Murder Rate

[Jibby Reznor]

Hello all,

Am curious if anyone has any figures on what the murder rate in Whitechapel was in the years 1887,88,90? I am asking as if there is i would like to include it in my dissertation to show that murders in whitechapel at the time the ripper killings occured where not unusual.

Thanks very much for any help

Jibby

[protohistorian]

Hello all,

Am curious if anyone has any figures on what the murder rate in Whitechapel was in the years 1887,88,90? I am asking as if there is i would like to include it in my dissertation to show that murders in whitechapel at the time the ripper killings occured where not unusual.

Thanks very much for any help

Jibby

I do not believe police at this time kept a "blotter" background crime is best determined through other avenues. Good luck with the project!

[The English Gardener]

Hello all,

Am curious if anyone has any figures on what the murder rate in Whitechapel was in the years 1887,88,90? I am asking as if there is i would like to include it in my dissertation to show that murders in whitechapel at the time the ripper killings occured where not unusual.

Thanks very much for any help

Jibby

No doubt one of the other {much more knowledgable} guys can quote chapter and verse... I'm sure I read somewhere- a long time ago- that the figures for 87 were actually remarkably low. Good luck in your search.

[Steve S]

I've got a vague memory they were lower than you might expect...Think the book published to tie-in with the Docklands museum exhibition had some info on crime rates.
Steve

[truebluedub]

Bruce Paley argued that crime rates were low, specifically murder. in the images at the middle of his book he had a statistic sheet which showed no murders. It was later pointed out this excluded at least one known case, the Lipski case. This dissertation http://www.casebook.org/dissertation...atistical.html explains the situation.

Chris Lowe

[The English Gardener]

Bruce Paley argued that crime rates were low, specifically murder. in the images at the middle of his book he had a statistic sheet which showed no murders. It was later pointed out this excluded at least one known case, the Lipski case. This dissertation http://www.casebook.org/dissertation...atistical.html explains the situation.

Chris Lowe

Thanks,tbd... you're right, I was thinking of Bruce Paley... I think there's probably more than a grain of truth in the idea that the homicide rate for 87 actually was pretty low, however... Lipski, while admittedly absent from the record for that year, doesn't represent a glut of killings in a year which still appears to have been a fairly quiet one. Does anyone have any further {ie more accurate} figures?

[sdreid]

The Rainham Mystery from the Thames Torso series was in 1887.

[JSchmidt]

Some things came to mind: How reliable are those statistics in portraying actual crimes? Were all murders reported?
What about other violent crimes like assault or rapes with the victims dying later? (Would those be seen as and included in the statistics as murder?)
And what about violent crimes where the victims survived the attacks?

[Mutt]

Much of what I have read seems to indicate a low murder rate. However I would imagine that if Victorian Murder numbers were to be compared to modern numbers, then there would be some problems with the definition of what exactly a murder IS. Each era may have decidedely different opinions.

[Dave O]

Anomalies

If you could find them, the coroner's annual report would be a good source for each year you're interested in, but I think they would only give you a general idea from 1888 on up. Compared to other deaths that were the subject of inquests, the murder rate would be low. One such report by Dr. Thomas Bramah Diplock (West Middlesex) was covered in the Times, but was not broken down by parish, at least as it's given in the newspaper. Diplock's murder rates were very low, but coroners like Baxter and Macdonald would have held more inquests. Anyway, if you found reports by Baxter, I'm not sure you would find specific results for Whitechapel. Then again, maybe you would.

But I think that if you found reports for Whitechapel, you might encounter some statistical oddities for 1888-1894 because the two eastern coroners' districts, North east and South east Middlesex, were not aligned with the sanitary districts.

For 1887 through June 1888, Wynne Baxter was the coroner for East Middlesex, which of course included Whitechapel and Spitalfields. No problem there until Baxter's district was divided in 1888.

Now, fom June 1888 until around the first half of 1894, you've got Baxter in South East Middlesex (including Whitechapel) and Roderick Macdonald in the North East (including Spitalfields). One of the problems that I think you might come across for the 1888-1894 period, if you could a report that broke deaths down by parishes, would be deaths occurring in Spitalfields bleeding through onto Whitechapel because of the legal requirement for the coroner and jury to view the body.

Annie Chapman is a good example, getting murdered in Spitalfields (within Macdonald's district) but being transported to Whitechapel (inside Baxter's district)--Macdonald was unable to hold an inquest because he didn't have the body, Baxter held one because he had the body.

Mary Kelly is nearly another example. Murdered in Spitalfields, she is transported to Shoreditch, both of which are in Macdonald's coroner district of North East Middlesex. So he holds the inquest. But since Spitalfields is also part the Whitechapel Sanitary District, while Shoreditch is not, there were evidently plans to send her body to Whitechapel, in order to throw the financial burden of burying her from the taxpayers in Shoreditch onto the taxpayers in Whitechapel. Anticipating the arrival of the body into his district, Wynne Baxter prepared to hold his own inquest (a second inquest held without the first being quashed would have been controversial). But, when Henry Wilton and subscribers raised funds for Kelly's burial, the body was never sent to Whitechapel and so Baxter had no legal basis for holding an inquest (as he was unable to fulfill the legal requirement of the view of the corpse). But for Henry Wilton, Mary Kelly would have been the subject of two inquests.

A third example happened when this double inquest scenario for Mary Kelly actually played out in March 1889 with the death of Louisa Ellesden, whom I can find very little about. She died in Spitalfields and an inquest was held by Dr. Macdonald. But then she was transported to Whitechapel so they'd pay for the burial. So, with the body in his possession, Wynne Baxter held a second inquest following Macdonald's legally valid inquest (and Baxter was roundly criticized by the Home Secretary for doing it).

So, if you had the annual coroner's reports for 1888 and 1889, you encounter at least two anomalies regarding death rates, and one of them would be a murder:

1. Chapman would show up as a murder in the Whitechapel district, when she actually was killed in Spitalfields.
2. In a more interesting world, Mary Kelly would show up in both reports (but of course in the real world, she wouldn't).
3. For 1889, Louisa Ellesden actually would appear in the statistics for 1889 twice, once in Spitalfields and once in Whitechapel, although in reality, her death would only relate to Spitalfields. I doubt Ellesden was a murder victim so you wouldn't be interested in her anyway, but she illustrates the kind of oddities you might come across.

So if I were looking at these reports during this period, I would ask, "Are any more of these Whitechapel murders actually Spitalfields affairs leaking over?" Without some knowledge of each case, I couldn't know, not for sure because the location of the inquest doesn't necessarily indicate where the death occurred.

These types of anomalies vanish with the death of Macdonald in 1894, providing an opportunity for the London County Council to align the two coroner's districts to reflect how the sanitary districts were organized, which they took advantage of putting Spitalfields back into Baxter's district with Whitechapel.

Cheers,
Dave

PS In the end, you need more than Whitechapel figures as some of the murders happened outside Whitechapel anyway.

[The English Gardener]

Some things came to mind: How reliable are those statistics in portraying actual crimes? Were all murders reported?
What about other violent crimes like assault or rapes with the victims dying later? (Would those be seen as and included in the statistics as murder?)
And what about violent crimes where the victims survived the attacks?

While you are perfectly correct to say what you do, it probably doesn't need pointing out that the same could be said of any year you care to name... 87 shouldn't be picked out to have those criteria applied in isolation. I'm sure the unreported stuff &ct would have added a very similar percentage to any other year. Not my intention to be argumentative, just highlighting what {to me at least} is a non smoked though still moderately cupric Genus Clupea.

[Fisherman]

"...a non smoked though still moderately cupric Genus Clupea."

Now there´s one of them rare moments when being a fisherman helps. Talk about red herrings...!

The best,
Fisherman

[The English Gardener]

"...a non smoked though still moderately cupric Genus Clupea."

Now there´s one of them rare moments when being a fisherman helps. Talk about red herrings...!

The best,
Fisherman

Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to present any of my arguments or statements for breakfast. They are strictly non edible. And usually constructed from cardboard of the cheapest and most flimsy kind.