The gas lamp in Miller's Court

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon

Not really. We do know that there were seven rooms on the upper floors of #26 (from some official report or newspaper article, I don't remember which) and this is quite logical and inevitable given what we know of this type of house. The rooms at the front of the house all had two windows (including the attic) so that is 3 rooms. Each of these rooms had behind them another room and the stairwell so that is now 6 rooms.

Hi Stephen.
Those rooms at the back on the first floor, and at the back on the 2nd floor, where are the windows for those rear rooms?


Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon
This may not necessarily be the case Jon...it may be in North America, but not always in the UK...

It is not the case Dave, my sincere apologies. I was sketching the roof angle of the rear extension (Kelly's room) where, as with most lean-too additions, the joists run perpendicular to the side of the house.

Having "perpendicular" on the brain I confused my own post (multitasking is not my forte), I meant "parallel". It was when trying to upload the staircase pic. inside 29 Hanbury St. that I noticed my error.

This picture enforces what I was meaning to suggest.



Notice how the stairs turn at 90 deg to surface up between the joists?, 29 Hanbury is a similar plan as 26 Dorset St. with respect to the orientation of the main joists - they run parallel with the apex of the house.

In the pic above, if you imagine a new door punched through that left side wall at the foot of the stairs, this is how I think the internal hallway of 26 Dorset St. may have looked like. That new door would be the passage door used by Prater.

So, no rear rooms on the 1st floor, nor on the 2nd floor (Stephen?). The single window seen above Kelly's roof from the rear view is only to give light to the rear stairwell, not a room window.

We were doing this exercise over on JTRForums some months ago, we still did not arrive at a firm conclusion - just tossing ideas around.

Regards, Jon S.

[Stephen Thomas]

Those rooms at the back on the first floor, and at the back on the 2nd floor, where are the windows for those rear rooms?

Hi Jon

The invaluable drawing found by Debra Arif on post #26 here shows the back windows of the attic room and the room below (UK 2nd floor US 3rd floor). Also it shows a small window at the top of the house which would have let daylight in to the stairwell. Obviously there was no window in what had been the 1st floor back parlour and the room had no natural light so it was not used as a room to live in though it was stated at the 1889 Kate Marshall trial that McCarthy allowed people to sleep in the store room there.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Here's another picture of Millers Court.

There doesn't appear to be a gas lamp opposite the door to Room 13.



Regards,

Simon

[Stephen Thomas]

Here's another picture of Millers Court.

There doesn't appear to be a gas lamp opposite the door to Room 13.

[ATTACH]14721[/ATTACH]

Thanks Simon

I thought I'd seen all the Millers Court pictures but this one is new to me.

However, there WAS a gaslight more or less opposite Kelly's door.

Where's the picture from?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Stephen,

It's from a full-page spread of illustrations entitled "London's Misery—The Heart of Whitechapel" in the New York Daily Graphic, 23rd January 1889.

Regards,

Simon

[Stephen Thomas]

It's from a full-page spread of illustrations entitled "London's Misery—The Heart of Whitechapel" in the New York Daily Graphic, 23rd January 1889.

Thanks again, Simon

Are you able to post any more of these pictures?

All the best

[Michael W Richards]

Hi all,

Hi Simon,

Looking back through my now overstocked hard drive of all things Ripper I found a drawing from the Penny Illustrated of November 17th, 1888...and it does seem to show the gaslamp,.. although, to my eye,... not directly opposite Marys door;

[Wickerman]

Has anyone questioned the existence of this particular lamp?

Regards, Jon S.

[Michael W Richards]

Has anyone questioned the existence of this particular lamp?

Regards, Jon S.

This is the first time that I recall Jon, although Im sure other discussions have included the lamp and its implications.

If you combine the image Simon put up with the lamp co-ordinates in the image I just put up, I see something. The window I suggested may be at the rear of Elizabeth's room in an alcove perhaps would allow for a view of the lamp. Or certainly the light cast by it. I suspect she could even tell if it was lit or not while on her bed....if my assessment of the situation is accurate.

I wasnt being completely diplomatic earlier Jon ....I do believe that what Ive suggested is logical, and therefore, possible.

When she mentions that the light on "the" lodging house was out, surely its possible she meant a light to her own lodging house, and the one adjacent to it?

Her comments about hearing the cry as from the court means this...she had the ability to hear sounds that she could determine were courtyard based, something a front facing window onto Dorset would not allow easily. Since she had just awoken from a sleep, which may have been alcohol assisted...one can assume that her ability to pinpoint the source of a sound would be compromised to some extent. Therefore she would have needed unfettered sound pathways to be able to determine if the courtyard was the source.

On the lamp itself, after emerging from a stone tunnel some 20-25 feet in length one would assume a light would be available to restore the vision, after walking through a dark tunnel.

Cheers

[Stephen Thomas]

I found a drawing from the Penny Illustrated of November 17th, 1888...and it does seem to show the gaslamp,.. although, to my eye,... not directly opposite Marys door

Hello Mike

Two drawings in fact, by different artists, clearly showing said gas lamp which as you say was not directly opposite Kelly's door but just a few feet to the right.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Stephen,

Here's the whole page from the NY Daily Graphic -

Dutfields Yard is captioned "Berner's Court, Headquarters of the Socialists", whilst above the gates is written "Cleaver's Yard".



Regards,

Simon

[Nemo]

I can see what looks like a lamp in the picture posted by Simon

What it also shows is the archway looking like a wide arch which has 50% of it containing McCarthy's shop, which looks as it does on a number of sketches

In this particular sketch, the archway fronting on Dorset St looks similar, ie it looks like half of a wide archway

However, any photo or drawing of the Dorset St archway shows this not to be the case

The shadows cast by the lamp are interesting in that the lamp only appears to illuminate the upper half of Kelly's door

Kelly's room was 12' x 15' - look at the illustrations which depict the position of "Prater's door" in the alleyway and I think you will find that there is very little room to include the stairs on her left as she entered the doorway

Also, it would almost certainly prevent her seeing any light through the partition as she climbed the stairs as the back wall which the stairs are attached to is not the partition

[Wickerman]

This is the first time that I recall Jon, although Im sure other discussions have included the lamp and its implications.

Thanks Michael.
I thought the question was "which lamp was Prater referring to?", not whether the Court lamp existed or not. I thought everyone understood that.

If you combine the image Simon put up with the lamp co-ordinates in the image I just put up, I see something. The window I suggested may be at the rear of Elizabeth's room in an alcove perhaps would allow for a view of the lamp. Or certainly the light cast by it.

That window over the arch is part of No.27, not 26. Kelly's room runs deeper past that corridor or hallway above the arch.
Check the Goads plan, I can't see how anyone inside a room in No.26 could see diagonally through that window over the arch in the house next door.

When she mentions that the light on "the" lodging house was out, surely its possible she meant a light to her own lodging house, and the one adjacent to it?

I don't see why, she would see the lodging-house lamp alight every night from her window facing Dorset St., it was only a few feet to her right. She would know what time it normally was turned out (about 4:00 am).

On the other hand, Bowyer has reported that McCarthy's shop was occasionally open till 3:00 am, sometimes later.
Bowyer said:
....(the shop)..."does not at times close until three o'clock in the morning, while occassionally it is open all night."

Whereas Prater's words were:
"...I noticed the lodging-house light was out, so it was after 4 probably "

Why should it be "probably after 4:00 am" if the shop normally closed about 3:00 am?
They're not talking about the same lamp Michael.

Her comments about hearing the cry as from the court means this...she had the ability to hear sounds that she could determine were courtyard based, something a front facing window onto Dorset would not allow easily.

In my view it means that if the cry had been loud she would have assumed it came from Dorset St., but because it was faint she assumed it came from behind the lodging-house.
It would appear from other cases (Marshall?) that upstairs rooms may have all been partitions.

I lived in a weavers cottage (built 1870's?) when I was first married and all the downstairs walls were stone, but all the bedroom walls upstairs were partitioned. The walls essentially hung from the roof beams rather than been solidly built to the floors.
Sound carries very well through partition walls so Prater might have lived in the front room (as described) and still have been able to hear screams through the house coming from the back yard.

Regards, Jon S.