Author: Richard Jones

It is all too tempting to judge the Victorian Metropolitan Police as incompetent as a result of their inability to catch Jack the Ripper. To do so, however, is both unfair and inaccurate. Yes, the police did make […]

Well, the year is passing by with great speed. Before we know it, the New Year will be upon us. However, that still means we have two more Jack the Ripper Quizzes to go, so here is our […]

Today, it is almost impossible for us to imagine what life was like for the destitute poor of Victorian Britain. As is evidenced by the tragic lives of the majority of the victims of Jack the Ripper, the […]

Following the discovery of the murder of Mary Kelly, on 9th November, 1888, the beleaguered officers of the Metropolitan Police were rocked by news that their Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, had resigned his position. It is sometimes stated […]

With the murder of Mary Kelly, which took place in Dorset Street, Spitalfields, on the 9th of November, 1888, the newspapers began expounding all manner of theories as to who the murderer might be, and what, if any, […]

Conditions inside the Victorian prisons were deliberately made as harsh as possible for the inmates. The purpose of the prison system was to make time behind bars so utterly unpleasant that those who found themselves languishing behind the […]

Despite the fact that, by November, 1889, a year had now passed since the murder of Mary Kelly in Miller’s Court, off Dorset Street – which is now generally believed to have been the final murder by Jack […]

One thing that has always intrigued me about the Victorian police officers, whose job it was to patrol the streets of London during the night hours, is how many strange sights they must have seen. Given that today […]

There can be no doubt about it. Something quite unusual was perceived as occurring across the United Kingdom in 1888. By October, the perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders was becoming universally known as “Jack the Ripper” and newspapers […]

Throughout much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, poverty was almost endemic in the East End of London. In truth, there were many other parts of London in which poverty was rife, but, for several reasons […]