WEBVTT - S3 – 3: Stardom 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.960 Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey. 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:11.200 The story was already coming into focus. It was Friday, 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:15.320 August thirty one. One of the newest papers in London, 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.720 The Star, had an incredible report published on page three 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.159 of its evening edition. Polly Nichols had been killed in 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:24.759 the cold hours of that morning, but a journalist for 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:27.160 the paper had already been allowed into the mortuary where 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:29.880 her body was waiting to be examined, a day before 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:34.040 the doctor would conduct Polly's full autopsy. The horror and 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.720 sensation caused by Martha Tabram's death had just begun to 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:41.200 calm when, in the words of the paper, another discovery 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:44.599 is made, and one even more shocking. The paper had 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.600 no qualms about blasting out the details of her murder either, 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:50.519 Like other sensationalist stories of the day had meant to 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:55.760 draw in readers by horrifying them by provoking outrage. The 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.720 Star didn't publish the author's name, but the choice of 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.120 words would leave a terrible legacy. It described the cut 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.560 of Polly Nichol's throat, It described the bruises on her hands, 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.959 It described the bruises on her body, and the missing teeth, 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.000 but most significantly of all, the lower part of her abdomen, 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:18.200 it wrote, was completely ripped open. There was so much 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:20.920 more to who she was, but to the journalist, the 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:23.680 important thing was that the story reached print as soon 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:26.480 as possible. No one who examined the body had ever 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:28.880 learned the woman's name, yet all they had to go 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.120 on was her clothes. The article in the Star described 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.760 what she was wearing, including her bonnet faced with black velvet, 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.959 and her petticoat marked with Lambeth Workhouse on it. But 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:42.320 it was the cuts that were described at length and 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.280 in the most lurid terms. To the journalist, it was 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.360 more important to turn the stomachs of middle class readers 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.200 in Westminster than to tell the story of the woman 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.040 who lived in Whitechapel. And if there was anything that 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:57.720 could chill the spirits of London readers more than one 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.640 horrible murder, it was three easy enough to draw a 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:05.080 line from one to another. After all, the article declares 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.520 such a terrible murder and a quote could only be 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.919 the deed of a maniac. Same for the thirty nine 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.040 stabs that killed Martha Tabram. What about the other woman, 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.960 Emma Smith, who had been killed in Whitechapel that April, 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:23.160 just two streets over from where Martha's body had been found. Yes, indeed, 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:27.000 all this leads to the conclusion. The article ends that 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.520 there is a maniac haunting Whitechapel and that the three 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.280 women were all victims of his murderous frenzy. It was 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.679 a terrifying claim, and it did its work too. From 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:41.200 this moment forward, fear would ripple out to newsreaders around 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:45.400 London and beyond. Everywhere that had been reached by sensationalist 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.440 articles like Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon would find itself 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.919 visited by the story of Polly nichols murder. The story 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:57.640 would travel and fast. So it's probably worth noting that 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.720 even from the very beginning, the truth of the story 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:05.519 was mixed with dramatic lies. For instance, lies about Emma Smith. 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:08.400 It was true that she was a woman who had 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.079 been murdered in White Chapel in April, but the article 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.639 published in The Star connecting her killing to the deaths 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.239 of Martha Tabram and Polly Nichols by saying that Emma 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.680 and I quote died without being able to tell anything 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:24.080 of her murderer In fact, this was patently false. Emma 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.320 had suffered a brutal attack in the street. Afterwards, she 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:29.320 was able to make her way back to the lodging 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:32.560 house where she was staying. There, she told other lodgers 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.320 what had happened to her. They helped her to the hospital. 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:37.960 Along the way, she told the women helping her that 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.680 she was attacked by three men and one of them 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.400 was only nineteen years old. Emma even pointed out the 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.000 place where she was attacked as they passed by, and 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:49.960 she talked with the doctors who treated her wounds. All 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.280 of this had reached the papers within a week of 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.840 her death, after the inquest held by coroner Win Baxter, 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.360 was reported in major newspapers like The Times of London 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:03.280 and the front page of Lloyd's Weekly News. Of course, 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:06.200 almost five months later, it was more profitable for The 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.120 Star to leave out those details and replace them with 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.720 the suggestion of a mysterious killer who had already taken 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.640 three lives. It conjured up the image of a figure 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.119 haunting White Chapel who would never really leave. It didn't 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.320 hurt the paper if it brought in some cash in 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.839 the process of spinning up a false narrative of events. 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.839 The thing is, though Emma's murder was horrible enough, there's 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.240 no question that her death, along with Martha Tabraham's and 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.479 now the murder of Polly Nichols, were a terrible sign 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.600 of life in East London. No price can be put 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.360 on any human life, but an evening issue of the Star, 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:50.279 well that was just one halfpenny. This is unobscured. I'm 0:04:50.440 --> 0:05:15.320 Aaron manky Wind. Baxter looked refreshed. He was newly back 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.279 home from his Scandinavian holiday when he walked into the 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:22.000 large library of the Working Lads Institute of Whitechapel on 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.119 September one, and it was certainly time to get to work. 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.479 There was an inquest to supervise, after all, but he 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.640 couldn't do that with thout a dash of style. The 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.080 East London Observer reported the Baxter stroll to the inquest 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.360 in a pair of black and white checked trousers, dazzling 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:42.480 white waistcoat, a crimson scarf and a dark overcoat. It 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:44.159 was one of the moments that would lead to the 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.719 Corners slowly building a reputation for being something of a showman, 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:52.080 something of a personality. After all, if you remember when 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.360 Baxter from his role in solving the Brighton railway murder. 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.400 His family had a history in the news business. If 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:00.719 anyone could have known the power of the press to 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.200 lift a Sussex corner to even greater heights, it would 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.919 have been Win Baxter. But the family at issue in 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.280 the inquest wasn't Baxter's. The doctor who had examined the 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.640 body of Polly Nichols gave testimony at the inquest, so 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.520 did the first constable who found her. But it was 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.800 a man named Edward Walker who spoke first because he 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:25.400 was Polly's father. Edward viewed her body and confirmed her 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.799 identity with immense grief. He was a gray headed, gray 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.080 bearded man, according to the papers, with his head lowered 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.320 and his hands behind his back. He entered his testimony 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:39.440 into Win Baxter's inquest records. Later that day, after the 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:43.600 official statements, Detective Frederick Aberline brought Polly's husband to do 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.480 the same. We can only imagine the weight of shock 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.960 and grief that hung over both of them. Together, the 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.880 two men began to provide Win Baxter and the Scotland 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:57.039 Yard detectives with the outlines of Polly's life. Here's historian 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:03.000 Paul Beg. Maryanne Nick was born in eighteen forty five 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:06.560 near Fleet Street, which is where lots of newspapers were 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:11.320 located until relatively recently. She was the middle of three children. 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.400 The others were brothers, one older and the other younger, 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.680 and she married a man called William Nichols in eighteen 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.680 sixty four. He was a printer, and they would have 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:26.080 five children, and they lived quite comfortably in a block 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.960 are flats or apartments as you might call them, known 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:34.280 as peabody buildings, which just was somewhat upmarket place. You 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.120 had to have certain qualifications to be allowed to live there, 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:42.600 and they had shared toilet facilities, they were cooking facilities, 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.800 There was a close washing area. You could even book 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.400 and have a hot bath every day if you liked so. 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.480 There were facilities for personal hygiene, and most of those 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:58.720 things were things that people in the surrounding houses didn't 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.880 necessarily endure. So you can see that they were a 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:06.440 little bit upmarket, paying a modest rent for this kind 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:13.440 of establishment. But about the couple separated, the precise circumstances 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:18.520 aren't properly understood, but William Nichols said that Mary Ann 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.960 began drinking heavily, and had left him on several occasions. 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.800 Then she left him for good. It was a picture 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.880 of life that in some ways was very different from 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.560 Polly's East End neighbors. When Polly moved into a Peabody 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:35.880 building with her husband and five children, it was a 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:39.360 sign that they were doing well, at least financially. He 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.000 was a printer as machinist like the young man killed 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:44.760 in the Regent's Park murder. And if he was employed 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.319 by any of the newspapers whose presses were running day 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:51.760 at night, well he probably had regular work. But money 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.600 isn't everything. At the inquest on her death, Polly's husband 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:59.000 emphasized that she was a hard drinker. In a counterpoint, 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:03.040 Polly's father emphasized that her husband left her, took another 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.880 woman to live with, he said, and turned nasty when 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.480 the marriage fell apart. Polly lived with her father for 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.240 a while, but things weren't happy in his home either, 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:16.160 and Polly continued to drink. The four youngest children stayed 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.199 with Polly's husband, the oldest went to live with her father. 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.720 In the following years rather than live with either man, 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.960 Polly was in and out of London workhouses. For a 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.440 few years, she lived with the widower and his three 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.439 children in Walworth, a bit south of the River Thames. 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.920 But even if she saw the potential of starting a 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.760 new family with this man beyond the reach of London 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:43.240 central streets and East End alleyways, well, tragedy followed her anyway. 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:48.440 Polly's brother died horribly in six On an ordinary evening. 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:50.960 As he was talking with his wife and getting ready 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.240 for bed, his paraffin lamp exploded as he tried to 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.040 put it out. He was covered in severe burns and 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.840 never recovered. If Polly was as devastated by her brother's 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.360 death as we can imagine, then it's easy to see 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.360 why things might have fallen apart again. She left her 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.920 new partner within a year. At the beginning of eight 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:13.319 Polly Nichols had a placement as a servant, but that 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.600 didn't last long. In July and August, in the days 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.319 leading up toward death, she was in the East End, 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.640 scratching out what money she could and taking shelter in 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:24.839 any place that would give her a bed for just 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.240 a few pence. But on the night of her murder 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.560 she didn't even have that. The Deputy keeper of a 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.160 lodging house on Thrall Street found her in the kitchen 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:37.480 an hour after midnight. He asked her for fourpence to 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:39.680 pay for a bed, and when she told him she 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.199 didn't have the money, he put her out on the street. 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.640 He said, she looked at him and laughed. She pointed 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.960 at her bonnet faced with black velvet, and said, I'll 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.200 soon get my doss money. See what a jolly bonnet 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:56.080 I've got now. The last time she was seen alive 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.120 was at two thirty that morning. A friend ran into 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.000 her in the streets and tried to get her to 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.040 come back to a lodging house for the night, but 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.960 Polly refused. I have my lodging money three times today, 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.640 she told the friend, and I have spent it. It 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:15.200 left her with nowhere to go, nowhere but the streets 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:22.680 of Whitechapel. Let's be honest, true crime cells. It was 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:26.040 as true then as it is today. But the publishers 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.520 of London's papers weren't the only ones who saw the 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.560 news of Polly's murder in terms of pennies and pounds. 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.560 There were other east Enders who spent their time thinking 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:38.080 about the bottom line as well. That included the clothing 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.840 manufacturers L. M. P. Walter and Son. Their shop was 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:44.480 on Church Street in spittle Fields and they were part 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:46.400 of the industry that had been at the center of 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:51.240 Britain's industrial expansion. In five they build themselves as the 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.920 largest manufacturer of juvenile clothing in the Kingdom. They were 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.840 selling clothes across Britain, but especially for every foreign and 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.840 colonial market. They said they were hoping to sell their 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:07.439 check trousers and white waistcoats to the wind baxters of Canada, Australia, 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.920 India and South Africa. Now they saw all of that 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.720 under threat because three women had just been murdered in 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:19.120 their neighborhood. Tucked in the government records is a letter 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.920 from those manufacturers that reached the Home Office on the 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.319 day after Polly nichols murder. It begged for the government 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.079 to take action. They explained how terrified they were. They 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.880 had just hired a night watchman to protect their shops 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:35.360 and their workers. After all, if a killer roamed the streets, 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.720 their employees might not show up to work. They urged 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.480 the Home Secretary to follow the same course that had 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.320 led to the capture of the Brighton Railway murderer to 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:48.280 issue a reward. They seemed to say that enough incentive 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:50.880 could bring the hidden aspects of the mystery to light. 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.040 After all, who better to know how far money could 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:56.920 go in Whitechapel than the owners of its powerful and 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:02.880 profitable businesses. People, that is, like the American businessman George Peabody. 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.199 He had begun like the Bryant family, whose grocery business 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.800 had turned into a successful match factory. George Peabody, though 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:14.320 was actually from Massachusetts. His career started when he opened 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.920 a dry goods store with his uncle in Washington, d c. 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:19.800 By the eighteen eighties, though, he followed the Bryants on 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:24.200 a path to power, from merchant to broker to international banker. 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.400 And if you were an international banker, there was no 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:31.640 better home than London. In the decades after he founded 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.920 his London firm, George invested in all sorts of endeavors. 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.480 He invested in American railroads. He gave thousands to a 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.920 young explorer named Elisha Kent Kane, who set off in 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.760 search of the lost Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin. George 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.959 Peabody even served as the director of the Atlantic cable 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:52.440 company that connected the United States and the United Kingdom 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:57.440 in eighteen fifty eight. But George Peabody read the papers too, 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.280 so he was confronted on a daily basis with the 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:04.040 failures of a growing London to provide for its poorest citizens, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:06.360 and he started to think of ways to offer what 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:10.120 he thought the city lacked. But his idea arrived at 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:13.040 something of a bad time. You see, he wanted to 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.240 make a charitable gift to London. In eighteen sixty two, 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:21.000 during the American Civil War, and despite Britain's official declaration 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:25.400 of neutrality, most British merchants and officials supported the Confederacy. 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.600 They didn't care how cotton was produced, as long as 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:32.080 it was cheap and reached British ports in high stacks 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:36.240 suppressed bales. After all, clothing manufacturers like L. M. P. 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.320 Walter and Son wanted to keep their British mills running. 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:44.440 So George Peabody tiptoed carefully through the political minefield. He 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.720 talked with his friends about the project and eventually abandoned 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:51.320 his first plan to build public water fountains throughout the city. 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.480 Then he thought of funding schools, but on the advice 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.520 of the Seventh Earl of Shaftsbury. He landed on exactly 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.960 what the poor needed most better. How's in Throughout the 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:06.160 eighteen sixties, George Peabody poured millions into the model housing 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.040 that would first be built in London's East End. It 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.520 was supposed to create a kind of lifestyle for east 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.560 Enders that would trim embarrassing situations from the national landscape. 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.200 For his gift, George Peabody was celebrated in the London 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:24.160 papers for unprecedented munificence. Queen Victoria even sent him a 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:28.920 personal portrait in gratitude. But as Polly's life details show us, 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:31.880 if the idea was to help the very poorest Londoners, 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.880 that got lost somewhere along the way. Here's historian Dr 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:40.880 Drew Gray. This is part philanthropy, but obviously you're making profit, 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.960 hopefully but a small profit out of this. So there's 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:49.960 the Rothschild Buildings in Florendine Stream which built but many 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:54.240 of these places, whilst the emphasis is on rehousing the pool, 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:58.280 they only really accommodate the working class who could guarantee 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.680 to pay the rent, the check that the men are 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.000 in work. They're checking that the children at school, that 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.840 the rooms are clean and tidy. And if you fail 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.400 in any of these areas or you can't pay your rent, 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.040 then you're going to be evicted. So and that, and 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.920 that's very difficult to guarantee for people at the very 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.000 bottom end of society, people who are the casual poor, 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.920 who don't have regular jobs, who are alive, for example, 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.520 on work at the docks, on picking up work on 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.440 a daily or a weekly basis. Now you can't guarantee 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:32.840 that you can pay your rent, so you're not going 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:35.680 to get into a models ready, and they are actually 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:40.760 the people that really need is decent housing. And it 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.240 was on the steps of a model dwelling in George 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.280 Yard Whitechapel where Martha Tabram's body was found at the 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:49.680 beginning of August. But if you'll remember, it wasn't because 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:53.280 she lived there. Just like Polly Nichols, Martha Tabram was 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:55.280 killed at a time in her life when even the 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.480 buildings meant to help London's poor were still a class 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:02.680 above her own. In response to their fears, the clothing 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.800 manufacturers L. M. P. Walter and Son received a nice 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.280 note back from the Home Secretary's office. It described in 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:13.760 gentle terms that the practice of offering rewards had been discontinued, 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:16.800 and in what would increasingly appear to be a deep 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:20.280 misunderstanding of the situation, the Home Secretary said that the 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.480 murders of women in the East End did not disclose 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.840 any special ground for departure from the usual custom, as 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.840 if there was anything usual about the murders. Of course, 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:34.439 for some the killings in Whitechapel weren't just a threat 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:39.080 to business or a minor administrative irritant. They were deeply personal. 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:43.840 Polly's father and former husband both received some brief notoriety 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:48.080 and some deeply galling attention when Baxter and Scotland Yard 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:50.680 called them into the Inquest to come terribly face to 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.560 face with Polly one last time, and that was where 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:58.360 they divulged the details of their personal pain. Journalists ran 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.600 back and forth between Polly's husband and father, collecting contradictory 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:05.719 statements about the greatest griefs and losses of their lives. 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.480 They were picked over and passed for anything useful, first 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:12.280 by the corner, then by the police, and then by 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.399 the papers, with the neighborhood gossips left to pick at 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.399 the scraps. And that's how it was for most east Enders. 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:24.119 Their contact with government officials didn't result in courteous correspondence. 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:28.000 Not everyone in Whitechapel found their way into a Peabody building. 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.400 The Peabody buildings helped the reputations of men who got 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.399 their names put on city blocks and helped many of 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.480 their bank accounts too. They did help the people who 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:41.040 could already afford them, but for the truly desperate it 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:43.600 was just one more example of a better life that 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.600 was out of reach. Here's Dr Gray once again. The 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:51.280 model dwelling movement is definitely a good thing, and you 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.399 can see many of the model dwellings people of the 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.040 buildings are still existent in London today. They built them 0:18:56.160 --> 0:19:00.960 very well, the beautiful examples of Victorian engineering building, but 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.320 they weren't pace here. So many other people in the 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:07.600 East End will have been forced into you know, poor 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.960 crowded housing, and we see terrible examples of people living 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.480 all the way down to two sellers where they're living 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:19.560 in sort of stigen conditions in dark, unlit, damp basements, 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.840 all the way up to living in attic spaces, whole 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.639 families in one room and no sanitation. You know, you 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:29.000 might have shared pilate facilities in the yard at the back, 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:33.959 so very poor, very cold in winter, very hot in summer. 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:36.760 So you see lots of images of white chapel, of 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:40.440 people outside, people being outside, because you wouldn't want to 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.679 be inside. Because also your inside space is also probably 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.160 your workshop space. So people who are working piece workers 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:50.159 and cobbling or building matchboxes are going to do that 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:52.840 at home. So you've kind of got to get the 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:54.960 kids out from under your feet in order to turn 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.440 them your space into a into a workspace during the day, 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:05.600 Families sharing beds. These these conditions were shocked the middle 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.240 classes when they came to investigate. That shock was strong 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.320 enough to launch the whole model dwelling movement. But the 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:15.240 Model Dwellings were just one of the major efforts by 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.560 well to do Londoners to reshape the East End and 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:22.440 to change the people there in the process. But others 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.399 took a very different approach to reforming life in the 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:34.679 East End. They chose to send an army. Things hadn't 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.240 exactly gotten better. Yes, Charles Warren had been a hero 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:40.600 of the British Empire when he was selected in eight 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.680 six to become the new Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.600 and that wasn't just because of his excavations on the 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.360 Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The engineer had also proved himself 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:55.720 to be a warrior and an investigator too. As an 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.080 engineer and a surveyor, he had been sent to South 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:00.840 Africa to draw the lines of the British crowns claim 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:03.199 to the land and of course the diamonds that had 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.439 been discovered there in eighteen sixty eight, and then to 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.000 keep both. The people who resisted English control were killed. 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:13.680 For some of that fighting, Warren commanded a regiment of 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:18.280 volunteers aptly named the Diamond Fields Horse. One historian writing 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.920 about the period put it in stark terms, white man's dreams, 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.560 black man's blood, and Warren spilled some of his own 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:30.199 blood too. After that, Warren was appointed Special Commissioner to 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.679 investigate what they called native questions. It was the first 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:36.560 inkling of that future period when he would become the 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.679 Police Commissioner of London in his own native land. His 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.520 greatest achievements in crime solving, though, came when he was 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:45.600 sent to the Sinai Peninsula in search of a lost professor. 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.439 The man who had disappeared was an archaeologist who has 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:53.000 served with the Palestine Exploration Fund, just like Warren had, 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:55.960 making him an agent of the Crown. Warren was able 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.080 to pick up the man's trail and find his bones too. 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:01.520 They were just covered in a gully, along with the 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.679 remains of five others. Then Warren criss crossed the desert 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:06.840 until he had built a case against a group of 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:10.880 Bedouin men, getting them convicted for murder. Five were executed 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:14.280 and eight more were imprisoned. Warren was heralded as a 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:18.080 hero detective. Along his way to his post with the 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:21.240 London Police, Warren was made a Fellow of the Knight Society, 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:23.960 a Night Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.440 and St George, and a Knight of Justice of the 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.439 Order of St John of Jerusalem. A mouthful, I know, 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:32.679 but if a police career could be built on imperial 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:37.000 titles and accolades, while Warren had them in spades. Of course, 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:39.959 when he stepped into the role of London's Police Commissioner, 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:43.680 he found himself handling a delicate situation. After the previous 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.679 commissioner had failed to stop those West London riots in 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:49.560 eighteen eighties six, Warren knew that he was expected to 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:54.199 bring something different his military style, his military discipline, and 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:57.320 his ability to beat down rebellious people and bring them 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:03.080 under control. Here's historian at would when Warren was appointed, 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:05.760 immediately brought an increased drill training to get the Bobbies 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:07.760 in the Beating better shape. He wrote to the government 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:11.000 asking for better uniform and boots because he realized from 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:13.040 his military pass that the men needed to be equipped 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:15.760 as best as possible. So Warren increased of fitness and 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:18.400 the efficiency of the uniformed officers an effectively molded them 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:21.000 into a kind of army. He left the detective department 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:24.000 to his assistant commissioners and his appointment was where received 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:26.359 at first. But the problems began when Childers lost his 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:29.440 post as Home Secretary following a general election and a 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:32.240 man named Henry Matthews was appointed. And whereas Warren and 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:35.520 he joined Shilders backing right from the start, the commissioner 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:39.560 would be unsure whether he could rely on Matthews for support. Yes, 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:42.520