My latest video on the Jack the Ripper case is one that I have been preparing for for the best part of the last twelve months.
I have been purchasing first edition so Victorian books that contain photographs and images of the various streets of London in the latter half of the 19th century.
I now possess a collection of over 2500 images, and am gradually cataloguing the images for use in future videos.
A WALK ACROSS LONDON IN 1888
Anyway, for the video I chose to take a route from Trafalgar Square to the start of the Mile End Road.
Trafalgar Square had being a place where protest meetings since it had been laid out earlier in the century, but these meetings increased dramatically in the 1880s.
Inevitably, this led to clashes between the authorities and the protestors, the most infamous of these being the riots of February 1886, and, even more notorious, the soc-called “Bloody Sunday” clash, on Sunday the 13th of November 1888.
SIR CHARLES WARREN
Bloody Sunday led the radical press to turn against the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, and, when the Whitechapel murders began, just under a year later, they used the murders to launch almost daily attacks on the competence of Sir Charles Warren.
So Trafalgar Square makes the ideal starting point for a journey across London in the year of the Jack the Ripper murders, since. although it was most certainly not the epicentre of the crimes, the events that had occurred there certainly impacted on the crimes.
ALONG THE STRAND
Having covered the history of the Square, the video tour then sets off along Strand, passing Charing Cross Station, and several theatres, including the Lyceum, where Richard Mansfield was appearing in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when the murders began.
His impressive changes from good to evil, and back to good again, led some people to think they might have a real life Mr. Hyde, loose in the streets of Whitechapel, and one correspondent even wrote to the City of London Police to suggest Mansfield as a Jack the Ripper suspect!
FLEET STREET
Having explored a few streets – Holywell and Wych Streets – that no longer exist, we head along Fleet Street, which has numerous connections with the Jack the Ripper case, including the fact that Mary Nichols was born in Dawes Court, off Shoe Lane, one of the turnings off Fleet Street.
THROUGH THE CITY
We also pass over Ludgate Circus, close to which were the offices of the Central News, where the Dear Boss, Jack the Ripper letter was received in September, 1888 – the missive that effectively gave birth to the legend of Jack the Ripper.
Pausing briefly to look inside the Central Criminal Court – where suspects Mary Pearcey, George Chapman, and Neill Cream were tried – we continue past St Paul’s Cathedral, and then on through the City of London to make our way into Whitechapel, where, having passed along Whitechapel Road, we end our Journey at the Vine Tavern on Mile End Road.