Whitechapel Flashcards
What was the population of Whitechapel
30,000
What was sanitation like in Whitechapel
- Terrible pollution
- London smog
- sewerage was poor and drinking water was unreliable-they caused typhus and cholera
I’m 1881 how many people lived in how many houses
30,709 people lived in 4,069 houses
- averages 7.5 people per house
- Whitechapel had a population density of 189% compared to London which had a density of 45%
Where could homeless people live
‘Lodging houses/Doss houses’
What were conditions in lodgings/doss houses and how long could they stay there
Terrible conditions: hot, rats and shared beds-unhygienic bedding
200 houses were built for 8000 people so they had to sleep in 8h shifts
What was significant about ‘Flower and dean street’
- Overcrowding
- Reputation for violence, prostitution, Theives,
- poor sewerage
What was the peabody estate
George Peabody (1881) funded the clearing of slums and the creation of 286 flats -it charged 3-6 shillings
What was casual labour
Eg. construction or the docks—> employed at a day at a time and had no job security
What was sweated labour
Work in cramped, dusty and unhealthy conditions (Sweatshops) for low wages eg. Clothing and shoe making
What were the workhouses
-offered food and shelter for this too poor to survive in the general community
-included the poor, elderly, sick, disabled, orphans or unmarried mothers and their kids
-Clean condition because its was ran by religious people and cleanliness is close to godliness
-Families were separated
-Made to wear a uniform
-Monotonous food
-No privacy
-Tough labour
Vagrants could only stay a couple nights because that were considered a bad influence and lazy so were kept away
Irish immigration
- The Irish famine led to mass migration
- when they settled they found it expansive
- the Irish were often engaged in low skill labour
Why was there resentment towards the Irish
- they had a reputation for drunkness
- they took the small amount of jobs that were available
- Fenians (Irish terrorists)
Jewish immigration
-Came to Whitechapel to escape the persecution after a Jew was accused of murdering a royalist
Hostility to Jews
- they had a reputation for being separate and unbritish
- they were unpopular for their business success and that that often ran the sweatshops paying low wages
- they had links to socialists and anarchists
Anarchism
- wanted a revolution which all laws and authority would be swept away
- carries out political assassinations
Socialism-Social democratic federation (1881)
- wanted to bring down the capitalist system
- looked after workers poor people rights
Reasons for high crime levels
- Poverty and high unemployment
- Mazes of poorly lit streets
- resentment to immigrants
Prostitution
People were unsympathetic towards them
Most worked on streets but some in brothels where that were safer but exploited by pimps
How many prostetutes were there in 1888
1,200
Alchahol
-Used to escape bad lives
Britain didn’t have a single police force…
They had 47000 officers in 243 different forces
How were the met police divided
Into letter of the alphabet for each area
How many detectives did the CID have in 1883
294
Who was commissioner Charles Warren
- Former army general became commissioner in 1886
- gained a bad reputation for using army to boost police numbers
- had bad relations to the home security
- blamed the failiar to catch ripper on weak political leadership
What was the ‘beat’
- regular on-foot patrols by each officer around area of Whitechapel
- police had a truncheon,hand cuffs, whistle, lamp and a note book
- kept record in their best diaries
- they march side by side until they reach their beat
The Whitechapel H division
Had a superintendent-a chief inspector-27 inspectors-37 sergeants-500 constables
Ratio of 1:300
What are the order of murders
Mary Anne ‘polly’ Nichols Annie chapman Elizabeth Stride Catherine Eddows Mary Kelly
When was Mary Anne ‘polly’ Nichols murderd
31st August 1888
When was Annie chapman murdered
8th September 1888
When was Elizabeth Stride murdered
30th September 1888
When was Catherine Eddows murdered
30th September 1888
When was Mary Kelly murdered
9th November 1888
What were the 6 Methods of investigation
- post mortem
- coroner
- following up leads from journalists
- setting up soup kitchens
- interviewing key witnesses
- visiting lunatic asylums
- houses to house searches
advantages of post mortem
They identified that it was ‘no slaughterer of animals could have carried out these crimes
Adv and Dis for following leads from journalists
Adv: more leads
Dis: it’s was hard to follow up all leads and some were presented to sell newspapers
Adv and Dis of soup kitchens
Adv: more likely to give info
Dis: people often lied to get food
Adv and Dis of visinting lunatic asylums
Adv: it was assumed only some unstable could commit these crimes
Dis: not reliable
What problems with the media did police have?
The press often published police rubbishing in their respected ‘times’ and ‘illustrated police news’
When was police rivalry noticed
When Catherine Eddows was murdered in the city of London and evidence was found in Whitechapel-a cloth with blood and human fecies and a message which read ___________
-Charles Warren ordered it was to be washed off the wall so the London police didn’t get any leads
*counter-he feared it would cause Jewish resentment
What was the message which was found after Catherine Eddows death
‘The Jews are not of the men that will not be blamed for nothing’
Who ran the Whitechapel vigilance committee
George Lusk
-he sent unreliable evidence to the police
What follow up sources can be used
- Police records
- met police records
- CID records
- The census
- Boards of work report
- work house reports
- booths poverty map 1889
