Era/Environment Questions

[Guest]

Hi, I'm writing a sci-fi book which involves time travel to the Ripper period (focusing specifically on the night of the double event murders of Stride and Eddowes) and have some questions.

1 - How busy would the area have been at that time of night? Commercial Street in particular. Would many people/carriages have been around?

2 - Would the pubs have been closed after midnight (as I believe they legally should have been) or would some of them still have been open? (not including lock-ins). Would anything else have been open at that time?

3 - How much gas lamp lighting would there have been? Would it have been limited to the main streets? (Commercial Street in particular). What times did lamps usually get turned on/off?

4 - Would the police have actually blown whistles on discovering the bodies? How many police would have been on beats at this time in this area.

Thanks.

[Joshua Rogan]

Commercial Street was being dug up to install tramways during the time of the Ripper;

"An interesting link to the construction of tram-lines on Commercial Street was put forward by Bernard Brown in 2000: the North Metropolitan Tramways Act, 1887 had received the Royal Assent on 29th March 1888 and authorised the North Metropolitan Tramways Company 'to lay down and maintain a new tramway in Commercial Street.'

Gangs of navvies descended on Whitechapel and Spitalfields and work commenced on digging up the entire length of Commercial Street and laying track. The work continued day and night until completion in November 1888. During the construction Emma Smith, Martha Tabram, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were murdered. Coincidence? The diverted horse-drawn traffic from Commercial Street was horrendous and the `ladies of the night and their clients were hardly able to conduct their business. Could the disruption explain why there were no murders during October and why Mary Kelly was killed indoors? 15th November 1888, a week after Kelly s murder, the Commercial Street tramway finally opened with a line of brownpainted horse trams running between Bloomsbury and Poplar (fare 3d). Near the latter line on 20th December 1888 the body of Rose Mylett was found just off the High Street."

[Pcdunn]

I would recommend reading the first few chapters in Donald Rumbelow's book on Jack the Ripper, as he weaves an especially vivid picture of the crowded, dirty, active slums of Whitechapel.

It seems as if people were often out and about, particularly those without the few cents needed to buy a "doss" in a lodging house or to sleep "on the rope" in a cheaper alternative. Some walked about all night, some slept in doorways, and some worked late or started early. There were public houses open past midnight, I think, and some sold food.

The depiction in some Hollywood versions of silent, dark, cobblestones and figures wreathed in fog or yellow gaslight isn't quite the way it was.

[drstrange169]

Hello Guest,

>>1 - How busy would the area have been at that time of night? Commercial Street in particular. Would many people/carriages have been around?<<

Joshua R has given a good answer to that.

>>2 - Would the pubs have been closed after midnight (as I believe they legally should have been) or would some of them still have been open? (not including lock-ins). Would anything else have been open at that time?<<

Witness Edward Spooner and his girlfriend were kicked out of a pub nearby at closing time, which helps answer that question.

>>3 - How much gas lamp lighting would there have been? Would it have been limited to the main streets? (Commercial Street in particular). What times did lamps usually get turned on/off?<<

Do you mean Commercial Street or Commercial Road? Berner Street ran off Commercial "Road"


>>4 - Would the police have actually blown whistles on discovering the bodies? How many police would have been on beats at this time in this area.<<

PC Lamb testified that he blew his whistle at Mrs. Strides murder site, although he was not the discoverer of the body.
PC Watkins, the discoverer of Catherine Eddowes body, belonged to the
City police force and didn't have a whistle. However, the warehouse man he alerted did have a whistle.

Hope that is of some help.

[Joshua Rogan]

Some of the essays on this page are well worth a read;

http://www.casebook.org/victorian_london/

[Pcdunn]

This book would be useful for information about the police during the Ripper era:

Capturing Jack the Ripper: In the Boots of a Bobby in Victorian England by Neil Bell.

https://www.amazon.com/Capturing-Jack-Ripper-Victorian-England/dp/1445621622

[GUT]

This book would be useful for information about the police during the Ripper era:

Capturing Jack the Ripper: In the Boots of a Bobby in Victorian England by Neil Bell.

https://www.amazon.com/Capturing-Jac.../dp/1445621622

best policing book I've ever read.

bar none.

[harry]

Carriages about? I hardly think so.Horses needed rest too.No one,if I recall,as witnesses,describe a sight or sound of a carriage.Diemschutz into Berner St is the one and only recorded that I recall.Gas lamps acted more like beacons,giving a risky pathway to walk between.Only on moonlit nights was there reasonable light to see your way.And this scenario,by people who were around at that time,was little different in the 1930's.