Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: The umbrellas were out, the fine gowns too, along with
Speaker 1: the waistcoats and the hats. It was an autumn Sunday
Speaker 1: in the city of London. The only thing that made
Speaker 1: these crowds of Sunday walkers unusual was that they weren't
Speaker 1: gathering to wander through Regent's Park. No, they were gathering
Speaker 1: on Hanbury Street. It had been one day since a
Speaker 1: woman had been found in the yard behind number twenty nine,
Speaker 1: but the word had already gotten out throughout all of London.
Speaker 1: When the papers reported on it, they would say the
Speaker 1: greatest excitement prevailed in Whitechapel, and crowds thronged Hanbury Streets
Speaker 1: and adjoining thoroughfares. By Sunday evening. The neighbors around twenty
Speaker 1: nine Hanbury Street were charging in mission to come inside
Speaker 1: and peek out the windows at the spot next door
Speaker 1: where the killing was done and the body was found.
Speaker 1: Not that there was much to see, just a dark
Speaker 1: patch on the ground. Even so, on paper at least
Speaker 1: said that hundreds paid the neighbors to spy over the
Speaker 1: fence and try to see the bloodstain of the Hanbury
Speaker 1: Street murder. Like the sketches showing policemen battling through crowds
Speaker 1: to move the body of the latest victim to the mortuary.
Speaker 1: Illustrations were published of the Sunday morning crowd as well,
Speaker 1: decked out and dapper, ready to parade by the site
Speaker 1: where an impoverished woman had her throat cut. To our
Speaker 1: modern eyes, it may even feel like a grotesque contrast,
Speaker 1: One historian goes so far as to say that the
Speaker 1: Whitechapel murders made the neighborhood the epicenter of elite fantasies
Speaker 1: about sexual and social disorder. Can't say it's any better
Speaker 1: than that. And if there's one thing we do know
Speaker 1: about the epicenter of disasters, well, they attract a crowd.
Speaker 1: Some of them, of course, did this out of a
Speaker 1: sense of altruism or a desire to learn. They said
Speaker 1: they wanted to see for themselves. They wanted to understand
Speaker 1: the suffering of the poor in order to offer them support.
Speaker 1: But when that suffering becomes a spectacle that can be
Speaker 1: bought and sold by the wealthy and their guides, we
Speaker 1: can only imagine that for many of the tourists. Part
Speaker 1: of what they were paying for was a sense of satisfaction,
Speaker 1: satisfaction that they didn't live in the same kinds of
Speaker 1: misery and squalor that affected their fellow Londoners. They had
Speaker 1: made it, and wasn't that nice to feel? And the
Speaker 1: Hanbury Street murder wasn't the only story offering Londoners that
Speaker 1: chill up the spine. You see, it had been two
Speaker 1: years since Robert Louis Stevenson had published his novella The
Speaker 1: Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. If Henry
Speaker 1: James calling London a modern Babylon and Charles Dickens overrunning
Speaker 1: the streets with pickpockets wasn't enough to make readers afraid,
Speaker 1: the immense popularity of Jacquelin Hyde would drive it home.
Speaker 1: In the story, London is a dismal, foggy and muddy place,
Speaker 1: submerged in darkness, broken only by flickering lamps and Stevenson's words,
Speaker 1: It's poor neighborhoods are like a district of some city
Speaker 1: in a night there. In fact, Stevenson wrote the story
Speaker 1: after reading the reports of the maiden Tribute of modern Babylon.
Speaker 1: He got them in a letter from a friend with
Speaker 1: a note wondering who could be the hero of the
Speaker 1: girls trapped in London's sex trafficking, and who was the monster,
Speaker 1: the minotaur, the devourer of all these girls at five
Speaker 1: pounds of pence. Because of all of that, Stevenson's fiction
Speaker 1: proved to be as popular as the Pall Mall Gazette's
Speaker 1: reporting was powerful, and of course, in Jacqueline Hyde, London
Speaker 1: is the haunt of a brutal killer, a respectable and
Speaker 1: friendly man who mutates into a monster and indulges his
Speaker 1: lust and cruelty. It was a story about a man
Speaker 1: as two faced and terrifying as the city of London itself,
Speaker 1: a city whose front doors and new streets were grandiose,
Speaker 1: but whose back alleys and poor neighborhoods were the stage
Speaker 1: for violence and vice. And in the summer of the
Speaker 1: Nightmare London of Jacqueline Hyde did take to the stage.
Speaker 1: An actor in stage producer named Richard Mansfield had opened
Speaker 1: his theatrical production of Jacqueline Hyde at the Lyceum on
Speaker 1: August four. Born in London, Mansfield had tested out his
Speaker 1: production in New York the year before. It got a
Speaker 1: reputation for horrifying and terrifying audiences, and it brought him
Speaker 1: back to his birthplace and the home of English theater.
Speaker 1: The papers across London trumpeted the murder scene at the
Speaker 1: end of Act one as the most powerful and horrible
Speaker 1: thing ever seen on the modern stage. The Star proclaimed
Speaker 1: the show's Mr Hyde an odious monster, with brutality in
Speaker 1: every line and look and gesture. By the time a
Speaker 1: woman in the real London was actually killed in the
Speaker 1: yard behind twenty nine Hanbury Street, the play had been
Speaker 1: drawing London crowds for a month, getting people out of
Speaker 1: their homes for a night of voyeuristic pleasure. And when
Speaker 1: the papers turned around and started reporting on a real
Speaker 1: murderer in the same terms, well it started to blur
Speaker 1: the lines between fiction and reality. And if the killings were,
Speaker 1: in a sense jackal and hide brought to life, well
Speaker 1: why shouldn't eager thrill seekers flocked to that scene as well?
Speaker 1: It was our first glimpse of a pastime that would
Speaker 1: endure all the way to modern times. Ripper tourism had begun.
Speaker 1: This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. Some visitors didn't come
Speaker 1: to the East End to condemn violence, they came to
Speaker 1: indulge it because the East End Well, it had a
Speaker 1: reputation for offering whatever a wandering sightseer could want, especially
Speaker 1: if they had had a little money in their pocket.
Speaker 1: When it came to touring the homes and haunts of
Speaker 1: the poor well, there was lights to behold. There were
Speaker 1: even guide books that offered walking routes to the wealthy
Speaker 1: who wanted to take a tour of their poor neighbors homes.
Speaker 1: If Dickens and Stevenson sprinkled a little fairy dust on
Speaker 1: the streets of the East End Well, a reader with
Speaker 1: some spending money could book a trip to that exotic
Speaker 1: locale right across town. Here's dr at Louise ra. What
Speaker 1: people like to do who had read these sensationalist, dramatic
Speaker 1: tales of the Darkest East was to go and visit it,
Speaker 1: often with a couple of policemen who were paid to
Speaker 1: accompany them, and they would go around and stare at
Speaker 1: the pool. Basically so they would go into the slums,
Speaker 1: into the tenements and look at how they lived. And
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be I suppose sometimes somewhat philanthropic,
Speaker 1: Oh dear, They could exclaim about, oh, dear, how terrible.
Speaker 1: You know, I do at least understand the conditions of
Speaker 1: the pool, because I've bothered to go and see it.
Speaker 1: But then there were a lot of push young ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen who just thought it was a laugh really,
Speaker 1: and it was a freak show. But of course wealthy
Speaker 1: visitors didn't just want to see. They wanted to taste
Speaker 1: and to touch, and the East End well over the
Speaker 1: course of the eighteen hundreds it also gathered a reputation
Speaker 1: as a place where it was cheap to feed lust.
Speaker 1: If you already know anything about the Whitechapel murders, that
Speaker 1: might not be a surprise. Maybe you already know the
Speaker 1: reputation of Martha Tabram, Polly Nichols and others that the
Speaker 1: targets of the murderer were sex workers. But if that's
Speaker 1: the story, you know, it might be worth a minute
Speaker 1: or two to consider the rest of London. You see,
Speaker 1: for all that these stories have made the East End
Speaker 1: into one snarled nest of vices, it was not the
Speaker 1: busiest red light district in London for most of the century.
Speaker 1: That honor would have gone to Granby Street, south of
Speaker 1: the River Thames. That's where the rail line coming from
Speaker 1: the south met the edge of London, bringing thousands to
Speaker 1: the city laborers, visitors and shoppers with money to spend.
Speaker 1: In fact, Granby Street was so notorious that in the
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties, when the rail company was buying up the
Speaker 1: street to expand Waterloo Station, they went so far as
Speaker 1: to rename the street. But historians are quick to assure
Speaker 1: us that Granby, well, it wasn't alone. For decades, London's
Speaker 1: theaters were known as the place to go, not just
Speaker 1: for stage performances, but for more intimate shows as well.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty seven, theater managers were required to ban
Speaker 1: sex workers from the lobbies and balconies of theaters. Before that, though,
Speaker 1: there were travelers and writers who made a point of
Speaker 1: condemning the London theaters for the sex work they witnessed inside.
Speaker 1: At one point, the Metropolitan Police estimated there were eight
Speaker 1: thousand prostitutes in London. Ministers and evangelists estimated even more,
Speaker 1: some eighty thousand women. They said, But if sex work
Speaker 1: wasn't centered in the East End, then where was it? Did?
Speaker 1: I say? Granby Streets make that Haymarket with its argyle
Speaker 1: rooms where varieties of aristocrats took their pleasures, though the
Speaker 1: rooms were closed in eight seventy eight. As London grew
Speaker 1: over the course of the century and new buildings like
Speaker 1: train stations and sweeping viaducts were cutting through old neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just the homes of the poor that were
Speaker 1: pushed out in the city's remodeling. It was also home
Speaker 1: to what Londoners were happy to condemn as vice. If
Speaker 1: a few theaters and streets in the city center were
Speaker 1: a dry well, the suburbs were happy to resupply just
Speaker 1: a short train ride away. So if the Argyle rooms
Speaker 1: were closed, not to worry. There was still St John's Wood,
Speaker 1: all too literal the title, it seems, Pimlico held just
Speaker 1: as many pleasures, and there were plenty of transport hubs
Speaker 1: for coming to and going from. If you were looking
Speaker 1: for pornographic books, the place to go was Hollywell Street
Speaker 1: in the strand. Just in case you thought I was
Speaker 1: finally taking a tour of London without mentioning Regent's Park, Yes,
Speaker 1: the outer circle of the new development had its own
Speaker 1: small hotels used as accommodation houses. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Historians have collected accounts and they found thriving sex work
Speaker 1: in Holloway, Camberwell, Waltham Green, Haggerston and many many more.
Speaker 1: By now, I think you get the point. In Victoria's city,
Speaker 1: the largest in the world, sex work was commonplace, as
Speaker 1: it was before and has been since. All that was
Speaker 1: new about the time was that newly emboldened journalists willing
Speaker 1: to dig up stories throughout the city, and the new
Speaker 1: technologies of power and speed gathering people around train stations
Speaker 1: and in the suburbs. The merchants and bankers growing rich
Speaker 1: on these profit machines, expected to buy themselves pleasures with
Speaker 1: the rewards. Of course, just because the hotspots of London
Speaker 1: sex trade were elsewhere doesn't mean that wealthy men weren't
Speaker 1: tramping into the East End looking to pay for sex.
Speaker 1: And when they weren't setting off on foot, they were
Speaker 1: making their journeys by rail. The East End did have
Speaker 1: a reputation for vice, and it had its own well
Speaker 1: known hunts. Angel Alley in Whitechapel has been a staple
Speaker 1: of storytelling about the murders. But the thing is, it's
Speaker 1: just not that unusual. There was something unusual about the
Speaker 1: East End, though, something that attracted the Victorian eye and
Speaker 1: the Victorian imagination. The East End was a place where
Speaker 1: most of the residents, and in particular most of the women,
Speaker 1: didn't have the luxury of living at ease. For instance,
Speaker 1: take the women we followed in episode one who were
Speaker 1: employed in the Bryant and May's match factory. Over five
Speaker 1: thousand women worked there. Every one of them was subject
Speaker 1: to the sense that they just didn't live up to standards.
Speaker 1: Standards that is set by comfortable, middle class women who
Speaker 1: didn't have to work for a living. Let's return to
Speaker 1: Dr Louise raw for just a minute to really help
Speaker 1: us get a sense of what that was like. You
Speaker 1: see this incredible judgmental and very sexualized by the way narrative.
Speaker 1: Even in labor reports of the period, there was one
Speaker 1: mining commission, you know, who knows what working life is like,
Speaker 1: you would think, and yet he looks at the terrible
Speaker 1: conditions down mines, where you've got girls, women, boys, men
Speaker 1: crawling through tunnels all day on their hands and knees,
Speaker 1: you know, naked to the waist with chains around their ways,
Speaker 1: pulling carts of coal. Absolutely horrific. Imagine that he imagined
Speaker 1: the difficulty in breathing. Imagine the physical horror of that.
Speaker 1: But he looks at that and doesn't say, well, yes,
Speaker 1: conditions are pretty awful. He writes about it as if
Speaker 1: it's some sort of orgy going on, because the women
Speaker 1: are partly dressed, partially dressed as you would be in
Speaker 1: those conditions. You're not gonna wear your best dress, are
Speaker 1: to crawl on your hands and knees through a coal shaft.
Speaker 1: And he says the conditions that the site, the spectacle
Speaker 1: of these women at work was absolutely revolting, disgusting. It
Speaker 1: was obscene. No brothel can beat it. And firstly you think, well,
Speaker 1: Mr Mining commission you seem a bit well versed and
Speaker 1: exactly what a brothel is like. I wonder what Mrs
Speaker 1: Mining Commissioner might have had to say about that one.
Speaker 1: But also how bizarre, how bizarre, and how sort of
Speaker 1: pervy really and slightly fetishistic do you have to be
Speaker 1: to look at children in those awful conditions and say, oh,
Speaker 1: good grief, they're partially closed or they must all be
Speaker 1: having you know, it must be all be having sex
Speaker 1: with each other. Disgraceful and disgusting, as if these people
Speaker 1: I must have thought, well, a chance to be a
Speaker 1: fine thing. You know, these people are exhausted, they're absolutely exhausted,
Speaker 1: and they're starving. And yet that is what we see.
Speaker 1: We look at a factor and we see women working
Speaker 1: alongside men and we say, well, she's clearly no better
Speaker 1: than she should be. But again, that's a lovely way
Speaker 1: to do humanized people. It's a lovely way to stigmatize
Speaker 1: them and blame them. Well, you no wonder you're Paul.
Speaker 1: Look at the way you're carrying on. It's absolutely disgraceful.
Speaker 1: So the poverty of the East End unfairly made it
Speaker 1: a target of anti vice campaigners. Preachers, evangelists and charity
Speaker 1: organizations flooded into East and neighborhoods like White Chapel not
Speaker 1: just to alleviate suffering, but also to attempt to correct
Speaker 1: the people who lived there. Sex tourists made the trip
Speaker 1: on the reputation alone, hoping they would find something there
Speaker 1: that wasn't on offer in the streets closer to home.
Speaker 1: And when women started to die, well, that brought a
Speaker 1: whole new set of urban explorers who saw their neighbors
Speaker 1: homes as sites to see. After all, writers both famous
Speaker 1: and anonymous, kept pumping out stories that made White Chapel
Speaker 1: and the surrounding streets sound like a foreign country. And
Speaker 1: that might sound unfair, but fairness never kept a writer
Speaker 1: with dramatic flair from spilling some dirt whenever there was
Speaker 1: dirt to be found, and in Victorian London, the writers
Speaker 1: as well as their readers knew that one could always
Speaker 1: find dirt in White Chapel. The Star wasn't finished, In fact,
Speaker 1: it was just getting started. After all, the Hanbury Street
Speaker 1: murder had been just what they were waiting for. There
Speaker 1: had even been a leather apron at the scene, and
Speaker 1: one of their writers was in the crowd on Hanbury
Speaker 1: Street that Saturday afternoon, watching the first wave of tourists
Speaker 1: pay for their peep show. The evening edition hit with
Speaker 1: the splash Horror upon horror, read the headline London lies
Speaker 1: today under the spell of a great terror. A nameless, reprobate,
Speaker 1: half beast, half man is at large who is daily
Speaker 1: gratifying his murderous instincts on the most miserable and defenseless classes.
Speaker 1: Even if London wasn't actually under a spell of terror, well,
Speaker 1: the Star was doing its best to change that, and
Speaker 1: there was no shortage of self congratulatory crowing. It nearly
Speaker 1: blasted off the page. There is no shadow of a
Speaker 1: doubt now that our original theory is correct. A strange
Speaker 1: sentiment to introduced the story of a murdered woman, But
Speaker 1: it didn't stop there. If nothing else, the star writer
Speaker 1: was certainly working hard. He interviewed Mrs Richardson, the woman
Speaker 1: who lived in the room of twenty Hanbury that looked
Speaker 1: out over the backyard. Her description of the victim's body
Speaker 1: was even printed in the paper, and the victim's name
Speaker 1: was too, Annie Chapman. A lodger in the house at
Speaker 1: thirty five Dorset Street where Chapman stayed, was able to
Speaker 1: identify her body that morning. That set journalists on a
Speaker 1: trail of everyone who ever knew her. Oh, and that
Speaker 1: leather apron that was in the yard where Annie Chapman
Speaker 1: was killed. They certainly didn't forget to mention that either.
Speaker 1: They might have been disappointed, though, because their investigation also
Speaker 1: turned up the apron's owner. It belonged to Mrs Richardson's son,
Speaker 1: and she left it out in the yard to dry
Speaker 1: after scrubbing away some mold. As they searched for details
Speaker 1: to fill in the story of Annie Chapman's life. The
Speaker 1: Star also searched for clues about who might have killed her,
Speaker 1: and for that they found plenty of people willing to talk.
Speaker 1: For instance, one woman said that at seven in the morning,
Speaker 1: a man came into her husband's bar, a man whose
Speaker 1: rough look gave her a sense of inarticulate fear. She
Speaker 1: said he was wearing a stiff brown hat, and under
Speaker 1: his dark overcoat he had on no waistcoat, and his
Speaker 1: shirt was torn, and what was more, there were spots
Speaker 1: of blood on the back of his hand. She served
Speaker 1: him one glass of ale. It was gone with a gulp,
Speaker 1: and then so was he. A woman across the street
Speaker 1: from the pub added to the story and filled in
Speaker 1: the picture. Yes, his shirt was torn and it was
Speaker 1: a light blue check. There was blood not just between
Speaker 1: his fingers, but also smeared under his right ear. A
Speaker 1: third witness said that he had seen the same man,
Speaker 1: dark coat, salt and pepper, trousers and overall a shabby,
Speaker 1: genteel look. He pinched his coat together as he went
Speaker 1: by in the streets. The witness said the man looked
Speaker 1: like a foreigner. It was everything the paper needed, even
Speaker 1: with the leather apron accounted for the confidence that they
Speaker 1: were on the trail of the kill are oozed from
Speaker 1: the pages, as did the certainty that the police were
Speaker 1: far behind, and the Star knew where to place the
Speaker 1: blame at the feet of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner himself,
Speaker 1: Charles Warren. Warren had brought in a military system, they wrote,
Speaker 1: Perhaps good enough for large ranks of officers charging down
Speaker 1: poor people marching in the streets, but was he any
Speaker 1: good at solving crimes? The Star argued that Warren had
Speaker 1: collared his own detective department and put them on a
Speaker 1: short leash. The officers of his Scotland yard hardly even
Speaker 1: knew the streets of Whitechapel where Paully Nichols and Annie
Speaker 1: Chapman had been killed. Warren had centralized control over his police,
Speaker 1: and that meant his inspectors were paralyzed waiting for instructions
Speaker 1: to come down the military style chain of command. At
Speaker 1: least that was the Stars idea, and there was some
Speaker 1: truth to it. Here's more on that from Dr Drew Gray.
Speaker 1: I think his military backgrounds in many respects defines his
Speaker 1: time as Commissioner of the met He didn't really get detection.
Speaker 1: He didn't get planes clothed, so he clashed with some
Speaker 1: I d And he didn't get on with his boss,
Speaker 1: who was the Home Secretary, Matthews. So he wasn't well
Speaker 1: served by his relationships. Probably I imagine it was quite
Speaker 1: a prickly upstanding military guide. If Warren's military approach helped
Speaker 1: him draft up a force of bobbies on the beat,
Speaker 1: then the tension in his relationship with a criminal investigation
Speaker 1: department was already clear at the beginning of As the
Speaker 1: previous year ended and Warren was bashing heads in Trafalgar Square,
Speaker 1: he got a note from the head of Scotland Yard
Speaker 1: saying that the detective department of the police was overworked.
Speaker 1: They wanted more men in their ranks. In particular, the
Speaker 1: current head of the Criminal Investigation Department, James Monroe, asked
Speaker 1: for a new post to be created in his office,
Speaker 1: Assistant Chief Constable, and Monroe also knew exactly who he
Speaker 1: wanted for the job. You see, Monroe had lived in
Speaker 1: India for a long time and there was a man
Speaker 1: there who had managed his family least tea plantations, a
Speaker 1: man named Melville McNaughton. Just as the Home Secretary had
Speaker 1: chosen Charles Warren when they wanted a police commissioner to
Speaker 1: squash restlessness among London's poor. The head of Scotland Yard
Speaker 1: wanted someone with the experience of managing a foreign country.
Speaker 1: In his recommendation, he said that McNaughton had a way
Speaker 1: of managing men that was impressive to him. In fact,
Speaker 1: he said he had seen him deal firmly and justly
Speaker 1: with and I quote turbulent natives in India, so he
Speaker 1: thought it was just the thing for managing crime in
Speaker 1: another foreign place, the poor neighborhoods of London. So Charles
Speaker 1: Warren took a look at the man's record and he
Speaker 1: decided not to do the Head of Scotland Yard any
Speaker 1: favors because Warren saw something he didn't like. He noticed
Speaker 1: that at one point Melville McNaughton had been attacked in
Speaker 1: India and beaten. So Warren came back with a condescending
Speaker 1: remark that McNaughton was the one man in India who
Speaker 1: had been beaten by the Hindus. To Warren, he wasn't
Speaker 1: good enough at imposing imperial control, so he wasn't good
Speaker 1: enough for the police force. Monroe, the head of Scotland
Speaker 1: Yard was enraged and embarrassed too. He had already told
Speaker 1: Melville McNaughton that he would get the job. After a
Speaker 1: few more months of haggling with Warren, their relationship getting
Speaker 1: worse all the time, Monroe simply resigned his replacement to
Speaker 1: lead the detective apartment. Took his new post on September one,
Speaker 1: the day after Polly Nichols was killed. So when a
Speaker 1: second murder arrived two weeks later, The Star wasn't the
Speaker 1: only paper beginning to count the bodies of the murdered
Speaker 1: women and thinking Warren's police might be losing. A week later,
Speaker 1: the East London Adviser would publish a piece blasting Charles
Speaker 1: Warren in similar terms. We are militarizing our police, their
Speaker 1: article read, but we do not seem to be able
Speaker 1: to make either good detectives of them or good local
Speaker 1: guardians of our lives and property. They blamed Charles Warren
Speaker 1: for choosing to skip the hiring of more detectives in
Speaker 1: favor of simply building up the ranks of the ordinary
Speaker 1: police from military units. He was replacing local constables with
Speaker 1: men whose only value was a few years of military service,
Speaker 1: but no other qualification in the old system. According to
Speaker 1: The Advisor, constables were men appointed by their neighbors to
Speaker 1: look after their lives and property, a member of the
Speaker 1: community that he served in and who knew it well.
Speaker 1: And nothing they said was more characteristic of the hunt
Speaker 1: after the Whitechapel murderer than the lack of local knowledge
Speaker 1: displayed by Charles Warren's officers. But if the Advisors shared
Speaker 1: the opinion that Charles Warren was failing at his post,
Speaker 1: they hadn't seemed interested in doing their own speculation about
Speaker 1: the identity of the killer when the Star was whipping
Speaker 1: up anti Semitic hatred against foreigners. The September eighth edition
Speaker 1: of The Adviser was simply republishing stories that they had
Speaker 1: heard about gang violence in Whitechapel. There is a strong
Speaker 1: belief current, they wrote, that there is more than one
Speaker 1: person concerned in the outrage. One woman on Cambridge Road
Speaker 1: had given her account of being old into an alley
Speaker 1: by a gang of bullies. They ripped off her purse,
Speaker 1: ear rings, necklace and brooch. One of the gang held
Speaker 1: a knife to her throats and growled, we will serve
Speaker 1: you as we did the others. It was the kind
Speaker 1: of event that was all too common in London at
Speaker 1: the time, and it was the kind of suspicion the
Speaker 1: police had been following up to that point. After all,
Speaker 1: it had been a violent gang that had committed the
Speaker 1: Regent's Park murder, and it was a gang of men
Speaker 1: who had killed Emma Smith in Whitechapel that April. No
Speaker 1: clues yet had been found to identify the killers of
Speaker 1: Martha Tabrom and Polly Nichols, But alongside the suggestion that
Speaker 1: there was a lone murderer on the hunt, the police
Speaker 1: had also been following the suspicion that it was one
Speaker 1: or many of London's gangs that had killed the women.
Speaker 1: After all, high rip gangs had been known to bully
Speaker 1: and extort sex workers throughout the city and the East
Speaker 1: Ends undeserved reputation as the pinnacle of London prostitution was
Speaker 1: just as well known to the police as to anyone else.
Speaker 1: Without anything to go on, it was the default assumption
Speaker 1: that when sex workers were in attacked, it was likely
Speaker 1: to be a high rip gang scooping up their earnings
Speaker 1: and threatening them for more. But the police read the
Speaker 1: papers too, and despite the criticism of the detectives. The
Speaker 1: stars theory was filtering into the offices at Scotland Yard,
Speaker 1: not to mention that the string of killings was already
Speaker 1: challenging the assumptions of the inspectors. And of course there
Speaker 1: was another theory developing two inside the office of the surgeon,
Speaker 1: who was mulling over Annie Chapman's deadly wounds. So in
Speaker 1: the days after Annie was killed in Hanbury Street, constables
Speaker 1: stepped up their efforts to capture White Chapel's leather Apron,
Speaker 1: and the Scotland Yard detectives put their heads together with
Speaker 1: corner Wind Baxter to see what could be gleaned about
Speaker 1: the shabby madman who still remained on the loose. Every
Speaker 1: arrest led to an uproar. The constables in White Champel
Speaker 1: were still making their ordinary arrest for brawling, for burglary
Speaker 1: or disorder, but the neighborhood was buzzing with fear. They
Speaker 1: were waiting for the arrest of the killer. The papers
Speaker 1: reported crowds gathering around every confrontation with police and chasing
Speaker 1: after arrests, yelling they've got leather Apron. But sometimes it
Speaker 1: didn't even take an arrest. One constable broke through an
Speaker 1: angry crowd and short ditch to see that they had
Speaker 1: surrounded a drunk cabinet maker. They were calling him leather
Speaker 1: Apron and threatening to give him a taste of London justice.
Speaker 1: After all, he looked just like the picture of leather
Speaker 1: Apron that had been printed in the papers. But now
Speaker 1: the police had their man. On Monday, September t leather
Speaker 1: Apron was in custody. A police sergeant collared him at
Speaker 1: his home on Mulberry Streets in Whitechapel. They dragged him
Speaker 1: to the police station and gave him a squeeze. After all,
Speaker 1: they were feeling the pressure too. Things were getting out
Speaker 1: of hand and they needed to make an arrest. The
Speaker 1: thing is, leather Apron isn't all that mysterious. The sergeant
Speaker 1: who arrested him made that clear when he talked to
Speaker 1: the papers. I've known him for years, he said. He's
Speaker 1: been in hiding, and it's my opinion his friends have
Speaker 1: been screening him. He's not been in lodging houses. He's
Speaker 1: too well known there. It was till the early hours
Speaker 1: of this morning. I was told where I could put
Speaker 1: my hands on him. The man's name was John Piser.
Speaker 1: His nickname leather Apron had simply been his calling card.
Speaker 1: Here's historian Paul Beg. Unfortunately for him, it turned out
Speaker 1: that there was a man in the Eastern with the
Speaker 1: nickname of leather Apron. John Piser was the son of
Speaker 1: a Polish immigrant, and he was a slipper maker by trade,
Speaker 1: and he wore a leather apron, which was the usual
Speaker 1: attire for someone in his line of business, and for
Speaker 1: some reason it had also won him the nickname leather Apron,
Speaker 1: probably because he walked to work and came home and
Speaker 1: everything wearing the apron. We don't really know an awful
Speaker 1: lot about it for certain, except that his health was
Speaker 1: poor that a police sergeant for some reason thought it
Speaker 1: likely that he was the man allegedly spoken about by
Speaker 1: the local prostitutes to the start, and so he was
Speaker 1: arrested and hauled in. In fact, this wasn't John Pyser's
Speaker 1: first arrest that year. The other reason the sergeant would
Speaker 1: have known Pyser is that he was booked just a
Speaker 1: month before, on August four. That arrest was for attacking
Speaker 1: a woman in Whitechapel. The charge was indecent assault, and
Speaker 1: if the rumors that sparked. The stars reporting are true.
Speaker 1: It's likely that Pyser was a cruel and violent man
Speaker 1: who took out his anger on sex workers all around London.
Speaker 1: But when the police worked him over, John Pyser had
Speaker 1: very little to offer them. He had alibis for the
Speaker 1: night of each murder. And what didn't make the police
Speaker 1: work any easier was that word got out Pyser had
Speaker 1: been arrested soon enough. Not only was the police sergeant
Speaker 1: learning that the leather Apron lead was a dead end,
Speaker 1: but he was also protecting the man he had arrested
Speaker 1: from a gathering crowd, one that was now shouting threats,
Speaker 1: a crowd ready to enact some mob vengeance on the
Speaker 1: Jewish immigrant they had been told to fear. It was
Speaker 1: exactly the sort of reaction that the Jewish community in
Speaker 1: White Chapel knew to expect. No wonder they helped John
Speaker 1: Pyser to hide when words started to go around that
Speaker 1: leather Apron was the White Chapel killer. It wasn't the
Speaker 1: end of Pyser's involvement, though, because when when Baxter opened
Speaker 1: the inquest into Annie Chapman's death on that same Monday,
Speaker 1: September ten, he called John Pyser to testify. It would
Speaker 1: take a few days before the notorious leather Apron would appear.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, the familiar surroundings of the Working Lads
Speaker 1: Institute brought the corner a parade of constables who could
Speaker 1: describe the scene of Annie Chapman's death. It brought in
Speaker 1: a few of her companions from the cheap lodging houses
Speaker 1: of Whitechapel, who described the last times they had seen her,
Speaker 1: the last conversations they'd had. The people who knew Annie
Speaker 1: the longest knew she wasn't always an east Ender. In fact,
Speaker 1: she wasn't always a poor woman. Her father had been
Speaker 1: a respectable soldier, serving in the second Regiment of the Lifeguards,
Speaker 1: and when he was pensioned, he took a job as
Speaker 1: a ballot. Annie herself had married another man of respectable service,
Speaker 1: a coachman named John Chapman. As a coachman, John had
Speaker 1: scored a couple of good jobs, first for a nobleman
Speaker 1: in West London, and then a position in a village
Speaker 1: out in Windsor Forest. For a while, Annie was living
Speaker 1: there with her husband and three children, in what might
Speaker 1: seem to be the expected path for working class victorians
Speaker 1: of good station. But as Annie's brother would later write,
Speaker 1: she was given to drink, and when she was drunk,
Speaker 1: she would wander the wealthy neighborhood around Windsor. Forest took
Speaker 1: note of that behavior. For Annie and for John, it
Speaker 1: was an embarrassment and maybe even more, John could potentially
Speaker 1: lose his position. The family made Annie sign a pledge
Speaker 1: to oh sober. After all, they said, she was married
Speaker 1: and in a good position, but over and over again
Speaker 1: she was tempted and fell. The family mustered its resources
Speaker 1: and rallied around her. She went to a home for
Speaker 1: the Cure of the intemperance, where they paid for her
Speaker 1: to live for a full year, and it seemed that
Speaker 1: she had kicked it. But one night John had to
Speaker 1: work despite having a severe cold. To fortify himself, Annie's
Speaker 1: sister wrote, he took a glass of hot whiskey. He
Speaker 1: took his shot when Annie was in a different room
Speaker 1: because he was afraid of tempting her. But then he
Speaker 1: gave her a kiss on his way out the door.
Speaker 1: All the old cravings came back, Annie's sister wrote, and
Speaker 1: after that day she couldn't stay sober. The family living
Speaker 1: around London, didn't know exactly where Annie went after that.
Speaker 1: She would visit them sometimes and they would do their
Speaker 1: best to help her. John would send money, but his
Speaker 1: health was failing and he died in six when he
Speaker 1: was just forty five. It may be that Annie didn't
Speaker 1: tell her family where she was living because that embarrassment,
Speaker 1: that shame still followed her. After all, she ended up
Speaker 1: in lodging houses in spittle Fields and Whitechapel. She made
Speaker 1: friends though. In fact, for a while she had a partner,
Speaker 1: Jack Civy, and when he left London, she reconnected with
Speaker 1: an acquaintance from her time in Windsor, a man named Edward,
Speaker 1: who would spend his weekends with her. They would meet
Speaker 1: up on Dorset Street in spittle Fields. Other lodgers said
Speaker 1: that she was friendly, even helpful, steady going. They even
Speaker 1: knew her as a sober woman. It seems she really
Speaker 1: did try to hold to her pledge, though. In the
Speaker 1: week before she died, she had gotten into a spat
Speaker 1: with another lodger when she had seen them stealing from
Speaker 1: a drunk companion. Annie stood up for the victim, but
Speaker 1: the fight left her with bruises on her head and chest.
Speaker 1: These bruises were noted down when her body was examined
Speaker 1: in the mortuary. It wasn't until that Thursday September that
Speaker 1: the surgeon would provide his testimony at Win Baxter's inquest.
Speaker 1: That's when Dr Phillips laid out his conclusions. Whatever knife
Speaker 1: made the cuts on Annie Chapman's body, there wasn't a
Speaker 1: bayonet or even a sword bayonet. The knives used in
Speaker 1: the leather trade weren't long enough either. What it might
Speaker 1: have been, though, was such an instrument as a medical
Speaker 1: man used for post mortem purposes. It could have been
Speaker 1: a slaughterman's knife, he said, well ground down, but at
Speaker 1: the very least there were indications of anatomical knowledge. And
Speaker 1: what's more, he told when Baxter and so the press
Speaker 1: as well about the missing portions of the body. When
Speaker 1: the Times published their report on the inquest the next day,
Speaker 1: Dr phillips theory was at large and it brought in
Speaker 1: a swift response to Win Baxter. That is, he got
Speaker 1: a startling letter in the mail from a curator of
Speaker 1: a medical schools pathology museum. He said he had information
Speaker 1: that might help with the case. So when Baxter paid
Speaker 1: the man a visit, the curator had read Dr phillips
Speaker 1: testimony in the paper, and he had seen that Annie
Speaker 1: Chapman's uterus was missing, and that had jogged his memory.
Speaker 1: A few months earlier, an American doctor had come to
Speaker 1: the medical school with a strange offer. He said that
Speaker 1: he was looking to buy organs and he would pay
Speaker 1: twenty pounds for a uterus as long as it was
Speaker 1: preserved in glycerin. Other news reports would later fill in
Speaker 1: the details that the doctor was a surgeon from Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: and then he had passed along the same offer at
Speaker 1: both Middlesex Hospital and at King's College. The American doctor
Speaker 1: was apparently writing a book, the report said, and he
Speaker 1: wanted specimens to go along with them. Whether or not
Speaker 1: this convinced the coroner right away. It was an extra
Speaker 1: push through a door thrown open by the speculations of
Speaker 1: Dr Phillips. It got Baxter wondering, even if the killer
Speaker 1: wasn't a doctor, was there a chance that he was
Speaker 1: killing women in the hopes of cashing in on their organs.
Speaker 1: After all, the days of broken hair were passed, but
Speaker 1: body snatching and trading in corpses was never truly out
Speaker 1: of fashion. So if the killer wasn't a member of
Speaker 1: a gang. Perhaps he was even more desperate and violent,
Speaker 1: and more willing to do horrible deeds for a pocket
Speaker 1: full of coin. And so, when Baxter was left to
Speaker 1: wonder could the killer be the kind of person who
Speaker 1: would sell his own neighbors for parts, Warren was winding
Speaker 1: his watch. Monroe had just resigned from leading the detectives
Speaker 1: at Scotland Yard. His replacement had been selected. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing. He took the role on September one, the
Speaker 1: day that Polly Nichols was found dead, the day after
Speaker 1: Annie Chapman was murdered. Well, he went on vacation. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was more like medical leave than vacation. Charles Warren
Speaker 1: had agreed with him that all the officers were a
Speaker 1: bit overworked, and he more than most. Plus he had
Speaker 1: a nagging throat infection that just wouldn't go away. Warren
Speaker 1: told him to spend the month of September in Switzerland.
Speaker 1: Warren's instructions actually came by letter because he was in
Speaker 1: northwest France taking his own kind of working holiday. And
Speaker 1: you may remember that the inspector assigned to White Chapel
Speaker 1: at the time was also gone. That's why they had
Speaker 1: called in Frederick Aberline from the Central Office to help
Speaker 1: with Polly Nichols case, and when Baxter brought him back
Speaker 1: again for Anti Chapman's inquest. Before his police work, Aberleine
Speaker 1: had been a clocksmith, coming to grips with how all
Speaker 1: the intricate weights and gears pulled together to follow the
Speaker 1: flow of time. That was his specialty. Now Aberline was
Speaker 1: on the case in Whitechapel and he was ticking. In
Speaker 1: his later years, Aberleine would remember that he fell down
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole. He told the pall Mall Gazette in
Speaker 1: nineteen o three that his interest in the case was
Speaker 1: especially deep. He had been an inspector in Whitechapel for
Speaker 1: fourteen years, and now he was being called back into
Speaker 1: service there. I went back to the East End just
Speaker 1: before an each atman was found, he said. And many
Speaker 1: a time, instead of going home when I was off duty,
Speaker 1: I used to patrol the district until four or five
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. And as he patrolled the streets,
Speaker 1: he kept his eyes open looking for clues. He saw
Speaker 1: a few killers, but he saw many women like Paully
Speaker 1: Nichols and Annie Chapman, women with no money, even to
Speaker 1: pay for the cheapest lodging houses in the neighborhood. Many
Speaker 1: a time I gave homeless women fourpence or sixpence for
Speaker 1: a shelter, he said, to get them away from the
Speaker 1: streets and out of harm's way. But if Aberleine was
Speaker 1: making all night patrols, watching Whitechapel minute by minute, Charles
Speaker 1: Warren knew that he needed someone higher up to tell
Speaker 1: the hours, someone from Scotland Yard who knew Aberline and
Speaker 1: his work, and who could coordinate with the detective on
Speaker 1: the ground. And so from his perch in France, Warren
Speaker 1: decided it was finally time to bring Chief Inspector Donald
Speaker 1: Swanson onto the case. He had solved the Brighton railway
Speaker 1: murder and caught the prints. He had risen through the
Speaker 1: ranks and now had a bird's eye view of the
Speaker 1: city from the Scotland Yard offices at Whitehall. He had
Speaker 1: worked side by side with Aberline since the early days
Speaker 1: when they had broken up the illegal playhouse for the
Speaker 1: vices they needed to stop. Now we're much more grave.
Speaker 1: On September a letter from Warren circulated among the top
Speaker 1: officers in the Scotland Yard Central office. It opened with
Speaker 1: what can only be called an arrogant note from Warren.
Speaker 1: I am convinced that the Whitechapel murder cases one which
Speaker 1: can be successfully grappled with if it is systematically taken
Speaker 1: in hand. I go so far as to say that
Speaker 1: I could myself, in a few days unraveled the mystery,
Speaker 1: provided I could spare the time. Perhaps not the most
Speaker 1: auspicious beginning, but he went on, I feel, therefore the
Speaker 1: utmost importance to be attached to putting the whole Central
Speaker 1: Office work in this case in the hands of one man,
Speaker 1: who will have nothing else to concern himself with. I
Speaker 1: therefore put it in the hands of Chief Inspector Swanson,
Speaker 1: who must be acquainted with every detail. I look upon
Speaker 1: him for the time being as the eyes and ears
Speaker 1: of the Commissioner. In this particular case. He must be
Speaker 1: consulted on every subject. I give him the whole responsibility.
Speaker 1: And so, despite the absences among the leadership, the team
Speaker 1: of detectives who would truly hunt the Whitechappel killer was
Speaker 1: now on the case. Here's historian Adam Wood when Warren
Speaker 1: wrote that memorandum appointing Swanson to the overall rule charge
Speaker 1: at Scotland Yard. He made he made a comment saying
Speaker 1: that I found a most important letter was sent to
Speaker 1: Division yesterday without his seeing it. This is quite an error.
Speaker 1: Should not happen again. And all the papers in Central
Speaker 1: Office on the subject of the murder must be kept
Speaker 1: in his room and immediately from that and in fact
Speaker 1: back dating some of the reports. Every every import and
Speaker 1: telegram on the investigation was submitted to Swanson at Scotland Yard.
Speaker 1: So you can mention he's spent a good few weeks
Speaker 1: reading and nodgesting all the reports that had been generated
Speaker 1: um before his appointment and came right back to m
Speaker 1: Smith and Martha Taboram before the murder of Polly Nichols,
Speaker 1: all the reports that had come from H Division in
Speaker 1: Whitechapel and J Division of bethanal Green who had been
Speaker 1: involved in the Mary and Nichols investigation. And it was
Speaker 1: only really once you've done this you could identify the
Speaker 1: potential links and loans investigation. So a monumental task now
Speaker 1: faced Swanson. Melville McNaughton might not have taken the role
Speaker 1: among Charles Warren's detectives, but that didn't keep him from
Speaker 1: respecting the men who were there and McNaughton called Donald
Speaker 1: Swanson a very capable officer with a synthetical turn of mind.
Speaker 1: Swanson was just the right climber for the mountain before him.
Speaker 1: All of this, though, was happening behind the scenes. On
Speaker 1: the streets of Whitechapel, the same confusion and chaos still reigned,
Speaker 1: and although that had its effect on every resident of Whitechapel,
Speaker 1: it's business owners felt that they were particularly unlucky at
Speaker 1: how things were being handled. After they had been told
Speaker 1: that no reward would be issued for the murderer, about
Speaker 1: seventy men gathered together. They agreed that they were seeing
Speaker 1: a drop in income. People weren't coming around their shops.
Speaker 1: When the afternoons began to get dark, the crowds of
Speaker 1: visitors vanished and the streets emptied out. So they put
Speaker 1: their heads together and made a decision. If the police
Speaker 1: weren't protecting their streets, then they would do it themselves.
Speaker 1: The business leaders and shop owners of Whitechapel formed what
Speaker 1: the Star called vigilance committees. They would make their own
Speaker 1: street patrols alongside whatever constables the Metropolitan Police assigned to
Speaker 1: their neighborhoods, and they attracted some attention too. They put
Speaker 1: together a statement that reached The Times on September twelve.
Speaker 1: They declared that our police force is inadequate to discover
Speaker 1: the authors of the late atrocities, and that because the
Speaker 1: government would not offer a reward, they would pool their
Speaker 1: resources and offer one themselves. They weren't completely alone, though
Speaker 1: the Jewish Member of Parliament elected from Whitechapel, Samuel Montague,
Speaker 1: added his own reward of one hundred pounds to the
Speaker 1: offer made by the Vigilance Committee. No one knew better
Speaker 1: that without leads, the accusations were falling hard on the
Speaker 1: Jewish community in the East End. He even wrote a
Speaker 1: letter directly to Charles Warren saying that the Home Secretary's
Speaker 1: opinion that the murders required nothing but the usual procedures
Speaker 1: was not in accordance with the general feeling on the subject,
Speaker 1: and opened a somewhat tense exchange on the government's choice
Speaker 1: of not offering incentives for information on the killer. But
Speaker 1: incentives or no. Letters began coming in offers from across
Speaker 1: England suggesting methods of catching the killer. The Times would
Speaker 1: later remark that it is almost needless to say that
Speaker 1: none of the communications help in any way and honestly,
Speaker 1: if solving the murders came down to sorting through numerous reports,
Speaker 1: confusing documents, and unhelpful advice from people who weren't there.
Speaker 1: That Donald Swanson's synthetical frame of mind was going to
Speaker 1: come in handy because things we're about to become much
Speaker 1: more complicated. The killer confessed that is the killer in
Speaker 1: Jacquelin Hide. The story ends with a long section called
Speaker 1: Henry Jekyl's Full Statement of the Case, a letter written
Speaker 1: by Jekyl explaining everything. He lays it all out there
Speaker 1: for the hero of the story so that by the
Speaker 1: last page the picture is clear and wouldn't that be nice? Well,
Speaker 1: at the end of September, something surprising did happen in London,
Speaker 1: and it means we have one more letter to explore.
Speaker 1: Londoners were eagerly glued to the papers, looking for something, anything,
Speaker 1: that would bring things to a close, or that would
Speaker 1: at least move the investigation forward, and then out of
Speaker 1: the blue, someone decided to give it to them. On September.
Speaker 1: As the investigation stretched on, one press office at a
Speaker 1: company called the Central News Agency received a strange postcard.
Speaker 1: At first, they thought the letter was a joke. For
Speaker 1: a couple of days. They passed it around the office,
Speaker 1: reading it, discussing it, maybe even laughing at it. After all,
Speaker 1: there were plenty of opinions to be published on the murders,
Speaker 1: but maybe someone in the office thought of Jacqueline Hide.
Speaker 1: Maybe one of them just couldn't shake the feeling that
Speaker 1: if what they were reading was true, they had to
Speaker 1: do something about it. So on September twenty nine, the
Speaker 1: note was forwarded to Scotland Yard and it must have
Speaker 1: landed on Donald Swanson's desk. But for reasons that are
Speaker 1: about to become clear, he wasn't laughing. In fact, it
Speaker 1: was the letter that would coin the name we know today.
Speaker 1: It opened like this, Dear Boss, I keep on hearing
Speaker 1: the police have caught me, but they won't fix me
Speaker 1: just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever
Speaker 1: and talk about being on the right track. That joke
Speaker 1: about leather apron gave me real fits. I am down
Speaker 1: on whors and I shan't quit ripping them till I
Speaker 1: do get buckled. After that, more mockery of the victims
Speaker 1: and the police followed. A PostScript even read they say
Speaker 1: I am a doctor now with a mocking laugh. The
Speaker 1: writer said that he had saved some blood in a
Speaker 1: ginger beer bottle to write with, but it went thick,
Speaker 1: so he chose red ink instead, and yes, the letter
Speaker 1: was written in red. When he signed off, the writer
Speaker 1: put down, keep this letter back till I do a
Speaker 1: bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife's
Speaker 1: so nice and sharp. I want to get to work
Speaker 1: right away if I get a chance. Good luck, and
Speaker 1: then he wrote the name yours truly, Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 1: That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around
Speaker 1: after this short sponsor break for a preview of what's
Speaker 1: in store for next week. On the night after Martha
Speaker 1: Tabron was murdered, Elizabeth Stride was in court. She had
Speaker 1: been dragged in for a drunkenness and for using obscene language.
Speaker 1: She was told that she would be locked up for
Speaker 1: five days or she could pay a five shilling fine.
Speaker 1: At the time, Liz Stride had the money, so she
Speaker 1: paid the fine and walked away. And it wasn't the
Speaker 1: first time. She had been fined two shillings and sixpence
Speaker 1: on Valentine's Day the year before, when she was arrested
Speaker 1: on the same charges by now, though, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: know where Liz stride story goes, because in the early
Speaker 1: morning hours of September, Liz Stride found herself doing something
Speaker 1: few people had the courage to do that autumn, walking
Speaker 1: alone through the dark of Whitechapel. Unobscured was created by
Speaker 1: me Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Josh Thayne in partnership with I Heart Radio. Research
Speaker 1: and writing for this season is all the work of
Speaker 1: my right hand man Carl Nellis and the brilliant Chad
Speaker 1: Lawson composed the brand new soundtrack. Learn more about our
Speaker 1: contributing historians, source material and links to our other shows
Speaker 1: over at History unobscured dot com and until next time,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening. Unobscured is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Aaron Monkey. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit i heeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.