Toffs in Spitalfields

[Natalie Severn]

Wiltons was only one of a number of such music Halls in Whitechapel,one such being on Commercial Street itself.If a tradition had begun,which appears to have been the case,where rich men came to Whitechapel to enjoy its Music Halls and to pick up its women,its probable that after an evening of chorus girl fun,ending in such fashionable high kicking as the "Can Can",quite a few would have been sufficiently testosterone fuelled afterwards , on the loose in Whitechapel"s streets,to go looking wouldn"t you think,and where better than Commercial Street?

[Sam Flynn]

quite a few would have been sufficiently testosterone fuelled afterwards , on the loose in Whitechapel"s streets,to go looking wouldn"t you think,and where better than Commercial Street...

...at gone two in the morning on a cold and rainy night? Sorry, Nats, but it doesn't quite ring true - on quite a number of levels.

[claire]

Wiltons was only one of a number of such music Halls in Whitechapel,one such being on Commercial Street itself.If a tradition had begun,which appears to have been the case,where rich men came to Whitechapel to enjoy its Music Halls and to pick up its women,its probable that after an evening of chorus girl fun,ending in such fashionable high kicking as the "Can Can",quite a few would have been sufficiently testosterone fuelled afterwards , on the loose in Whitechapel"s streets,to go looking wouldn"t you think,and where better than Commercial Street?

Well, not quite...but there were a few in the general area, not specifically Whitechapel though. As for the CanCan--possibly not. As for being 'on the loose,' I suspect they probably just got a cab home. Also, you just got through saying that they picked up girls at Wilton's (or this number of 'such' music halls, although the Royal Cambridge on Commercial Street was probably one of the cleaner joints--not that that says much!). We have evidence that wealthier clients patronised the music halls et cetera, but the evidence that they generally patronised the grubby women in the backstreets of Whitechapel is a little sketchy, no? If the halls were as full of working girls as we might suppose (and Wilton's certainly had a few of them, so logic says they must have disappeared to other local hostelries), surely it wouldn't have been difficult to pick up a woman there? Why wander the freezing streets in rain and wind in your best clothes looking for a tuppenny upright in the worst area of London? It doesn't really make sense.

In any case, you suggested that this chappy was just on his way home. Alone. On foot. In the rain.

[anna]

It's a pity Conan Doyle didn't have Claire around to advise him on where he was going wrong,when he put all those toffs out and about,getting up to all sorts in the East End, into his Sherlock Holmes books.

According to Sam and Claire...he was being very unauthentic...just slipped them in to please his readers...............YEAH,RIGHT...

Considering he was around at the time,and Sam and Claire..er,were not...


I think we can take it,there WERE toffs in the East End in Jacks day.

[Sam Flynn]

It's a pity Conan Doyle didn't have Claire around to advise him on where he was going wrong,when he put all those toffs out and about,getting up to all sorts in the East End, into his Sherlock Holmes books.

Can you name two or more Sherlock Holmes books where toffs frequented, alone, the dingiest parts of Spitalfields at 1, 2 or later in the morning, Anna? I can't - although it's been three decades since I read him.

[Natalie Severn]

Oh don"t you know of certain men"s "predilections" regarding a "bit of rough"? Ofcourse certain "toffs" went to the East End for sex with a smelly bit of rough! Like Napoleon they preferred their ladies smelling a bit "organic"!You fall in the trap of that judge who let Jeffrey Archer off scott free because he simply refused to accept Jeffrey Archer had in some way "paid off" a rough looking "sex worker" with,----"Why on earth would he want to be going with such a person as this [----or words to that effect ---] when he has the fragrant Mary Archer as his wife? The reporters apparently laughed out loud knowing of Jeffrey"s fondness for just such a bit of rough from the back streets....
Rain was probably no object for those "on heat"!

Ps have to be careful here as Mary Kelly was described by Inspector Walter Dew-who knew her -as always looking clean and tidy with a freshly laundered apron on.

[Sam Flynn]

Oh don"t you know of certain men"s "predilections" regarding a "bit of rough"?

Indeed, Nats. But the women we're talking about were beyond "a bit of rough" - they were practically grandmothers, and many of them were.

Besides, "a bit of rough" was more the preserve of middle-class male homosexuals. The very idea that the average 20- or 30-something heterosexual, with more than 10 shillings a week to spare, would have had their interest piqued by the gap-toothed smiles and gin-shot eyes of the malodorous bag-ladies of Spitalfields doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

[Natalie Severn]

Mary Kelly,who is the person Mr Astrakhan is supposed to have spoken to in Commercial Street,was 25 years old,attractive,and according to Walter Dew was neat and clean.
But really I would take strong issue with you over the idea of "a bit of rough".If men went to Whitechapel to buy sex,they would have known in advance that most of those women were not exactly glamour babes,not likely to be young - or clean or well dressed.It was all part of the thrill.Read some of the writers like the biographer of Toulouse Lautrec---Pierre Le Muir[sp?] ----he writes about his subject and Paris in the 1890"s with great frankness----the dirt ,disease,lasciviousness and the sordid , twisted horrible tastes---you name it and you will find it there-better still look at some of the aged prostitutes---nothing pretty ,fresh or sweet smelling to be seen in any of the paintings.You can read about it in some of the art history books on Lautrec and the low life prostitutes he drew -Gabrielle was a great favourite-some he drew look very aged indeed - looking far older than say Polly Nichols looks in her photo.Toulouse Lautrec was an aristocrat from one of the noblest families in France and he chose to actually live in one of the most sordid districts of Paris with the seediest people.AND he had plenty of rich friends keen to join him in his whoring.

[claire]

It's a pity Conan Doyle didn't have Claire around to advise him on where he was going wrong,when he put all those toffs out and about,getting up to all sorts in the East End, into his Sherlock Holmes books.

According to Sam and Claire...he was being very unauthentic...just slipped them in to please his readers...............YEAH,RIGHT...

Considering he was around at the time,and Sam and Claire..er,were not...


I think we can take it,there WERE toffs in the East End in Jacks day.

Whoa!! Did I say there were none? No, I didn't. I said that it was unlikely that there were lots.

And, for heaven's sake: please put me right here, but all these years I've been labouring under the delusion that Conan Doyle was a writer of fiction. I seem to recall he also had a large and wicked black dog savaging folk on the moors and resurrected a man who threw himself over a waterfall. I imagine that was pretty commonplace at the time, too. And before someone wheels out Oscar Wilde, I'll just recollect that supernatural picture. All commonplace in London at the time, could pick them up for a bob or two down the Portobello Road. I mean, they were there at the time and I...er...was not.

Let's not use works of fiction as the definitive word on reality, please. There's such thing as artistic license. And I already said several posts ago that just because something happened didn't make it the norm. Artists of all colours pick up on the unusual, particularly during the late 19th C.

And, Anna? Your tone is pretty clippy, isn't it? I'm only having a debate here.

[Sam Flynn]

Mary Kelly,who is the person Mr Astrakhan is supposed to have spoken to in Commercial Street,was 25 years old,attractive,and according to Walter Dew was neat and clean.

It's not the victim, but the place where this peacock was alleged to have been wandering on his own at two in the morning, Nats, and his ostensible reason for being there.

If men went to Whitechapel to buy sex,they would have known in advance that most of those women were not exactly glamour babes,not likely to be young - or clean or well dressed.It was all part of the thrill.

We're talking about a densely-populated neighbourhood of unmitigated squalor, where ragged, filthy 40-somethings tramped the streets having forfeited their beds for the sake of yet another hangover.

The Paris of Lautrec does not begin to compare. For that comparison, our would-be sex tourist should have looked to places like Leicester Square. At least there, the chance of finding a "bit of rough" capable of nibbling (as opposed to sucking) his ear-lobe would have been far better than in Spitalfields. Or perhaps Covent Garden, where there was a goodly supply of street-walkers, but with fewer "vicious and semi-criminal" types in the populace at large to duff him up whilst he was cruising.

[Ben]

Excellent points very well argued, Gareth and Claire.

I think we can take it,there WERE toffs in the East End in Jacks day.

There are also man-eating sharks off the English coast, Anna, but they're not particularly common, and certainly not the most likely cause of accident at an English seaside holiday.

[Natalie Severn]

It's not the victim, but the place where this peacock was alleged to have been wandering on his own at two in the morning, Nats, and his ostensible reason for being there. We're talking about a densely-populated neighbourhood of unmitigated squalor, where ragged, filthy 40-somethings tramped the streets having forfeited their beds for the sake of yet another hangover.

The Paris of Lautrec does not begin to compare. For that comparison, our would-be sex tourist should have looked to places like Leicester Square. At least there, the chance of finding a "bit of rough" capable of nibbling (as opposed to sucking) his ear-lobe would have been far better than in Spitalfields. Or perhaps Covent Garden, where there was a goodly supply of street-walkers, but with fewer "vicious and semi-criminal" types in the populace at large to duff him up whilst he was cruising.

Sam,
The part of Commercial Street itself of which we speak, did then and still does boast one of the most famous and beautiful churches in the whole of London-Hawksmoor"s Christchurch-painted only recently by Kossof,so celebrated to this day it has an entire work of fiction written about it.Moreover Spitalfields Market directly opposite it had only recently been rebuilt in 1887 and featured state of the art architecture ,carefully preserved in the very recent rebuilding,and as I said yesterday Fournier Street which runs alongside the church and begins with the church on one side and the Ten Bells on the other,is also one of London"s most elegant 18th century streets with property changing hands in the millions.
Contrast this with Dorset Street directly opposite but only twenty yards from all this and you have a slummy street.Thrawl Street was slummy too,once you entered it.But not Commercial Street itself at this juncture.
Certainly that area of Spitalfields compared with Pigalle.It was for the most part a lot nicer.Pigalle was then,sordid dirty and smelly still is actually,- not quite the same stink but just as sleazy,corrupt and dangerous to be in after dark. You need to read that biography on Toulouse Lautrec to know what went on.But just get a book from the library and take a good look at the raddled drunken old prostitutes he painted----and who,incidently ,he is said to have adored----yes---in every way.And the books writes of others like him-not so aristocratic but very rich.

[Brenda]

I have no doubt there were toffs in Spitalfields, especially at the music halls. I have no doubt that there were a few of them that preferred disease-ridden street prostitutes. But do I doubt there were droves of toffs parading up and down Dorset Street decked out in their best finery with all their bling on display at 2:00 in the morning looking for prostitutes? Yes, I doubt that very much.

[Ben]

Hi Norma,

Nice architecture really musn't be construed as an indication of a significant toff representation in the district. Both Christ Church Spitalfields and Spitalfields Market were both conceived of and built in advance of 1888, when the district became well-known as a notorious slum, and referred to on a regular basis as such. If anything, the re-painting of churches and the improvement of markets is often resorted to as an attempt to mitigate against a bad reputation. A forlorn hope in that case, but the thinking behind it is more than understandable.

1700s architecture in a given district isn't really relevant for the purposes of assessing the number of toffs likely to parade their bling in the small hours of a miserable night over 100 years later.

Lets stick to Whitechapel and lack of truth in the statement that a man such as George Hutchinson saw,dressed to the nines,could not have been seen in Commercial Street at 2 am in November 1888.Lets demolish that myth shall we

Nobody said it was impossible, just incredibly unlikely and implausibly convenient for the man seen loitering in a preoccupied sentinel outside Miller's Court. Let's face it, there's nothing like a walking talking sinister, moustachioed, parcel-clutching, Jewish paint-by-numbers amalgamation of all the myths and fears that had circulated about the killer's identity for getting a genuinely suspicious character off the hook.

Best regards,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

Certainly that area of Spitalfields compared with Pigalle.It was for the most part a lot nicer.Pigalle was then,sordid dirty and smelly still is actually,- not quite the same stink but just as sleazy,corrupt and dangerous to be in after dark...

...but did Pigalle have thousands of slum-dwellers crammed into such a tiny area, though, Nats? The sheer level of overcrowding in those "vicious, semi-criminal" thoroughfares, especially those flanking Commercial-street itself, is what set Spitalfields/Whitechapel apart from many other such slums in Britain, never mind Paris - and that's saying something.