Life INSIDE 13 Miller's Court

[Rubyretro]

I think that we would be very suprised at how little material things people need to live :

I kept sheep here in the South of France , and shepherds still spend months at a time living in cabins in the high mountain pastures from spring to autumn.

The cabins in the highest areas are inaccessible by cars, even by 4x4, and so
the shepherds hike up on foot and have minimum possessions (clothes etc)
The floor of the cabin is most often beaten earth, and there is no electricity or running water. They keep daylight hours in the summer, and use candles
and firelight for light.

They cook over the fire, with a minimum of pans, and draw water from a torrent, or a citern collecting rain water (where the sheep drink -the shepherd sometimes has to walk for a long time to carry back precious water,
washing up the plate & pan at the same time).

Water for washing (done hastily, & standing up), is heated over the fire,
and then re-used for washing any laundry, which is dried in front of the fire.

I've often thought that it was basically very 'Victorian' !

I expect that newspapers & letters were used to start the fire, and the fire
used to burn any combustible rubbish.

Mary was lucky to be able to buy fresh food, or eat in cafés, and of course there was no layers of plastic packaging !

Shepherds have to rely on dried food brought up by Donkey -and animals,
plants, mushrooms & wild fruit.

[Phil H]

I was surprised that there had not been more discussion of this topic, and have no apologies for resurrecting it.

It seems to me that what we know about life in 13 Miller's Ct is very limited and raises several questions.

There is, for instance, an account of one of MJK's nbeighbours seeing her eating breakfast in her room with another woman. One wonders what they were eating and whether it had come from Mary's "larder" wherever that was kept - to to have been bought specially within the previous few minutes.

We know, for instance, that one of the "witnesses" to the Tabram killing - a resident of George Yard Buildings - came home late and then "nipped out" to the local store for provisions. There was indeed a "culture" in the East End of buying penny packets of tea/suger etc.

But if Mary went to McCarthy's shop how did she get credit, or if she had money, why was it not demanded for back-rent?

More importantly, Mary's autopsy showed that her last meal (eaten only a few hours before she was killed) was one of fish and potatoes. As I don't think that traditional English delicacy "fish and chips" had then been invented (someone correct me if I am wrong), I assume this referred to some sort of white fish probably boiled and either boiled or mashed potatoes. Where did she acquire that food?

We hear of many outings by MJK in the hours before her death, but nowhere of her shopping , being seen eating or buying food. There is no reference I know of to cooking facilities in No 13 - there was a kettle, so I assume a hook or trivet to suspend that over the fire - but it is not mentioned. But a hot meal assumes saucepans and utensils, and washing up afterwards - as we have no record of dirty dishes.

So she must have eaten out - when? Given digestion time that might help us to more precise timing of her death.

We hear her clothes were neatly folded over a chair - but I have always assumed that was the items she had worn that day and which she and/or the killer may have removed. But had she no other shawls, bodices or skirts? (various witnesses refer to items she was wearing with a possible implication that she did not wear the same attire all the time.

And where did Joe keep his clothes when he lived with her - not surely, all folded on or over a single chair - and during the day the chair(s) would have been required for sitting would they not? so were clothes moved from chair to bed and back again?

One would have expected some bowl for washing - as used at the time on a wash-stand, sometimes with a jug. It would have been more convenient than filling the bath every time - quite a job with one small kettle (which might have been practical to heat water for a basin). If there was such a bowl, then logically the killer might have used it to wash his hands/face - but there is no mention.

OK a basin or jug might have been broken in a spat between Barnett and MJK, but the absence does seem to me odd.

In sum, there is much we do not know about the detail of how MJK lived her life. The minutiae might well point us in new directions if we have to ask where she ate and how often. People can go a while without washing - but they need to eat.

We need, in my view, to ask some much more fundamental questions about life in 13 Miller's Ct - however squalid it was home to two people for several months, yet there was no detritus - no unwashed plates, no old newspapers (and we know Barnett read them to MJK), no old letters - and we know MJK received them. The room - body apart - as usually described seems strangely empty.

Anyone else think that is odd?

Phil

[Celesta]

Hi Spidey,

When I was a kid, we frequently went down to my grandfather's farm. This house was well over a hundred years, with no central heating at all. We had to bath in a round enamel tub with water drawn from the well. Sometimes we bathed in a huge, round, galvanized tub. Generally this was done, more or less standing up. Maybe that's how Mary bathed. Later on, they got indoor plumbing and a regular bathroom in the farmhouse.

Celesta

[Mike Covell]

There were public baths in abundance in Whitechapel but wether Mary Kelly could have afforded them is another matter, the Court did have a shared Tap and with a fire in her room its possible she heated water up to wash herself.
The photos of Mary Kelly do show a metal bath under the bed so who knows.

As for her clothes there are desriptions and illustrations showing them folded on a chair at the foot of the bed close to the fireplace.

This site may help

http://www.victorianlondon.org/

[Barnaby]

All the more striking considering the fact that Mary was fortunate in the sense that she had her own room.

How often would someone like Mary bathe?

[TrapDoorSpider]

How did Mary Kelly — and women like her in 1888 — LIVE in such apparently empty rooms like 13 Miller's Court?

All the police reports of 13 Miller's Court mention a bed, a table, a fireplace, a print of "The Fisherman's Widow," and possibly a chair. Not a single mention of any wardrobe, chest, shelves, trunk, or any other object in the room. Several books say her clothes were found "folded neatly." But where? Where did Mary Kelly keep her belongings? True, she may not have owned much, but where would she have stored her clothes, her few personal possessions, eating utensils, soap, maybe even some food (tea, sugar, etc.)?