Dutfields Yard interior photograph, 1900

[miss marple]

knees

Firstly congratulations to Phillip for his great fine. Its sickening to read the carping and bitching that goes on when a new find is made by a respected researcher.
The point I want to make however is with AP. As he appears to know nothing about Victorian clothes between about 1890 / 1900 he should shut up.
I cant download anything as i dont have a scanner, but I will mention this example. Home Chat, a magazine for lower middle class women, started by Harmsworth in 1895 has dress pattern designs for children. The girls designs in 1897 WERE KNEE LENGTH. Children in the 1890s had much freer and shorter clothing than in previous eras.Teenagers were mid calf, getting shorter by 1910. Working class children were even less bothered and restricted.
Miss Marple

[Cap'n Jack]

'Working class children were even less bothered and restricted.'
Is that a fact?
This is not the first comment on this thread that implicates that working class people have lower standards than the middle or upper class; and I think truly reflects the incredible snobbery amongst many of the posters here, who appear to believe that it was part of the East Ender's take on the fashion of the age to send their female children out onto the streets in clothing that exposed their lower legs, supposedly because they couldn't care less and were too busy drinking gin, because they were lower class scum.
The truth of the matter is that these photographs reflect the poverty of small and marginalised groups within the East End community, who did not have the financial means to clothe their children afresh as they grew, and hence a female child soon outstripped the modesty of her clothing, but cheap stockings usually forgave the sin.
The photograph I saw did not show a female child, but a mature woman, dressed in what appeared to be a light and bright cotton garment that left an amount of her lower leg exposed in a manner I have never seen in a Victorian photograph before.
The female children in the background are not wearing stockings at all, which I think is unusual.
As I've stated already, my ire with this farce began with a farce, the one acted out on the thread devoted to the American conference where supposedly serious researchers in this case were acting like a bunch of primary school bully boys... heaping praise on George for a discovery which they were waiting for with bated breath, although they had seen it a full year before, and then rushing to his defence once they all realised that nobody has seriously done any work on this photograph to authenticate it, apart from going into a huddle in the playground and slapping eack other's backs.
The background is not right.
The costumes are not right.
And the origin is just about as dodgy as you could get.

[Suzi]

OK AP sure you're right- but I did come up with a 'what if' earlier here...would be interested to see what people think.........

[Bailey]

'Working class children were even less bothered and restricted.'
Is that a fact?
This is not the first comment on this thread that implicates that working class people have lower standards than the middle or upper class

Why not? It's clearly the case today. It isn't (generally) rich folks you see walking around in cheap track pants, a grotty old tee shirt and a pair of flip flops when they're out doing their groceries, and it's (generally) the lower classes who are most likely to break the rules in terms of what society considers to be "approoriate" public attire and start flashing their cleavage, midriffs, or in Victorian equivalent, ankles.

And before people start attacking, I'm one of those scruffy working class peasant types myself, so I can say what I want about us. I was the only child of a single parent, I'm basically white trash. Part of my clothing choice is financial, but also I simply don't like to dress up - I like practical, comfy clothes. Refer Huck Finn for more... Ain't nothing worse than being forced to comb up and wear starchy shirts.

B.

[Chris]

The photograph I saw did not show a female child, but a mature woman...

It beats me how you could judge the age of anyone on that photograph, considering how low the resolution of the image was. I certainly couldn't. Clearly the man by the gate was an adult, and some of the figures were so tiny they were obviously children. But otherwise ...

Isn't it a bit silly to contradict what Philip is saying, when he is looking at the original, and you have seen only a very blurred copy? And obviously the experts he consulted about the dating of the costume would also have had the benefit of seeing a clear reproduction.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

The background is not right.
The costumes are not right.
And the origin is just about as dodgy as you could get.

Once again AP shows that he hasn't a clue of what he's talking about.
The clothing is EXACTLY right for a working class environment around 1900.
The background also tallies well with what we see on sketches in the press as well as the Furniss picture.

NOT TO MENTION the gate-like structure also tallies exactly with what we see on the Berner Street photo from 1909.
AND then we also have the measurements adding up nicely.

And then, of course, there is a door on the right house wall, located perfectly for the club door.

There can be no doubt that this is a photo of Dutfield's Yard. It's sane and healthy to be critical but there is a limit to everything. Anyone who questions this photo must be mad and delusional.

As for AP's analysis of people in the East End and 'low class' living, he has on repeated occasions shown to be totally clueless, so no one should take his ramblings seriously. It's all brandy talk.

I also agree with Ally regarding what we may intepret from the photo. It really struck me when I saw the high res copy how narrow and crammed the space actually is. I seriously doubt that the killer was interrupted by Diemschütz or that he hid behind the gates. The horse or Diemschütz most likely would have noticed/heard it in spite of the darkness.

And if the killer wasn't interrupted by Diemschütz there is really no reason to suspect the Ripper of the murder, because if he wasn't interrupted (unless he was interrupted by some of the club mumbers going in or out or by some noice in the building), then he would have had plenty of time to finish off the throat cut in the very deep and decisive manner he usually did, not to mention inflicting the rest of the mutilations.

So the photo actually has even further increased the possibility for me that the murder had nothing to do with the Ripper whatsoever.

All the best

[Suzi]

The voice of Swedish sanity!

Hi Glenn-
Blimey what a kerfuffle this wonderful photo has caused!! I love it and have no problem with it's provenance at all- The cats for a start!!.
Seriously it's a great find and we should all take it as just that!!

Suz xx

[Suzi]

This is a by the by London in 1900 - Oddly not many women about- Like the idea of the men doing the shopping!!
Suz x
Have kept it small here and will post it on the East End Pics thread proper size!

[Natalie Severn]

It beats me how you could judge the age of anyone on that photograph, considering how low the resolution of the image was. I certainly couldn't. Clearly the man by the gate was an adult, and some of the figures were so tiny they were obviously children. But otherwise ...

Isn't it a bit silly to contradict what Philip is saying, when he is looking at the original, and you have seen only a very blurred copy? And obviously the experts he consulted about the dating of the costume would also have had the benefit of seeing a clear reproduction.

You are not making sense .Surely by this logic,those being a "bit silly" applies to every poster on this thread who happened to only see the "blurred copy " photo but nevertheless decided to make a comment on it?

And would you too suggest that anyone who dares "question" this "blurred copy" photo in any way ,is either mad or delusional,as has been asserted above,even if,as in Anna"s case, she herself has had a few unhappy experiences buying items on ebay??

[Dan Norder]

So the photo actually has even further increased the possibility for me that the murder had nothing to do with the Ripper whatsoever.

I guess it's unsurprising that the people who most strongly believe a certain conclusion without anything like real evidence would fool themselves into thinking any new evidence somehow supports whatever they wanted to believe in the first place. The people with great emotional attachment to their own beliefs care more about trying to convince people they are right than actually having anything to back themselves up in the first place.

The photo certainly shows the exact locations of specific details at the scene, but it does not change the overall dimensions of the yard or the lighting and sound conditions present at the time of the murder, all of which have been known for many, many years. There's no more or less support for the Ripper having committed Stride's murder now than there was before Philip found this photo. Anyone who says otherwise is just fooling themselves.

[Chris]

You are not making sense .Surely by this logic,those being a "bit silly" applies to every poster on this thread who happened to only see the "blurred copy " photo but nevertheless decided to make a comment on it?

Please just read my message again.

First I quoted a comment by A. P. Wolf:
The photograph I saw did not show a female child, but a mature woman...

And then I responded to that comment:
"Isn't it a bit silly to contradict what Philip is saying, when he is looking at the original, and you have seen only a very blurred copy?"

Obviously I was talking about the specific comment I quoted, not about "every poster on this thread [etc]". The point is that Philip went to the trouble of commenting on this, as follows:
On the left, there are two little girls in smock dresses, maybe about 12. One nearest the camera is eating something. Both their skirts are knee-length and they are wearing dark stockings underneath. Further up on that side, one woman is looking up the yard. Her skirt is ankle length. The Jewish woman smiling at the camera has an ankle length skirt. There's half a woman visible at the back. Her skirt virtually touches the floor. There are three skirts in this photo that are not full length, and they are all worn by children.

So what I'm saying is that it's silly for A. P. to contradict that - which is based on a clear copy of the photo - when the version A. P. has seen is a low-resolution copy in which the faces are very blurred.

[The Grave Maurice]

There's no more or less support for the Ripper having committed Stride's murder now than there was before Philip found this photo.

Here, here! Uh, sorry, I mean: Hear, hear!

[Dan Norder]

And would you too suggest that anyone who dares "question" this "blurred copy" photo in any way ,is either mad or delusional,as has been asserted above,even if,as in Anna"s case, she herself has had a few unhappy experiences buying items on ebay??

Natalie, let's just get serious here.

Nobody is in a great position to try to weigh in on the ultimate truth of whether the photo is genuine or not unless they have seen the full sized photo, know about the full details of how it was found and what came with it, and also heard what the experts in various areas (such as vintage photography, clothing styles through history, East End buildings) have to say about it.

What some people don't understand, or seem unwilling to admit, is that Philip has had about a full year with the photo tracking this all down. He didn't just make a reckless announcement; he had it all looked into, and quite thoroughly. It's odd how A.P. tries to argue at the same time that Philip both didn't look into it very well and also that it was wrong for him to have shown it to other people in the field for their thoughts before making a public announcement.

People who don't aren't in the position to make solid conclusions can certainly weigh in on things if they like, but they have to realize and accept that other people are going to be in a better position to comment on it. Most people do understand this. Anna expressed some concerns based upon her experience, but she didn't know many of the details that were since shared with everyone, and now that she has she has withdrawn her comments. If the situation was as she thought it might have been, she would have had a good point. That's not how things really were, and now she knows that.

That's completely different from AP insisting it must be fake because he just likes to believe the opposite of what the Ripper experts believe. We all think this is obviously genuine, so it must be fake. We say the Sept. 17th letter obviously wasn't written on Sept. 17th 1888 and was inserted into the (wrong) files at a much, much later date, so he turns around and insists it's genuine. We all know that the Littlechild letter is real, so he invents up some nonsense in his head for why it shouldn't be considered so.

AP is basically a one-trick pony. His theory on the Ripper murders in pretty much every argument that ever comes up is always just pure naysaying what the expert opinion is. That's not real criticism, that just kneejerk, mean-spirited contrariness. It's also pretty obviously just sour grapes.

[Natalie Severn]

Chris,
Well thankyou very much for clarifying what you meant and that you weren"t adding to the insults thrown out to anyone who dares to ask a question here about the "blurred copy" image most of us saw.

[Natalie Severn]

Thankyou for that Dan,it has really helped me.It really clarifies the provenance based on several sources.But really,having met Philip on a number of occasions now, I have never doubted his integrity for one moment---or that of the others who have been involved,who I have also met.
I think my questions have been about the fairness of the debate that developed here ,when some have had such an obvious advantage over others in being able to assess the photos provenance.Its a bit like being asked to play "Blind Man"s Buff" when some of the players arent blindfolded!