When Whitechapel’s impoverished streets were deadly for women at night

WHEN Emma Smith was found dead on the streets of Whitechapel 130 years ago today, it started a period when many women feared for their lives.

Osborn St, in Whitechapel, near where Emma Smith was murdered in 1888.

THE streets of Whitechapel in the late 19th century were no place for the faint-hearted. Casual violence was an everyday occurrence; some of it fuelled by alcohol, some perpetrated by thieves. But some was directed specifically at women, either from violent partners or complete strangers.

Many women who were forced into prostitution through economic necessity, put their lives on the line on a regular basis by walking the streets. Described as prostitutes, most had other jobs and were not full-time sex workers, but few people cared to make the distinction.

One of those women was 45-year-old Emma Smith, who, while walking along Whitechapel Rd at 1.30am on April 3, 1888, 130 years ago today, was confronted by three men. They followed her as she turned into Osborn St. At the juncture where Osborn St met Wentworth St and a narrow alley called Brick Lane, the men caught up with her. She was beaten, raped, robbed of what few coins she carried and violated with a blunt object.

Badly injured she staggered to her lodgings where she told a friend what had happened. The friend helped her to a hospital where a doctor questioned her about the attack before Emma slipped into a coma and died of peritonitis.

An 1888 illustrated newspaper account of the murder of Emma Smith, the first of the Whitechapel Murders.

It was days before the police were informed and a coroner’s inquest was conducted on April 7. After the coroner said it was “impossible to imagine a more brutal and dastardly assault”, the police opened a file marked “Whitechapel Murder”. Before long, it would be renamed “Whitechapel Murders” as a series of vicious attacks on women kept London on edge for three years.

The most infamous of the those murders were five thought to have been committed by one man — “Jack the Ripper”. Smith’s death is generally not considered to be one of the Ripper murders, but it was the start of a period of fear and suspicion for women on the streets of Whitechapel.

Although the murders only affected a small portion of the English population, the effect of the deaths of those 11 women during April 1888 to February 1891 went much further. With Whitechapel’s terrible cramped residences, high rates of crime and seedy night-life, the murders shone a spotlight on one of the most destitute areas of London, which led to laws being passed to improve conditions for the poor.

Whitechapel in the late 19th century.

Local police reports of the murders.

Local police reports of the murders.

After Smith’s death, police failed to make much headway investigating the crime. It is likely that her attackers were known members of a criminal gang and that Smith failed to identify them fearing reprisal attacks.

When Martha Tabram was murdered in Whitechapel on August 7, people feared the crimes were connected. Her details were added to the Whitechapel Murder file, but police soon ruled out a connection as the method of killing was very different — Tabram was savagely stabbed 39 times.

On August 31 the body of 43-year-old Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols was found; her throat had been cut and body mutilated. Although, again, it was a different method, police couldn’t rule out a connection. But the murders of Annie Chapman on September 8, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes on September 30, and Mary Kelly on November 9, all had the marks of the same killer, who became known as Jack the Ripper, identifying himself as such in taunting letters to the police.

“With the Vigilance Committee in the East End: A Suspicious Character”, from The Illustrated London News, October 13,1888.

An illustration from the Jack the Ripper Documents: Le Journal Illustre, on February 13, 1891.

Police initially failed to investigate the December 20 death of Rose Mylett, who lodged at the same address as Smith, because they thought it was suicide. A coroner ruled that she had been strangled.

Alice McKenzie’s death in July 1889 looked more like the work of the Ripper but a pathologist believed it was done to look like the infamous killer’s work.

In September 1889 a woman’s torso was found under a railway arch. Again it bore none of the hallmarks of the Ripper, but no other parts of the body were found, the victim was never identified and the killer never caught. The last murdered was Frances Cole, whose body was found on February 13, 1891. Her throat was cut, but again the murder didn’t match the Ripper’s MO. A suspect was arrested but later released.

A newspaper sketch of Frederick George Abberline from about 1888. He investigated the Jack the Ripper Murders.

All of the murders remained unsolved, despite the best efforts of Det-Insp Edmund Reid and Scotland Yard’s Insp Frederic Abberline. Although many theories have since been advanced about the identity of the Ripper, few people have bothered to tackle the other six murders thought not to have been committed by him.

Meanwhile the effects had been felt beyond Whitechapel. Newspapers had shamed the government into passing laws such as the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890, at least partly in response to descriptions of the tiny, filthy lodgings endured by some of the victims.

Irish novelist Bram Stoker is also said to have been inspired to write the 1897 book Dracula, about a bloodsucking killer lurking the streets of London.

Originally published as When Whitechapel’s impoverished streets were deadly for women at night