Toffs in Spitalfields

[Natalie Severn]

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.

Hi Brenda,
I quite agree that they would have been most unlikely to have "congregated" in droves in Dorset Street.But visit the Whitechapel Music Halls-including the one in Commercial Street ,they certainly would have.One or two may have been happy to accompany the pretty 25 year old Mary Kelly back to her digs though! Even the young Inspector Walter Dew seems to have rather fancied her judging from his memory of her.

The East End was a place where toffs went for illicit sex.I didnt say it was the only place they went but it certainly was one of the places.
Norma

[Ben]

The East End was a huge place though, Norma. The area we're discussing is only a small part of it. I don't see why "toffs" would have sought out that district when there were prostitutes everywhere in London. If they were bizarrely hell-bent on that location, they need only hover around the City/East End border for the prostitutes to come for them. As Claire mentioned elsewhere, the music halls were not designed exclusively for the enjoyment of "toffs", and were not concentrated in that quarter of the East End.

Ben

[Natalie Severn]

[QUOTE=Ben;59494]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.


Ben,

Millen [ie Brigadier General of artillery Francis Frederick Millen-ex fenian/British "Agent X"-possibly a double agent]June 1887,Boulogne.
Williamson"s description of "dynamite fiend":
Aged 50 -55,height 5 ft 8 ins.Visage red face blotchy,as if from excessive drinking-large nose-hair wavy brown,turning grey,moustache white ,no whiskers.Very slight build,dressed,dark clothes,dark overcoat with astrakhan collar and cuffs-hard felt hat.Wears sword scarf pin-has Irish harp and shamrock on locket and watch chain;Had with him a brown leather port-manteau-

I post this Ben,because it really does seem to me that such attire was the fashion for those who could afford it and Millen btw wasnt a rich man,but he did visit seedy places like the East End from time to time although for the most part living in New York.Much spied on by Sir Robert Anderson was Millen!

Norma

[Ben]

Thanks for that, Norma, but there's really no indication that Millen ever ventured into the locality we're talking about, let alone in the small hours of a nasty winter night, let alone dressed like that!

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks for that, Norma, but there's really no indication that Millen ever ventured into the locality we're talking about, let alone in the small hours of a nasty winter night, let alone dressed like that!

Now Ben---all I am pointing out is that such attire was not a pastiche or caricature attire from Vaudeville.It was clearly a common,fashionable form of dress in 1888.Druitt was similarly attired according to records when they fished him from the Thames.

[Ben]

I'm sure people wore Astrakhan coats, Norma, no doubt about that. It's the description in its totality that bothers me; the hopelessly implausible degree of alleged observation and recall, the notion of an ostentatious toff in the heart of Slumsville amid ripper scares, and the convenient "happenstance" discussed above.

[claire]

The existence of something, or the occurrence of something, at another somewhat congruous place or time doesn't provide any proof of its existence in the time and place we are interested in. Yes, there were fashionable people around London. Yes, painters and writers have documented, in their chosen form, the juxtaposition of slum dwellers and hookers with the wealthy and privileged (ever wonder why? why might artists be interested in that? ). Yes, the 'better' classes visited the music halls in 1888 (but not Wilton's ). And, yes, there are some sickos around there with some rather odd tastes.

But I'd imagine that if someone of independent wealth was about to indulge their proclivities in an area of London that was far better known for its pickpocketing and theft than for music halls, they would dress down for the occasion. Particularly if that was going to involve tearing women apart. That someone, wearing every possible item of fashionable clothing, would be wandering alone, conveniently observed in minute detail, almost beggars belief, as Ben suggests.

The equivalent would be a woman head to toe in Dior, a fur wrap, and Tiffany'd all over her fingers and wrists, wandering around not Soho, oh no, but the housing estates of Homerton.

[Sam Flynn]

Yes, painters and writers have documented, in their chosen form, the juxtaposition of slum dwellers and hookers...

Out of interest, am I correct in my assumption that there never was a "Lautrec of Whitechapel"? We had Gustave Doré in the 1860s and 70s - but his project back then chronicled slum poverty as a general phenomenon, rather than focusing on showgirls and prostitutes, and he didn't confine himself to the East End. The closest we get to Lautrec seems to have been our old friend Walter Sickert, whose paintings of London prostitutes were made long after the Whitechapel murders - but then, didn't he choose North London as his particular "Pigalle"?

If so, would I be guilty of "Buckaroo" if I suggested that the denizens of Whitechapel/Spitalfields were so debauched that not even dirty old painters felt inclined to use them? Or even that the East End slums were so dodgy that the likes of Sickert felt safer seeking their inspiration in Camden Town?

[claire]

I think you're right, Gareth, although there may well have been some lesser known painters around. It was an all-round dodgy area. The area was, nevertheless, mentioned by Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray (he speaks of the opium dens of Bluegate Fields, an area roughly coterminous, I think, with George Street and its surrounding areas). Whether he actually visited there is open to some debate, however...Mr Wilde was pretty well known for his appropriation of other people's tales. (Anecdote: Whistler and Wilde at a dinner party, and Wilde chortling away at another of Whistler's stories. Wilde: Ohh, Jimmy, I wish I had said that. Whistler: You will, Oscar. You will.)

All of which only gives credence to the idea that artistic license has been deployed to its max in this case

[Ben]

If so, would I be guilty of "Buckaroo" if I suggested that the denizens of Whitechapel/Spitalfields were so debauched that not even dirty old painters felt inclined to use them?

Not at all, Gareth. Makes perfect sense to me. This is why the idea of toffs deliberately seeking out Whitechapel and Spitalfields for "a bit of rough" is lost on me. Any prostitute in London would have been considered a "bit of rough" to an upper-class gent, irrespective of location. They didn't need to venture into the East End, where the pickings were grottier, just for that reason.

Best regards,
Ben

[FrankO]

Not at all, Gareth. Makes perfect sense to me. This is why the idea of toffs deliberately seeking out Whitechapel and Spitalfields for "a bit of rough" is lost on me. Any prostitute in London would have been considered a "bit of rough" to an upper-class gent, irrespective of location. They didn't need to venture into the East End, where the pickings were grottier, just for that reason.

Hi Ben,

Long time, no see. How have you been?

In addition to what you wrote above, it's one thing to do so when you know there's all kinds of crime & vice going on in that district, but it's quite another when, in addition, there's a ferocious mad serial killer on the loose there as well, and when there's a possibility that you, as a toff looking for unfortunates, will be arrested on suspicion of being the Ripper.

All the best,
Frank

[Ben]

Hi Frank,

Good to hear from you! All's well here thanks. Hope you had an enjoyable Christmas.

You are, of course, spot on. If venturing into the heart of one of the worst areas in London peacocked to the hilt was silly enough on an average day, just consider how loopy it would have been to do so at the height of the Autumn of Terror, when press and public were already clamouring for the arrest of a dodgy-looking foreign outsider who might be a doctor (etc).

Best wishes,
Ben

[miss marple]

Walter Besant

Just a little piece from the end of Walter Besant's EAST LONDON. I have a 1902 copy
''But I should think that we have in East London, with its vast population of working people of all kinds, ranging from the highly paid foreman to the casual hand, the lad of the street,the wastrel, and the wreck, a mass of humanity which is not paralleled anywhere, and a corresponding amount of philanthropic endeavor which it is impossible to equal anywhere.
In this immense multitude there are many slums of the worst kind; but they are now much fewer, and they are much less offensive, than they were; the most terrible of the plague spots seem to have been improved away; to find the real old slum, the foul the indescribable human pigsty, one no longer look for it in East London. That is to say, there are I dare say, a few of the old slums left, but the places-there were then many of them-into which one peered shuddering,twenty years ago,have now vanished. The police, the clergy,the ladies who go about the parish,can still take the visitor into strange courts and noisome tenements, but he who remembers the former state of things feels that light ans air and a certain amount of public opinion, with some measure of cleanliness, have been brought to the old fashioned slum by the modern Helping Hand''
It was thanks to the 'toffs' that Besant was able to describe the East End in more positive terms at the beginning of the 20th century.
There were many toffs in the East End in the last couple of decades of the 19th century, but they were there because of the new mood of social reform taking over the country, the Fabian Society, Socialism, the Matchgirls Strike, the Dock strike. The salvation Army, Barnardo, Burdett Coutts,Annie Besant, the writings of Shaw, Samuel Barnett, the Settlement, all these influences led to a fashionable trend to help, particually among young graduates. Today they will be taking their gap years in the third world.
The east end then, was a third world.They were not there picking up whores. I am going over this again, but the serious vice trade was in the WEST End where prostitutes would parade in all their finery in theatre's such as the Empire which attracted the attention of anti vice campaigner Mrs Ormiston Chant.
Miss Marple

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Miss Marple,
The East End was indeed an area of much extraordinary political activity -by anarchists,radicals/socialists -as well as police counter activity such as undercover operations led by special branch agents such Anderson and Monro.And ofcourse there were growing numbers of philanthropists active too.
I am reading about William Morris at the moment ,a regular vistor/speaker at the International Working Men"s club-he was speaking there the previous Saturday of the double event ,at this point in time he was a wealthy anarchist -who didnt like the idea of receiving information from the remaining French communards [ie those who hadnt been shot in 1871]on ways of using ginger beer bottles to make Molotov cocktails!
What I just cant accept though,is that Sir Christopher Frayling accepted payment to speak at the Museum of London on the specific subject of the East End of Jack the Ripper and chose to specifically point out the use made by upper class males of its music halls,chorus girls ,its streets and prostitutes in general and simply invented a pack of lies,as has been suggested by Claire--- in so many words.Sir Christopher appeared to be fully versed in his subject matter,having made a cult film about it ,albeit some 15 years ago.He had also not only been paid to address this Museum Of London Lecture led by the Crime Historian, Professor Clive Bloom ,but was quite "emphatic" about the way Wilton"s had been used and abused by wealthy West End Gents - he even appeared to have recorded information on it.In fact,when I get back to London, I intend to follow the matter up by emailing Clive Bloom for further information on this.
With regards to Walter Sickert,I have here Sickert"s print of the Lloyd sisters[Marie Lloyd and her sister on stage- painted in 1888/9.This may give a hint of a possible East End link for Sickert in 1888 because Marie Lloyd regularly met up with Mary Kelly"s landlord in the Sugar loaf ,Hanbury Street,Spitalfields around this period.
However,its perfectly true that Sickert"s most famous paintings of Music Halls and their artists are from the 1880"s series of the Old Bedford Music Hall in Camden Town, not of music halls in the East End.His influence at this time,in the 1880"s was thought to have been Manet"s Un Bar aux Folies-Bergere and Velasquez"s Las Meninas.But Sickert himself painted so many music hall scenes of all kinds---as well as scenes of chorus girls doing high kicks in line ups,that he may well have done some of them in East London as well-there were some 300 music halls in LOndon at this time-all more or less linked ---certainly in the public"s mind,to prostitution in one way or another.

[Sam Flynn]

I am reading about William Morris at the moment ,a regular vistor/speaker at the International Working Men"s club-he was speaking there the previous Saturday of the double event ,at this point in time he was a wealthy anarchist

Indeed, Nats - in predominantly Jewish St George's East, where the neighbours were less inclined to be of the "vicious, semi-criminal" type. Indeed, most of that area appears Blue, Light Blue, Purple, Pink and Red (ranging from "standard poverty" to "affluent; 1 or 2 servants") in Booth's 1889 map. Besides, Morris was there to give an evening talk - it's not as if he were kerb-crawling alone at 2AM, not that you were suggesting that he was, of course.

What I just cant accept though,is that Sir Christopher Frayling accepted payment to speak at the Museum of London on the specific subject of the East End of Jack the Ripper and chose to specifically point out the use made by upper class males of its music halls,chorus girls ,its streets and prostitutes in general

He may have been making a general point about London Music Halls, rather than majoring on those of the East End in particular - certainly, as we've seen, Wilton's was not among their number in 1888. He might - and this is forgivable - even have been generalising a little too freely.

and simply invented a pack of lies,as has been suggested by Claire--- in so many words.

Suggesting that he was inaccurate on one or two points of detail is one thing, but that's certainly not tantamount to insinuating that Frayling "invented a pack of lies". Let's face it, even Bill Fishman drops one or two bollocks in his telling of the Ripper story not because he's a liar, not because he's an incompetent historian - far from it - but because his area of specialism doesn't require him to be an expert in the Ripper case. Similarly, Christopher Frayling's area of specialism doesn't require him to know the ins and outs of a cat's arse about Music Halls or the people who frequented them.

Here, perhaps we're more particular about such nerdy minutiae - it might not earn us PhD's in history, but at least this fussiness might immunise us from accepting too many things at face value, no matter how distinguished - or humble - the source.