Just What Do People Expect From a Jack the Ripper Exhibition?

[Natalie Severn]

Yeah I suppose you're right, after all most of them solved it their own minds and named a different suspect.

1]Macnaghten"s prime suspect was Druitt

2]Robert Anderson had Kosminski

3]Abberline had Chapman down

4]Littlechild thought Tumblety was a good suspect

5]Race [not certain but probable] had Cutbush down

But Walter Dew also on the case in 1888 believed nobody knew who he was.

and very importantly given he was from the City Police and had attended the Mitre Square scene that night,

-Major Henry Smith,Acting Commissioner of Police for the City ,believed nobody knew who he was.


That gives us an idea of how they all loved to sing from the same song sheet when it came to the Ripper!

[celee]

Hi,

What about James Monroe? if anyone would have known, I feel it would have been Monroe.

Your friend, Brad

[Stewart P Evans]

Police

I don't think the fact that the police 'failed to find' Jack the Ripper should he regarded as an abject failure nor as an embarrassment to them. Granted Anderson didn't seem too pleased that the start of his reign as Assistant Commissioner (Crime) in charge of the C.I.D. was marked by a widely publicised series of unsolved murders. But the accepted Ripper crimes occurred over a very short period of a few weeks and the police did as well as they could under difficult circumstances and without all the aids of a modern police force. A modern counterpart of the Ripper, Sutcliffe, was murdering over five years before he was caught so the Victorian police shouldn't be looked upon in too bad a light. I am sure that whilst Abberline would not have regarded the investigation as a success he would also have not been embarrassed by it. Indeed, in later years he was happy to talk to the press about it, in 1892 stating, "Theories! we were lost almost in theories; there were so many of them."

[Neal Shelden]

Well i guess at the end of the day , the curators are happy because they have put an emphasis on the East End people rather than the actual victims of these crimes, people interested in police history are happy because it has an emphasis on the police involvement in these crimes, even suspect people might be happy with the Maybrick and Sickert stuff?
I have to be honest and say that to me the murders have always centered on the murderer and the victims, whereas the police, press etc.. are peripheral to them. To suggest that by showing pictures of poor people from that time at this exhibition is enough for people to know about the victims of the most famous crimes in the world is simply not enough. This was the opportunity to show people who these women actually were!
And frankly speaking if it isn't important to please Ripperologists with this exhibition why was it important to include medals belonging to PC Long and Inspector Spratling, or even Abberline's walking stick, how many people have heard of Abberline (despite Depp's film) let alone care a damn if he had a walking stick. Is it more important to see these pieces than the Annie Chapman photograph?
The actual Annie Chapman photograph probably would not have been provided by the family but a facsimile would have sufficed as there are other facsimiles in the exhibition.
I will also have to add that having a depiction in some way of what the victims were dressed in would of been good and relevant, after all we have a police uniform on show, did people not know what the police looked like back then? Well they looked like police uniforms.
An exhibition about the police and East End conditions it is, and exhibition about Jack the Ripper and the victims it is not!

[George Hutchinson]

On a slight tangent, if I have just ONE MORE person from my non-Ripper life come up to me and tell me there's an exhibition on in London, I may have to cause them minor physical damage.

PHILIP

[Stewart P Evans]

Message For Philip Hutchinson

Hey Philip, do you realise that there is some sort of Jack the Ripper exhibition on in London at the moment?

[caz]

So since he killed women in the East End isnt it important to know something about these women ?Why they were so vulnerable for example?Or as Neal said on Saturday are we only allowed to remember how they earned their doss money and what their corpses looked like?

Nats, this is seriously out of order.

*Go and see the exhibition!*

If you still think there is nothing about why 'these women' (and NOT just the few who didn't survive Jack's knife to 'enjoy' the rest of their perfectly lovely, happy, healthy, unexploited lives ) were 'so vulnerable', then by all means come back and have a grumble about it (after you have put it all in writing to the organisers so they are suitably educated for the future).

One of the 'talking heads', for example, gives an important insight into the vulnerability of East End sex workers in modern times, and what measures are in place to offer advice and support. She illustrates how little has really changed since 1888, except for the chemicals the women end up hooked on, so they need to keep selling themselves in dark corners and dingy rooms to whoever is waiting in the wings to become the next Jack the Ripper.

Did you listen to this lady, Neal? I'm afraid I didn't catch her name but she did seem to talk a lot of sense. She also said that statistics show that the vast majority of men who regularly use sex workers today come into the area from outside and treat it like just another affordable leisure activity, paying cheaply for casual sex once or twice a week. I don't know how that compares with the punters of 1888, but no doubt Ben will pop in to tell me soon enough.

Did you and Jenni enjoy the display of 1880s bonnets, with Polly's own words about her new jolly one? The caption suggests that women in Polly's circumstances, whose other clothes were often little more than rags, tended to be proud of their bonnets, which they often decorated cheaply and cheerfully with ribbon or other bits and bobs.

Today's ladies don't tend to wear hats to make them feel a little jollier. But you do see plenty of high-heeled white shoes and boots. Have you asked if there are any family objections to Annie's photo being on display? Maybe there is yet time to persuade people that she be allowed to stand up and be counted?

Love,

Caz
X

[Jenni Shelden]

hey Stewart,


he said from non ripper world there's no way that means you. Even in a month of Sunday's...

Jenni

[Jenni Shelden]

Maybe its time we agreed to disagree, after all, an exibition cannot please everyone.

That said i am tempted to stand outside with a clipboard and take a pop quiz about what people actually learnt about JtR from the exibiton and / the est end

eg who was inspector spratling...

I really would like to take someone who knows nothing about the case for a look - this excludes a lot of people who i know who already know something because they know me - i mean people who actually know nothing

Jenni

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

Since I didn't have time to visit the Docklands this spring, so;

Any photos about the exhibition anywhere?

All the best
Jukka

[caz]

Hello you all!

Since I didn't have time to visit the Docklands this spring, so;

Any photos about the exhibition anywhere?

All the best
Jukka

Hi Jukka,

See the link Stewart has provided on the main exhibition thread. There's a video included with the article which gives a few tasters.

Love,

Caz
X

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Caz,
I have explained that since I didnt go and see the actual exhibition I need to go there again and I fully intend to.
That said having heard the comments on here from Neal and having previously looked for his book among the artefacts and books for sale,I was sorely disappointed not to have been able to see Neal"s book,a real jewel of of truthful and unbiased research on the victims on show.I would have loved to have seen the photograph of Annie Chapman there showing at least one of the women victims dressed in some finery,looking towards her future life with some hope.A woman like any other woman.
I am sick and tired of hearing descriptions of Polly,to take but one example, being described as a toothless hag, when a careful reading of the doctors reports,at least one reporter testimony and other reports reveal her to have been delicately featured,looking far younger than her years[this from a journalist at the mortuary as well as her estranged father],with 27 of her 32 teeth intact,a woman who could read and write a well constructed letter,saying what she needed to say [to her father] concisely and intelligently.Above all a woman who both the doctor who examined her and the friend she had shared lodgings with,made great efforts to keep her person clean-in difficult circunstances.
Similar things can be said of Elizabeth Stride,a bilingual woman of Swedish birth who spoke English like a native speaker.She too tried to keep herself reasonably dressed and clean.
Kate was a bit of a gonner by the time she got herself in Mitre square,in many respects,but once again she seems to have been resilient beyond belief,bright and witty despite her desperate poverty,very fond of John Kelly and he of her,a pain in the neck as a mother-[not cut out for that clearly]and from her photos she looks as though she was reasonably attractive.
Mary Kelly seems to have been a beauty,if Walter Dew can be believed and Mrs Phoenix,but even if she wasnt,she was young,kept herself clean and tidy, as witnessed by the same Dew, and the discovery of that neat little pile of clothes by her bedside.

Annie Chapman -well the Wedding photo said it all.She went from being a woman with a chance of a reasonably good life to become a victim of Jack the Ripper.Her addiction to alcohol, which she made the most heartbreaking efforts to overcome according to her brother, in a letter to his vicar,finally got the better of her ,along with Jack.But Annie had one thing that may surprise people----a perfect set of teeth.

I believe drink paid a part in their misfortunes,but how much of that was drinking to forget and how much addiction we shall never know.

All I hope over this exhibition,which had after all such a brilliant opportunity to set the record straight about Jack and his victims,is that people dont go away with the withering description given by Tom Cullen in his introduction of Polly Nichols:
" Polly Nicholls was a Whitechapel whore,which tells us much for they were a species apart........these were female tramps whom poverty and gin had robbed of whatever allure they might once have had,and,in this respect,Polly Nichols was typical..........[from Autumn of Terror-pages 30/31]".
Well Hitler didnt like getting his own hands dirty-he had camps for those he considered a "species apart"..............
If you are going to "educate" Caz, then please "educate" dont bring the subject up if you need to leave out the "uncomfortable bits".And I am speaking now as a teacher ,having taught London kids for over twenty years.
Norma

[Suzi]

Hi all-
I haven't made it to THE exhibition yet but when I do I fully intend to go with an open mind.Having said that-thanks for all the comments here and on the other thread!
On the museum site there are some great photographs incidently.


Love
Suzi x

[George Hutchinson]

Re : the previous page.

Jenni - treat the lad Evans gently. He's a newbie.

PHILIP

[Sam Flynn]

On the museum site there are some great photographs incidently.

There are some great illustrations in the book of the exhibition too - many with which I was familiar, but also some absolute corkers which I'd never seen before.