Speaker 1: Welcomed unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: Mrs Mortimer heard steps pass by in the street. That
Speaker 1: was nothing unusual, though in fact she recognized these steps.
Speaker 1: They were the heavy, measured tread of a constable passing
Speaker 1: the house as he always did, walking his beat. Or
Speaker 1: so she thought. It's hard to tell from just the
Speaker 1: sound of footsteps slapping on wet cobble stones, but it
Speaker 1: was a familiar sound to Missus Mortimer, and it brought
Speaker 1: her to her front door. She stood there for a
Speaker 1: while and took in the night air for what she
Speaker 1: guessed was a half hour. The night was damp and
Speaker 1: the stones and walls around her were wet. And then
Speaker 1: someone else came walking by, and she watched him pass.
Speaker 1: There were a few things she noticed about the man. First,
Speaker 1: he was carrying a shiny black bag. Second, he was
Speaker 1: moving quickly, and as he moved along the street, Missus
Speaker 1: Mortimer noticed that he glanced at the Jewish socialist club
Speaker 1: that stood four doors down from her home on Burner Street,
Speaker 1: the club at Dutfield Yard. It was nearly one in
Speaker 1: the morning, so Mrs Mortimer went back inside and prepared
Speaker 1: for bed. That would have been when the steward of
Speaker 1: the Socialist Club rattled by in his cart pulled by
Speaker 1: a donkey. He was on his way back to the club,
Speaker 1: and he tugged the reins to turn the cart through
Speaker 1: the gates and into the yard, and that's when his
Speaker 1: donkey bucked and shied away. He was trying to get
Speaker 1: the animal to turn into Dutfield Yard so he could
Speaker 1: unload his belongings from the market, but something was on
Speaker 1: the ground in the shadows, blocking the way. He couldn't
Speaker 1: see what it was, so he climbed down and got
Speaker 1: a closer look. He pulled a box of matches from
Speaker 1: his pocket and struck a light. In the flickering flame,
Speaker 1: he could see the shape was the body of a woman,
Speaker 1: Liz Stride. Israel Schwartz had fled the scene just minutes before.
Speaker 1: He rushed into the club, where people were still dancing
Speaker 1: and drinking together and where his wife was chatting with
Speaker 1: the guests. When a few of them came out to
Speaker 1: help the steward check on the woman, they found that
Speaker 1: she was dead. A long cut cross Liz Stride's throats
Speaker 1: under the scarf that had been frayed by the edge
Speaker 1: of the knife that killed her. The resulting commotion brought
Speaker 1: Mrs Mortimer out of her house and others too, even
Speaker 1: in the early morning hours. The steward then went for
Speaker 1: the police. When constables arrived, they shut the gate and
Speaker 1: locked down the club. Clothes hands and the rooms in
Speaker 1: the club were examined for blood. The toilets in the
Speaker 1: yard were checked. The neighboring contages too, along with the neighbors.
Speaker 1: White Chapels Inspector Reid was back from his holiday and
Speaker 1: he was on the scene soon after. There was nothing
Speaker 1: ordinary about the horrible murder that was coming to light
Speaker 1: under the Steward's match, but by now all of London
Speaker 1: knew the pattern. Soon enough, Liz Stride would be added
Speaker 1: to the list of names women who had been killed
Speaker 1: in the dark hours of the night, Taken to the
Speaker 1: White Chapel mortuary, examined by a police surgeon, with an
Speaker 1: inquest carried out by Wind Baxter. The first doctor to
Speaker 1: examine the body arrived on the scene at one a m.
Speaker 1: He was followed ten minutes later by Dr Phillips, the
Speaker 1: Urgin who had observed Annie Chapman's body on Hanbury Street.
Speaker 1: His influence had already been felt in the investigation when
Speaker 1: he suggested to Win Baxter that the killer could be
Speaker 1: a surgeon or maybe a butcher. Dr Phillips had come
Speaker 1: to his conclusion because of the massive wounds to Annie Chapman.
Speaker 1: But there was only one cut for doctors to examine
Speaker 1: on Liz Stride, the one that crossed her neck. There
Speaker 1: was no doubt it was a vicious murder. But this
Speaker 1: challenge the speculations Dr Phillips had put forward before. If
Speaker 1: the killer was attempting to collect organs from the women
Speaker 1: he murdered, and Stride was killed by the same hand,
Speaker 1: why hadn't the murderer done the same to her? But
Speaker 1: if that struck the Burner Street neighborhood or the police
Speaker 1: as unusual, it would hardly be the most startling thing
Speaker 1: to happen that night, because on September the murderer would
Speaker 1: kill twice. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. There were
Speaker 1: more witnesses. The rain falling on Aldgates had kept the
Speaker 1: three men inside the Imperial Club late into the night.
Speaker 1: It was a Jewish club open just the year before
Speaker 1: to provide a space to meet and talk. Across the
Speaker 1: street was the Great Synagogue, which made sense. They were
Speaker 1: on the inner edge of East London's Jewish neighborhoods. On
Speaker 1: the twenty nine September. The Imperial Club had among its
Speaker 1: visitors a White Chapel furniture dealer, a butcher who lived
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood, and Joseph Lavenda, who worked as a
Speaker 1: traveling cigarette salesman. When they finally stepped out into the rain,
Speaker 1: Joseph looked at the club clock and chucked it against
Speaker 1: his watch. It was even later than he thought, just
Speaker 1: after one thirty in the morning. By now, Joseph was
Speaker 1: a few steps behind the others, so he wasn't wrapped
Speaker 1: up in conversation, and that meant that he had his
Speaker 1: eyes open. As they stepped into the drizzle, Joseph looked
Speaker 1: at the synagogue across the street, and he noticed something.
Speaker 1: As they passed by the synagogue, his eyes moved to
Speaker 1: the narrow passage running towards Miter Street. That's where a
Speaker 1: couple stood talking together, a man and a woman. The
Speaker 1: woman had her back to him, but even in the
Speaker 1: dim light, he said, he noticed her clothes, a black
Speaker 1: jacket and a black bonnet. Her hand was on the
Speaker 1: chest of the man she was talking to. If there
Speaker 1: was restraint in the woman's dress, the man's clothing sounded
Speaker 1: much more like something wind Baxter might wear, a loose
Speaker 1: salt and pepper jacket, a red neckerchief, and a gray
Speaker 1: cloth cap with a peak. To the eyes of the
Speaker 1: traveling salesman, he had the appearance of a sailor, of course,
Speaker 1: a sailor talking with a woman in a dark passage.
Speaker 1: That was nothing unusual for a London night, and they
Speaker 1: all thought they knew what a couple like that was
Speaker 1: up to. The butcher made a disgruntled mark about the
Speaker 1: prostitutes in the city, and they all moved on. As
Speaker 1: they walked, Joseph and the others probably passed by a
Speaker 1: policeman at some point, because every few minutes a constable's
Speaker 1: patrol route took him through Miters Square behind the synagogue,
Speaker 1: and that was no accident. An order had gone out
Speaker 1: for more constables to be in the streets every night.
Speaker 1: There were special instructions that patrolman should keep close observation
Speaker 1: on any women they thought were prostitutes. They should watch
Speaker 1: them going in and out of pubs, they should watch
Speaker 1: them walking in the streets. In fact, it wasn't just
Speaker 1: the White Chapel Vigilance Committee that was bringing more watchful
Speaker 1: eyes to the alleys and passages. The police also sent
Speaker 1: extra men in playing clothes to surveil the neighborhoods where
Speaker 1: the killings took place, not just in Whitechapel, but closer
Speaker 1: to the city center as well, in places like Aldgates,
Speaker 1: in places like Miter Square. The three men walked on,
Speaker 1: and maybe Joseph would have forgotten that quick glance at
Speaker 1: the couple of people in the passage next to the synagogue,
Speaker 1: except for what happened next in Miter Square, when the
Speaker 1: officer patrolling that night, a man named Edward Watkins, would
Speaker 1: write his name into history. Most of watkins beat was unremarkable.
Speaker 1: In the words of his later account, nothing excited my attention.
Speaker 1: His circuit took him about fifteen minutes to walk, and
Speaker 1: he had been at it for three and a half hours.
Speaker 1: The lantern on his belt was on, and the swinging
Speaker 1: light illuminated the various passages that he peeked into as
Speaker 1: he went by. At one thirty in the morning, he
Speaker 1: came through Miters Square and saw no one, and no one,
Speaker 1: he emphasized, could have been in the square without him noticing.
Speaker 1: Four large warehouses loomed over the wide space, and it
Speaker 1: was lit by three lamps. There was really only one
Speaker 1: dark corner. Just fifteen minutes later, as he walked through
Speaker 1: the square again, Constable Watkins did what he had done before.
Speaker 1: He passed his light over the one dark corner in
Speaker 1: the square, the back of a framing shop, where during
Speaker 1: the day the sound of work constructing picture frames would
Speaker 1: have reached the street behind. In the stillness of the night, though,
Speaker 1: Watkins flashed his light across the building's coal shoot, lifting
Speaker 1: the darkness there, and he saw the crumpled shape of
Speaker 1: a woman on the ground, her feet stretched out towards
Speaker 1: the square. As he stepped forward, his light revealed her
Speaker 1: whole body. Her clothes were pushed above her waist, and
Speaker 1: she was lying in a pool of blood. The killer
Speaker 1: had mutilated her body even more than any chapman's. What
Speaker 1: he saw was horrible. Cuts crossed the woman's face as
Speaker 1: well as her abdomen. The shape of an upside down
Speaker 1: V was carved into each cheek, and slices crossed her
Speaker 1: lower eyelids. Her nose had been cut off, and her
Speaker 1: intestines had been pulled out and draped around her. Joseph
Speaker 1: Lavenda had passed by just a few minutes before. Now, somehow,
Speaker 1: in such a short span of time, Katherine Eddoes was dead,
Speaker 1: her body cut to pieces, and Constable Watkins was running
Speaker 1: for help. Here's Paul Beg. Two of the men walking
Speaker 1: past would later identify the woman by her clothing as
Speaker 1: Katherine Eddoes, and one of those men was the man
Speaker 1: that I mentioned earlier, Joseph Lavender. But it is equally
Speaker 1: likely that the woman was not Katherine Eddoes, or even
Speaker 1: if it was Edos, that the man had just been
Speaker 1: accosted by her when the three men walked by, and
Speaker 1: had disengaged himself and walked on, leaving Edos to meet
Speaker 1: Jack Arrippa. So again, as with all of these cases,
Speaker 1: there are lots of variable So they did see a woman,
Speaker 1: they did recognize her and identify her by a fairly
Speaker 1: distinctive clothing as being Edos, So they probably did see
Speaker 1: Eddos with somebody. But there was a small margin of
Speaker 1: time during which the man that they saw could have
Speaker 1: left her, and if she had wandered into the shadows
Speaker 1: of Leiter Square, then she might well have encounter Jack
Speaker 1: the ripper lurking there, listening to the thing that had
Speaker 1: gone home. Whether or not the man in the peaked
Speaker 1: cap spotted by Joseph Lavenda was the man who killed
Speaker 1: Katherine Edtos, there was no doubt about the case in
Speaker 1: the minds of the police. The Whitechapel murderer had killed again,
Speaker 1: this time much closer to the city center. Constables and
Speaker 1: inspectors gathered with a surgeon around the body once more,
Speaker 1: and once again the police officers fanned out throughout the streets,
Speaker 1: looking for any sign of a killer fleeing the scene,
Speaker 1: anything they could follow in killing after killing, so far,
Speaker 1: this had given them nothing. When Martha Tabram had been
Speaker 1: killed in George Yard, nothing was found in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: around her that would help the police identify the killer.
Speaker 1: When Polly Nichols was killed on Buck's Row, the sweep
Speaker 1: led to the discovery of her identity, but nothing else.
Speaker 1: And when Annie Chapman was killed behind twenty nine Hanbury Street,
Speaker 1: the discovery of the leather apron in the yard beside
Speaker 1: her gave fodder for racist speculation, but little more. And
Speaker 1: even as Katherine Edto's body was found in Minor Square,
Speaker 1: police were still searching for clues around Duttfield Yard, where
Speaker 1: Liz Stride had been killed just an hour before. They
Speaker 1: also found nothing to put them on the trail of
Speaker 1: the murderer. Things would be different in the case of
Speaker 1: Katherine Edtos, though, because when police fanned out from the
Speaker 1: place where her body lay, some of them went back
Speaker 1: toward Whitechapel. Previous searches around the body of the victims
Speaker 1: had come up empty handed. This time what they found
Speaker 1: would become the very center of the hunt for the killer.
Speaker 1: For years, Katherine Edtos had been a storyteller, or at
Speaker 1: least she had been in the storytelling trade, because for
Speaker 1: a long time she had traveled with her partner Thomas,
Speaker 1: selling pamphlets town to town and pub to pub. Not
Speaker 1: that her life started out that way though. She was
Speaker 1: born to a cook and tinplate worker in Wolverhampton, just
Speaker 1: a few miles northwest of Birmingham, and Catherine was part
Speaker 1: of a large family. When I say large, I mean
Speaker 1: she had eleven siblings. But Catherine was never one to
Speaker 1: stay in one place for long, often because tragedy pushed
Speaker 1: her on. As a child, she moved with her large
Speaker 1: family to London, but both of her parents died while
Speaker 1: she was just a teenager, and that event split up
Speaker 1: the children. Some went to the workhouses, some went to
Speaker 1: an industrial school where they would be raised and trained
Speaker 1: for more work. Katherine's relatives back in Wolverhampton brought her
Speaker 1: home and helped her find a job at the tin
Speaker 1: works There, work, it seems, was eternal, but the arrangement
Speaker 1: was temporary. Caught stealing, Katherine was on the road again,
Speaker 1: this time to Birmingham to live with an uncle. In
Speaker 1: his younger days, he had been a boxer, but now
Speaker 1: set himself to making boots and shoes. Katherine found work
Speaker 1: as a metal polisher, but she had better things in mind.
Speaker 1: She had stories to live out, and so she fell
Speaker 1: in with a dashing man named Thomas Conway. Thomas was Irish,
Speaker 1: and like many other young irishmen, he had joined the
Speaker 1: British Army. For two years. He had served to uphold
Speaker 1: the Imperial order in India across the places that the
Speaker 1: Imperial administrators called Bombay and Madras now Mumbai and Schennai.
Speaker 1: But like Catherine polishing metal trays, Thomas's heart wasn't in
Speaker 1: the work. In fact, he was sent back to England
Speaker 1: with a diagnosis of heart disease. In eighteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: he was discharged from the army at the age of
Speaker 1: just twenty four. When Catherine's aunt found her romantically involved
Speaker 1: with the young irishman on an army pension who made
Speaker 1: his money selling chat books and penny ballads at the
Speaker 1: local pubs, well she turned Catherine out. Soon Thomas and
Speaker 1: Catherine were back in Birmingham and they were in business together,
Speaker 1: the story business, and to keep their business afloat, they
Speaker 1: turned to true crime and true punishment. They sold copy
Speaker 1: after copy of wild, gruesome and shocking stories. Not least
Speaker 1: among them were the pamphlets about the execution of criminals.
Speaker 1: In fact, that chat books telling the stories of hangings
Speaker 1: and other criminal executions were popular, whether you were someone
Speaker 1: who couldn't make it to the gallows on hanging day
Speaker 1: or if you did witness the and wanted to keepsake.
Speaker 1: And that was true going back quite a ways. By
Speaker 1: the end of the seventeen hundreds, every town had printers
Speaker 1: that were turning out pamphlets with stories, ballads and gruesome
Speaker 1: illustrations of corpses hanging on the gallows. One pamphlet telling
Speaker 1: the story of a shocking murder was printed in London's
Speaker 1: Seven Dials to the tune of half a million copies. Today,
Speaker 1: we know that printing and binding chap books was often
Speaker 1: done by hand on a manual press. Even if a
Speaker 1: chat bookseller paid someone else to print the sheets, they
Speaker 1: would still usually fold so and trim the pages themselves,
Speaker 1: all by hand. So it's easy to imagine Catherine and
Speaker 1: Thomas sitting side by side doing the work together. These
Speaker 1: pamphlets would be sold for just a penny alongside the
Speaker 1: growing list of tales of adventure and terror for a
Speaker 1: younger audience of readers. The penny dreadful. The more unique
Speaker 1: the stories, the better it went for the chapman selling them,
Speaker 1: and Thomas was known for spinning them up himself. Like
Speaker 1: many other itinerant storytellers, he was the self published author
Speaker 1: of his day, and he turned every life experience into
Speaker 1: something worth selling. Like one of the chat books that
Speaker 1: Catherine and Thomas sold, That was their own eyewitness account.
Speaker 1: It happened in January of eighteen sixty six when a
Speaker 1: man was hanged in Wolverhampton for murdering his lover. Thomas
Speaker 1: and Catherine were there to see that hanging. Along with
Speaker 1: a crowd of four thousand others, there was an irresistible
Speaker 1: gathering for someone with the story to distribute. Here's Paul
Speaker 1: Beg once again Eddo's and the man that she was
Speaker 1: living with at the time, he was, as far as
Speaker 1: we can tell, the one who apparently wrote these little books,
Speaker 1: and that they were cheap almost sort of pamphlets really
Speaker 1: that described events that had happened in very often in
Speaker 1: rhyme of some sort, and the as you said, gallows ballads.
Speaker 1: And they had gone to witness this execution, and they
Speaker 1: had produced one of the ballads. By all accounts, they
Speaker 1: already had the story of the hanging printed and ready
Speaker 1: to sell on a day it took place, and they've
Speaker 1: made enough money that they were able to order another
Speaker 1: four hundred copies from the printer. Not to mention that
Speaker 1: Katherine was able to buy a new hat. There's just
Speaker 1: one dark twist on that story though. The man who
Speaker 1: had been executed was Katherine's cousin. As Thomas and Catherine
Speaker 1: tramped from town to town, making pennies and spending them together,
Speaker 1: they formed a strong bond. Katherine even had his initials
Speaker 1: tattooed on her arm in blue Ink. After they had
Speaker 1: their first child together, they made their way to London,
Speaker 1: and things were going well enough that they set up
Speaker 1: shop in Westminster, where their second and third children were born.
Speaker 1: But if the relationship was on firm ground for a while,
Speaker 1: it was one of the few things they had to
Speaker 1: hold onto hands. Selling penny pamphlets wasn't lucrative business, not
Speaker 1: to mention that the new penny dreadfuls were overshadowing chap
Speaker 1: books in their popularity. Thomas added other kinds of work
Speaker 1: when and where he could find it, but it came
Speaker 1: and fits and starts. In that way. He was like
Speaker 1: many of the other Irish laborers in London who picked
Speaker 1: up shifts on the dock when ships came in and
Speaker 1: otherwise just struggled to find a business to hire them.
Speaker 1: And by all accounts, Thomas was a violent man. The
Speaker 1: black eyes and bruises that Catherine often displayed communicated as
Speaker 1: much to her sister to her own life. Catherine added
Speaker 1: heavy drinking. Eventually, Thomas's violence shattered their marriage. In eighteen eighty,
Speaker 1: Catherine left him and her two sons behind, but her
Speaker 1: addiction bore her down, and her other relationships too, she
Speaker 1: pushed her daughter away. The last time she saw one
Speaker 1: of her sisters was in eighteen seventy seven. By eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty one, she was in Spittle Fields in the East End.
Speaker 1: Her life there looked very much like Liz Strides or
Speaker 1: Annie Chapman's. She would clean in the Jewish homes when
Speaker 1: there was work for her. She would sometimes take up
Speaker 1: sex work to pay for lodging houses, and later she
Speaker 1: met a man named John Kelly and struck up a
Speaker 1: partnership with him, making their way through the world as
Speaker 1: best they could. She was remembered for trekking out to
Speaker 1: Kent every summer with John to pick hops in the
Speaker 1: fields there, along with thousands of Londoners who relied the
Speaker 1: seasonal work. In fact, in eight she made enough money
Speaker 1: to buy herself a new pair of boots and a
Speaker 1: new jacket before her return to London. But, as John
Speaker 1: would later recount, by the time they were back in
Speaker 1: the East End in late September, the money they made
Speaker 1: on the hop harvest was already gone. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: their future was in question. Bad days, it seems we're
Speaker 1: headed their way. Sadly, though they had no idea just
Speaker 1: how bad it would get there was no justice in it.
Speaker 1: Women like Liz Stride and Katherine Eddos had already suffered
Speaker 1: so much. They had fought back from their losses. They
Speaker 1: had worked for something more, scraped, saved, built, and lost again.
Speaker 1: Even in their deaths, the stories of women like Liz
Speaker 1: Stride and Katherine Eddos would be told, would be used
Speaker 1: in ways they never imagined. What their lives meant to
Speaker 1: themselves was one thing, but it's become clear as we
Speaker 1: followed the history of eight eight so far what their
Speaker 1: lives meant to others was out of their hands and
Speaker 1: out of their control. Even the stories we tell about
Speaker 1: them now, what we know about their lives comes to
Speaker 1: us because of what they suffered. Their names were written
Speaker 1: into the historical record, not by themselves, but by the killer.
Speaker 1: So this is probably the right point to take a
Speaker 1: step back, because it's an important part of the story
Speaker 1: of Jack the Ripper and the White Chapel murders. The
Speaker 1: version of events that we have repeated for over a
Speaker 1: hundred years makes the East end of London out to
Speaker 1: be the place explored in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde,
Speaker 1: a place where the sum total of women's lives are
Speaker 1: the threats and violence that come their way, where they
Speaker 1: are disrespected and cast aside at every turn. As we've seen,
Speaker 1: it's the same story that London writers were telling at
Speaker 1: the time, and it might be fair to say that
Speaker 1: no one bought into that story more than the killer.
Speaker 1: And let's not be coy about it. The brutality of
Speaker 1: the things we're talking about are undeniable. But I hope
Speaker 1: that as we've come this far into our story, we
Speaker 1: can tell that each of these women, Martha Tabram, Pauline Nichols,
Speaker 1: Annie Chapman, Liz Stride and Katherine Ettos were so much
Speaker 1: more than just the victims they became. The Whitechapel murders
Speaker 1: in London's East End are a terrible story and cruel
Speaker 1: violence against vulnerable women is at its heart. There's not
Speaker 1: an honest way to tell the story without creating that
Speaker 1: list of terrible things that were done to vulnerable women.
Speaker 1: But it's not the only story that women in the
Speaker 1: East End of London were part of in eighteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: because East End women weren't just victims. They were so
Speaker 1: much more than that, and there were world shaking events
Speaker 1: in the East End that year. For that bigger picture.
Speaker 1: We returned to the Match factory on Bow Road because
Speaker 1: that's where poor and working women decided they had suffered
Speaker 1: enough and the story of their lives was something quite different.
Speaker 1: We saw the way they fumed against the underhanded dealing
Speaker 1: of Theodore Bryant when he called their wages to pay
Speaker 1: for his Statue of Gladstone. In eight the smoldering conflict
Speaker 1: between bosses and workers finally burst into flames. One spark
Speaker 1: that set things going was an article published at the
Speaker 1: end of June in a socialist journal called The Link.
Speaker 1: Like the Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon Reports, it was
Speaker 1: a piece that set out to expose injustice with a
Speaker 1: sensational list title. It ran under the headline white Slavery
Speaker 1: in London, and it set its sites on the Bryant
Speaker 1: and May Match Factory. The author of the article, Annie Bessant,
Speaker 1: had heard about the working conditions in the factory at
Speaker 1: a socialist meeting Match workers had attended and testified to
Speaker 1: their treatments. Annie had also heard about the enormous profits
Speaker 1: the Bryants were making on their merchandise and the dividends
Speaker 1: they were paying out to their shareholders, so she set
Speaker 1: out to investigate. What she found was even worse than
Speaker 1: she had feared. Not only were the women and girls
Speaker 1: working in the factory being paid barely starvation wages, they
Speaker 1: were also suffering a condition known as Fossey jaw because
Speaker 1: the Brian's in May match factory was making their matches
Speaker 1: with white phosphorus. Here's Dr Louise Rat to tell us more.
Speaker 1: If it caught hold of your teeth, as the women said,
Speaker 1: if it got into your jaw bone often threw holes
Speaker 1: in your teeth because you couldn't afford the dentist in
Speaker 1: those days, it would start to rot and decay your bone.
Speaker 1: So you're alive, but you've got this horrible, separating, stinking abscesses. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I thing was just eaten in your gun and pieces
Speaker 1: of bone, your own bone. You're spitting them out there,
Speaker 1: working their way out through these abscesses. As if all
Speaker 1: of this wasn't bad enough, Brian and May constantly made
Speaker 1: it worse. And one of the reasons they made it
Speaker 1: was was they should have provided a separate dining room
Speaker 1: so that women could eat out of the fumes, eat
Speaker 1: their own food. By the way, Branton May weren't going
Speaker 1: to provide them with a single crumb, but perhaps their
Speaker 1: own bit of stale bread if they were lucky that
Speaker 1: they brought him for home. So they would set it
Speaker 1: on their work bench until it was time to eat,
Speaker 1: and then crammicked out as quickly as they could when
Speaker 1: they could. And if you imagine, the phosphorus pass coals
Speaker 1: in the air have settled now on your lunch, so
Speaker 1: you've got deadly seasoning, and so it's immediately in your mouth,
Speaker 1: and it's got away into your guns. Did Bryant and
Speaker 1: May try to take care of the workers who developed
Speaker 1: this condition. Far from it. It's true that they didn't
Speaker 1: want their workers to have fossy jaw, but they had
Speaker 1: a way to brush the problem under the rug. Instead
Speaker 1: of changing their ways, they simply change their workers. If
Speaker 1: one of the managers saw a woman showing symptoms, that
Speaker 1: worker was simply turned out on the street. And Bryant
Speaker 1: and May could continue to say, there is no fossy
Speaker 1: jaw here. But of course the women who worked in
Speaker 1: their factory weren't blind to any of this. They saw
Speaker 1: it happening over and over, and they got angrier and angrier.
Speaker 1: When Annie Bessent came around and started asking questions. Some
Speaker 1: of them were only too happy to tell her all
Speaker 1: about it. When her article hit the paper, Annie made
Speaker 1: sure that Bryant and May themselves got a copy. She
Speaker 1: sent them a telegram saying that they would be very
Speaker 1: interested in the day's news. Her goal, it seems, was
Speaker 1: to provoke them into suing her for libel. Annie had
Speaker 1: been hoping that, like the maid in Tribute story, this
Speaker 1: would somehow find its way into court. Then she could
Speaker 1: stand and testify before the magistrates and the public about
Speaker 1: the plight of the London poor. But there were two
Speaker 1: things that she didn't count on. One was the cruelty
Speaker 1: of the factory bosses, and the other was the courage
Speaker 1: of the women Under their thumb. They started with threats.
Speaker 1: The word went out throughout the matchworks. The Bryants wanted
Speaker 1: to know who had talked. They thought that if they
Speaker 1: could figure out who was telling Annie Bessent about the
Speaker 1: conditions of their factory, they could put the problem to rest.
Speaker 1: Fire those women scare the rest into silence that would
Speaker 1: keep the matches going out and the money coming in.
Speaker 1: They didn't care enough about Annie Bessont to sue her
Speaker 1: for libel, and as she was fond of remarking. They
Speaker 1: knew that they wouldn't win, Plus she wasn't under their power,
Speaker 1: so they decided their best course of action was to
Speaker 1: take it out on their employees. But if you're getting
Speaker 1: to understand the spirit of the match women, you know
Speaker 1: they wouldn't take that quietly. They kept talking. In fact,
Speaker 1: they told Annie Besson about the efforts to shut them up,
Speaker 1: and she published that too, so a real crackdown began.
Speaker 1: Even as the Bryants were telling the press that the
Speaker 1: news was lies and that the unrest in their factory
Speaker 1: was the result of outside agitators like Annie Bessant upsetting
Speaker 1: their happy employees. They went about identifying the women inside
Speaker 1: the factories who they thought were truly to blame. They
Speaker 1: made a list of so called troublemakers, and they started
Speaker 1: to freeze them out, sending them home day after day,
Speaker 1: telling them that there wasn't enough work for them to do.
Speaker 1: But they knew that they had to do more than that.
Speaker 1: They might not be ready to win a able suit
Speaker 1: against Annie Bessent, but they certainly had a public relations
Speaker 1: battle on their hands, so they drafted up a statement
Speaker 1: for the match women to sign. Here's dr Louise Ra
Speaker 1: once again. What they do is to gather together the
Speaker 1: workers give them preprinted statesments which are laid around in
Speaker 1: every work for him by the foreman, which pre prepared,
Speaker 1: and they say, you know, we love working for Brian
Speaker 1: to May. They're wonderful employers. We don't mind about the FOSSi.
Speaker 1: Jordan didn't actually say that, but this is the idea
Speaker 1: they're supposed to say. This journalist has lied. Nothing she
Speaker 1: said is true. We couldn't be happier. And they know
Speaker 1: they'll be sacked if they don't sign those papers, and
Speaker 1: they need their jobs, they need them desperately, but they refuse.
Speaker 1: Every single one of these women are so proud of them,
Speaker 1: refuses to sign. And when the foreman come back into
Speaker 1: the room, there are these blank sheets of paper and
Speaker 1: they are absolutely lived. That's when they decided to make
Speaker 1: an example of one men on a pretext. She was fired.
Speaker 1: The managers hoped that this would bring the rest of
Speaker 1: them in line, but the plan backfired as one the
Speaker 1: women laid down their tools, wipe their hands on their aprons,
Speaker 1: and stream out of these imposing gates of the fair
Speaker 1: Field Works Match factory onto the Fairfield Road and onto
Speaker 1: the Bow Road. They swung into action. They had an
Speaker 1: election there at the gates, and they elected six women
Speaker 1: from all the major significant workshops within the factory, one
Speaker 1: from each to go back in and put their demands.
Speaker 1: So instantly they walked back in and they confront the directors.
Speaker 1: I can just imagine how this went down, and said, right,
Speaker 1: we'll come back, but only if you let us form
Speaker 1: a union. Belove me. They were not bright and they
Speaker 1: were not expecting that, and they made their demands clear.
Speaker 1: They wanted better hey, they wanted a separate dining room
Speaker 1: for their food. They wanted to live decent lives for
Speaker 1: the work they were doing. Seeing only six women before them,
Speaker 1: the directors of the match factory scoffed, but the strike
Speaker 1: was on. As each new wave of women finished their
Speaker 1: shifts at the factory, they were met outside by the
Speaker 1: strike leaders. One of them was Mary Driscoll, who we
Speaker 1: met last time. She was clever enough to find a
Speaker 1: way for her family to get help from the Salvation Army.
Speaker 1: Now she was putting her clever thinking to use by
Speaker 1: finding a way for the working women to help themselves.
Speaker 1: By the end of the day, over one thousand women
Speaker 1: were on strike, Bryant and May had more on their
Speaker 1: hands than they had bargained for. The striking women marched
Speaker 1: through the East End like a salvation army band, singing
Speaker 1: at the top of their lungs. East Enders, with a
Speaker 1: little cash despair started pooling their money to support them
Speaker 1: for their days without wages. It took some time for
Speaker 1: outside support to reach them. Even Annie Bessent lagged behind.
Speaker 1: At first. She was still waiting for a notice of
Speaker 1: a libel suit to acquire her appearance in court. Appearing
Speaker 1: in the streets of the East End beside a column
Speaker 1: of marching women was not what she expected, but soon enough,
Speaker 1: the column of marching women came for her. She was
Speaker 1: working in the upstairs room of her office on Fleet
Speaker 1: Streets in central London when a voice called out to
Speaker 1: her there were some women who wanted to meet her,
Speaker 1: and those some women turned out to be a group
Speaker 1: of one hundred, with Mary Driscoll and the other strike
Speaker 1: leaders at their head. It was the first Annie had
Speaker 1: heard of a strike that had begun two days before,
Speaker 1: but she was ready to turn her pen into support
Speaker 1: for them once again. Annie Bessant wasn't the only one
Speaker 1: writing for their cause, though, soon enough, the Star was
Speaker 1: publishing a series of reports and interviews with the matchwomen.
Speaker 1: They organized meetings with guest speakers who would cheer on
Speaker 1: their efforts and suggest what to do next. The organizer
Speaker 1: of the local Jewish tailor's union thundered so forcefully that
Speaker 1: he was arrested for agitating. Word of the strike reached
Speaker 1: as high as the halls of Parliament, where the Bryant's
Speaker 1: ordinarily expected their interests to be served. Soon enough, though,
Speaker 1: Mary Driscoll and a committee of fifty match women marched
Speaker 1: into appear before that hallowed assembly and make their case.
Speaker 1: Here's Dr Louise Raw once more. The women march to
Speaker 1: Parliament and this is where people are so shocked to
Speaker 1: see these poor girls out of their area that they
Speaker 1: get shouted at. You know, can't stop in the street.
Speaker 1: Things are thrown at them, what on earth are you doing?
Speaker 1: Get back to the East End. But they won't. They
Speaker 1: hold their heads high and when they're finally in with
Speaker 1: the MPs again, this fascinating clash of classes. The MP's
Speaker 1: are probably never sat and talked to an Eastern woman
Speaker 1: on an equal basis, or a working class women, so
Speaker 1: this really hits them where they live. These MPs have
Speaker 1: invested in Brian and May. This is all rather embarrassing,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Liberal MPs who were supposed to support the poor,
Speaker 1: and yet they're profiting off this. They tell them about
Speaker 1: for Seguel, and the MPs are impressed that they're so
Speaker 1: intelligent and so eloquent. They call for an independent investigation
Speaker 1: into conditions at the factory. And this investigation shows that,
Speaker 1: or any bestness, that wasn't quite right, because actually conditions
Speaker 1: are worse. The company fought back, though they fought in
Speaker 1: the press. They fought in the back rooms and the
Speaker 1: dining rooms where they were accustomed to making their deals.
Speaker 1: But with the women campaigning across the city and in
Speaker 1: those same halls of government, the playing field was finally
Speaker 1: just a little closer to level. And with the reports
Speaker 1: of a commission in hand and their stock prices plummeting,
Speaker 1: there was little Bryant could do but concede. They gave
Speaker 1: in to the demand for a safer workspace. They gave
Speaker 1: into the demand to share more profits with the women
Speaker 1: who did the work. The Matchwomen's Union was formed and
Speaker 1: the strike was one in many ways, the achievement of
Speaker 1: Mary Driskell and the other striking match Women was overshadowed
Speaker 1: by the events of the next few months. Reporters turned
Speaker 1: their creative energies to chronicling the violence of a killer
Speaker 1: and telling the stories of the East End women he targeted.
Speaker 1: But Mary driscoll story was far from over, and, as
Speaker 1: will soon see, the threat of Jack the Ripper was
Speaker 1: headed toward the Matchwomen, who were finally laying claim to
Speaker 1: their neighborhood and making their workplace their own. But their
Speaker 1: meeting wouldn't be a happy one. Instead, it would be
Speaker 1: a collision. The match Women had won their fight. It
Speaker 1: wasn't an easy battle, but it showed what was possible
Speaker 1: when the working women of the East End stood together
Speaker 1: and stood up for themselves. But if they're struggled to
Speaker 1: have some say over their workplace had them going head
Speaker 1: to head with the factory bosses. It wasn't the only
Speaker 1: territorial battle with major implications for the East End because
Speaker 1: the murder in Miter Square brought the City of London
Speaker 1: police into the murder investigation. Now, if you're not a
Speaker 1: Londoner and already familiar with the ins and outs of
Speaker 1: the city, here's the confusing part. The City of London
Speaker 1: Police is not the same thing as the London Metropolitan Police.
Speaker 1: The Metropolitan Forces are the police we've already met the
Speaker 1: officers patrolling Whitechapel under the command of Charles Warren. They
Speaker 1: answered to the Home Office, as did Warren himself. They
Speaker 1: were the force organized by Robert Peel in eighteen twenty nine,
Speaker 1: but Peel had left the center of the city out
Speaker 1: of his new force. It was a political move and
Speaker 1: it worked. It got his bill passed. The City of
Speaker 1: London Police was formed ten years later. It used Peel's
Speaker 1: model to organize the force, but kept it entirely separate.
Speaker 1: It was funded and run by the City of London,
Speaker 1: and it had its own commissioner and operated under the
Speaker 1: authority of London's Lord Mayor. It had no obligation, at
Speaker 1: least according to the law, to report to the Home
Speaker 1: Office or share information with the Metropolitan Police. So you
Speaker 1: can imagine what sort of trouble this caused. Right from
Speaker 1: the very start in the eighteen thirties, investigators, judges and
Speaker 1: London citizens recognized that the two jurisdictions were played against
Speaker 1: each other. Someone set on committing a crime could carry
Speaker 1: out their plan and then slip across the border, moving
Speaker 1: from jurisdiction of one force into the territory of another.
Speaker 1: Not that this always worked. One was no more aware
Speaker 1: of the challenges presented by this arrangement than the two
Speaker 1: police departments themselves, and when Donald Swanson would later report
Speaker 1: on the investigation, he would say that the efforts of
Speaker 1: the City Police merged with his own investigation quite easily,
Speaker 1: with each force cordially communicating to the other daily. But
Speaker 1: that's not what it looked like. In the early morning
Speaker 1: hours of September. Constable Edward Watkins was a City of
Speaker 1: London police officer. The backup he called for was the same.
Speaker 1: When they spread out to begin chasing evidence of Katherine
Speaker 1: Etto's killer. They went into Whitechapel, crossing into the jurisdiction
Speaker 1: of the Metropolitan Forces. One detective, who had been out
Speaker 1: in playing clothes, took Wentworth Street to Golston Street, but
Speaker 1: didn't see anything of notes and turned back. He joined
Speaker 1: the doctors examining Catherine's body and belonging, and as he
Speaker 1: did he realized that the apron she had been wearing
Speaker 1: was cut a piece of it was missing. It was
Speaker 1: now almost three in the morning, and a Metropolitan constable
Speaker 1: was patrolling Galston Street, where the detective had been a
Speaker 1: half hour before. In the light of his lamp, he
Speaker 1: spotted something that his previous rounds had not turned up.
Speaker 1: At the opening of some model dwellings, a scrap of
Speaker 1: apron lay on the ground, covered in blood, and above it,
Speaker 1: on the wall in white chalk, where scrawled the words
Speaker 1: the Jews are the men that will not be blamed
Speaker 1: for nothing. It was strange enough that the constable reported it.
Speaker 1: He called for backup to guard the writing, and he
Speaker 1: took the piece of apron to the police station, where
Speaker 1: he handed it to Dr Phillips, the surgeon who had
Speaker 1: been examining Liz Stride for a moment. Word passed swiftly.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, the city police detectives were on their way
Speaker 1: to confirm that the scrap of bloody cloth was taken
Speaker 1: from Catherine's clothes, but the chalk writing was something altogether.
Speaker 1: City detectives arrived at the spot where the scrap of
Speaker 1: apron was found, and they saw the writing on the wall.
Speaker 1: They thought that it should be photographed, so one of
Speaker 1: them sent for their superintendent. When he heard he immediately
Speaker 1: gave the order to photograph the scene, but word had
Speaker 1: also gone up through the Metropolitan ranks. Charles Warren, himself,
Speaker 1: Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was at the nearest police station,
Speaker 1: where he was being briefed on the events of the night.
Speaker 1: Word came to him that two clues had been found
Speaker 1: on Galston Street, so he set out to see it
Speaker 1: for himself. He arrived before the Superintendent of the City
Speaker 1: Police and he consulted with his officers. Liz Stride had
Speaker 1: been killed outside a Jewish socialist club. Katherine Eddoes had
Speaker 1: been accosted and murdered behind the Great Synagogue on Miter Street.
Speaker 1: Now this message was scrawled on the wall. As Warren
Speaker 1: would later write, it seemed obvious to him that it
Speaker 1: was written with the intention of inflaming the public mind
Speaker 1: against the Jews. After all, the neighborhood was always crowded
Speaker 1: on Sunday mornings by Jewish vendors and Christian shoppers from
Speaker 1: all for London. Charles Warren's officers were standing by with
Speaker 1: a sponge. They worried that if the graffiti became publicly known,
Speaker 1: the racist fury already stirred up by the star might
Speaker 1: be unleashed, so Warren gave the order. By the time
Speaker 1: the city police returned with instructions to photograph the message,
Speaker 1: the writing on the wall at Gulston Street had been
Speaker 1: scrubbed away. That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured.
Speaker 1: Stick around after this short sponsor break for a preview
Speaker 1: of what's in store for next week. The irony wasn't
Speaker 1: lost on London journalists that the commissioner who had muzzled
Speaker 1: the dogs of London was now trying to use those
Speaker 1: dogs to solve a crime. But the journalist who had
Speaker 1: witnessed the trial didn't have any of that criticism, only
Speaker 1: hope in what might come next, and that hope made
Speaker 1: it into the papers that the murderer's cunning will not
Speaker 1: avail him against the your hounds that will be laid
Speaker 1: on his track, and soon, they claimed, London would ring
Speaker 1: with the news of his capture. It was one of
Speaker 1: the few hopeful voices in a storm of confusion and
Speaker 1: righteous anger at the police of London who had failed
Speaker 1: for months to catch a killer who seemed to be
Speaker 1: slaughtering with impunity. But as you might guess, those hopes
Speaker 1: we're false. Lon Obscured was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thane
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. Research and writing for
Speaker 1: this season is all the work of my right hand
Speaker 1: man Carl Nellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed the
Speaker 1: brand new soundtrack. Learn more about our contributing historians, source
Speaker 1: material and links to our other shows over at history
Speaker 1: unobscured dot com, and until next time, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Unobscured is a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My heart Radio, visit i heeart Radio, app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: H