Author: Richard Jones

A name that crops up time and time again in the newspaper reporting about the social conditions in the east End of London, that were laid bare by the interest and commentary,  that the Jack the Ripper murders […]

James Monro took over from Sir Charles Warren as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, following the latter’s resignation from office in November, 1888. He brought a new style of command to the force, and seems to have enjoyed a […]

In February, 1892, a journalist – F. W. Robinson – and an artist – M. Renouard – headed for Spitalfields to research an article about the work of the Salvation Army in the district which, just four years […]

On Tuesday January 15th, 1889, people woke up to the news that a man, who was suspected of being the perpetrator of the Whitechapel atrocities, had been arrested in Tunis. Given that the public as a whole were […]

Greetings, salutations, and a very Happy New year to you all. Well, 2018 is now almost two weeks old, and almost a month has passed since the last Jack the Ripper quiz of 2017 was posted. So, it’s […]

In early 1889, the newspapers were full of accounts of all manner of violent and other crimes that were, seemingly, taking place countrywide. Indeed, several newspapers were reporting the fact that the country was in the grip of […]

On Wednesday 14th of August, 1889, at Liverpool Assizes, Florence Maybrick was found guilty of murdering her husband, James Maybrick, by poisoning him with arsenic, and was duly sentenced to death. Her conviction caused a huge public outcry […]

In January 1889, the country as a whole was still reeling in shock at the sheer brutality of the murders that had taken place in Whitechapel the previous year. Many newspapers were pondering the possible motivation behind such […]

Homelessness was a massive problem in London prior to and after the Jack the Ripper murders. There were numerous reports in newspapers throughout the 1880’s that brought to the attention of readers the plights of the rough sleepers […]

On Saturday February the 8th, 1879, The Globe published the following article about conditions in some of London’s worst slums, and in Flower and Dean Street in particular. Flower and Dean Street was one of the East End’s […]