Jack the Ripper, final murder
JACK THE RIPPER TOURS
THE WALK CONTINUES TO THE SITE OF THE FINAL MURDER.
MARY KELLY THE LAST OF THE VICTIMS OF JACK THE RIPPER.
DIRECTIONS
Continue over Wentworth Street and along Bell Lane. Immediately after the light brown council flats (public housing) on the right, turn right into Brune Street and half way along on the left pause outside:-
The Former Soup Kitchen For the Jewish Poor. Opened in 1902 (actually the year 5662 in the Hebrew calendar as can be seen on the buildings façade.) Its primary function was to feed the areas Jewish poor and it saw its busiest period during the Great Depression when it provided meals for more than 5,000 people a week. Although it has now been converted to flats and is no longer open to the public the buildings impressive frontage is still worth admiring.
DIRECTIONS
Backtrack along Brune Street, go first right along Tenter Ground, left into White’s Row and right into Crispin Street to pass the White’s Row Car Park.
The large building (pictured above) on the opposite side of the street to the multi Storey car park was The Providence Row Night Shelter. Built in 1868 it was run by the order of the Sisters of Mercy and provided lodging “to the destitute from all parts, without distinction of creed, colour, and country.”
DIRECTIONS
Keep ahead and turn right by the Gun Public House. The building to your right is Spitalfields market which opened in 1887. On arrival at Commercial Street look over at the Ten Bells Pub, the place where Jack the Ripper’s final victim, Mary Kelly, spent some of her final hours.
Turn right along Commercial Street and turn right through the barrier immediately before the Whites Row multi-storey car park. Although this rather unattractive thoroughfare (pictured left) now has no name, in 1888 it was called Dorset Street and was lined on both sides by low class common lodging houses. About a quarter of the way along on the right is an iron stairway just past which you will notice a gap in the kerb stones. In 1888 this was the entrance into Miller’s Court, and it was here that Mary Kelly lived in a ground floor room.
MARY KELLY SEEN ON COMMERCIAL STREET
In the early hours of the 9th of November twenty five year old Mary Kelly was heard singing in her room at 13 Miller’s Court. At 2am on the 9th November George Hutchinson met twenty - five- year - old Mary Kelly on Commercial Street. She cheerfully asked him for sixpence, to which Hutchinson replied that even this amount was beyond his modest means. She laughed, told him she’d “just have to find it some other way” and continued to the junction with Thrawl Street, where she met with another man. Hutchinson saw the two chat a little, then watched as Mary led the man into Dorset Street, where they entered her room in Miller’s Court. Forty five minutes later neither had emerged from the room and Hutchinson left the scene.
A CRY OF MURDER IN THE NIGHT
Shortly before 4am two of Mary’s neighbours heard a cry of “murder” but since such cries were a common occurrence in the area they both ignored them.
THE BODY OF MARY KELLY IS DISCOVERED
At 10.45am on the 9th November, Mary Kelly’s landlord, John McCarthy sent his assistant Thomas Bowyer round to 13 Miller’s Court to collect her overdue rent. Moments later an ashen faced Bowyer returned. “Governor” he stammered “I knocked at the door and could not make anyone answer. I looked through the window and saw a lot of blood.” The two men returned to the room and squinting through the window McCarthy gazed upon an horrific sight. The bedside table was covered with what appeared to be lumps of flesh, and there on the bed, barely recognisable as human lay the body of Mary Kelly.
Soon Inspectors Walter Dew and Walter Beck had arrived at the scene and by 11.30am Inspector Abberline had joined them. But amazingly it would be another two hours before any of them entered Mary Kelly’s room.
Somebody mistakenly believed that bloodhounds were going to be brought to the scene and in fact they weren’t but they didn’t know that. It was only when a senior officer came along and said that there were going to be no bloodhounds that the police finally forced the door and entered the room.
None of the detectives who entered that tiny room would ever forget the sight that met their eyes. Mary Kelly lay upon the bed and her injuries were truly horrific. The whole of the surfaces of the abdomen and thighs had been removed and the abdominal cavity emptied. The breasts had been cut off, the arms mutilated by several jagged wounds and the face hacked beyond recognition. The uterus and the kidneys, together with one breast, were found beneath her head. The other breast lay by her right foot. The liver had been placed between her legs, and the spleen by the left side of the body. Her heart had been cut out and was never discovered, although there is some evidence to suggest that the killer may have burnt it in her fireplace. John McCarthy, Mary Kelly’s landlord, was no doubt giving vent to the feelings of all who witnessed the bloody carnage inside 13 Miller’s Court, when later that day he told a reporter, ”The sight we saw I cannot drive away from my mind. It looked more like the work of a devil than of a man. The whole scene is more than I can describe. I hope I may never see such a sight again.”
But the day held another surprise for the beleaguered police officers. For as they went about their now familiar routine of searching for clues and suspects, news arrived that their commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, had resigned.
Sir Charles Warren had in fact tendered his resignation several times over his term of office and had resigned some time before the last murder. It just so happened that the resignation was accepted just before the murder took place. He hadn’t in fact gone and he still remained Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police because he hadn’t been replaced.
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