Jack the Ripper guided walks
are a hugely successful tourist attraction in the East End of London but as I discovered when I was researching The Night in Question, 117 years on very little remains of the murder sites. Bucks Row, where Polly Nichols’ body was
discovered, has been renamed Durward Street and is hardly recognisable. Only the old Board School, now converted to
apartments, still looms over the place.
The north side of Hanbury
Street where Annie Chapman was killed, in a yard behind a cat’s meat shop, has
also been redeveloped. The site of Dutfield’s Yard where Lizzie Stride perished
is now a primary school playground. Mitre Square is all corporate steel and
glass, and the Dorset Street rookery where Mary Kelly lived and died is long
gone. Visitors interested in the Whitechapel Murders have to be satisfied with a
few familiar street names and a lot of atmospheric spin. But they can then retire, for liquid consolation, to the Ten
Bells, a pub which has undisputed connections to the murders of 1888.
It’s perhaps worth pointing out
that in Victorian London not all purveyors of alcohol were pubs. Anyone with a
couple of pounds for a licence could set up a beer shop and sell ale, beer and
cider. But only public houses licensed by a magistrate could sell spirits. Gin
consumption had declined by the 1880s. Rum or brandy would have been a more likely choice
for those who could afford stronger drink.
Pubs and beer shops were very
important to the indigent population of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, people who often
lacked all domestic comforts, living hand to mouth, sleeping in doss houses
when they had money and in doorways when they didn’t. Little wonder Jack’s victims were all known
to frequent drinking holes. They were places they could stay warm and dry for
an hour and rest from their endless trudging, places where they
could take a drop of something to deaden their hunger and fatigue, and perhaps
catch the eye of a man willing to exchange the price of a drink for a threepenny
upright.
The Ten Bells |
The Ten Bells pub on the corner
of Commercial Street and Fournier Street displays a list of Jack’s victims
which, to the disapproval of many Ripperologists includes the name of Martha Turner, also known as Martha Tabram.
Everything about the Whitechapel Murders is open to debate, including
the number of women Jack murdered. The so-called ‘canonical five’ excludes
Martha but I’m with the Ten Bells on this. I consider her to have been one of
his victims, possibly his first. But my purpose today isn’t to conduct a body
count. Let’s get back to the pub.
The most definite connection between the
Ten Bells and the Ripper murders is Mary Jane (aka Marie Jeanette) Kelly,
reckoned by many to have been his last victim and by some, myself included,
possibly not to have been his victim at all. Mary Kelly was a regular at the
Ten Bells. Two other
victims, Lizzie Stride and Annie Chapman were also known to drink there, indeed
tradition has it that Annie was seen in the Ten Bells just a few hours before
she was murdered. On the night Lizzie
Stride met her fate she’d been seen drinking elsewhere, in The Bricklayer’s
Arms, a beer shop on the corner of Settles Street and Fordham Street. That building still stands.
It’s now a convenience store.
formerly the Bricklayer's Arms |
Mary Kelly was also a regular
at the Britannia pub, known more familiarly as Ma Ringer’s. It stood on the corner of Commercial Street
and Dorset Street. When Mary was killed
the regulars at the Britannia and the Ten Bells had a whip-round to buy flowers
for her funeral. Annie Chapman was known at the Britannia too, and was
remembered for getting into a fight there perhaps over a man, perhaps over
money, perhaps over disputed ownership of a piece of soap. Such were those
women’s lives. The Britannia was demolished years ago when the Dorset Street
slums were cleared and Spitalfields Market was redeveloped.
The Frying Pan pre-gentrification |
Finally, there was the Frying
Pan pub, on the corner of Brick Lane and Thrawl Street. Polly Nichols spent her
last evening there, drinking away her bed money, which is no doubt why she was
on Bucks Row at 3 am that fateful morning looking for trade. The
Frying Pan has had several incarnations since Polly’s time, and is now the
Brick Lane hotel (en-suite rooms, WiFi and air-conditioning) and the Sheraz Bangla Lounge restaurant. I wonder what poor Polly would make of that.
So if you’re ever in
Whitechapel and want to tread some genuine Ripper-related ground I’d say you
could do worse than a drink in the Ten Bells followed by a balti on Brick
Lane.
2 comments:
As a student of the Murders it is sad that the murder sites are gone but if I ever do a tour I will be sure to drink in a pub with links to the events of 1888. Thanks for this guide.
Does anyone know when the'Frying Pan' was originally built?
Post a Comment