Research can lead a person down the most surprising byways.
At the end of the day it may not add a pennyweight of value to the book one is
writing but it can be fun and so very absorbing.
A few hours before she was murdered Kate was arrested for being drunk
and disorderly and was taken to Bishopsgate police station to sober up. She was
reported as having, ‘attracted a crowd on Aldgate High Street by doing an
impersonation of a fire engine.’
It conjures a comical scene. We all know what silly things
people do in drink. But what, I wondered, in 1888, could an impersonation of a
fire engine possibly mean? Clang-a-lang-a-lang? Not neenaw neenaw, that’s for
sure. Then I discovered a revealing name for a 19th century fire
vehicle: a steamer. The water pumps that forced the water through the hoses
were powered by steam. Of course.
Firefighting used to be a very local affair. Insurance
companies would often maintain their own corps of firefighters, particularly if they
had insured a warehouse containing high value goods. Otherwise parishes had to
provide their own equipment and recruit volunteers either to pull the parish
fire engine to the scene of the fire and man the pumps, or to provide a horse
to haul it for them.
In 1865 London at last got an organised, publically funded
fire brigade, and coal-fired steam pump appliances became the firefighters’ new
toy. The boiler was fired up as the engine set off from the station and an
engineer would stand on a rear footboard, stoking the flames under the boiler
as they raced through the streets. By the time they arrived at the fire enough
steam should have been raised to power the pumps. That was the theory.
Sometimes, inevitably, they’d get to the fire and have to wait for a full head
of steam, as happened on Commercial Street in October 1888 when a fur warehouse
caught fire.
Can’t you just
imagine what the public had to say about that? ‘Call this progress! We never had
delays like this when men did the pumping.’ 
An hour reading about steam pumps brought me a little closer
to understanding what Kate Eddowes’ fire engine impersonation might have been: the
kind of choo-choo steam train noise still beloved of small children. One of the sounds that belong to history. Perhaps Kate had just heard an
engine go past. Or perhaps she’d simply had too much rum. But then I stumbled upon
another possible explanation.
Kate Eddowes was known to suffer from chronic nephritis or
what used to be called Bright’s disease, a kidney condition that was quite
likely to have made her breathless. Yesterday, when I had an asthma attack
brought on by my own foolish negligence, going out in the freezing air without
a scarf over my nose and mouth, I found myself huffing and puffing along the
street, stone cold sober but
nevertheless impersonating a steam engine. Maybe that was what Kate was up to. We can never know and indeed the are many Ripperologists who regard the fire engine story as apocryphal. But there, for what it’s worth, is my
tiny contribution to the ever-growing mountain of Whitechapel Murder arcana and
crackpot theories.
What tragic bad luck anyway for Kate Eddowes that by 1 a.m. she was sufficiently sober to be released from the cells and sent on
her way. Half an hour later she lay dead on Mitre Square and another sound, familiar then but now consigned to history, would have been heard. The frantic blowing of a police whistle.
This made me smile this morning, Laurie. Thank you. As you say, the seeds of story lie in these tiny discoveries. Poor Kate Eddowes.I also enjoyed the pictures you have painted through sounds. Simple and effective.
ReplyDeleteFascinating. This is why I love historical fiction. It can open up so many doors. I thought I knew plenty about the Ripper murders - but no; there are always further insights.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting post! And how sad for the poor woman! Imagine, if she had been a little more drunk, she might have survived. The idea that everyone thought she was being funny when she might simply have been sick adds some pathos here.
ReplyDeleteThe little touches of humanity are what bring history alive for me.
PS Fire brigades are an interesting area of history. I keep thinking about Marcus Licinius Crassus in ancient Rome, who bought up large chunks of the city because he had his own private fire brigade in that city of wood, and usually they wouldn't put the fire out till the poor sod who owned the place agreed to sell!
Poor Kate!
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that she was deliberately imitating a fire-engine. For all she was worth.
ReplyDeleteI reckon there was probably enough bronchitis and asthma, pleurisy and pneumonia in 19th century London - as in my own dear Black Country even 50 years ago - for people to know the difference between difficulty in breathing and a comic performance. She gathered a crowd, after all. Don't think they'd have bothered for a bit of wheezing - far too common. But a drunken woman giving a bravura imitation of a new gadget? - Oh yes. And working class crowds always made the authorities nervous.
Of course, the Bright's disease could have helped make her performance more ocnvincing.
Great post - thank you.