Author: Richard Jones

The grinding poverty in the East End of London occupied the minds of politicians and philanthropists alike throughout the latter half of the 19th century. Even before the Jack the Ripper murders helped alert people to the menace […]

For many years in the 19th century, Bell Lane in Spitalfields had a dreadful reputation as one of the most overcrowded enclaves in the whole of the East End of London. Indeed, in July, 1888, The East End News […]

It is almost impossible for us today to imagine what it must have been like around the streets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields in the aftermath of the Jack the Ripper atrocities. Separated, as we are, by the passage […]

Following the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes – both of which took place in the early hours of the morning of 30th September 1888 – there was a dramatic increase in people confessing to having carried […]

Although the murders of Martha Tabram and Mary Nichols had shocked society at large, and a certain amount of sympathy was expressed concerning the lifestyles of the victims in the aftermath of their murders, it was with the […]

The St James’s Gazette, in an article that was published on Tuesday, 9th October, 1888, highlighted the problems posed to the overworked London police by the number of compulsive confessers who were, at the time, feeling the need […]

It really is remarkable how many times, and in how many different contexts, the name of Jack the Ripper turned up in court cases around the country from October 1888, onwards. Numerous people, who were arrested for being […]

It’s October, the month when the nights start to draw in and, with the approach of Halloween, the streets of London become that little it spookier. But, our Jack the Ripper Quiz true crime is fearless, and so […]

By early October, 1888, the fact that the police had failed to catch the murderer who was now becoming universally known as “Jack the Ripper”, led to an enormous amount of hostility being directed towards them in the […]

For us today, separated as we are by the passage of 130 years from the awful events of the autumn of 1888, it is difficult to comprehend the sheer horror that gripped the minds of the general public, […]