WEBVTT - S3 – INTERVIEW 4: Paul Begg 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcomed Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey. 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:09.360 Our final guest for Unobscured Season three is Paul Beg. 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.680 When he published Jack the Ripper The Uncensored Facts in 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.840 he set a new standard for serious historical writing about 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.560 the Whitechapel murders and challenged writers and investigators to bring 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:24.200 a more complete and critical eye to the case. Fortunately 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:26.639 for all of us, Paul Beg continued to work in 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:29.760 that mold. With each new book, Paul Beg has commanded 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.800 the attention of interested readers and professional historians alike. Paul 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:36.199 has worked solo as well as with other writers to 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.640 publish books like Jack the Ripper, The Definitive History, The 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.080 Complete Jack the Ripper A to Z and recently Jack 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:46.240 the Ripper The Forgotten Victims, and along the way, Paul's 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:50.080 books have demonstrated to interested readers like Adam would, for instance, 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.479 what had been missing from the discussion without his comprehensive 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:57.760 and rigorous devotion to historical detail. His collaborative spirits and 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:00.400 his dedication to primary sources have made at him a 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.520 universally respected authority on the history and the facts of 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.880 the case. Researcher Karl Nellis asked Paul to take us 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:08.959 back to how it all began for him, and so 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.480 that's how it will all begin for us. This is 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:15.639 the Unobscured Interview series for season three. I'm Aaron Minky. 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:23.560 I started off investigating historical mysteries of one sort or another, 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:28.600 and it was coming to the centenary of the Jack 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:30.800 the Ripper murders, and I had always been interested in 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.880 Jack the Ripper, and I bought every book that I 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:38.479 could find at that time, and nobody had really done 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.720 a history of who saw what, where and when, which 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:47.680 I suppose is part of my journalistic background, and so 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:52.600 I decided to write a book that didn't have anything 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.520 to do with suspects, but just looked at the crimes. 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.200 And that book led to another book and an other 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:04.560 one after that, and so before I knew it, I 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:08.320 was spending probably the best part of my life research 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:12.000 in Jack the Ripple, which in a way I regret 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:17.000 because I would like to have researched something infinitely more important. 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:22.120 But at the same time, uh, Jack the Ripper is 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:29.079 is becomes acutely interesting subject too to research and write about. 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:35.280 Mm hmm, well, I can say, for my own part, 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.880 I'm really grateful for the historical approach that you've taken, 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.920 uh and the way that you have researched and written 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:48.600 about in Whitechapel, and you know so for for this program, 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:53.520 we've been consulting your definitive history the facts, and I've 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:57.079 especially appreciated the perspective that you take in the Forgotten Victims. 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.799 And we hope that listeners interested in thoughtful, detailed work 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:05.840 we'll seek out your books and maybe as a as 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.880 a way into that. As a historian, how would you 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:13.520 describe your historical approach. You mentioned a history of the 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.359 crimes rather than focusing on the suspect, But if you 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:21.120 would put yourself in the context of other history writing, 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.280 what kind of is your approach as a writer of 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:30.239 these histories. Well, I think it's important to just establish 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:34.760 those basic facts as I as I mentioned earlier, the 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.960 very basic stuff of who saw, what, where, when and 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:43.480 why that every good story should have, and very often, 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:49.280 particularly in the history of something like crime, that's one 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:53.640 thing that people don't do. They are they will describe 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:58.200 the crime, but they're real interest is in the suspect. 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.600 And I think in historical crime, the great thing about 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:08.560 it is that it it it enables you to see 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:15.080 people doing normal things at the time a murderer is committed. 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.880 So it's one of the few ways that you actually 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:26.119 have a chance to see historically people doing ordinary things, 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.560 which historians don't normally bother to look at, and consequently 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:34.480 we don't find out of that. So in kind of 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:40.279 general terms, how would you describe that ordinary life for 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.200 most people in the East End of London that we 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.120 get a glimpse of when we look at and almost 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:52.400 through this series of horrific crimes and then see the 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.440 ordinary life that was happening around it. What do we see? 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:57.960 What do we see there? Well, then we see, we 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:02.520 see we see an awful lot actually, uh, but it's 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.480 a very hard life that the people were living at 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:10.400 that time, particularly in the East End, and so it 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:18.920 was uh, it was, it was tough. But but an 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:23.600 event like a murder captures the witnesses and the investigators 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.880 in that moment of time going about their day to 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.440 day lives, and there things mains. As I said, mainstream 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:35.760 histories don't often tell you, and that many people probably 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:42.440 probably wouldn't choose to read even if historians did. For example, 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:47.000 there were lots of horses, lots of them. So what 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.160 did you do if your horse was injured in an 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:54.760 accident or if it dropped dead in the street? And 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:58.919 how dirty were those streets are washed with horse urine 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:03.240 and worse? And what was it really like to travel 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.400 in a handsome cab, rocking along like a ship tossed 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:10.600 in a storm called in winter, hot in summer? And 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.320 then of course if you opened the window in the 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.840 handsome cab because it was getting very hot, the horses 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:20.839 hooves flicked the mess from the straight back into the cab, 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:27.200 which brings us back two horses. And so we you know, 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.240 all of that is sort of stuff that you don't 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.360 normally find out about. Even the Sherlock Holmes story you have. 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.760 You have homes bowling along in a handsome cab, but 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.760 we don't actually get told what it was really like. 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.600 And we don't have doss houses anymore. People don't go 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.840 into work into the workhouse. We buy our milk from 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:52.560 a supermarket, not from a dedicated milk shop. We carry 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.400 a torch to see in the dark, not an oil lamp. 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:00.240 And we don't have music calls, and we don't have clubs. 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:06.200 Every few yards. Um, So a murderer is a a 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:14.160 terrible thing, but it tells us about ordinary people going 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.080 to the who have to go into the workhouse and 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:19.680 who have to go into a doss house. And we 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.360 can find out a little bit of what it was 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:27.800 like from people who we're writing at the time, and 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:32.200 we we can we can collect that information together. But 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:36.280 it there aren't that many books that go out and 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:41.320 tell you these things, and when they do, it can 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:46.240 be it does can sometimes not have that level of 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:52.360 interest that the murder story has. It doesn't have that 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:57.160 frision of drama attached to it. So when when you're 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.720 discovering how people lived and how their world fund should 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.720 that can be really interesting when when it's attached to 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:12.760 a murder, because very often in some small way those things. Uh, 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:20.560 knowing about those things could be relevant. Two understanding the 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:25.640 murder itself and perhaps knowing who the murderer was. M hm, 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:32.120 m hm. For a little more context, Um, the Ripper 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:37.960 murders weren't the only kinds of violent crime in London's 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:41.880 East End. They weren't the only killings in that year, 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.480 and there was enough violent crime on record in the 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:49.000 neighborhood throughout the eighties that we can get a more 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:54.640 textured picture. How violent was Whitechapel and what was the 0:08:54.679 --> 0:09:00.240 general understanding of that violence among contemporary observers, writer is, 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.200 and what do we know about how the people in 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:10.160 the neighborhood of Whitechapel, or Whopping or around bethnal green Um, 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:15.600 what did they think of the violence in their neighborhoods Well, 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:19.240 I think it's again it's one of those things that 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:26.200 is somewhat difficult to to pinpoint what the people themselves 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.400 actually thought. What we get a lot of is what 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:34.880 people coming from outside the area thought of it. So 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:40.600 you have lots of reasonably well off middle class people 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.880 commenting on the horrors that they saw and witnessed in 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.640 the East End, but not a great deal of what 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:55.960 people who lived there actually experienced. The facts and figures 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.360 suggest that there weren't very many murders, surprisingly in the 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:03.760 East End of London, and in fact, I think, off 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.720 the top of my head, I mean, for for the period, 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:10.880 most of the murders that were committed there with the 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.600 were the jack the Ripper murders. There weren't very many 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:18.720 other than those. As for the violence of the area, well, 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:26.560 that's a different thing altogether, and it does that there 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:31.480 does seem to have been a considerable amount of violence, 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:35.520 and very nasty violence of the sort that would make 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:41.760 the top of the news today if it happened. Um 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.600 and and things were happening there. I was just reading 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:50.800 recently about an altercation that took place. Uh. And the 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:57.920 man through an oil lamp at at somebody, and although 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:04.440 he wasn't intending to that person, he missed h and 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.360 he hit the wall behind him, and the and the 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:12.040 oil lamp shattered and it burst into flame, and the 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:16.079 person was caught splattered with the oil from the lamp 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:20.640 and and was burned quite badly. And of course there 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:25.920 was an awful lot of of domestic violence going on. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:33.120 So one another story told by a policeman called Benjamin Lease, 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:37.520 and he was walking down Dorset Street, uh and suddenly 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:41.400 a knife was thrown from one of the houses and 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:48.079 stuck into some boarding close to him. So, I mean 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:51.040 it possible that you could be walking down the street 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.559 and have a knife thrown at you for no reason whatsoever. 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.120 M So it was quite it was quite a dangerous place, 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:04.600 and it was known even the police. When you read 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:09.800 the newspapers and the police reports it was it was violent. 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.960 But one of the problems is that you get stories 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:21.840 about um sailors coming into Whitechapel from the docks, and 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.959 one such man, Thomas Sadler, for example, was walking down 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:31.440 a street and he was attacked and robbed UM. And 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:37.040 yet other times people are walking around the streets and 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.360 they don't see a soul. It would appear that one 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:45.480 of Jack the Ripper's victims, the first one Mary and Nichols, 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.199 walked about half a mile without being seen by anybody 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:56.000 as she walked down the main street. M So some 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:58.959 of the information that you get can be quite conflicting, 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.959 but hopefully you will be able over the next years 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:08.920 to be able to learn a lot more MHM. And 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.920 and from what I've read, there are some places where 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:18.360 it was especially dangerous to be if you were a policeman. Well, again, 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.920 it is a common story that policemen wouldn't venture down 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:31.560 Dorset Street unless they were in pairs. And UM, I 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:36.920 think that I can't find I'm not saying it's not true, 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:40.800 it's just that I can't find any evidence of that 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:46.559 being the case. And I can read of other areas 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:50.400 outside of the east end, which were known to be 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:54.040 particularly dangerous, and the same thing is said of those streets, 0:13:54.080 --> 0:14:01.600 so it it's it really does dependent. Rsett Street may 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:05.079 have been a dangerous street, but other streets on Flower 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.360 and Dean Street and Thrall Street, they were both they 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.800 were all just as dangerous to walk down, just as rough. 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:15.040 And it's not said that policemen walked down those streets 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.280 in pairs. So I think you have to take certain 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:23.360 later statements with a pinch of salt. Mhm. Would you 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:31.360 would you describe Dorset Street for us? Yes, Dorset Street was. 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:34.800 It was a fairly narrow street. It had a pub 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.880 one end and a bigger pub the other end, and 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:43.160 a small pub in the middle, and it was otherwise 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:49.440 pretty much line with with what we're called common lodging 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.840 houses or doss houses. There was a little shop there 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:58.400 run by a man called John McCarthy, which was basically 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:04.680 and all grocer's shop, uh, and really nothing about it 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.480 to be to be alarmed about. It had started out 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:16.400 its life being known as Datchett Street. That became Dorset Street, 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.200 and the locals used to call it Dosset Street because 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.400 of the number of doss houses that it contained. And 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:29.040 it was the doss houses which had a really bad 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:35.400 reputation for being places of immorality because not too many 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.520 questions were asked if a man and a woman turned 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:44.120 up wanting a bed together. Uh. And they were thought 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:50.880 to be hotbeds of crime and and thievery, and so 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:55.280 they weren't really looked upon very kindly. But in fact 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:01.680 they were fairly horrible places. But it's specially by today's standards, 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.800 but they really were the poor man's hotel. They were 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:10.960 where you went you could buy a bed for the night. Uh. 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:15.880 And it's popularly argued that sometimes some just strung a 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.520 rope from one side of the room to the other 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.720 and for a penny you could lean on the rope 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.800 and go to sleep there. There are photographs of of 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:30.520 this sort of thing happening, but I think that was 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:37.120 a fairly uncommon practice. So that, Yeah, the doss houses 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.640 were thought to be fairly dangerous, and to some extent 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:46.480 they were, and the that gave Dorset Street a really 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:53.080 bad name, which grew worse over the whereas more murders 0:16:53.080 --> 0:17:03.080 were committed there. MHM. When it comes to policing the 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:09.879 East End um and especially heading toward the events of 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:16.480 eighteen eighty eight and the personalities and the people. Um, 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:21.280 let's go to Charles Warren. Can you briefly describe Charles 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:25.679 warren'ts uh? Maybe his personality and his career leading up 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:30.800 to Who was Charles Warren? Yes, Sir, Charles Warren basically 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:37.520 was a soldier, a scholar, engineer and administrator. He had 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:43.440 basically been undertaking or overseeing engineering work done in various 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:49.600 places abroad. He was also an archaeologist of some distinction 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:58.760 and eventually was a senior Freemason, and he undertook excavation 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:07.120 work in in Egypt and elsewhere in Palestine. Um, and 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:12.040 he was. But it's also been claimed that whilst he 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:14.840 was doing this work he was acting as a spy 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:19.439 and mapping out land for for the government. But he 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.240 was quite distinguished in that respect, wrote a couple of 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:26.040 books about it, and he also played a part in 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:33.160 investigating the death of a professor who had gone out 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.560 out there and had gone missing and had actually been 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:43.680 murdered by the natives. And Warren trapped down the natives 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:48.800 and found out who they were, which really was It 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.560 was no mean feat. So he came back to the 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:57.040 uk as uh, you know, quite quite a bit of 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:01.919 a national hero actually, the way the newspapers had portrayed 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:08.639 his actions abroad. So he came back. He he was 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:14.840 chosen to be commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He that 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:23.240 was probably a very good decision because certainly the press 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:29.679 welcomed it because the police needed to be we're in 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:38.360 desperate need really of organization. Later he was accused of 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:44.480 organizing the police too much along military lines, paying too 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:50.680 much attention to minor things such as boots and shoes 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:56.000 and things. But he did have a very keen concern 0:19:56.320 --> 0:20:02.159 about the welfare of the ordinary policeman. So yeah, um, 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:07.200 what is interesting is that what happened at the time 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:12.439 of Jack the Ripper uh caused a change in the 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:20.720 police which has carried on through to today and probably, 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:23.080 I mean, I think it might be fair to say 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.040 it's affected things on really on both sides of the 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:34.359 Atlantic and elsewhere. When the police were formed, it was 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:42.960 formed as an organization to protect the public from crime 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:51.080 and protect and prevent crime. And that was the reason 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:55.199 why they started. Why why you had policemen patrolling the 0:20:55.240 --> 0:21:01.560 streets on their beat. Detective work was really perceived as 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:08.840 a sign of failure to have the detective meant that 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:13.439 a crime had been committed and that needed it needed 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:16.360 to be detected, whereas the whole object of the police 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:20.680 was was the crimes were not going to be committed. 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:27.680 So there was this difference. Now a man called James Munroe, 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:34.400 his background being very much detecting crime. He had been 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:41.960 done a fair amount of workouts as running a clandestine 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:45.760 side of things, and so he was aware of of 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:48.639 all of that, especially when he was ahead of the 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:54.000 police in India, and he was appointed head of the 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:59.400 c I D which is the detective branch of Scotland Yard. 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:06.479 And so you had these two men who were really 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:14.199 either end of things. And when Warren resigned as he 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:21.760 did later in he was replaced by James Munroe. And 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:26.520 so whereas Warren in his annual report had not even 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:32.040 bothered to mention anything about the detectives, Munroe was very 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:39.480 probe his department MHM. And that's carried through right down 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:44.320 to today where more interest is being given is given 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:49.879 to detectives and many detectives almost became superstars in the past. 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:54.840 But the ordinary copper on a beat, the copper and 0:22:55.000 --> 0:23:00.520 uniform UH is almost seen as a less so being, 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:10.960 which wasn't the case under Warren's regime. Warren, unfortunately, ah 0:23:11.200 --> 0:23:16.399 after he resigned, he was sent out to to fight 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:23.480 abroad and he made are there's some slight evidence to 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:29.959 the effect that he was a man and a general 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:35.280 appointing him was suffering from senility and thought he was 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:39.399 somebody else. I thought Warren was somebody else and appointed 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:46.360 him to a job that he was a seriously deficient 0:23:47.320 --> 0:23:52.440 inexperience to undertake. And there was a battle at a 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:56.200 place called spied On cop and it was an absolute disaster. 0:23:56.840 --> 0:24:01.879 And that's basically stuck with Warren uh and has damaged 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:04.280 his reputation for the rest of his life and right 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:10.679 down to today. M hm. Now, his time as Commissioner 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:16.440 only lasted about two years, is that right? That's right? Yeah. 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:21.200 And as well as having a difference of approach to Monroe, 0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:29.400 he also had frequent conflicts with Matthews, the Home Secretary. Um, 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:36.560 can you describe what the conflicts were in their relationship? Well, basically, 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:44.200 when Sir Charles Warren accepted the commissionership of the Metropolitan Police, 0:24:45.480 --> 0:24:50.440 he believed that he had full authority over the police 0:24:52.640 --> 0:24:56.679 and he wasn't aware so well led to believe that 0:24:57.280 --> 0:25:02.960 he was answerable to the own secretary and two various 0:25:04.600 --> 0:25:10.959 of the Home Office mandarins, and so he wanted to 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:14.960 have full control over what was going on. That first 0:25:15.040 --> 0:25:19.200 of all, brought him into conflict with James Munroe, who 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:25.199 also believed that he had almost complete authority over the 0:25:25.280 --> 0:25:29.919 c i D, and he resented Warren's involvement with the 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:33.280 c i D, and he resented Warren almost ignoring the 0:25:33.320 --> 0:25:39.760 c i D. Matthews was also a fairly difficult man, 0:25:39.960 --> 0:25:43.520 as was the sort of liaison between the two, which 0:25:43.600 --> 0:25:51.760 was a man called Godfrey Lushington, and eventually got to 0:25:51.840 --> 0:25:57.640 a point where Munroe sorry where Warren wrote an article 0:25:58.160 --> 0:26:03.080 that but he had received permission to write that article, 0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:05.640 and he felt that all he could do at that 0:26:05.680 --> 0:26:08.920 time was offered his resignation, which he did, and that's 0:26:08.920 --> 0:26:14.040 why he went. But it typifies the sort of relationship 0:26:14.119 --> 0:26:17.800 that he had with Henry Matthews is that the Metropolitan 0:26:17.840 --> 0:26:23.160 Police was being criticized and he thought the criticism was unjustified, 0:26:23.760 --> 0:26:30.080 and so he defended his department, only to discover that 0:26:30.200 --> 0:26:32.919 he could only defend his department providing he had the 0:26:32.920 --> 0:26:36.000 permission of Henry Matthews to do so. And if therefore, 0:26:36.040 --> 0:26:40.320 if Henry Matthews said no, he had no alternative but 0:26:40.400 --> 0:26:43.679 to sit back and and sort of bite his tongue 0:26:43.680 --> 0:26:47.280 and seethe. And those are the sort of conflicts that 0:26:47.320 --> 0:26:54.040 they had. And in the previous prior to the murders, 0:26:54.080 --> 0:26:57.679 there had been what turned out to be a riot 0:26:57.920 --> 0:27:04.199 in Trafalgar Square as a consequence of the unemployed wanting 0:27:04.200 --> 0:27:10.800 to hold meetings, and there was this march was planned 0:27:10.920 --> 0:27:17.479 to take place on Trafalgar Square and Warren uh they 0:27:17.760 --> 0:27:21.520 they they, Matthews couldn't make up his mind what the 0:27:21.640 --> 0:27:27.200 legal situation was with regard to trying to stop these marches, 0:27:27.320 --> 0:27:33.679 so he vacillated from one thing to another. Warren was 0:27:33.720 --> 0:27:36.879 putting out instructions that the march couldn't go ahead, and 0:27:36.920 --> 0:27:39.320 then it was all right to go ahead. Everybody was 0:27:39.359 --> 0:27:43.119 getting frustrated. The whole thing blew up into a riot 0:27:43.160 --> 0:27:46.960 that was quite nasty, and Warren got blamed for the 0:27:47.040 --> 0:27:51.280 whole thing. So he was now he was he Matthews 0:27:51.400 --> 0:27:54.560 was a bit of a waste of time. Really. He 0:27:55.160 --> 0:27:59.480 probably had his own troubles, which, unfortunately we don't know 0:28:00.119 --> 0:28:06.280 a huge amount of that. Um. But he doesn't. He 0:28:06.600 --> 0:28:09.520 seems to have fallen out with most people in one 0:28:09.520 --> 0:28:14.560 way or another. UM. And the even the government wanted him, 0:28:14.600 --> 0:28:21.719 really found him unsuitable as Home Secretary, but for various 0:28:21.760 --> 0:28:25.840 political reasons, they were not able to get rid of him, 0:28:25.880 --> 0:28:28.920 so he had to stay in office, even though he 0:28:29.000 --> 0:28:33.439 was causing quite a bit of difficulty. Mm hm hm. 0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:37.719 Let's talk a couple of other people who ended up 0:28:37.760 --> 0:28:43.160 being pivotal figures um, either in the investigation of the 0:28:43.160 --> 0:28:47.680 White Chapel murders or in the reporting on the White 0:28:47.720 --> 0:28:53.400 Chapel murders. Uh. Let's talk Dr Winn Baxter. Um. Who 0:28:53.480 --> 0:28:57.040 was he? Why is he such a significant figure in 0:28:57.080 --> 0:29:02.240 the investigation and in the press reporting about the Whitechapel Well. 0:29:03.280 --> 0:29:07.360 Win Baxter was actually a lawyer, not a not a doctor, 0:29:07.640 --> 0:29:14.240 but which was possibly one of the problems. He was 0:29:14.280 --> 0:29:20.720 the coroner for the area where at least three of 0:29:20.760 --> 0:29:26.240 the murders were committed, and so it was his job 0:29:26.360 --> 0:29:32.360 to basically inquire into the crime and to establish cause 0:29:32.400 --> 0:29:38.400 of death, time of death and details like that. There's 0:29:38.480 --> 0:29:42.440 also the fact that he felt a little bit that 0:29:42.600 --> 0:29:46.160 part of things were with an unsolved crime, that there 0:29:46.240 --> 0:29:51.200 was a responsibility there to interview and gave the gain 0:29:51.600 --> 0:29:58.120 sorry interview and gain the evidence of people so that 0:29:58.240 --> 0:30:03.480 in the event their testimony would be that were given 0:30:03.560 --> 0:30:09.080 under oath, would be available to be brought to court 0:30:09.160 --> 0:30:12.400 if at some point in the future somebody was put 0:30:12.440 --> 0:30:16.600 on trial for the crime, because they couldn't always guarantee 0:30:16.640 --> 0:30:20.360 that some that a witness would could be found or 0:30:20.400 --> 0:30:30.040 would even be alive. Baxter is distinguished for perhaps being 0:30:30.800 --> 0:30:38.560 a little pedantic. He questioned in depth the his inquests 0:30:39.760 --> 0:30:46.360 covered several weeks. There there were adjournments, and the press 0:30:47.200 --> 0:30:51.640 would speculate whilst that the adjournment was taking place, and 0:30:51.720 --> 0:30:58.080 there would be lots of press reporting around around the 0:30:58.480 --> 0:31:02.480 the the inquiry themselves, the days the inquests were held. 0:31:03.160 --> 0:31:06.200 So he was thought in some instances to be a 0:31:06.240 --> 0:31:07.960 bit of a bit of a pain, a bit of 0:31:07.960 --> 0:31:14.920 a nuisance. Uh So that that, But thank goodness he was, 0:31:15.040 --> 0:31:19.000 because it's only as a consequence of his inquests that 0:31:19.120 --> 0:31:21.680 we have as much information about the crimes as we 0:31:21.720 --> 0:31:29.040 do hm. Hm. The eighties offered the London Police little 0:31:29.040 --> 0:31:35.120 by way of the forensic techniques that detectives used today. Um. 0:31:35.160 --> 0:31:38.480 But over the course of investigating the White Chappel murders. 0:31:38.480 --> 0:31:42.360 There are a few interesting ideas that were suggested suggested 0:31:43.640 --> 0:31:47.160 uh in one setting or another, either at the I 0:31:47.240 --> 0:31:51.480 D or in an inquest um that might even seem 0:31:51.480 --> 0:31:54.600 a little strange today. What were some of the the 0:31:54.680 --> 0:31:59.160 cutting edge methods that were considered for collecting and analyzing 0:31:59.200 --> 0:32:04.840 evidence in the course of investigating the murders. Well, the 0:32:04.840 --> 0:32:10.800 the it's it's it's a difficult thing because the police 0:32:10.840 --> 0:32:16.840 hadn't actually encountered something of this kind before, So for 0:32:16.880 --> 0:32:22.840 a lot of them this was a new and difficult experience, 0:32:24.240 --> 0:32:29.000 and the police had over the years they had worked 0:32:29.040 --> 0:32:33.160 out how things were to be done. So the police 0:32:35.040 --> 0:32:41.880 basically they were required to protect the crime scene pretty 0:32:41.960 --> 0:32:47.720 much as we do today, although to compare how we 0:32:47.800 --> 0:32:50.920 protect a crime scene today from how they protected a 0:32:50.960 --> 0:32:56.600 crime scene in you would see very considerable differences. But 0:32:56.760 --> 0:33:01.440 ideally the body should be dis scribed and looked at 0:33:01.600 --> 0:33:05.800 before the doctor and other policemen came up and trampled 0:33:05.840 --> 0:33:12.320