Whitechapel

Question 1

Challenges for police in Whitechapel

Answer 1

Whitechapel

Gangs, The Environment, Prostitution, Alcohol, Protection Rackets, Attacks on Jews, Violent Demonstrations

Question 2

Attitudes towards Police

Answer 2

They were quite unpopular, especially with the working class.

Question 3

Rookeries

Answer 3

Overcrowded slum areas with terrible sanitations

Question 4

Employment in Whitechapel

Answer 4

There were very few employment opportunities - economic depression (there were basically no jobs for women, so many turned to prostitution to survive)

Question 5

Workhouses

Answer 5

Last resorts for poor people, offered a bed and food in return for hard labour. Very poor conditions to prevent people from wanting to go there

Question 6

Peabody Estates

Answer 6

Relatively cheap housing for the poor with better sanitation built by George Peabody in 1881

Question 7

Lodging Houses (Doss Houses)

Answer 7

Places where poor people could pay a nightly fee to sleep in a bed or suspended by a rope - 1/4 of Whitechapel’s population lived in doss houses

Question 8

Jobs for men in Whitechapel

Answer 8

Long hours at factories/sweatshops, working on railways or dockyards.

Question 9

Irish Immigrants

Answer 9

Many Irish left Ireland for the USA in the 1840’s but ended up in London Instead
Poverty meant most could only afford to live in the least expensive parts of London.
Most worked as navvies labourers building roads railways or carnals or dockers
Known for being drunk and violent and associated with terrorism

Question 10

Why were there tensions in Whitechapel towards immigrants

Answer 10

Tensions for Housing and Jobs with immigrants
Anti Semitism and Violence vs Jews rose rapidly
Anyone with a peculiar accent was suspected of being violent and revolutionary
Foreigners were blamed for crimes