Victoria Working Men's Home, Commercial St East

[joelhall]

ive done a search both on cb & google, but not much has shown itself.

anyone give some pointers on where i can find out more about the victoria home?

much obliged.

joel

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Joel. Here's a couple of links for starters:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=172

http://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4922/19390.html

[joelhall]

thanks sam, much obliged

[Debra A]

I've just recently come across another 1889 account of the Victoria Home that includes some details that weren't in the information posted by Simon and myself on the link above.
A lengthy article appeared in The Sunday Magazine 1889, titled 'In Whitechapel' by Mrs Charles Garnett.
Some will be able to get it as full text on google books, others won't.
Here are a few points taken from the article that might interest some. I hadn't come across the Victoria Home's very own 'casual ward' before, or the buy six get one free on a night's lodgings.

The Victoria Home visited on a Sunday evening in November last.

39 and 41 Commercial Street, side door opening on Dorset Street
Two kitchens with immense open fires with great gridiron and frying and boiling pans.
Few prepare their own food as they can buy it more cheaply at the restaurant bar.Dinner, price fivepence, consists of a bowl of soup. quarter of a pound of cooked meat, potatoes and a block of pudding.
Tea, coffee and cocoa are a halfpenny a mug.
The bar is open from early to late on weekdays and 6 to 6 Sundays.

Registers are kept of lodgers. Every man's name and occupation is entered in the books and these records against the names are filled up and make brief histories. Lodgers who use the house regularly for 6 nights are taken in free on the seventh.

Some beds are fourpence, others are sixpence. Charge includes the use of baths, hot and cold, and of lavatories, where the lodgers can wash their clothes, dry and air them.Among the men present there that Sunday were those who were formerly merchants, doctors, master-builders, lawyers, undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge, besides artisans, working men out of work, day labourers, costemongers, discharged soldiers.All are very poor, someby misfortune, others by vice.
Establishment under the control of Mr A Wilke, a German of Scotch descent.

A simply furnished hall, able to seat 600, where a bible class is held one evening in the week. On Thursdays and Sundays there is a service.The hall is a reading room in the daytime and papers, games and books for it are welcome gifts.A kind of domestic Penny Reading (without the payment of the penny) is held here weekly.

Casual ward on another floor.32 beds and every lodger who comes to the place must first sleep in this ward. many come here in rags, shoeless and filthy and then spend four or five nights on trial.If they refuse to bathe or wash their clothes they are told not to come again.A lodger who has passed through the casual ward is allowed to rent a fourpenny bed.Two floors divided into cublicles are devoted to these, some compartments contain a dozen beds, others only 4.
Wooden divisions 8 feet high, forming broad passageways run down the length of the flats and twice across them.
The third floor is devoted to the sixpenny beds. They are just like the fourpenny ones only each is in a seperate cublicle.
There are 65 of these cublicles are thet are constantly full.Some men take these cublicles permanently.

[lynn cates]

ledgers

Hello Debra. I wonder if those ledgers still exist?

Cheers.
LC

[Bob Hinton]

Simple solution

There is a photograph of it in my book 'From Hell'. It is directly opposite the Princess Alice public house.

[Debra A]

Hello Debra. I wonder if those ledgers still exist?

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,
They would certainly make interesting reading if they did.
I haven't really looked into whether they might still be around. I don't think I'd know where to start looking!

[lynn cates]

private

Hello Debra (Debs?). I wonder if they could be held privately?

Cheers.
LC

[richardnunweek]

Hello Debra,
I would still like to have explained, how is it a side door, had exit/entry, from Dorset street to the Victoria homes kitchens via some stone steps, I clearly have my bearings all wrong in that area, believing it to be quiet incorrect.
I expected a hundred posts by now. where are they?
I can just see, Hutchinson /Fleming/Dan Barnett popping out of the side entrance for a smoke, and getting up to no good, then back to the kitchens, via the handy entrance.
My mind is boggling, time for a nice glass of wine.
Regards Richard.

[Debra A]

Hi Lynn,
That's a possibility, people do sometimes keep these types of things stuffed in their attacks for years without knowing what they are. If that's the case they would be difficult to track down.

Hi Richard,
Anyone who knows me will tell you I am not the best person to answer questions involving geography! but I didn't think it sounded right either that there would be a side entrance on Dorset Street into the Victoria Home.
However, there is no doubt that Mrs. Garnett was visiting the Victoria Home at 39 and 41 Commercial Street, her description tallies with all the other descriptions we have of the place.

Debs

[Natalie Severn]

Fascinating Debs.It certainly sheds light on Hutchinson"s familiarity with Mary Kelly ,if they bumped into each other in the street nearly every day! But what of Fleming? He too was right next door to her too! Surely the police searched through these chaps" clothing and other belongings and questioned them thoroughly?
I wonder did Fleming find out Mary had thrown Joe out and try to move in---only to be told to clear off by Mary anxious to ply her trade ---did he see red maybe? We now know he was very unstable Fleming[spending a good part of his life in the loony bin---as well as someone who had lived with Mary, was fond of her and she of him and reportedly one of her ex lovers who came and rowed with her, even when she was living in Miller"s Court,Dorset Street with Joe Barnett and we heard from Julie Ventury [?] that he knocked her about sometimes?
Anyway,thanks for this Debs---brilliant !

[richardnunweek]

Hello Debs,
I agree that the description of the Victoria Home, is as accurate as I am aware of, but I will say, if such a door existed in Dorset street, that led to the kitchens of The Victoria home, then a major thread will soon be formed, infact it will prove that all of us Ripper folk, really have to go back to basics, especially in the geographic dept.
Regards Richard.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Natalie,
Steady on , we first of all have to establish the accuracy of that article, to me it does not seem feasible, and I would be shocked if it did to any one else on Casebook.
If this passage existed, where in Dorset street could it be.?
Richard.

[Rob Clack]

It is physically an impossibility for anyone to step out of a side door of the Victoria Home and end up in Dorset Street. Unless of course if your Mr Benn.
Dorset Street should read Wentworth Street.

Rob

[richardnunweek]

Rob,
Thank you for common sense, as the home was on the corner of Wentworth street, that should be suffice for everyone.
Hopefully.
Regards Richard.