Brown conducted the post-mortem that afternoon, assisted and observed by Dr Sequeira, Dr George Bagster Phillips and Dr William Sedgewick Saunders. The woman’s injuries were extensive:
The face was very much mutilated. There was a cut about a quarter of an inch through the lower left eyelid, dividing the structures completely through. The upper eyelid on that side, there was a scratch through the skin on the left upper eyelid, near to the angle of the nose. The right eyelid was cut through to about half an inch. There was a deep cut over the bridge of the nose, extending from the left border of the nasal bone down near the angle of the jaw on the right side of the cheek. This cut went into the bone and divided all the structures of the cheek except the mucous membrane of the mouth. The tip of the nose was quite detached by an oblique cut from the bottom of the nasal bone to where the wings of the nose join on to the face. A cut from this divided the upper lip and extended through the substance of the gum over the right upper lateral incisor tooth. About half an inch from the top of the nose was another oblique cut. There was a cut on the right angle of the mouth as if the cut of a point of a knife. The cut extended an inch and a half, parallel with the lower lip. There was on each side of cheek a cut which peeled up the skin, forming a triangular flap about an inch and a half. On the left cheek there were two abrasions of the epithelium under the left ear.
The throat was cut across to the extent of about six or seven inches. A superficial cut commenced about an inch and a half below the lobe below, and about two and a half inches behind the left ear, and extended across the throat to about three inches below the lobe of the right ear. The big muscle across the throat was divided through on the left side. The large vessels on the left side of the neck were severed. The larynx was severed below the vocal cord. All the deep structures were severed to the bone, the knife marking intervertebral cartilages. The sheath of the vessels on the right side was just opened. The carotid artery had a fine hole opening, the internal jugular vein was opened about an inch and a half – not divided. The blood vessels contained clot. All these injuries were performed by a sharp instrument like a knife, and pointed.
The cause of death was haemorrhage from the left common carotid artery. The death was immediate and the mutilations were inflicted after death.
The front walls were laid open from the breast bones to the pubes. The cut commenced opposite the enciform cartilage. The incision went upwards, not penetrating the skin that was over the sternum. It then divided the enciform cartilage. The knife must have cut obliquely at the expense of that cartilage. Behind this, the liver was stabbed as if by the point of a sharp instrument. Below this was another incision into the liver of about two and a half inches, and below this the left lobe of the liver was slit through by a vertical cut. Two cuts were shewn by a jagging of the skin on the left side. The abdominal walls were divided in the middle line to within a quarter of an inch of the navel. The cut then took a horizontal course for two inches and a half towards the right side. It then divided round the navel on the left side, and made a parallel incision to the former horizontal incision, leaving the navel on a tongue of skin. Attached to the navel was two and a half inches of the lower part of the rectus muscle on the left side of the abdomen. The incision then took an oblique direction to the right and was shelving. The incision went down the right side of the vagina and rectum for half an inch behind the rectum.
There was a stab of about an inch on the left groin. This was done by a pointed instrument. Below this was a cut of three inches going through all tissues making a wound of the peritoneum about the same extent. An inch below the crease of the thigh was a cut extending from the anterior spine of the ilium obliquely down the inner side of the left thigh and separating the left labium, forming a flap of skin up to the groin. The left rectus muscle was not detached. There was a flap of skin formed by the right thigh, attaching the right labium, and extending up to the spine of the ilium. The muscles on the right side inserted into the frontal ligaments were cut through. The skin was retracted through the whole of the cut through the abdomen, but the vessels were not clotted. Nor had there been any appreciable bleeding from the vessels. I draw the conclusion that the act was made after death, and there would not have been much blood on the murderer. The cut was made by someone on the right side of the body, kneeling below the middle of the body.
I removed the content of the stomach and placed it in a jar for further examination. There seemed very little in it in the way of food or fluid, but from the cut end partly digested farinaceous food escaped. The intestines had been detached to a large extent from the mesentery. About two feet of the colon was cut away. The sigmoid flexure was invaginated into the rectum very tightly. Right kidney was pale, bloodless with slight congestion of the base of the pyramids. There was a cut from the upper part of the slit on the under surface of the liver to the left side, and another cut at right angles to this, which were about an inch and a half deep and two and a half inches long. Liver itself was healthy. The gall bladder contained bile. The pancreas was cut, but not through, on the left side of the spinal column. Three and a half inches of the lower border of the spleen by half an inch was attached only to the peritoneum. The peritoneal lining was cut through on the left side and the left kidney carefully taken out and removed. The left renal artery was cut through. I would say that someone who knew the position of the kidney must have done it. The lining membrane over the uterus was cut through. The womb was cut through horizontally, leaving a stump of three quarters of an inch. The rest of the womb had been taken away with some of the ligaments. The vagina and cervix of the womb was uninjured.
Attention was also drawn to a dirty linen apron worn by the deceased over her skirts, a portion of which was missing. It transpired that the fragment had already been found, at 2.55 a.m. by PC Alfred Long, a Metropolitan Police officer on his beat walking through Goulston Street, Whitechapel. The portion was found in the open doorway to 108–119 Wentworth Dwellings and appeared to be partly wet with blood. He at once searched the staircases and other parts of the building without any result, but he had noticed, on the wall above the apron, some writing in white chalk upon the black brickwork. According to PC Long’s transcription of the message in his notebook, it read: ‘The Juews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.’2 He was sure that neither the apron piece nor the writing were there when he passed along Goulston Street at 2.20 a.m. Detective Halse had also passed through the street at about that time while conducting his neighbourhood searches and had not noticed anything out of the ordinary then. Once news of the discovery had reached Leman Street police station, numerous officers from both the Metropolitan and City forces converged on Goulston Street. Directions were given by Inspector McWilliam of the City Police to have the writing photographed;3 however, Superintendent Thomas Arnold from the Metropolitan force was desirous that the writing be erased lest it cause a riot against the local Jewish community in the wake of the recent accusations against them and excitement that had surrounded ‘Leather Apron’.4 Arnold’s concern was vindicated following the arrival of Sir Charles Warren, who at 5.30 a.m., despite the urgings of some officers to have the offending part of the message covered prior to photographs being taken, ordered the erasure of the writing. A police constable who had been standing by with a wet sponge for some time awaiting further instructions did the deed. Warren later gave an explanation to the home secretary:
A discussion took place whether the writing could be left covered up or otherwise or whether any portion of it could be left for an hour until it could be photographed; but after taking into consideration the excited state of the population in London generally at the time, the strong feeling which had been excited against the Jews, and the fact that in a short time there would be a large concourse of the people in the streets, and having before me the Report that if it was left
there the house was likely to be wrecked (in which from my own observation I entirely concurred) I considered it desirable to obliterate the writing at once.5
Of course, there is little to suggest that the message was actually written by the murderer, and the possibility of it being anti-Semitic graffiti (of which there was much at the time) cannot be ignored. However, Warren’s decision may have averted a disaster of great magnitude, even though he was roundly criticized for his judgement – Sir Robert Anderson later described the erasure as an act of ‘crass stupidity’.6
The inquests into the two murders, for a time, ran concurrently, the Stride inquest being the longest, as was a characteristic of Wynne Baxter’s proceedings. A number of witnesses were called who were able to give more details about the night of Stride’s death; William West furnished the inquest with a detailed description of the crime scene and the club and testified that he had left the premises at 12.15 a.m. and had seen nothing unusual, noting that the gates of Dutfield’s Yard were wide open.7 Club member Joseph Lave also stated that he had left at 12.40 a.m. to catch some air and again saw nothing unusual – the yard was so dark he had to feel his way along the wall to reach the street.8 Identification of Stride’s body came quickly, but not without a little trouble; Mary Malcolm, a resident of Red Lion Square, Holborn, claimed that on the night of the murder she had felt a hand on her chest as she lay in bed and was kissed three times by a presence she was convinced was her sister Elizabeth Watts. Concerned for the well-being of her sibling, Mary visited the mortuary twice and identified the body as that of her sister, pointing out some distinguishing marks into the bargain.9 The whole claim was reduced to a sham when Mrs Malcolm’s sister, now remarried as Elizabeth Stokes, made an appearance to vouch for her safety.
Identifying the woman found in Mitre Square was a different matter. The body lay in the Golden Lane mortuary for several days until John Kelly, a labourer living at a lodging house at 55 Flower and Dean Street, identified the woman as his common-law wife, Catherine Conway. Soon after, Eliza Gold, a widow living in Thrawl Street, identified her as her sister, Catherine Eddowes.
Catherine Eddowes was born in Wolverhampton on 14 April 1842, the sixth of twelve children born to George Eddowes and his wife Catherine. The family moved to Bermondsey in London before Catherine was two years old, and she was subsequently educated at St John’s Charity School, Potter’s Field, Tooley Street. Her mother died in 1855, and her father two years later, from which point most of her siblings entered Bermondsey workhouse and industrial school. According to later press reports, she returned to the care of her aunt in Bilston Street, Wolverhampton, and found employment as a tin-plate stamper.10 Around 1862 she began a relationship with an army pensioner named Thomas Conway (formerly enlisted in the 18th Royal Irish Regiment under the name Quinn and drawing a regimental pension under that name), who at that time was earning a living writing and selling chapbooks, cheap books sold on the streets by pedlars, the content usually being political or religious tracts, histories, nursery rhymes or accounts of current events. Together, they eked out a living this way around Birmingham and the Midlands, and in 1863, their first child, Catherine Ann Conway (‘Annie’), was born in Norfolk.11
By 1868, the family had moved back to London, and that year son Thomas was born in Westminster. Their last child, Alfred, was born in Southwark in 1873. The family obviously moved home a lot, and in the last record of them together they were listed as living in Chelsea.12 However, Thomas and Catherine’s relationship ended around 1881. There was never any evidence that the couple had ever married, but the bond must have been strong for some time, as Catherine had had the initials ‘TC’ tattooed on her arm and took his name as if she was his wife. The cause of the split was uncertain; Annie Conway believed it was because of her mother’s behaviour when in drink,13 whereas Catherine’s elder sister, Elizabeth Fisher, stated that Conway would occasionally be violent.14
After the separation, Catherine met John Kelly and for the remainder of her life lived with him at the doss house at 55 Flower and Dean Street known as ‘Cooney’s’. Kelly admitted that Catherine drank, though not to excess, but was not aware that she ever went out on the streets for ‘immoral purposes’.15 All in all, despite obvious difficulties at times, the relationship seemed relatively harmonious: ‘I have lived with that girl a long while, and we never quarrelled,’ said Kelly.16
In September 1888 the couple went hopping in Kent, a regular endeavour for them and others of their class, who would look forward to the opportunity of making a little money picking hops whilst reaping the health benefits of time in the countryside, away from the grime of the city. Unfortunately, owing to the poor crop that season, the trip had been an unsuccessful one, and they trudged wearily back to London, accompanied part of the way by Emily Birrell and her partner, who gave Catherine a pawn ticket for a shirt. It was the same pawn ticket that was found on the body in Mitre Square and which, when mentioned in the press, alerted Kelly to her death. They reached London on 27 September, spending the night at the casual ward in Shoe Lane. The following day, in order to get money for provisions, Catherine pawned a pair of Kelly’s boots at Jones’s pawnbroker in Church Street,17 Spitalfields, and they spent the night apart. The last time the couple were together was on Saturday 29 September at 2.00 p.m. on Houndsditch, when Catherine told Kelly that she was going to Bermondsey to see her daughter with the intention of getting some money. They parted on good terms, and apparently Catherine was sober when she went off.
At 8.30 that evening PC Louis Robinson of the City Police was on duty in Aldgate when his attention was diverted by a small crowd outside no. 29 Aldgate High Street. Investigating, he found Catherine Eddowes, by now drunk and incapable, lying on the pavement. The fact that she was effectively penniless when she last saw Kelly begs the question of where and indeed how she acquired enough money in six hours to get herself extremely intoxicated. He tried to prop her up against the shutters of the shop, but she keeled over and, when asked her name, replied, ‘Nothing.’ PC Robinson, assisted by PC George Simmons, lifted her up and carried her, perhaps with some difficulty, to Bishopsgate police station. Station Sergeant James Byfield booked Catherine in, and she was taken to a cell to sleep off the drink. PC George Hutt made regular checks on the new prisoner and at 12.55 a.m. he could see that she was now sober enough to be released. She gave her name as ‘Mary Ann Kelly’ of 6 Fashion Street, Spitalfields, and as Hutt led her from the cells to the exit, she asked the time, to which he commented that it was too late to get any more drink. She muttered that she would get ‘a damn fine hiding’ when she got home, at which Hutt chastised her for her drunkenness. At 1.00 a.m. she left with a cheery ‘Good night, old cock,’ and was seen to turn left out of the station exit towards Houndsditch.
At 1.35 a.m., Joseph Lawende, Harry Harris and Joseph Hyam Levy left the Imperial Club on Duke Street and, as they walked towards Aldgate, they noticed a man and a woman on the opposite side of the road, at the corner of Church Passage, one of the entrances to Mitre Square. Harris found the couple disconcerting, saying, ‘I don’t like going home by myself when I see those characters about,’ but Levy had no such qualms. Lawende, walking just ahead of the other two, was later able to furnish the police with more information – the woman had had her hand on the man’s chest and was wearing the same clothing he saw later at the mortuary. The man was described as ‘of shabby appearance, about thirty years of age and 5ft. 9in. in height, of fair complexion, having a small fair moustache, and wearing a red neckerchief and a cap with a peak’.18 Unfortunately, Lawende also believed that he would not recognize the man again.19
It was five minutes later that PC James Harvey, one of the first officers at the scene following the discovery of the murder, passed down Church Passage, stopping at the entrance to Mitre Square. He heard nobody and heard no cry. Feeling that all was well, he turned and went back up Church Passage into Duke Street, whereupon he continued his beat in the direction of Aldgate. Minutes later, watc
hman Morris’s whistle alerted him and other nearby officers to PC Watkins’s discovery of Catherine Eddowes’s mutilated body.
If Lawende and friends had seen the murderer only nine minutes prior to the murder being discovered, then the extensive mutilations were executed fast and at great risk. Evidence of that risk was forthcoming during the Eddowes inquest, with a number of witnesses testifying to their proximity to the murder scene at the crucial time. George Clapp, the caretaker of 5 Mitre Street, his wife and Mrs Tew, a nurse, had a night of undisturbed sleep, even though their bedroom windows looked out on to Mitre Square. Similarly, off-duty City PC Richard Pearce and his family, living in the only occupied house in Mitre Square, heard nothing out of the ordinary until being called at 2.20 a.m. Pearce could see the murder spot from his bedroom window, behind which he, his wife and three children slept without disturbance that night. James Blenkinsopp, a night watchman looking after some road works in St James’s Place (the ‘Orange Market’), did state that a respectably dressed man came up to him at 1.30 a.m. and asked if he had seen a couple passing through, to which he replied that he had not.20 This was a curious event because if Blenkinsopp’s timing was correct, then it happened minutes before the sighting in Duke Street made by Lawende and company. If Blenkinsopp was incorrect with the timing, then it is possible that it was one of the detective constables who were making enquiries after the discovery of Eddowes’s body. Either way, Blenkinsopp, like everybody else in the vicinity, heard nothing of the murder.