Speaker 1: Pushkin, bundled up in scarves and shawls against the bitter
Speaker 1: January morning, Spectators by the thousand gather in the jail
Speaker 1: yard beneath the gallows. Charles Christopher Robinson is about to
Speaker 1: hang for murder, and the excited crowd has risen early
Speaker 1: to watch him wriggle and writhe at the end of
Speaker 1: a rope. Kate Edos is likely among those jostling and
Speaker 1: elbowing for a view of the drop. She earns her
Speaker 1: living writing songs and singing them on the streets, and
Speaker 1: she's seen many a new snap tight around a villain's neck.
Speaker 1: Because nothing sells quite as well as ballads about murderers
Speaker 1: and Hali. Kate's wandering itinerant ways will eventually take her
Speaker 1: to a neighborhood gripped by fear of a shadowy serial killer,
Speaker 1: but she will not turn his deeds into a profitable song. Instead,
Speaker 1: her voice will be among those silenced forever. I'm Hallie Rubbin.
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 sky.
Speaker 1: Then fortune smilder. Upon me I naw One passmder Sees
Speaker 1: to lime con Rock, the Eddows family crowded onto an
Speaker 1: open topped canal boat, burdened with baskets and bundles and
Speaker 1: whimpering little ones. They were heading a hundred miles south
Speaker 1: from Wolverhampton to London, and though a journey by train
Speaker 1: would have been far quicker and more comfortable, such a
Speaker 1: convenience was beyond their means, so instead they piled into
Speaker 1: the narrow vessel among other passengers and an awkward cargo
Speaker 1: of barrels and boxes. Slowly, the familiar industrial landscape of
Speaker 1: their hometown, the smoking furnace, chimneys and heaps of mining waste,
Speaker 1: would have transformed into the strange new scenery of rural England,
Speaker 1: green and yellow fields, bright with wild flowers, ancient churches
Speaker 1: and country estates. These novel sights would have kept the
Speaker 1: five eldest Eddo's children occupied, but the youngest child, Kate,
Speaker 1: was scarcely nine months old, far too young to comprehend
Speaker 1: the change of scenery or the circumstances that had forced
Speaker 1: the family to leave their hometown in the first place.
Speaker 1: Kate's father, George had run into some trouble. A skilled
Speaker 1: tin plate worker, George had been active in his local union.
Speaker 1: After he led a strike, his employer had him prosecuted
Speaker 1: for agitating among his fellow workers. For his offenses, George
Speaker 1: did two months hard labor, and upon his release he
Speaker 1: would have realized that he was blacklisted from working in
Speaker 1: his hometown, so he sought employment in London. George settled
Speaker 1: his wife, Katherine and their six children not far from
Speaker 1: the Stinking Thames waterfront, were the canal both docked. If
Speaker 1: George had been the father of a more modest collection
Speaker 1: of children, this move to London might have brought the
Speaker 1: family a degree of comfort and the opportunity for his
Speaker 1: sons and daughters to rise in society. As a skilled
Speaker 1: tinplate worker, George could earn well in the capital city,
Speaker 1: and he was entitled to a better rate of pay
Speaker 1: than many of the general laborers who populated his neighborhood.
Speaker 1: But for working class families like his household, income ebbed
Speaker 1: and flowed according to the number of earners under a roof,
Speaker 1: and the burden of six children soon blocked any route
Speaker 1: to improvement for the working class woman, in particular, earning
Speaker 1: potential would be crippled by the onset of childbearing and
Speaker 1: domestic obligation, and women from large families were often trapped
Speaker 1: in inescapable cycles of poverty. Women and girls were significantly
Speaker 1: less likely to be able to obtain the level of
Speaker 1: skill at which working class wages start to be good.
Speaker 1: A working class girl would be pulled out of school
Speaker 1: as soon as she was old enough to look after
Speaker 1: her younger siblings, says social historian Sarah Wise, passing these
Speaker 1: duties on to the next child in line. She might
Speaker 1: then have taken up a job at the very bottom
Speaker 1: of the pile. She may be able to do things
Speaker 1: like work in a factory, or perhaps be a domestic servant.
Speaker 1: Upon marriage, she will almost immediately become a mother, and
Speaker 1: then she will be reliant on a male wage. But
Speaker 1: until the eldest child is in its turn old enough
Speaker 1: to start going out to work to contribute to the
Speaker 1: family budget, that's the point at which a family is
Speaker 1: really struggling. Sometimes women combined work with the noise and
Speaker 1: chaos of childcare. Mothers might perform low skilled assembly work
Speaker 1: at home, making matchboxes or sewing together clothing, for example,
Speaker 1: but their earnings would be small. This was the bleak
Speaker 1: future that lay before Kate and her sisters, just as
Speaker 1: it described the life of their mother. Access to contraception
Speaker 1: might have transformed the lives of these women, who were
Speaker 1: starved of any opportunities beyond mind numbing chores and nursing
Speaker 1: their wailing offspring. By the nineteenth century, social reformers had
Speaker 1: published works on methods for restricting family size. These varied
Speaker 1: from reusable condoms known as French letters constructed from sheep's gut,
Speaker 1: to contraceptive wards pieces of wool or sponge, perhaps soaked
Speaker 1: in vinegar, that were inserted before sex. While basic contraceptive
Speaker 1: information was discreetly conveyed to the literate middle classes, the
Speaker 1: working classes were left in the dark, perpetual childbearing, plead,
Speaker 1: the lot of being a working class wife. All this
Speaker 1: took its toll on the well being of women like
Speaker 1: Kate's mother. The ranks of the Eddo's family continued to
Speaker 1: swell even after the move to London. By eighteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: Kate's mother had given birth an exhausting twelve times. Every
Speaker 1: new arrival meant less food on the table for everyone,
Speaker 1: thinner soup, smaller chunks of bread and evermore water down milk.
Speaker 1: Surely our heartbreaking process of rationing for a mother, As
Speaker 1: one maternal rights campaigner of the era noted, if there
Speaker 1: is saving to be done, it is not the husband
Speaker 1: and children, but the mother who makes her meal off
Speaker 1: the scraps which remain or plays with the meatless bones.
Speaker 1: Kate's mother would have been expected to be the first
Speaker 1: to go hungry, even if she was pregnant or breastfeeding.
Speaker 1: She would also have been engaged in domestic labor into
Speaker 1: the moment of each child's birth, and was probably back
Speaker 1: at the scrubbing, cooking, and heavy lifting within days of
Speaker 1: her delivery. This could have serious health repercussions, including hemorrhages,
Speaker 1: severe vericos veins, and crippling back problems. Managing an army
Speaker 1: of offspring presented practical hardships, but it also seems that
Speaker 1: Kate's parents wanted better for their children, and they chose Kate,
Speaker 1: possibly aged as young as six, to attend the esteemed
Speaker 1: Dowgate School. This institution was run by a charity, and
Speaker 1: it offered a rigorous and focused education to the area's
Speaker 1: poor children. Kate would also have learned music and singing here.
Speaker 1: It would have been an honor to have a child
Speaker 1: at this school, though why precisely her parents selected Kate
Speaker 1: for this privilege is unknown. Perhaps she demonstrated a particular
Speaker 1: spark and intelligence which set her apart from her brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters. The intention of the Dowgate School was to
Speaker 1: create a better sort of working class person, one who
Speaker 1: would go forth into the labor force, dignified, clean, thoughtful,
Speaker 1: and obedient or the same. It did not offer its
Speaker 1: girls the same kind of opportunities as its boys. Boys
Speaker 1: were groomed for placements in engineering, architecture and in banks. Girls, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: were prepared for roles in, of course, domestic service. The
Speaker 1: boys are being taught to be future breadwinners, on the
Speaker 1: understanding that they will have families and they will be
Speaker 1: looking after their wives and their children. Even the Delgate
Speaker 1: School's pathway to betterment was part of a structure that
Speaker 1: intended women to be dependent upon a male wage earner
Speaker 1: and to endure all the accompanying insecurity. The problem with
Speaker 1: the ideal is that so often it didn't work out.
Speaker 1: Marriages fail, breadwinners die, breadwinners scarpa, breadwinners get put into prison,
Speaker 1: leaving single women either on their own or with children.
Speaker 1: Childhood for the sons and daughters of the Victorian laboring
Speaker 1: classes was fleeting, often curtailed abruptly by family circumstances. When
Speaker 1: Kate entered her early teens, she lost her mother to tuberculosis.
Speaker 1: Death at just forty two was hardly unusual for a
Speaker 1: woman of her class. Less than two years later, George
Speaker 1: followed his wife to the grave. The ten Eddo's children
Speaker 1: were now without parents. While Kate's elder sisters were able
Speaker 1: to either marry or find employment, the youngest children had
Speaker 1: to be dispatched to the dreaded Workhouse as orphans. But
Speaker 1: what to do with fifteen year old Kate. This was
Speaker 1: a source of anxiety for her eldest siblings. Her sister
Speaker 1: Emma recalled, we wished especially to get her away. Kate's
Speaker 1: aunt and uncle, who lived back in Wolverhampton, agreed to
Speaker 1: take her in, and she soon found herself on a train,
Speaker 1: leaving behind all she had ever known for a place
Speaker 1: she did not remember, to live among strangers with whom
Speaker 1: she shared nothing but a surname. Whether Kate had any
Speaker 1: say in this move was doubtful, but it would ultimately
Speaker 1: determine the course of the rest of her life. The
Speaker 1: rippery told will be back in a moment. Kate's train
Speaker 1: sped away from London and into the deadened, scorched landscape
Speaker 1: of a region that had recently come to be called
Speaker 1: the Black Country. An industry of chain making, brick baking,
Speaker 1: and steel forging had risen from this land, fed by
Speaker 1: a thirty foot thick vein of coal which ran through
Speaker 1: the country side. Those who did not graft in the
Speaker 1: factories or before the furnaces dug at the seam itself,
Speaker 1: drawing forth the lifeblood that sustained the engines. By day,
Speaker 1: the chimneys blotted out the sun with a rain of soot.
Speaker 1: By night, the forges glowed demonoically through the darkness. Even
Speaker 1: for those accustomed to horrific scenes of misery, the Black
Speaker 1: Country was a hellish vision. On every side, as far
Speaker 1: as the eye could see, tall chimneys crowding on each other,
Speaker 1: wrote Charles Dickens. The horror of oppressive dreams poured out
Speaker 1: their plague of smoke, obscured the light, and made foul
Speaker 1: the melancholy air. Although Kate had grown up in the
Speaker 1: shadow of London's leather tanneries and workshops. This new environment,
Speaker 1: shaped by heavy industry, would have seemed as foreign and
Speaker 1: strange to her, as did her new family. Kate settled
Speaker 1: with her uncle William and her aunt Elizabeth. Although sad,
Speaker 1: the loss of parents was too commonplace to be an
Speaker 1: excuse for not pulling one's weight, and at fifteen, Kate
Speaker 1: was able to earn her own keep, so she would
Speaker 1: have been put out to work without delay. Her aunt
Speaker 1: and uncle found her a job as a scourer at
Speaker 1: a local factory, a good position, they would have lectured her.
Speaker 1: Kate worked alongside other women amid furnaces and machinery. She
Speaker 1: would have used long handled tongs or pickling forks. Did
Speaker 1: it recently forge tinware into a vat of acid, preparing
Speaker 1: it to be she lacked, then she would have dried
Speaker 1: the piece of tinware and sawdust, repeating this entire process
Speaker 1: again and again from dawn until dusk, six days a week.
Speaker 1: There were benefits to this work. The advantages are that
Speaker 1: it's a wage of any kind, it can be very convivial,
Speaker 1: and you're independent, unlike her domestic servant, are your own
Speaker 1: free agent. It's not quite the same as doing the
Speaker 1: dirty work for another couple in a social class above you.
Speaker 1: At the same time, the pay was poor, the hours
Speaker 1: were long, and the work was often dangerous. Burning eyes,
Speaker 1: raw throats, and the occasional industrial accident were all par
Speaker 1: for the course. So horrible jobs for horrible wages, things
Speaker 1: involving awful chemicals or dangerous bits of machinery, lots of
Speaker 1: really deadly trades that wouldn't be allowed these days. I
Speaker 1: think factory life kind of ground down both men and women.
Speaker 1: This was not the kind of work that the Dowgate
Speaker 1: School or Kate's elder sisters had intended for her, but
Speaker 1: it was a wage or the same. After working long hours,
Speaker 1: Kate would have assisted with domestic duties at home two,
Speaker 1: cooking and cleaning, and looking after her young cousin. It
Speaker 1: was probably also around this time that she acquired a
Speaker 1: jolly disposition and a fondness for drink. The local pub
Speaker 1: just a few doors down the road from Kate's new
Speaker 1: home would have offered her an escape. Eventually, Kate grew
Speaker 1: both restless and reckless. According to members of her family,
Speaker 1: she was caught stealing from work. She was scolded and
Speaker 1: dismissed from her position. No criminal charges were brought, but
Speaker 1: the words and recriminations of her aunt and uncle at
Speaker 1: home would have been fundrous. They were said to neither
Speaker 1: forgive nor forget this infraction, and it came to define
Speaker 1: nineteen year old Kate's future. She packed her belongings, planning
Speaker 1: once more to start her life afresh. This time she
Speaker 1: set out on foot, walking fourteen miles to this city
Speaker 1: of Birmingham, where she hoped to find refuge with another
Speaker 1: family member. Kate's uncle, Tom was a shoemaker, but he
Speaker 1: supplemented his income with brute strength as a bare knuckle boxer.
Speaker 1: British men of all classes were hooked on the sport,
Speaker 1: but fighters generally came from working class backgrounds. While respectable
Speaker 1: ladies were not supposed to be present at such matches,
Speaker 1: it was just about permissible for working class women to attend.
Speaker 1: It is likely that Kate watched her uncle from amid
Speaker 1: the crowds, slightly star struck, and came to believe that
Speaker 1: he could offer the sort of sympathetic home she had
Speaker 1: not found in Wolverhampton. But if Kate had hoped to
Speaker 1: avoid a life of factory drudgery, she was sorely disappointed.
Speaker 1: She knew tin work, and there were plenty of jobs
Speaker 1: to be had here for young women. No longer a scourer,
Speaker 1: Kate now sat at a long table with polishing cloths,
Speaker 1: working the surfaces of decorative trays into a high sheen,
Speaker 1: so that somewhere in a house what a parlor, a
Speaker 1: serving maid could deliver tea to her mistress on an
Speaker 1: object pretty enough to make her visitors envious. Kate fell
Speaker 1: back into the old routine, rising at dawn or in darkness,
Speaker 1: home for supper, and climbing into a bed shared with
Speaker 1: her cousin. It did not matter where she fled, to
Speaker 1: the house of a bare knuckle boxer or a tinplate worker.
Speaker 1: The rhythm of her life would be this until she married.
Speaker 1: Then it would be her mother's life, the pain of
Speaker 1: child bearing, the weariness of childrearing, worry, hunger and exhaustion,
Speaker 1: and eventually sickness and death. The stories as to how
Speaker 1: Kate Edoes met Thomas Conway differ. By one account, the
Speaker 1: twenty year old Kate was nice looking and warm hearted,
Speaker 1: and Conway was a gray eyed irishman with light brown
Speaker 1: hair and a talent for telling tales. A former soldier
Speaker 1: who had journeyed to India with his regiment. Conway had
Speaker 1: been discharged from the army because of physical disability and
Speaker 1: continual infirm principally rheumatism and chronic bronchitis. He had become
Speaker 1: a chat bookseller, moving from village to village, peddling short
Speaker 1: pamphlets decorated with woodcut engravings. These chat books recounted everything
Speaker 1: from fairy tales to biographies, poems and short stories. At
Speaker 1: taverns and pubs, he might also pull out a collection
Speaker 1: of broadside ballads, songs printed on a single large sheet,
Speaker 1: which told of the loss of love or set forth
Speaker 1: the story of a bloody crime. The lyrics were usually
Speaker 1: set to a well known tune, so that purchasers could
Speaker 1: throw down their penny, grab a sheet, and launch into
Speaker 1: a new song over a pint of ale. Thomas Conway
Speaker 1: would certainly have cut a romantic figure with his tales
Speaker 1: of tigers and fragrant jungles. He was footloose and had
Speaker 1: slipped the ties that held conventional nineteenth century existence together.
Speaker 1: It was understandable then that Kate Jolly going in open
Speaker 1: would find him, in his lifestyle, an attractive alternative to
Speaker 1: the drudgery of her own. Kate's family, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: took an instant dislike to Conway, with no real occupation,
Speaker 1: as well as no home, no family, and no reliable
Speaker 1: income beyond his poultry army pension. This Irish drifter was
Speaker 1: like a figure in a Victorian cautionary tale. Any layers
Speaker 1: on with his kind was seen as a one way
Speaker 1: ticket to poverty, starvation, and the workhouse. But Kate was
Speaker 1: said to be infatuated with Conway, and she would not
Speaker 1: be discouraged when her aunt issued her with an ultimatum.
Speaker 1: She chose the penny ballad salesman and left their house.
Speaker 1: By July of that year, Kate was pregnant. While Kate's
Speaker 1: behavior would have brought shame on the Eddo's family, unmarried
Speaker 1: pregnancy was not so unusual. Among the privileged classes, female
Speaker 1: chastity was taken as a measure of a young woman's character.
Speaker 1: By contrast, for the working classes, virginity did not hold
Speaker 1: the same significance. Working class lives were governed by practicalities.
Speaker 1: Commentators express concern that, on account of cramped living conditions,
Speaker 1: the sexualization of the laboring classes occurred at a very
Speaker 1: young age. With space and short supply, and many family
Speaker 1: members often sharing a single room. The notion of bodily
Speaker 1: privacy and modesty were luxuries that the working classes simply
Speaker 1: could not afford. When social reformer Henry Mayhew interviewed girls
Speaker 1: involved in slop work, the manufacture of cheap clothing, one
Speaker 1: told him, I am satisfied that there is not one
Speaker 1: young girl that works at slop work that is virtuous.
Speaker 1: There are some thousands in the trade among the laboring classes.
Speaker 1: Many also chose to cohabit rather than mary. Working class
Speaker 1: communities lived by a simple rule. If a couple said
Speaker 1: they were married and behaved accordingly, then they were. At
Speaker 1: the same time, attitudes towards cohabiting couples were full of
Speaker 1: contradiction and nuance. Landlords and employers could be quick to
Speaker 1: turf out those whom they discovered were not legally wed,
Speaker 1: and women naturally bore the brunt of any persecution, especially
Speaker 1: if illegitimate children were involved. When Kate threw in her
Speaker 1: lot with Thomas Conway, she would been fully aware of
Speaker 1: the risks she was taking, yet they seemed preferable to
Speaker 1: the life she already knew. Joining forces with Kate would
Speaker 1: have had its advantages for Conway too. She proved herself
Speaker 1: to be a useful, even masterful, business partner. She could
Speaker 1: assist Conway by singing the ballads that he flogged her
Speaker 1: passers by. Together, the couple might also perform duets or
Speaker 1: engage in a theatrical repartee. As an extrovert who had
Speaker 1: been taught music at school and who loved singing, street
Speaker 1: performance would have suited Kate's inclinations far better than laboring
Speaker 1: in a factory. Conway himself was illiterate, so Kate could
Speaker 1: have transcribed his stories, those about his adventures with the
Speaker 1: army in India, for example, to be sold on as ballads.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the couple hunched over pub tables together, Kate with
Speaker 1: inky fingers, acting the scribe to Conway's poet, curiously scratching outlines, arguing, recomposing,
Speaker 1: and singing. Kate had made her escape from conventional existence,
Speaker 1: but the one she had chosen was not as happy
Speaker 1: or carefree as she might have imagined. The miseries of
Speaker 1: itinerant life, of sodden, frozen, filthy clothing and a rumbling
Speaker 1: belly with no shelter in sight could not be underestimated.
Speaker 1: Kate would have had limited opportunities to enjoy a bath
Speaker 1: or londer. Her clothes, and what little the couple possessed
Speaker 1: they carried with them, which made them prey to robbers
Speaker 1: and tricks. It's hardly a wonder, then, that in her
Speaker 1: ninth month of pregnancy, Kate found herself knocking on the
Speaker 1: door of a workhouse infirmary. The workhouse accommodated expectant and
Speaker 1: destitute mothers, but in many cases the guardian sought to
Speaker 1: distinguish between deserving married women and the fallen who had
Speaker 1: arrived to bear children out of wedlock. So when Kate
Speaker 1: appeared at the workhouse, she gave her name as Catherine
Speaker 1: Conway and claimed that she was married to a laborer.
Speaker 1: Kate now had a roof over her head, but this
Speaker 1: was by no means a safe haven for childbirth. In
Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties, pregnant women might lie next to patients
Speaker 1: suffering from tuberculosis, smallpox and syphilis, and infants were delivered
Speaker 1: without the use of soap and water. After their baby
Speaker 1: was born, Kate and Conway returned to tramping up and
Speaker 1: down the country. In the course of their wandering, Kate
Speaker 1: would have laid the infant down to sleep in stable stores, churchyards,
Speaker 1: against walls, or under trees, all as the rain lashed down.
Speaker 1: This mode of life could never have felt entirely satisfying,
Speaker 1: though Kate must have found something that sustained her the
Speaker 1: joy of performance. Perhaps the singing and storytelling and composing
Speaker 1: of tales, and just as it had for Polly Annie
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth drink two, would have helped dull the discomfort
Speaker 1: and sorrow. Always on the lookout for a payday, it
Speaker 1: seems unlikely that Kate and Conway would have missed the
Speaker 1: hanging of murderer Charles Christopher Robinson. Hanging days were big
Speaker 1: business for ballad and chat booksellers who belted out rhyming
Speaker 1: lamentations on the murderer. Executions would have been Kate Conway's
Speaker 1: bread and butter, and the Robinson case was a salacious one.
Speaker 1: The atmosphere at the jail that January day would have
Speaker 1: been comparable with the kind of excitement of a county fair.
Speaker 1: Vendors of tea, coffee, and hot milk set up stalls,
Speaker 1: and the crowds filled their stomachs with currant buns, boiled eggs,
Speaker 1: sheep's trotters, and cakes. Being Christians give beer unto my tail.
Speaker 1: It's horror room. I was at staffer, Jeff. The horrid
Speaker 1: crime I had done, Shine, I murdered love Barrant Figer.
Speaker 1: Dear Robinson had cut his young fiance's throat during an argument,
Speaker 1: and then attempted and failed to shoot himself. The killer
Speaker 1: was a distant cousin of Kate's, leading some to argue
Speaker 1: that it was she who penned this musical account of
Speaker 1: the killing. I well deserve my wretched fate. No one
Speaker 1: can pity me to think that I, in my code blood,
Speaker 1: could take her life away. She no harm to me
Speaker 1: have done. How could I serve her so? No one
Speaker 1: my feelings now can tell. My heart was full of
Speaker 1: wa Not long after Robinson's execution, Kate and Conway decided
Speaker 1: to settle in London. This the home of Kate's youth
Speaker 1: and of her sisters. After years of roving, it was
Speaker 1: now time for the prodigal child to make her return.
Speaker 1: The Rippery told, will be back in a moment. Back
Speaker 1: in London, Kate was careful about revealing too many details
Speaker 1: of her life to her sisters, though her lack of
Speaker 1: a wedding ring was likely to have raised questions, as
Speaker 1: would the tattoo of Thomas Conway's initials inked crudely onto
Speaker 1: her forearm. It's likely that Conway had Kate's initials marked
Speaker 1: on his arm too. It was by the exchange of
Speaker 1: such gestures, rather than with wedding bands and a church service,
Speaker 1: that many working class couples solemnized their commitment to each other.
Speaker 1: Their bond was sealed on their own terms. But, like
Speaker 1: many of the decisions Kate had made, acquiring a tattoo
Speaker 1: was deeply subversive. On a man's body, a tattoo was
Speaker 1: a mark of his manliness and spirit of adventure. On
Speaker 1: a woman's body, however, a tattoo flouted the conventions of
Speaker 1: feminine purity and beauty. But what if a Kate's sisters
Speaker 1: whispered amongst themselves. Her appearance in London seems to have
Speaker 1: signified a desire to make changes to her life. Kate
Speaker 1: and Conway were soon settled in a clean and comfortable house,
Speaker 1: and they had two more children. Conway, however, struggled to
Speaker 1: establish himself in London as a seller of books and ballads.
Speaker 1: The competition was intense, and so with young children to feed,
Speaker 1: he went to work as a laborer. The couple found
Speaker 1: themselves struggling to make ends meet, and sustenance ran thin.
Speaker 1: Kate was soon reporting her youngest infant's death from malnutrition,
Speaker 1: the final convulsions of which she would have felt in
Speaker 1: her arms. Perhaps it was this incident that prompted Conway
Speaker 1: to head north in search of work. Kate now found
Speaker 1: herself caught in a vicious circle. Conway had to leave
Speaker 1: London to find work, but in doing so, he abandoned
Speaker 1: his partner and their children without any support, and no
Speaker 1: amount of women's labor could ever bring in the sum
Speaker 1: adequate to cover the family's needs. Single unwed mothers were
Speaker 1: not entitled to receive parish handouts either. The authorities were
Speaker 1: concerned that providing financial support to women with illegitimate children
Speaker 1: would be tantamount to a state subsidy of prostitution, and
Speaker 1: so to receive help, Kate had to surrender herself to
Speaker 1: the cruel regime of the workhouse. Over the years, she
Speaker 1: would be in and out of this institution, often accompanied
Speaker 1: by one or more of her children as she passed
Speaker 1: through the so called archway of tears. Once Kate was
Speaker 1: inside the workhouse, doors. The board of guardians was at
Speaker 1: liberty to label her either decent or damned. At many workhouses,
Speaker 1: mothers who had given birth the illegitimates were fed a
Speaker 1: punishment diet of water down skilly, a type of broth
Speaker 1: made from oats and water and little else. Worse still,
Speaker 1: when Conway did return, he was often violent. He began
Speaker 1: to beat Kate, whose sisters were shocked by her disfigured appearance.
Speaker 1: Both her eyes had been blackened. But as was in
Speaker 1: keeping with Victorian attitudes, they held Kate responsible for her
Speaker 1: partner's violence. They believed that she provoked Conway with her
Speaker 1: excessive drinking. People believed men had the right to correct
Speaker 1: their wives. Ginger Frost is an expert on Victorian domestic violence.
Speaker 1: There's basic belief is undergirding almost all of this acceptance
Speaker 1: of domestic violence, of his right to control her, to
Speaker 1: tell her where she can go and what she can do.
Speaker 1: A degree of violence within the home was thought to
Speaker 1: serve a disciplinary function. Husbands felt no remorse for administering
Speaker 1: a chastising slab, while wives were often made to feel
Speaker 1: but they had asked for it. We still do that.
Speaker 1: We don't put the focus on the violent mail. We
Speaker 1: put the focus on the woman. What did you do
Speaker 1: to provoke this? Why didn't you leave when you could,
Speaker 1: Why did you say what you did, Why did you
Speaker 1: wear what you did. It's endlessly about the woman who's
Speaker 1: getting hid, and not the man who's doing the hitting.
Speaker 1: In Kate's time, a beating at the hands of one's
Speaker 1: husband might be prompted by any number of supposed infractions,
Speaker 1: the use of foul language, the rejection of his sexual advances, drinking, disobedience, impertinence,
Speaker 1: or simply offering a challenge to his superior role within
Speaker 1: the family. There were other reasons. The Edo's Klan did
Speaker 1: little to intervene in Conway's violence, too. There's not a
Speaker 1: lot of family can do unless she leaves him. There
Speaker 1: was little legal support available for victims of domestic violence.
Speaker 1: In fact, a legal textbook from the time, Principles of Punishment,
Speaker 1: described wife beating as a crime that varies infinitely in
Speaker 1: degree of criminality. A wife's perpetual drunkenness was often used
Speaker 1: as a successful defense by spouses in assault trials, and
Speaker 1: where conviction did occur, punishment would be minimal. If you
Speaker 1: bring a case against him, say an assault case, he
Speaker 1: may get three months, and most women who are dependent
Speaker 1: financially on men do not want the police involved because
Speaker 1: if he goes away for three to six months, she
Speaker 1: has no income. For this reason, many wives would not
Speaker 1: testify against their husbands before a magistrate. Conway and Kate, however,
Speaker 1: faced a different set of circumstances. The real question for
Speaker 1: me with couples like this, if they're not married and
Speaker 1: they're not happy, why don't they leave? That's the question,
Speaker 1: not just her, but him too. You're not legally married.
Speaker 1: You could walk away from each other, no harm, no foul.
Speaker 1: Were they to separate, Conway would not be required to
Speaker 1: be Kate any alimony. Still, in spite of their apparent
Speaker 1: misery together, they're destructive and abusive relationship limped on for
Speaker 1: a number of years. Gina recognizes this pattern in her
Speaker 1: own research. I think the reason is that they do
Speaker 1: think they're married in every important way, and it's a
Speaker 1: committed relationship. On the men's part, I think it's possessiveness.
Speaker 1: I think it's not just I love her, it's nobody
Speaker 1: else can have her. A kind of attitude that you
Speaker 1: see in a lot of violent men, that they're trying
Speaker 1: to control the woman in every way they can. It's
Speaker 1: also very dangerous for women to leave. I can't tell
Speaker 1: you how many violence cases I have in the nineteenth
Speaker 1: century where she gets killed as soon as she tells
Speaker 1: him I'm leaving, or she's left, and a month later
Speaker 1: he catches up with her and cuts her throat. So
Speaker 1: it is dangerous to stay, but it is also dangerous
Speaker 1: to leave. And once a woman has lived with a man,
Speaker 1: her reputation is very low. She's unlikely to find a
Speaker 1: good provider or someone to marry her. After that, Conway
Speaker 1: exhibited no shame at all for his actions and was
Speaker 1: said to warn openly Kate, I shall be hung for
Speaker 1: you one of these days. Clearly the execution of Charles
Speaker 1: Christopher Robinson had not left a lasting impression. Kate became
Speaker 1: ever more distant from her siblings, and more worryingly, began
Speaker 1: to abandon her children for weeks on end. To where
Speaker 1: she disappeared on these occasions is anyone's guess, but her
Speaker 1: behavior begs many questions about her state of mind and
Speaker 1: her use of alcohol. Earlier that year, another one of
Speaker 1: her children had died, a circumstance that may have exacerbated
Speaker 1: her existing problems. Eventually, in eighteen eighty one, Kate and
Speaker 1: Conway separated for good. He painted himself as the victim,
Speaker 1: stating that he had found it necessary to leave Kate
Speaker 1: on account for drinking. But Kate's sisters disputed this narrative,
Speaker 1: stating that Kate had left Conway because he treated her badly.
Speaker 1: Kate's behavior began to spiral further. She was charged with
Speaker 1: drunken disorderliness and dragged off the streets as she spewed
Speaker 1: obscenities at passers by. On two occasions, she spent a
Speaker 1: short spell in prison for her behavior. By this point,
Speaker 1: all but one of Kate's siblings had distanced themselves from her,
Speaker 1: but she still maintained a good bond with her sister Eliza,
Speaker 1: whom she followed to the district of Whitechapel whenever she could.
Speaker 1: Kate rented a bed at a lodging house around the
Speaker 1: corner from the little garret where Eliza lived. It was
Speaker 1: here that she met John Kelly, the man who would
Speaker 1: fill Conway's empty boots. But if the Edo's women had
Speaker 1: taken a disliking to Thomas Conway, their disdain for John
Speaker 1: Kelly seems to have been even greater. Although Kelly was
Speaker 1: described as quiet and inoffensive, which was more than could
Speaker 1: be said for Conway. In the eyes of Kate's family,
Speaker 1: he possessed one major failing that Conway did not. He
Speaker 1: drank and heavily. Kate's eldest child, Annie, was unequivocal about
Speaker 1: her feelings on him. I've never spoken to him, and
Speaker 1: I don't like him. Ginger Frost thinks that Kelly wasn't
Speaker 1: a good provider and that the edo's sister's marginal preference
Speaker 1: for Conway tells us something about what was expected of
Speaker 1: a partner in the nineteenth century, which as you provide,
Speaker 1: that's the number one thing, and if you provide, then
Speaker 1: the woman has to put up with the rest of
Speaker 1: your crap. Irrespective of her family's sentiments with Kelly, Kate
Speaker 1: seemed to settle into a happier, though no less erratic pattern.
Speaker 1: The pair shared a love of the bottle, and the
Speaker 1: conviviality made them popular with their fellow lodgers. Kate was
Speaker 1: said to always be ready with the song and didn't hesitate,
Speaker 1: and her last fourpence for someone who hadn't made their
Speaker 1: doss money For a time, both she and John worked.
Speaker 1: Kate became a cleaning lady for Jewish families in the area,
Speaker 1: while Kelly labored at the market. Though this income was
Speaker 1: always disappointing and never reliable. Their handmouth existence didn't permit
Speaker 1: them to linger for too long in any one place,
Speaker 1: and they roam between London and the neighboring county of
Speaker 1: Kent in search of work. After twenty or more years
Speaker 1: of wandering, this existence may have seemed to Kate more
Speaker 1: comfortable than a settled life. Ever could a peddler was
Speaker 1: beholden to no one, not even family. Perhaps what most
Speaker 1: suited Kate about her association with John Kelly was that
Speaker 1: he appeared to make very few demands of her. Their
Speaker 1: connections seems to have been based on practicality rather than
Speaker 1: an emotional messy. First and foremost, Kate and Kelly appeared
Speaker 1: to have been committed to each other's daily survival. By
Speaker 1: the time they found each other, Kate had lost the
Speaker 1: goodwill of most of her family, She had suffered domestic
Speaker 1: violence and bereavement, and she had experienced the degradation of
Speaker 1: the workhouse as well as nearest ovation. Under such circumstances,
Speaker 1: What mattered most was the here and now, acquiring the
Speaker 1: drink that dulled the pain and the food that stopped
Speaker 1: the hunger. Kelly's company, his protection on the street, and
Speaker 1: his occasional income made survival simpler. In September eighteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: Kate and Kelly left London to go hot picking. They
Speaker 1: were among the thousands of city dwellers who poured into
Speaker 1: the rural county of Kent to help bring in the
Speaker 1: hot harvest, a vital ingredient and beer. But that year
Speaker 1: the crop was especially poor, and many laborers were forced
Speaker 1: to walk back to London having earned nothing. Kate and
Speaker 1: Kelly were among them. When they arrived back in town,
Speaker 1: they raised a little money by pawning Kelly's boots. By
Speaker 1: the end of the evening they had only fourpence left.
Speaker 1: It was decided that Kelly should have this money for
Speaker 1: a bed at a lodging house. Kate likely slept rough
Speaker 1: that night. The next morning, the pair were back at
Speaker 1: their usual doss house, making themselves comfortable in the communal
Speaker 1: kitchen and turning their minds once again to how they
Speaker 1: would find that night's money for lodgings. As they parted
Speaker 1: ways on the street outside. Kate assured Kelly that she
Speaker 1: would return to him by four o'clock that afternoon. She
Speaker 1: was hoping to get a few coins from a family
Speaker 1: member she intended to visit. He watched the woman in
Speaker 1: the black velvet and straw bonnet, his drinking hanyon, his
Speaker 1: partner bob down the crowded street, slowly disappearing from his view, and,
Speaker 1: although he did not know it yet, from his life.
Speaker 1: The next time John Kelly was to encounter Kate Edo's,
Speaker 1: it would be under the most terrible circumstances imaginable bad women.
Speaker 1: The Ripper Were Told. Is brought to you by Pushkin
Speaker 1: Industries and me Hallie rubbin Hold, and is based on
Speaker 1: my book The Five. It was produced and co written
Speaker 1: by 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 the voice talents of
Speaker 1: Soul Boyer, Melanie Gutridge, Gemma Saunders and rufus Wright. The
Speaker 1: show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of
Speaker 1: mil LaBelle, Jacob Weisberg, Jen Guerra, Heather Fane, Carlie Migliori,
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano, and Daniella Lacarne were special thanks
Speaker 1: to my agents Sarah Ballard and Ellie Kron