Need Some Assistance/Input

[arialburnz]

Hello, Everyone!!

First, I'll introduce myself. My name is Arial Burnz and I'm an author of paranormal romance. I've been a huge fan of Ripperology and have read many books over the years. If you'd like to check out my books, I'm at http://arialburnz.com.

Thank you so much for allowing me access to the forums. I have a TON of questions about life during the time period and I was hoping someone could assist me. Finding such information amongst all the Ripper books I've read is very akin to dumping a bag of Skittles into a bathtub filled with M&Ms and saying, "Find the Skittles!" Very tedious!

I'm working on the 5th novel in my Bonded By Blood Vampire Chronicles and I'm setting the story during the Ripper murders. I'm having problems placing my heroine in the setting of my story. I want her close enough to the Ripper murders to put her in harm's way, but in a position to marry someone financially secure enough to get her out of the Whitechapel area.

I started drafting my post...but it's pretty long because I describe a couple of scenarios and then ask my questions about whether or not they're possible.

Is this the right place to post this information? Since my post will be pretty long, is there another preferred format, like attaching a Word document or something similar? Or should I just post the whole thing here in the forum?

Thank you for your patience!!!

All my best,
Arial

[GUT]

Have you read:

London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew it will probably answer many of your queries.

Welcome to casebook, by the way.

[Wickerman]

... I have a TON of questions about life during the time period and I was hoping someone could assist me.

Welcome.

East End 1888, William J. Fishman, 1988, gives as good an overview as you are likely to get of life in Whitechapel at that time.

http://eastlondonhistory.com/2010/11/10/east-end-1888-by-bill-fishman/

A worthwhile investment for anyone interested in the period.

[arialburnz]

I just purchased that book and I've just started reading it! However, I do have very specific questions about the occupation options I'm considering for my heroine and the current love interest she has before the hero of the story comes along.

[GUT]

I just purchased that book and I've just started reading it! However, I do have very specific questions about the occupation options I'm considering for my heroine and the current love interest she has before the hero of the story comes along.

Ask away!

[arialburnz]

SWEEET!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!! I have a bit of a deadline, so I'm feeling pressured to get my questions answered. I will most certainly read Prof. Fishman's book, but I'm antsy!! (Sorry) And if anyone has read "The Streets of East London" by William J. Fishman and all of these questions can be answered by that book, it's okay to tell me to bugger off and read the book instead. LOL

Thank you in advance for any input anyone can provide! I will most certainly be mentioning this forum in my acknowledgments and anyone who helps answer my questions and gives me some direction will also be mentioned by name (whatever name you wish to provide). Of those I mention, I will be happy to provide a signed copy of my book when I get it in print (usually about 1 month after it goes to eBook) if you are interested. To date, I’ve had over 35,000 copies of my novels downloaded and they are starting to gain some popularity amongst the paranormal romance fans. All the novels in my series have received mostly 4- & 5-star reviews.

Small back-story on the set-up for my 5th novel (and I will try to be as brief as I can! lol)

The heroine of my story, Christabelle, is reincarnated as the soul mate to the hero of my story, Broderick "Rick" MacDougal, who is also a vampire. This is her third incarnation through the series and Rick's at the point where he doesn't want to put her in danger anymore, so he intends to place himself in the 'friend zone'. However, when he arrives in London and is having the dreams he always has, which is an indication his soul mate is in the vicinity, he learns Christabelle is not only in trouble (having been raped and beaten just recently), she lives in poverty. He refuses to leave her in such dire straits and is forced to get involved to try and set her up with a better life, in spite of his original intentions to observe from a distance.

Christabelle already has a man in her life, Benjamin, who has recently proposed. As much as it pains Broderick to see his soul mate with someone else, he is of a mind she is better off without him and the dangers that come along with being his wife. He thinks it would be safer for her to marry a mortal man. She was brutally murdered in the two previous lives and he's trying to save them both the tragedy and heartache. He wants to encourage the marriage so he can step back and let her live a normal, mortal life. Of course, this will completely blow up in his face and they will, again, fall helplessly in love with each other and live as happily as they can under the circumstances of his dark existence.

NOW...my problem...I don’t know what options I have for daily living that would sound realistic enough and plausible enough to place my heroine to fit my storyline.

Scenario #1 – The Prostitute

Originally, I thought of having her as a prostitute, which I know would be ideal for putting her in the Ripper's path and she would be no stranger to drink, also a characteristic of the victims. But...that might rule out her prospects of a man who would be well-off enough to support her. She’s also pretty damn stubborn in not wanting to depend on a man to survive, since that’s what killed her mother. She has also seen too many women get shacked up with guys, get pregnant and then be abandoned because the husband either lost a job or didn’t want the responsibility.

Even though Benjamin has been begging for her to marry him, she is reluctant because A) she doesn’t want the above and B) she doesn’t love him (which suits Rick just fine). I had thought of making Benjamin a cop, which might serve the purpose of him being an upstanding person from a better background to help her get out of her situation, but I know cops barely made enough money (about £65 a year, if I did my research right) to serve this purpose. Am I right about this?

I had also thought Ben’s father could be a barrister and come from a family of relative means, but was thinking Ben could have a real sense of duty with a sizable inheritance as a back-up and chooses to be a cop instead of a lawyer because he feels he can do more good out on the streets. Is THAT realistic for the time period?

With Ben being a cop and perhaps patrolling Whitechapel, I had imagined him knowing Christabelle for a year or so due to daily dealing of the job. And if he had a small part in the investigation or police force assigned to the Ripper murder watch, that would allow me to put Rick under suspicion as a suspect of the murders. (He happens to know who the Ripper is – an old vampire buddy of his, whom he left on bad terms.) Christabelle will end up being a victim of the Ripper after Mary Kelly, but Rick will save her…which is why she won’t show up on the list of victims.

However, I ran into a couple of problems with Ben being a cop in Whitechapel. The PBS special on the Ripper murders said the police wouldn’t go into the Whitechapel area because of the density of crime and so many people were armed with knives and hatchets and billy clubs. Is this true?

I realize after the murders started happening and people relied more on the assistance of the police that this may have changed. Cops were some of the people who found the victims, so obviously they were in the Whitechapel area, right? But if Christabelle is living in the area close to the murders, then Ben would not have seen her on a regular basis IF this is true the area was too dangerous for cops. I want them to have a history together before the book starts.

Were all areas of Whitechapel that bad? Is there a place in Whitechapel where there is a happy medium – still poverty-stricken but not so dangerous the cops wouldn’t go there (again, if that was true) AND would it be realistic for Christabelle to still be a prostitute in such an area? I know many women resorted to selling their bodies to survive although it was not necessarily their real profession…it was a means of last resort.

The research I’ve done has indicated the area of Dorset Street had a reputation for housing prostitutes. But what about the other locations of the other victims? Do any of those locations fit my description above? Or do I just have all the wrong information? Someone please set me straight on this.

So let’s say the cop scenario won’t work. I’m assuming anyone living in the Whitechapel area wouldn’t really have the means to make enough money to leave…which is what Rick is hoping for in this matrimonial prospect she already has. (I was also thinking of having Rick offer to give her money to help her, but she isn’t a very trusting soul, thinking he’ll want something more in exchange and not trusting him when he says he doesn’t. I still have to play around with that idea.)

So…if Ben isn’t the upstanding cop, is there a reason a more well-to-do person would be regularly in the Whitechapel area? Perhaps own a business in that section and have a home outside of Whitechapel? Or did most people who owned businesses in that area live above their business or in the area? I’m open to any option that will fit my plot direction! I'm thinking the whole business thing will probably be answered in Prof. Fishman's book...right? If so, I'll defer to that, but still welcome comments.

Obviously, I am unclear as to the levels of social class or living conditions within the boundaries of Whitechapel.

Scenario #2 – The Laundress

Another scenario I thought of would be to have Christabelle be a laundress. When I started doing research on them, I learned they made a pretty damn good living and was a means of income for many abandoned/divorced women/widows with children because it did so well to support them, they wouldn’t have to give up their children to orphanages. (See this article, a review on the book English Laundresses: A Social History, 1850-1930). But then that would put her under better living circumstances and perhaps even out of the path of the Ripper. Or would it be possible for her to rent a room (similar to what Mary Kelly had) and conduct her laundry services from her small apartment?

This would be ideal since she would be limited to the amount of laundry clients she could take on due to the lack of space, which would mean a lower income than a typical laundress. But I know running water was a luxury back then and she might have to do her laundry in a courtyard where there was a water pump. Did they still have the wash houses? Or was that back in the 1860s? As I mentioned above, she is attacked and raped. I could have her wrist broken in the attack and that would REALLY put her out of commission and deplete any savings she might have trying to keep a roof over her head, forcing her to seriously consider marriage OR any financial proposition Rick might offer her in spite of her personal convictions.

If she could rent a room in the areas close to where the Ripper murders took place and do enough laundry to make her rent, I could still have her close enough to the Ripper, and when Rick is trying to chase him down and find him, he learns about Rick’s connection to Christabelle and that alone puts her in the path of the killer because now it’s personal between him and Rick.

Whew! Can anyone answer these multitude of questions? And again, thank you in advance for anything anyone can offer.

[arialburnz]

Sorry, Gut! I just saw your first comment. Thank you for the warm welcome and no, I have not read the book you mentioned by Henry Mayhew. I will definitely look into it. It appears the Kindle version is incomplete, according to the reviewer who gave it 2 stars? Anyone else have that experience?

[GUT]

Oh my goodness where to start.

But the son of a well to do family becoming a cop is not, it seems at all out of the question, but might I suggest you make him the 2nd or subsequent son, thus with less chance of inheriting.

Cops certainly patrolled Whitechapel, but it is said that some streets were so bad they'd only go down them in pairs.

If we take MJK as an example Dew claimed to have known her, and describes her walking the streets so I can see no reason that Ben couldn't have known your lady at least by sight and as we know if she caught his eye talking would have been the next step.

Many police married, but if you need to could you give Ben a smallish inheritance from say Grandad or a maiden aunt, not enough to lead a life of leisure.

Back later.

[GUT]

The Booth Poverty maps show some areas around Whitechapel were reasonably prosperous. Not salubrious by today's standards but also not totally broke.

There were many businesses in the area and it seems some were reasonably well to do, just look at Jack McCarthy who while perhaps a slum lord appears to have been not short a quid. Or Lusk who had his building business in the area, some even speculate that Druitt would get off his train in Whitechapel and walk to Chambers.

Additionally there are no lack of stories about the well to do "slumming it" in Whitechapel.

It would be worth you having a good look at the poverty maps.

Later I'll have a look at the next issue you raise re your Prostitute.

[GUT]

Sorry, Gut! I just saw your first comment. Thank you for the warm welcome and no, I have not read the book you mentioned by Henry Mayhew. I will definitely look into it. It appears the Kindle version is incomplete, according to the reviewer who gave it 2 stars? Anyone else have that experience?

That I can't answer as I don't do Knidle if I can avoid it and my darling has the book.

[Pcdunn]

Hello, Arial,

I'm a good guy vampire fan, too, and with my writing partner have written some published fan fiction, so I've researched the Victorian era.

In my opinion, the barrister choosing to be a cop scenario will not work. It is important to remember that while being a constable or a detective was a needed job, higher classes looked down on them considerably. I'm not sure a young man educated to know the law and rich enough to be a barrister would want to lower himself to mix with the cops and street toughs.

Victorian classes were fairly stratified, and strict. Very often you stayed in the area you were born in, and the occupation your father followed (especially for the lower classes, which were the primary occupants of the Whitechapel area). Opportunies for women were even fewer, and mostly limited to marriage, or some occupation in a shop, factory, home business (taking in laundry, making piece work), selling things at the market, etc. What background did you give your heroine? Where did she grow up? What did her parents do? That will give a guideline to what condition she may be in.

The prostitute was the most despised type of woman in Victorian times. Whether called "daughters of joy," or "unfortunates," they were those women who had "fallen" upon very hard times, and had nothing left to sell or offer except their own bodies. A police constable might fall in love with a prostitute, but a barrister could never expect to marry one and ever have any kind of respect from his peers.
I like the laundress idea better, or perhaps a weaver might work. You might also investigate if women were employed at the local hospitals at that time. Not as doctors, of course, and perhaps not even as nurses, but laundresses would have been in demand there, I'm sure.
Hope this helps. Good luck!

[GUT]

Prostitute.

Here you have I think some problems.

1. The chances of a cop from a well to do family hooking up with a prostitute are, in my opinion, next to zero.

2. It really was for most women a occupation of last resort, I can't see your lady going from self supporting to prostitute in the time it took a broken arm to heel, say 4 to 6 weeks.

3. How about have her working in a match factory, many women worked there it was a dangerous job and poor pay which would let her meet the policeman and at the same time allow Rick to worry about her.

4. It seems that Ben being a cop is central to your story, so maybe bring his background down a notch, how about the son of a teacher or clergyman. And if necessary have the clergyman from a more well to do family, I know of at least one line of my family where the chain went

Well off, owner of sheep farm, worker of wool for the carpet industry and maltster [producing malt for brewers].

Clergyman and associate of the King.

Policeman

And I'm pretty sure they would have approved of him marrying a pro.

5. If you are using the ripper and telling your readers his thoughts have him think she is a prostitute for some reason, maybe because of where he sees her, or he confuses her with someone else.

6. Can you have her background someone linking up with Ben's maybe from the same village or have her from the ripper's village and her slighting him at some point and that's why he wants to rip her and Rick somehow gets word of this.

7. Prostitutes liven in many areas, just look at the victims section here.

Just a few thoughts you may wish to ponder.

[GUT]

I really should stop thinking about this, but could Jack have a little chuckle to himself over the police even think that he selected his victims because they were prostitutes, but some other reason.

[Pcdunn]

Not "down on whores" after all...

I really should stop thinking about this, but could Jack have a little chuckle to himself over the police even think that he selected his victims because they were prostitutes, but some other reason.

Hello, GUT,

I rather like this, though it would throw out most of the letters, unless Jack wrote 'Dear Boss' as a red herring. If he never wrote any letters, then Sickert and the other pranksters were automatically assuming a hatred of prostitues was the motive. Interesting... Maybe JTR just hated women in general, and these were the ones to cross his path. Or it was some other reason...

You were right about the newspapers being primary sources, of course. Thanks for the info in that other thread.

[Ally]

You could have her do a variety of jobs if she's independent. She could be both a street hawker (women did do it) which would put her out on the streets in danger, selling flowers and fruits and such, AND also have her do some needlework for sale from her home to make ends meet. She could also be a factory worker, as they did employ women as well, usually in textiles or other assembly type factories.