Speaker 1: Pushkin. This episode discusses death by suicide. If you're suffering
Speaker 1: emotional distress or having suicidal thoughts. Support is available, for example,
Speaker 1: from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Annie Chapman watches her
Speaker 1: husband John get ready for work. Watches him down the
Speaker 1: tall hat and shining boots. He wears to drive his
Speaker 1: master's grand carriage. He has a cold and the weather
Speaker 1: is miserable. He's reluctant to leave the little cottage he
Speaker 1: shares with Annie and their two children. He takes a
Speaker 1: nip of hot whiskey to fortify himself and then kisses
Speaker 1: Annie goodbye. That kiss is Annie Chapman's undoing. It sets
Speaker 1: in motion a sequence of events that ends in her
Speaker 1: vicious murder on the streets of Whitechapel. I'm Hallie, Rubin
Speaker 1: hold you're listening to Bad Women. The Ripper retold, a
Speaker 1: series about the real lives of the women killed by
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper and how we got their stories so wrong.
Speaker 1: One side, money plenty and friends too by the score.
Speaker 1: Then fortune smilder upon me, No one pass my almy,
Speaker 1: and not we sees to lie. Annie Eliza Smith was
Speaker 1: born in September eighteen forty one, the one which day
Speaker 1: we don't know. She was illegitimate, and so perhaps her
Speaker 1: mother Ruth, attempted to hide the facts of her birth.
Speaker 1: Once Ruth's pregnancy became known, she likely lost her position
Speaker 1: as a servant. After all, no employer could keep such
Speaker 1: a woman. She was now dependent on the baby's father,
Speaker 1: George Smith, for meager and irregular handouts. George was a
Speaker 1: trooper in the Lifeguards, one of the most prestigious cavalry
Speaker 1: regiments in the land. They were bodyguards to the royal
Speaker 1: household and were never far from Queen Victoria herself. Still,
Speaker 1: his wages were poor. The Army encouraged its soldiers to
Speaker 1: pursue monogamous relationships with good working class girls, but oddly
Speaker 1: it discouraged actual marriage, permitting only six and every hundred
Speaker 1: men to wed. The army therefore consigned a raft of
Speaker 1: women to the status of dollymop, a soldier's girl who
Speaker 1: could never hope to be a soldier's wife. Annie's mother
Speaker 1: was now in a most precarious position. If George were
Speaker 1: transferred abroad, she would be left with no money, children
Speaker 1: to support, and a sullied reputation. Fortunately, even miraculously George
Speaker 1: received permission to marry Ruth. Their nuptials were even helpfully
Speaker 1: backdated in the military records should anyone inquire, They were
Speaker 1: wed before the birth of their first child. At first,
Speaker 1: the young family lived in the army barracks, but this
Speaker 1: was neither healthy nor pleasant for them. Annie spent the
Speaker 1: first part of her childhood living in a corner of
Speaker 1: a communal room that was screened off with hanging sheets
Speaker 1: and blankets. Women here were afforded little dignity. She was
Speaker 1: as common as a barber's chair, in which how parish
Speaker 1: seek to be trained. Regimental wives dressed and undressed, lay
Speaker 1: in bed, washed, gave birth and breastfed, surrounded by single
Speaker 1: men who strode about half naked, swearing, jeering, and singing
Speaker 1: glued songs. Sanitation was not much better. Many barracks dormitories
Speaker 1: were damp, poorly lit, and unhygienic. In some large barrels
Speaker 1: were used as communal chamber plots. These were then emptied
Speaker 1: and reused for bathing. Over the years, Annie was joined
Speaker 1: by five more siblings. The Smith children were able to
Speaker 1: make use of the regimental school, a luxury for working
Speaker 1: class children. The cost of being a trooper was a
Speaker 1: life full of disruption. Regiments were rotated between barracks, often
Speaker 1: at short notice. The Smith family lived at no fewer
Speaker 1: than twelve addresses in London and in the town of Windsor,
Speaker 1: in the shadow of the royal family's residence, a huge
Speaker 1: castle just west of the city. In each of these
Speaker 1: dozen homes, Annie snatched glimpses of another world. She witnessed
Speaker 1: from afar, an existence of status, privilege, and extraordinary wealth.
Speaker 1: The sight of carriages filled with ladies in expensive silk
Speaker 1: bonnets and titled gentlemen, their uniforms clanking with medals were
Speaker 1: an ordinary occurrence. Occasionally she might even have caught a
Speaker 1: glimpse of Queen Victoria or a royal prince trotting by
Speaker 1: an horseback. Though she orbited the outermost edges of this world,
Speaker 1: any actual privilege was tempered by the meagerness of her
Speaker 1: father's salary. Annie's daily realities were that of a working
Speaker 1: class child in London. The Smith's living quarters were dismal
Speaker 1: on down at Hill Raphael Street. They lived in a
Speaker 1: cramped house that had been carved up and portioned out
Speaker 1: to accommodate two other families. A child down the street
Speaker 1: the palm. The child got sick first. He was not
Speaker 1: quite eighteen months old when scarlet fever claimed his life.
Speaker 1: Easily treated today, this bacterial infection was deadly to young Victorians.
Speaker 1: The disease crept through the poorous plaster walls and crowded
Speaker 1: rooms of Raphael Street and soon came to settle in
Speaker 1: the Smith family home. Miriam Smith sickened first. The two
Speaker 1: year olds giggling and prattling gave way to fever and crying,
Speaker 1: and then silence. The baby, William succumbed next. Scarlet fever
Speaker 1: then claimed the life of Ely, just five years old.
Speaker 1: And then a new epidemic arrived, Typhus bread among young
Speaker 1: and old without distinction. It was transmitted through the bites
Speaker 1: of the fleas and light that infested the clothes, blankets,
Speaker 1: and bedding shared by people living in close quarters. What
Speaker 1: George and Root thought when their eldest son began to
Speaker 1: sicken cannot even be imagined. The Smiths summoned a doctor
Speaker 1: whose fees they could not afford, and the boy was
Speaker 1: diagnosed with typhus and died. In the span of just
Speaker 1: three weeks. Disease had carried away four of the six children.
Speaker 1: This calamity cast deep shadows over the lives of the
Speaker 1: remaining Smiths. The death of children was an unavoidable aspect
Speaker 1: of Victorian working class life, but this did not render
Speaker 1: the experience any easier. Somehow, though, the family managed to
Speaker 1: move forward. Annie grew into an adult with wavy, dark
Speaker 1: brown hair and an intense blue eyed gaze. In eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty one, she gained a position as a housemaid for
Speaker 1: a successful architect in the affluent London district of Westminster,
Speaker 1: the political heart of the vast British Empire. This was
Speaker 1: grueling labor. She cleaned, dishes, made the beds, hauled buckets
Speaker 1: of coal up flights of stairs, lit fires, dusted, scrubbed,
Speaker 1: drew water for baths, polished boots, mended clothing for her
Speaker 1: owls are toiling. Annie was poorly paid, and as a
Speaker 1: living domestic, she was also isolated. She had few opportunities
Speaker 1: to see her family. Meanwhile, George Smith's fortunes took a turn.
Speaker 1: He became a valet to one of his officers. In
Speaker 1: this role, he maintained the clothes that Captain Thomas nayler leyland.
Speaker 1: The position placed him in the top rank of the
Speaker 1: servant hierarchy alongside the butler and the cook. Much like Annie,
Speaker 1: working in domestic service meant that George saw little of
Speaker 1: his emily. This estrangement from his wife and children, as
Speaker 1: well as all that he had known in the cavalry,
Speaker 1: began to bear down on him. For roughly twenty one years,
Speaker 1: the army had beaten out the march to which the
Speaker 1: Smith family moved. The regiment had formed a unique, closed
Speaker 1: clan like community. But now that George was a valet,
Speaker 1: he was adrift. He also had more time to himself
Speaker 1: than ever when not tending to his master. He could
Speaker 1: read and think without the immediate distractions of his family
Speaker 1: or other soldiers. And there were surely many subjects he
Speaker 1: did not wish to ponder. Undoubtedly the deaths of his
Speaker 1: four children were among them. He started drinking. In June
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three, matters came to a head. Leyland was
Speaker 1: attending the cavalry races in Wales, and George was accompanying him.
Speaker 1: George was said to be quite cheerful when he retired
Speaker 1: to his room at their lodgings. The next morning. When
Speaker 1: George did not appear at breakfast, the landlady of the inn,
Speaker 1: went upstairs and knocked on his door. He did not answer.
Speaker 1: She pushed it open and found George's body on the floor,
Speaker 1: covered in blood. Following the discovery of George Smith's body,
Speaker 1: an official investigation into his death was swiftly launched, swift
Speaker 1: so as not to interrupt the horse races George's master
Speaker 1: had come to enjoy. The inquiry found that Annie's father
Speaker 1: had cut his own throat while laboring under temporary insanity.
Speaker 1: Drink was also thought to be a contributing factor. Captain
Speaker 1: Leyland paid the funeral expenses and headed back to the
Speaker 1: race track overnight. The Smith family lost George's income. His
Speaker 1: army pension also expired with his death, and yet the
Speaker 1: situation did not end in ruin for Ruther her children.
Speaker 1: Perhaps Captain Dayland made a donation to Ruth because by
Speaker 1: the following year she had taken the lease on an
Speaker 1: adequately sized home in a nice part of London and
Speaker 1: was letting out rooms to lodgers. One day, a coach
Speaker 1: driver named John Chapman arrived at the door and inquired
Speaker 1: about lodgings. Perhaps Annie met John in the kitchen of
Speaker 1: her mother's home and something blossomed between them. When John
Speaker 1: proposed to Annie, it was her great moment, a chance
Speaker 1: to make a success of her own life, to become
Speaker 1: all that society had intended for her, a wife and
Speaker 1: a mother who just hold still now. Like many Victorian newlyweds,
Speaker 1: the Chapman's arranged to have a photograph taken dressed in
Speaker 1: their Sunday best. In the photograph, John leans with casual
Speaker 1: authority against a wood and plaster plymph. Annie wears a
Speaker 1: checkered gown. Her dark hair is fashionably braided, and her
Speaker 1: large blue eyes staring intently at the camera. Both wear
Speaker 1: stern expressions. The Chapmans had two daughters who were photographed too,
Speaker 1: clad in tart and dresses and striped stockings, their hair
Speaker 1: and ribbons. John and Annie's desire to own such an
Speaker 1: expensive photograph speaks to their hopes for a more prosperous life.
Speaker 1: Annie had done well to marry a gentleman's coachman, and
Speaker 1: his salary enabled the couple to set aside money that,
Speaker 1: in turn fan the flames of their aspirations. Annie likely
Speaker 1: enjoyed certain middle class pleasures and privileges. Daily walks passed
Speaker 1: the twinkling gas lit shop windows with their colorful displays
Speaker 1: of the latest hats, shoes and jewelry. She strolled busy
Speaker 1: London thoroughfares that rattled with the carriages of statesmen and
Speaker 1: society beauties. She may even have bought herself an occasional trinket.
Speaker 1: John now accepted a position as the coachman to Francis Tressberry,
Speaker 1: a gentleman of considerable wealth with a grand country estate
Speaker 1: called Saint Leonard's Hill. The Chapman's could not have hoped
Speaker 1: for a more promising opportunity, aspiration was not limited to
Speaker 1: those on the cusp of the middle class industrialist. Berry
Speaker 1: had made his fortune in mining, and now he sought
Speaker 1: society's recognition too. His move to Saint Leonard's Hill, which
Speaker 1: was adjacent to the royal residence of Windsor Castle, was
Speaker 1: an obvious strategy to place himself under the Queen's nose.
Speaker 1: Chapman had been hired not only to drive Berry's coach,
Speaker 1: but also to supervise the running of his stable block,
Speaker 1: which was home to no fewer than thirty horses. The
Speaker 1: position came with a house, too. Annie had been accustomed
Speaker 1: to cramped dwellings the Coachman's three bedroomed cottage was a
Speaker 1: home of an entirely different scale. Annie even hired a
Speaker 1: day servant to help with some of the more laborious
Speaker 1: homemaking tasks. The Chapman's elder daughter was placed in a
Speaker 1: high respectable school for young ladies. They had officially entered
Speaker 1: the middle class. When the census was recorded in spring
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty one, Annie was visiting her mother in London.
Speaker 1: John was still at Saint Leonard's Hill, and he listed
Speaker 1: his profession as coachman or domestic servant. Annie Chapman, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, described herself as the wife of a
Speaker 1: stud groom, a significant step up from coachman. Possibly John's
Speaker 1: responsibilities now included the purchase of breeding and racing stock
Speaker 1: for Barry, but Annie's grand self identification also speaks volumes.
Speaker 1: The landed gentry venerated the stud groom who had his
Speaker 1: master's ear in respect, and with this might breach the
Speaker 1: class divide. At the same time, Barry was making leaps
Speaker 1: and bounds in his own social assent. In eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: one he entertained a royal party dukes, earls and the
Speaker 1: Prince of Wales, the future King descended on Saint Leonard's Hill.
Speaker 1: Annie would have watched this magnificent spectacle unfold, the ladies
Speaker 1: in their frilled, feathered bonnets and veils, the rotund Prince
Speaker 1: of Wales beneath his hat and triangular beard. Barry was
Speaker 1: firmly in the Prince's circle now, and the sounds of merrymaking,
Speaker 1: music and laughter would have blown down from the grand
Speaker 1: house to the Chapman's little home. Were Annie's children slumbered
Speaker 1: in their own bedrooms. This might have been Annie's story
Speaker 1: in its entirety. It might have ended in quiet, middle
Speaker 1: class comfort on a gentleman's estate. Her daughters may have
Speaker 1: grown up and married middle class men. Constancy and contentment
Speaker 1: might have defined the courses of all of their lives.
Speaker 1: Had Annie Chapman not been an alcoholic, the ripper be
Speaker 1: told we'll be back in just a moment, Just like today,
Speaker 1: Alcoholism addiction is universalizing, right. It's not just lower class people.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just the poor. It isn't just the poor
Speaker 1: and the working class now, people of all classes suffer
Speaker 1: from addiction. Julia Skelly teaches art history at McGill University
Speaker 1: in Montreal and studies addiction in Victorian culture. I came
Speaker 1: to the topic as a recovering alcoholic. I got sober
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, when I was twenty three,
Speaker 1: just before I started my PhD. We can't say for sure,
Speaker 1: but it's likely that Annie's discovery of the pacifying effects
Speaker 1: of the bottle began with the devastating loss of her
Speaker 1: siblings to scarlet fever and typhus, and her placement in
Speaker 1: domestic service shortly afterwards. For a time, Annie was successful
Speaker 1: in hiding her alcoholism within the confines of her own home,
Speaker 1: but she couldn't hide it from her family. Again and again,
Speaker 1: they tried to persuade Annie to give up drinking. Again
Speaker 1: and again, she returned to alcohol. In Annie Chapman's day,
Speaker 1: alcohol was almost impossible to avoid a household like Annie's
Speaker 1: stopped wines and spirits as a treatment for headaches, colds, fevers, toothaches,
Speaker 1: or to rub on the gums of teething children. Most
Speaker 1: shot bought curatives were principally based in alcohol, and medicines
Speaker 1: also tended to contain addictive substances like laudanum, a solution
Speaker 1: of opium, or even cocaine. Their frequent usage ended in dependency.
Speaker 1: One of the challenges of recovering from addiction at this
Speaker 1: time was, of course, the mixed messages that in order
Speaker 1: to cure alcoholism you could take a little cocaine, or
Speaker 1: to cure addiction to cocaine, you could take a little
Speaker 1: something else. One addictive substance was bad, another addictive substance
Speaker 1: could help you with your other addiction. Often, the tendency
Speaker 1: for Victorian wives to drink was precipitated by a sense
Speaker 1: of loneliness. This was the paradox of upwards social mobility.
Speaker 1: With the children away at school and a maid to
Speaker 1: do the housework, Annie spent a lot of time alone
Speaker 1: at home unoccupied. She was also far from her mother
Speaker 1: and sisters, which only increased her isolation and boredom, and
Speaker 1: in turn her itch to self medicate with alcohol. In
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, various physicians began to argue that addiction
Speaker 1: alcoholism was a disease, and one of the reasons physicians
Speaker 1: were attempting to do that was too empty addiction of
Speaker 1: the shame associated with sin and moral failing. At the
Speaker 1: same time, though alcoholism and drunkenness was being criminalized, despite
Speaker 1: attempts to categorize it as a disease. In the eighteen
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, addiction had sinister implications. Drunkenness was seen
Speaker 1: as a reflection of a person's degenerate character, their poor judgment,
Speaker 1: their moral weakness, their idleness. Women were held in particular
Speaker 1: contempt for their alcoholism. This is apparent and how they
Speaker 1: were depicted in the era's artwork. Audiences at the time
Speaker 1: would have recognized all these tropes, the haggard physiognomy, the
Speaker 1: messy hair, the dirty skin as indicators that this is
Speaker 1: a female subject addicted to alcohol. This idea that a
Speaker 1: woman who is an alcoholic or addict is so out
Speaker 1: of it is so unfeminine that she doesn't even wash
Speaker 1: her face, that she doesn't even do her hair. She's unnatural.
Speaker 1: Female alcoholics, female drinkers, female addicts have long been, if
Speaker 1: not have always been perceived as a much greater threat
Speaker 1: than male addicts and alcoholics because of those gender discourses
Speaker 1: around what is expected of a good woman, and that
Speaker 1: is of course being obedient, being quiet, being well behaved,
Speaker 1: and being a good wife and mother. Annie would have
Speaker 1: experienced devastating shame as a woman deemed unnatural. That story
Speaker 1: was so sad reading about Anny Chapman, because that life
Speaker 1: trajectory still happens, right. A woman who wants to stop,
Speaker 1: who has many reasons to stop, and who cannot stop
Speaker 1: and stay stopped in terms of alcohol consumption, experiences shame
Speaker 1: that isolates her. And then there's that affective emotional suffering
Speaker 1: on top of the suffering induced by alcoholism. Mister and
Speaker 1: missus Chapman faced other tragedies. Two. Annie gave birth to
Speaker 1: eight children. According to Annie's sister, six of these were
Speaker 1: victims to the curse of alcohol. Annie's eldest daughter initially
Speaker 1: appeared healthy, but by the time she was eight she
Speaker 1: was suffering from epileptic teasures. A second daughter lived no
Speaker 1: more than a day, was born with what is now
Speaker 1: known as fetal alcohol syndrome. Its hallmarks are apparent in
Speaker 1: that childhood photograph. Two other children died young. The Chapman's
Speaker 1: last child, John Alfred, suffered from paralysis. It was obvious
Speaker 1: to Annie's family, and perhaps also to Annie, that her
Speaker 1: drinking was at the heart of this series of tragedies.
Speaker 1: This realization surely pushed Annie deeper into despair and furthered
Speaker 1: her inability to control her impulses. For their part, Annie's
Speaker 1: sisters repeatedly tried to get her to embrace teetotalism. They
Speaker 1: were proponents of the temperance movement. So the temperance movement
Speaker 1: began around eighteen thirty, so it's already sixty odd years
Speaker 1: old when Jack the Ripper was killing women again, very
Speaker 1: much a religious model right where in temperance was a sin,
Speaker 1: was a moral failing. So one had to sign a
Speaker 1: temper prince pledge or an abstinence pledge saying I will
Speaker 1: not drink. Annie's sisters convinced her several times to sign
Speaker 1: this pledge, but they could not get her to adhere
Speaker 1: to it. There was this expectation that once you signed
Speaker 1: the pledge, that should be enough, that should be enough
Speaker 1: to keep you from drinking again. And as we saw
Speaker 1: with Eddie Chapman, that is not the case. Alcoholism addiction
Speaker 1: does not just go away if you sign a piece
Speaker 1: of paper. If only it were so simple. In some ways,
Speaker 1: the movement just served to exacerbate the humiliation of alcoholics.
Speaker 1: It went hand in hand with the popular philosophy of
Speaker 1: self help, which blame poverty on an individual's own behavior
Speaker 1: and lack of responsibility for their choices in life. A
Speaker 1: solemn promised to adhere to restriction of one's impulses was
Speaker 1: supposed to equate to conscious effort at moral improvement. The
Speaker 1: temperance movement did kind of function along the lines of
Speaker 1: shaming alcoholics and addicts, and again, this idea of what
Speaker 1: a woman should be doing right morally upright duly bound
Speaker 1: women attending to gendered expectations. It got worse when Annie's
Speaker 1: elder daughter, Emily, began to sicken with meningitis. She turned
Speaker 1: to her usual source of comfort, the bottle, and she
Speaker 1: was not present at her daughter's bedside when she died.
Speaker 1: Annie's pain at this time was surely unbearable. By this point,
Speaker 1: she also had a reputation among the local police. Several
Speaker 1: times she was found drunk wandering between the surrounding villages.
Speaker 1: By all accounts, she was not an angry drunk, but
Speaker 1: rather sad, sullen and quiet, weighed down by her heartache.
Speaker 1: We don't know where Annie was eventually found when Emily died,
Speaker 1: whether she was ensconced in a pub or perhaps swaying
Speaker 1: down the street, but her behavior was enough to raise
Speaker 1: serious alarm. Her family gained her admission to spell Town Sanatorium,
Speaker 1: an alcoholism treatment facility for middle class women. Those sanatoria
Speaker 1: were very much designed as homes, so they were decorated
Speaker 1: as domestic spaces, and the idea was these women were
Speaker 1: expected to do feminine activities to get fresh air, exercise,
Speaker 1: to embroider. That was the treatment developed for women of
Speaker 1: this class, with the idea that they would return to
Speaker 1: again this kind of natural femininity. There wasn't kind of
Speaker 1: a dealing with the actual problem of addiction or indeed
Speaker 1: what may have been causing the consumption of alcohol. Chapman
Speaker 1: clearly suffered trauma. Right now a day's there's much more
Speaker 1: attention to the root problem, whereas in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: middle of upper class women who were identified as alcoholics
Speaker 1: just needed to be reminded of their duties. Annie spent
Speaker 1: a year at Spelthorne. Her name is not recorded in
Speaker 1: the log books. Among the occasional troublemakers, the women who
Speaker 1: found giving up alcohol nearly impossible, who tore up their clothing,
Speaker 1: destroyed furniture, or lashed out in violence, it seemed that
Speaker 1: Annie's time at the sanatorium was relatively quiet. She was
Speaker 1: released in December eighteen eighty three and able to return home.
Speaker 1: According to Annie's sister, she was at this point a
Speaker 1: changed woman, a sober wife and mother. Life rolled along
Speaker 1: for a few months, but what happened next sounds almost apocryphal,
Speaker 1: like a cautionary tale from a teetotalless handbook. One bit
Speaker 1: a day, Annie's husband, John, who was stricken with a cold,
Speaker 1: was getting ready for work. Duty compelled him to go out,
Speaker 1: so he took a fortifying glass of hot whiskey. When
Speaker 1: he kissed Annie goodbye, his lips carried the taste of
Speaker 1: the alcohol, and all her cravings returned. Perhaps she turned
Speaker 1: over every room in the house looking for that bottle.
Speaker 1: In the end, she went out within an hour. She
Speaker 1: was drunk. Later, in words, redolent with the profound suffering
Speaker 1: of the chronic alcoholic, she told her sister, it is
Speaker 1: of no use. No one knows the fearful struggle. Unless
Speaker 1: I can keep out of sight and smell, I could
Speaker 1: never be free. Spelthorne had been intended to cure Annie,
Speaker 1: and this was the last straw John's employer could indulge.
Speaker 1: Missus Chapman no longer. The berries now moved in the
Speaker 1: highest circles, and they could not afford the embarrassment of
Speaker 1: harboring a notorious and unpredictable inebriate on their grounds. Either
Speaker 1: Annie had to leave or John would be fired, and
Speaker 1: it was unlikely that he would find another job nearly
Speaker 1: as well paid. When John and Annie decided to part ways,
Speaker 1: the decision was apparently an amicable one, though not without heartbreak. John,
Speaker 1: who was devoted to his wife, made arrangements to pay
Speaker 1: her ten shillings a week, a sum higher than a
Speaker 1: female factory worker might expect. He almost certainly intended for
Speaker 1: her to return to her mother's home. That sum would
Speaker 1: not only assist Annie's mother with the upkeep of the house,
Speaker 1: it would afford his wife a few of the middle
Speaker 1: class luxuries to which she was accustomed perfumed soaps and
Speaker 1: inexpensive jewelry. Perhaps John believed that with the support of
Speaker 1: her mother and her devoted sisters, Annie might just be
Speaker 1: all right. But John's well intentioned scheme did not last long.
Speaker 1: The ripper retold were returned shortly. It was almost impossible
Speaker 1: for Annie to live in her mother's home. Her family
Speaker 1: didn't tolerate her drinking, and her shame made a relationship
Speaker 1: with them almost impossible to bear. Ultimately, Annie chose a
Speaker 1: life without those she loved rather than one without the
Speaker 1: substance she craved. Shame is an incredibly powerful affect right.
Speaker 1: It controls people, It isolates people, It is incredibly destructive
Speaker 1: as an emotion, and it is contagious. It wouldn't have
Speaker 1: just been Annie Chapman who felt ashamed of her alcoholism.
Speaker 1: Her sisters, her mother felt ashamed by proxy, because the
Speaker 1: society culture told all of them that they should be
Speaker 1: ashamed of Annie, that Annie should be ashamed of herself.
Speaker 1: The shame discourse, which is absolutely still circulating today around addiction,
Speaker 1: keeps people from saying to someone I struggle with addiction
Speaker 1: and I need help. For historian Julia Skelly, this stigma
Speaker 1: sealed Annie's fate. In isolating her, it all but delivered
Speaker 1: her into the hands of the ripper. If the shaming
Speaker 1: discourse had not existed at the time, she would have
Speaker 1: been able to stay with her husband, right. She wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been told you have to leave. The employers found
Speaker 1: her offensive, and so she was exiled right and thus
Speaker 1: became incredibly, incredibly vulnerable to violence. It's difficult to fathom
Speaker 1: the emotional despair that Annie must now have felt she
Speaker 1: had proven her inability to mother her children, to maintain
Speaker 1: a home for her husband, even to care for herself.
Speaker 1: Eventually Annie left her mother's home. She was now a
Speaker 1: lone woman, a precarious position that demanded that she find
Speaker 1: a male partner. Because she was still legally married to John.
Speaker 1: This meant adultery, but it hardly mattered. She was already
Speaker 1: considered to be morally ruined. Annie probably met Jack Siveey
Speaker 1: in a pub, his name reflecting his occupation as a
Speaker 1: sid maker. They became a pair, bonding over their shared
Speaker 1: love of drink, and moved to Whitechapel together in search
Speaker 1: of work. All that remained of Annie's former identity, the
Speaker 1: wife of a gentleman's coachman, the mother of two children,
Speaker 1: was left behind in Whitechapel. She was only ever known
Speaker 1: as Annie Sivvey, Missus Sivee, or occasionally Dark Annie. On
Speaker 1: account of her wavy brown hair now streaked with gray,
Speaker 1: she spoke little of her past. Mister and Missus Sivee
Speaker 1: found lodgings at number thirty Dorset Street, where Amelia Palmer
Speaker 1: and her husband also lived. Amelia remarked that in spite
Speaker 1: of her circumstances. Annie remained a very spectable woman. She
Speaker 1: was straightforward, clever and industrious when she was sober. When
Speaker 1: she could, she sold her embroidery and crochet work at
Speaker 1: a local market. She never used bad language. Jack Sivie
Speaker 1: brought in an income, and failing that, Annie had her
Speaker 1: allowance from John to fall back on. This might have
Speaker 1: paid for a better room elsewhere, as well as for
Speaker 1: food and coal. Instead, it paid for alcohol, at least
Speaker 1: until December eighteen eighty six. That month, without warning, Annie's
Speaker 1: weekly payments stopped. She was alarmed. John, she soon learned,
Speaker 1: was gravely unwell. This news shook Annie and she was
Speaker 1: determined to see her husband again. In the midst of winter,
Speaker 1: she set off on a thirty mile journey on foot,
Speaker 1: trekking across London and into the frozen countryside. She didn't
Speaker 1: know John's precise new address, and so she called in
Speaker 1: at a pub, the Mary Wives of Windsor. The manager
Speaker 1: later described her as a wretched looking woman, having the
Speaker 1: appearance of a tramp. But he knew where John lived
Speaker 1: and he pointed Annie in the right direction. Their reunion
Speaker 1: was surely a bitter one. Annie's addiction and the collapse
Speaker 1: of their marriage had felled John completely shortly before his
Speaker 1: death at just forty five. He was white haired and brokenhearted.
Speaker 1: He seems to have taken to drinking two. Annie did
Speaker 1: not linger long enough to witness John's death. Upon her
Speaker 1: return to Whitechapel, Annie said Amelia was never the same again.
Speaker 1: Jack Sivey soon left her. She was also increasing the
Speaker 1: unwell and becoming a pitiful case. Her life was marked
Speaker 1: by drink and despondency, by hunger and sickness, and she
Speaker 1: appeared to be suffering from tuberculosis, which eventually began to
Speaker 1: ravage her brain tissue. Annie's mother and siblings gave her
Speaker 1: small amounts of money. She also began a relationship with
Speaker 1: a new man who paid for her to spend a
Speaker 1: few nights a week at a lodging house. She likely
Speaker 1: spent the other nights sleeping on the street. On September seventh,
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight, Amelia Palmer encountered Annie Lingering on Dorset
Speaker 1: Street and asked if she would be selling her crochet
Speaker 1: work at a local market that weekend. Annie answered, wearily,
Speaker 1: I am too ill to do anything. She recognized the
Speaker 1: gravity of her own situation, though and told Amelia that
Speaker 1: she had to pull herself together and get some money
Speaker 1: for a bed in a lodging house, But by nightfall
Speaker 1: she was still short. At one forty five a m.
Speaker 1: She pleaded with the deputy manager of her usual lodging
Speaker 1: house for a bed. He declined to extend her any credit.
Speaker 1: Annie was not quite willing to admit defeat. Keep my
Speaker 1: bed for me A shan't be long. Perhaps this was
Speaker 1: simply a show of pride. Ill and drunk, She lingered
Speaker 1: in the lodging house doorway, considering her options. Before stepping
Speaker 1: out into the night. She wove her way through the
Speaker 1: black whitechapel streets and found that the gate to twenty
Speaker 1: nine Hanbury Street was unlocked. She would have been familiar
Speaker 1: with this yard and known that the gap between the
Speaker 1: steps and the fence was an ideal spot in which
Speaker 1: to curl up. She would have been relieved to find
Speaker 1: it vacant. It offered solitude and some semblance of shelter.
Speaker 1: Annie Chapman needn't have been on the street that night.
Speaker 1: This is part of the tragedy of her story. She
Speaker 1: might have stayed at her mother's house or rested in
Speaker 1: her sister's care on the other side of London. She
Speaker 1: might have lain in hospital receiving treatment for tuberculosis. She
Speaker 1: might have even been comforted by the embrace of her children.
Speaker 1: At every turn a hand had reached to pull her
Speaker 1: from the abyss, but the counter tug of addiction had
Speaker 1: been more forceful, and the isolating grip of shame just
Speaker 1: as strong. It was this that had severed her ties
Speaker 1: with her family and pulled her under. Annie Chapman, curled
Speaker 1: up in that yard, had led a miserable and blighted life.
Speaker 1: That life was about to be snuffed out. Bad Women,
Speaker 1: The Ripper Were Told is brought to you by Pushkin
Speaker 1: Industries and me Hallie Rubbinhold, and is based on my
Speaker 1: book The Five. It was produced and co written by
Speaker 1: Ryan Dilley and Alice Fines, with help from Pete Norton.
Speaker 1: Pascal Wise Sound designed and mixed the show and composed
Speaker 1: all the original music. You also heard the voice talents
Speaker 1: of Soul Boyer, Melanie Gutridge, Gemma Saunders and rufus Wright.
Speaker 1: The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work
Speaker 1: of mil La Belle, Jacob Weisberg, Jen Guerra, Heather Fane,
Speaker 1: Carlie Migliori, Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano, and Daniella Lacane were
Speaker 1: special thanks to my agents Sarah Ballard and Ellie Karn