Whitechapel

Question 1

What were workhouses?

Answer 1

• Last resort for really destitute
• Stone breaking, Oakum picking
• Aimed to punish the poor
• Filled with the elderly, ill, disabled, unmarried mothers, orphans, etc.
• Cruel jobs to deter you from coming back + encourage you to escape poverty
• Bed and food in return for hard labour
• By 1880, most orphans cared for in Barnados homes with better conditions

Question 2

Work in Whitechapel

Answer 2

• High unemployment rates
• Few jobs available for women—> turned to prostitution
• Railways and dockyards
• Sweatshops—> cramped, dirty, little natural light, for sweated trades like shoe making, overcrowded, low wages, long hours

Question 3

Tensions in Whitechapel

Answer 3

• No clean water + financial struggles = people turn to alcoholism which leads to violence
• Stealing for survival

Question 4

Immigration in Whitechapel

Answer 4

• Irish wanted to reach USA but ran out of money
• Jews blamed for assassination of an important figure so escaped persecution in Russia and Poland
• Irish stereotyped as drunk and violent
• Fenians seen as terrorists
• Language differences- no communication
• Segregated communities
• Anti Jewish feeling spread in newspapers
• Most residents were temporary so no sense of community
• Immigrants prepared to do low paying jobs and long hours angered locals- stealing jobs

Question 5

What was Whitechapel like?

Answer 5

• crime- ridden
• disease
• overcrowded, cramped
• little healthy water
• heavily polluted

Question 6

What were Rookeries, Lodging houses and the Peabody Estate?

Answer 6

Rookeries- slum areas in Whitechapel where most housing was located, overcrowded, poor sanitation

Lodging houses- nightly fee for a bed and access to a kitchen, 3-8 hour sleep shifts, houses split into apartments

Peabody Estate- 11 new blocks of flats, reasonable rent, Londons slum clearance program

Question 7

H Division

Answer 7

• Police department in charge of Whitechapel
• 500 regular police, 27 Inspectors, 15 CID members, 1 superintendent
• seen as upholders of unpopular government rnment decisions
• seen as face of the government.

Question 8

What was the Vigilance Committee?

Answer 8

• Businessmen set it up due to lack of progress for police with JTR cases
• Offered reward for information
• Patrolled streets every night with burning wood as torches, and whistles
• Disrupted police, sent false leads, encouraged police criticism

Question 9

Challenges to policing Whitechapel

Answer 9

• Immigrants spoke little English
• Saw police as face of gov- didn’t care/ consider the poor
• Dark, narrow alleyways
• Prostitutes vulnerable to violence
• Gangs- Bessarabian Tigers and Odessians
• Gangs demanded money from stalls from protection or threatened to attack them/ their stalls
• Understaffed + Overstretched

Question 10

Jack The Ripper Muderders

Answer 10

• Mary Anne Nichols 31st August
• Annie Chapman 8th Sept
• Elizabeth Stride 30th Sept
• Catherine Eddowes 30th Sept
• All victims went to the same pub
• Every murder happened in a 1 square mile area
• Showed skilled knife use
• Prostitutes were drunk, vulnerable, alone, no one would notice them missing
• Many slept on the streets

Question 11

Techniques used by police for JTR

Answer 11

• Soup Kitchens attract the poor- info
• Following up on direct leads
• Arranging Post Mortems
• Visiting lunatic asylums
• Followed up on coroners reports
• Following up on journalists theories
• Dressed as prositutes with wigs and dresses and walked around at night

Question 12

Obstacles to success in JTR cases

Answer 12

• Newspapers publish unreliable info
• Bizarre methods- dressing as prostitutes
• Lack of forensic techniques
• Press portrayed JTR as foreign - added to stereotypes and tensions
• Criticism as emotions ran high
• Rivalry between police forces
• Vigilance Committee
• Following unreliable leads
• Critisism - thousands turned up to post mortems

Question 13

Improvements to policing after JTR

Answer 13

• by 1900, telephone lines were used
• Bertiliion System combined records, photography, measurements, etc
• Link between living conditions and crime seen clearer
• Public Health Amendment Act 1890 - gave power to local councils to improve sanitary services
• Houses of Working Class Act 1890- new housing, development schemes, better lighting on roads