Was Jack the Ripper a Teacher?

[bluecedar]

Has anyone considered the possibility that Jack the Ripper was a teacher, or someone who worked in a school? His message about Jews was written in chalk. Jews may have been deliberately misspelled or perhaps he was an uneducated man who worked in a field like maintenance, perhaps in a school. Were there any schools in Whitechapel? Where was the nearest school to the murder sites?

[Sam Flynn]

Hello BC,

Here's a map showing the (usual 5) murder sites as red dots, and the locations of as many local schools as I could find marked by blue dots. I don't see any significant pattern there, to be honest. Whilst three of the murder sites (Nichols, Stride, Eddowes) were quite close to nearby schools, those of Chapman and Kelly were in comparatively "school-free" areas:



Note that the schools themselves are relatively evenly distributed, and many of them seem to have been built close to, albeit a short walk off, a main arterial road. Locating a school in such places had its advantages, because such an arrangement lends itself to easier and safer access, furthermore such roads would also have been better lit. Whatever, the schools were rather liberally dotted about the landscape, which makes it difficult to suggest any significant link between one murder site over another.

The fact that the Nichols, Stride and Eddowes sites were a short walk off one such thoroughfare (the confluence of Whitechapel Rd, Commercial Rd and Aldgate respectively) means that there was a good probability of Jack just happening to have been near a school in those locations than there was in some other parts of town. This is arguably a better indicator of Jack's MO (i.e. he seems not to have strayed too far off the beaten track) than it supports the suggestion that he was a school teacher.

[bluecedar]

Thanks for the great map! But the connection I was really trying to make (and I know it's a stretch) is that since the killer was in possession of chalk--not an item that most people would have--he might have been a teacher, or someone who worked in a school, where chalk would be in abundance.

[cazzbailey]

This may of be of interest,I have said on another blog Abberline's Role In The Ripper Murders, that I think that the Ripper was Abberline?
Abberline before entering the police used to repair clock's (chalk is used to clean the movements)

[Sam Flynn]

Thanks, BC. I guess the answer to that question is that chalk was used by people in all manner of jobs at that time, not just teachers. Chalk was used by traders of all descriptions to write prices, so just about every shopkeeper, shopworker or stall-holder would have had easy access to chalk. I daresay that odd pieces of chalk would be found discarded near market stalls quite frequently, and Goulston Street was in a particular part of Whitechapel that was famous for its street-markets.

There were certainly vastly more stall-, shop- and market-workers in Whitechapel and Spitalfields than there were teachers. Orders of magnitude more, in fact. And that's before we get onto the tailors, publicans, darts players, hopscotching children and so forth who would also have used chalk on practically a daily basis.

[Sam Flynn]

This may of be of interest,I have said on another blog Abberline's Role In The Ripper Murders, that I think that the Ripper was Abberline?
Abberline before entering the police used to repair clock's (chalk is used to clean the movements)

Cazz - "bluecedar" started this one to discuss the possibility that the Ripper was a teacher. Whatever he was, it's safe to say that Abberline wasn't a teacher!

As you're new here - as indeed is "bluecedar", and as once I was also - it might help to read the board rules about staying on topic, which may be found here (note especially Rule #1).

Happy posting

[cazzbailey]

Sorry did not realize how strict all this sort of thing is,,bet nobody else made the chalk connection until now,I will try not let it happen again,just got a bit excited....
Regards Cazz

[Pippin Joan]

This topic made me chuckle. I was a History teacher for many years in large high schools in lower-income urban districts. Teacher burn-out to the Nth degree! I used to tell my students, when we got on the industrial revolution and urban squalor, about my interest in Jack the Ripper and my interesting Ripper-decor downstairs lavatory, and I always got the weird expressions and the comments like "Is there something we should know about you, Miss?" Maybe these were just parent-teacher conferences gone wrong!

[Robert]

Of course, Jack may have been a hair-raisingly strict teacher who disembowelled the women for spelling "equus" with one 'u.' Otherwise, I don't see any particular reason why he should have been a teacher.

[bluecedar]

I think we can safely rule out hopscotching children!

[Sam Flynn]

I think we can safely rule out hopscotching children!

As the Ripper, perhaps - but not as scribblers of graffiti, BC

[Robert]

But wouldn't the message read
The Juwes
are
not the
men
that will
be
blamed for
nothing?

[Sam Flynn]

...subtle, Rob. Me likee

[Pippin Joan]

Was the assignment to write it one hundred times, as a punishment for bad grammar, a la 'Life of Brian'?

[Limehouse]

Of course, it is possible that the message was not written by the murderer at all.