Violent victorians and the ripper murders

Dates of killings

Autumn 1888

The Canonical Five

Mary Anne Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Strife, Catherine Eddows, Mary Jane Kelly

Whitechapel statistics

40% of East Enders lived below the poverty line, 4 families in one cellar (no running water or bathroom)

Suspect categories

English Lord, Mad Doctor, Foreigner

Bloody Sunday

November 1887 (popular protest over unemployment)

Policing of prostitution

Police could arrest any women they suspected pf being sex workers despite no evidence. Repealed in 1886

Feminist response

Journalist Florence Fenwick Miller argued that the ripper murders were not just homicides but "women killings" - inherently misogynistic

Domestic Violence legislation

1895 Married Women's Act - permitted wives to apply for separation without a conviction for aggregated assault

Domestic Violence examples

1888 Russian Jewess killed by husband, another woman stabbed by her drunken spouse

Legacy of ripper

Yorkshire Ripper (1975-80) Ipswich killer (2006)

Ripperology (Books and Films and examples)

Official Jack the Ripper tour (Whitechapel), Jack the Ripper Museum, From Hell book then movie (2001) starring Johnny Depp,

Jack the Ripper and the myth of male violence author

Judith Walkowitz 1982

Walkowitz news quote

“Stead used sexual scandal to sell newspapers to a middle-class and working-class readership and ushered in a new era of tabloid sensation” (Walkowitz 1982)

Quote 1

"Response to the Ripper murders, then, reveals significant class divisions" Walkowitz 1982

Walkowitz victims

“Their compunctions were soon overwhelmed by feelings of fear and loathing towards a spectacle of the victims themselves” (Walkowitz 1982)

Museums Gray

“Presents a very partial and exploitative view of both the murders and the murdered” (Gray 2018)

Violence Gray

“The power of the ripper to legitimise violence against women was recognised, by some at least, as early as 1888” (Gray 2018)