Author: Richard Jones

As mentioned in a previous article, domestic violence was extremely commonplace in 19th century London; and there are numerous press reports of spouses attacking, injuring –  or even murdering – their wife or husband, – or their live […]

In 1832 Parliament passed the Anatomy Act in an attempt to curb the activities of the bodysnatchers. Up until that point, the only legal source of bodies for dissection by anatomy schools, medical men and students was the […]

By 1880 the Detective Force of the Metropolitan Police at New Scotland Yard had been completely overhauled as a result of a scandal that had embroiled it in the late 1870’s. In 1877 three senior detective – Inspector […]

On October 12th, in 1886, charges were brought against 21-year-old Lois Schwich – whom the press dubbed “the female errand boy.” The next day she appeared at Marylebone Police Court charged with having stolen expensive cloth and clothing from […]

In the immediate aftermath of the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, the police – or, to be specific, the Metropolitan Police – came in for an awful lot of criticism owing to their seeming inability to […]

The nights are getting darker, the shadows are swirling, the tension is mounting, the marrow is chilling – and I’ve just run out of things to pad out this sentence! So, with words failing me – I would […]

In early August 1891 a lady by the name of Katherine Wohler was attacked in Whitechapel, and rumours began to circulate that the deed had been carried out by the same perpetrator who had carried out the Jack […]

By the end of September 1888, the East End of London, as a whole, was beginning to calm down from the panic and excitement that had followed the murder of Annie Chapman on the 8th of September 1888. […]

Heading along Mile End Road towards Stratford, you come to Bow Church, a compact structure that seems to cower from the assault of the traffic that races by on either side, bound to pass over or under the […]

As dawn broke on the 30th September 1888, the streets of the East End of London were witness to a flurry of Police activity. The Whitechapel murderer had struck in the early hours of the morning and, this […]