Worker's Time Records

[c.d.]

This is something that I have always wondered about in the context of a suspect being able to provide an alibi for a particular date. How did companies back then verify that an employee worked particular hours on a particular day? Was there a standard way of keeping records? How long would those records have been kept? If a suspect was working at the time of the murders, I would think this would be something that the police could check.

c.d.

[The Grave Maurice]

I thought they might have had time clocks back then but, apparently, just barely. Here's an interesting bit from Wikipedia:

The first time clock was invented in November 20, 1888, by Willard Bundy, a jeweler in Auburn, New York. A year later his brother, Harlow Bundy, organized the Bundy Manufacturing Company, [1] and began mass producing time clocks. Bundy Manufacturing, along with two other time equipment businesses, was consolidated into the International Time Recording Company (ITR). [2][3] In 1911 ITR and two other companies were merged, forming Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR), which would later change its name to IBM. In 1958 IBM's Time Equipment Division was sold to the Simplex Time Recorder Company.

I imagine that keeping track of the workers was largely up to the foremen, although with jobs such as the ever-popular carman, that would be pretty difficult to do.

[c.d.]

Hi Maurice,

Thanks for that information. I too had thought about time clocks but didn't think they were in use during that time period.

If Jack was a butcher, was that a profession that worked around the clock?

I still think that time records could be a good alibi.

c.d.

[Jon Guy]

Hi C.D.

The three guy`s working at Barbers slaughterhouse in Winthrop St finished early when the work was done, and could nip out to the High St for a drink at somepoint during the night.

The Police did check their statements individually to their satisfaction, but no checking of records was mentioned at the inquest.

[c.d.]

Hi Jon,

I am not sure where I am going with this. I think that if a suspect could show some alibi for any one of the murders, he was off the hook if the police considered them all the work of the Ripper. When you hear about someone being investigated and dismissed without any details, I was just wondering if time records could have been something the police looked at.

People always seemed to be out and about at all hours so I was wondering if slaughterhouses worked around the clock and how diligently they recorded a worker being there at a certain time.

c.d.

[Jon Guy]

Isenschmid and Ludwig seem to have been let off the hook,as they were under some sort of supervision at the time of the double event.

Certainly, as far as Barber`s go for timekeeping, it was "as long as the work was finished".

As an aside, I have often wondered whether girls like Polly would offer themselves in kind just to sit or snooze by a fire with a night shift somewhere. Indeed, at the inquest, it was said that women sometimes came around the slaughterhouse ( which backed on to Brown`s stables on Bucks Row).