The Bloody Piece of Apron Redux

[Jane Coram]

Hi Errata,

All very good points, and I'd not thought much about how important the size of the apron piece was. I would still go with it being a bibless one, from the description, but if it was half of one of those long white aprons, that's quite a lot of apron miss!

Hugs

Janie

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[Archaic]

About Victorian Aprons: Measurements, 'Strings', etc

Hello everybody. Hi Janie, how are you? I've enjoyed your posts on this thread.

I thought I might be able to help here. I've been an Antique & Vintage Clothing collector, dealer and appraiser for years, and have seen many Victorian and Edwardian aprons. I looked through a few Victorian store catalogs and sewing books and found some measurements.

Judging from several American clothing catalogs c.1890, the average ready-made apron was approximately 35"-39" Wide x 36"-40" Long. Nearly square. Small-waisted women simply wrapped it tighter around themselves. The catalog illustration I attached also offers a 50" Wide apron for larger women. An immaculate new apron such as one of these was beyond Kate's dreams, but the illustrations are a good indicator of their very simple and practical design.
We don't know precisely how old Kate's apron was in the autumn of 1888, but Victorian aprons were a utilitarian item and styles didn't change much, especially among the poorer classes. What mostly differed was the quality of the fabric. As seen in Jane's photos, inexpensive solid white or solid black were what the poorer classes generally used. White was popular as it looked brighter and neater (at least when clean) but black hid stains better.

My guess is that Kate's apron was probably either home-made or 2nd hand. If sewing for oneself, an 1890 'practical sewing' book advises making the apron come to 2"-4" above the hem of the skirt, and giving the apron itself a 4"-6" wide hem to help prevent fraying. Skirts at this time were quite long (visible ankles were a no-no!), so as Jane says this would be a long apron. A long apron would offer one's skirt more protection from being soiled by the dirty streets, etc.

But an impoverished woman might not have had the luxury of that much fabric, or she might have had to cut down and re-hem an old frayed apron, thus making it shorter. We know that Kate's apron had been patched, but I don't think we know if it was ever cut down. However, she obviously prized it and needed it enough to patch its hole.

Aprons were an important part of a Victorian working woman's wardrobe. The fact that an apron helped keep her skirts clean was critically important to a poor woman, as it was much easier and cheaper to scrub an apron than to wash and dry what might be one's only change of clothing. Soaps were terribly harsh in those days, as was the prevailing method of boiling one's laundry, stirring it, hand-scrubbing it on a raspy wash-board, and wringing it out before hanging it up to dry. A skirt would wear out much faster if it was washed frequently, so it was obviously much more economical to wash the apron. Aprons served multiple purposes, especially for the very poor. They gave a woman a handy place to dry her hands and even a way to carry items to and from market. They also provided a (very slight) extra layer of insulation in the cold and a much-needed feeling of "propriety" and "respectability". For example, Mary Jane Kelly's neighbors commented upon the fact that she kept herself neat-looking by always wearing a clean apron.

Now to the subject of the cut apron: based upon the above measurements, half an apron would be somewhere on the order of 17.5" W x 18" L if it was cut vertically. If it was cut horizontally it would be more like 18'' W X 20" L -not much difference really.

By the way, the report mentions the "strings" of Kate's apron. The "strings" of an apron are the ribbons used to tie it at the waist. I got the impression that some might have thought "strings" referred to twine or something, but it's just the common Victorian parlance for apron-ribbons. The use of the plural term "strings" makes it sound to me as if the apron was cut horizontally, leaving the strings (ribbons) tied around Kate's waist, and I believe I read in a report that such was the case.

As others have pointed out, Kate may have been malnourished and post- or a-menopausal. I think Hunter had a very good point when he mentioned that Kate's 12 rags might have been used not as sanitary napkins, but to help her clean herself up between clients. They may also have been used for general personal hygiene. Of course, the rags may have served multiple purposes, and perhaps that's why she carried a dozen of them.

Hope this helps a little.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Nurse Sarah]

Thanks A.

Excellent reply Archaic, clear and thorough, thanks for your informative post.

[Archaic]

Question re: Servant's Aprons (1887 Home Manual)

Hi Sarah! Thank you.

Someone has asked me a question about the aprons of women who did domestic work for others. When a woman was regularly employed in a "nicer" home she was supplied with a clean apron to wear while working, but it was considered a "uniform" and not her personal property. The one-piece bib-style aprons with pretty frills were almost exclusively worn by the "front parlor" servants and "ladies' maids" who waited on the family or its guests, not by the cooks, washer-women, etc.

Liz Stride was reported to have done cleaning for Jewish families. I doubt she was provided with a work-apron by her employer, though it's possible) but it wouldn't have been anything fancy, and it wouldn't have been hers to keep.

All the popular manual for ladies include cautions regarding whether one should ever "give" articles of clothing to servants, and all of the ones that I have seen advise the lady not to do so- not even inexpensive articles like caps and aprons. It was believed that to do so only "encouraged" the working woman to "abscond" with said articles of clothing.

Attached is an excerpt from an 1887 'Home Manual' giving advice on this point. (This is happens to be from an American book, but the English ones say the same thing.)

I have often wondered if some of the clothing Polly Nichols was said to have stolen from her employer was actually Polly's everyday work clothing that had been supplied by her mistress and that Polly happened to be wearing at the time she went away. In those days even taking a maid's apron would have been considered theft.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Errata]

this is what bugs me. Take this statement by the coroner:

"My attention was called to the apron, particularly the corner of the apron with a string attached. The blood spots were of recent origin. I have seen the portion of an apron produced by Dr. Phillips and stated to have been found in Goulston Street. It is impossible to say that it is human blood on the apron. I fitted the piece of apron, which had a new piece of material on it (which had evidently been sewn on to the piece I have), the seams of the borders of the two actually corresponding. Some blood and apparently faecal matter was found on the portion that was found in Goulston Street"

It's sort of a really imprecise statement. "The corner of the apron with a string attached" Did the other corners not have a string attached? technically two of the four corners wouldnt, but then why say corner as opposed to half? The top half on an apron has strings. The bottom doesn't. Saying "corner" divides it into quarters, and saying " particularly... with the string attached" implies that the other corners didn't have strings, and one of those corners should. On the other hand, that makes sense if he took say, the right half of the apron as opposed to the bottom half.

But if he took the right half of the apron,how can the apron still be attached to the body by the strings?

And then, if the piece of new material is a patch, that evidently extended over the piece of apron that remains, then thats problematic. If the fabric is cut, the patch would be cut. And would not remain whole like statement sort of implies. The remaining half of the patch likely would not have remained on the apron, but it wouldnt go with the traveling half. If the apron was ripped, the patch could remain whole on the traveling half. but seams would have to be cut, and that also implies that it was torn horizontally, along what would be the weft. Meaning taking the bottom half.

It would have killed them to be a little more specific?

[DrHopper]

Excellent post Archaic, thanks

Great post too Errata. I have always thought that when it is referred to as 'half the apron', it just means a significant chunk, rather than literally 50% - a turn of phrase. Allied to this, when the Coroner states the corner of the apron, I think this is meant to be more literal - he means a bottom corner of the apron, cut when Eddowes was on the ground.
This, at least to my mind, makes a bit more sense - Jack grabs a portion of the apron, cuts, and flees.
Though how the corner, even the upper corner, would have an apron string attached, whilst the remaining apron portion is still attached, via apron strings to Eddowes, is a mystery. Perhaps we are dealing with an apron with 2 sets of strings?

[protohistorian]

Holy Ripper in a rowboat, you guys are going to piece this thing together! Hell yes a thread born in doom rises to contribute! Very Well done EVERYONE! Dave

[protohistorian]

am a dumbass, I know it. But I remember seeing aprons where the loop that would go around the neck was actually two strings that were fastened when the upper part of the apron (the chest) was to be used. Otherwise they would be untied and the apron would sort of fold itself in half with the top hanging down from the waist inside out. I sure hope this makes sense to some one besides me! I do not know if this helps or hurts. Dave

[Jane Coram]

Hi,

Great post Archaic. I think the point you make about it being another layer of insulation in cold weather is a really good one, and another reason that Kate would have been loathe to destroy it. It was the beginning of October and with winter coming she'd need all the layers she could get! That really was a wealth of information though, well done you.

Hi Errata,

Another great post, and I'm still thinking about it. I'll have to go over the reports again to refresh my memory, but as you say, it does sound like a very strange description of the apron remnant. There must be an explanation, perhaps we can all fathom it out between us.

Hugs

Janie

xxxx

[Hunter]

Ecellent posts, girls. Knowing your background, Archaic, I was hoping you would see this thread and reply.

Jane, Errata, Archaic... Outstanding!

A good lesson here. This is not just a murder mystery but a history lesson as well. An understanding of the life and culture of the people involved is paramount in even considering the case itself.This is where many theories meet their Waterloo. It is as interwoven in the story as the hem of that apron.

"My attention was called to the apron, particularly the corner of the apron with a string attached. The blood spots were of recent origin. I have seen the portion of an apron produced by Dr. Phillips and stated to have been found in Goulston Street. It is impossible to say that it is human blood on the apron. I fitted the piece of apron, which had a new piece of material on it (which had evidently been sewn on to the piece I have), the seams of the borders of the two actually corresponding. Some blood and apparently faecal matter was found on the portion that was found in Goulston Street"

What the good doctor was talking about here was the apron piece found with Kate's body (the part with the string) and attempting to verify that the piece left with Dr. Phillips was a part of the whole. He used the term 'corner' because that's simply where the string was attached.

He was first answering to the effect of whether the blood on one could be matched with the other and he honestly stated that - although it was blood on both - and obviously the piece found on Kate contained her blood, he could not medically verify that the blood on the piece found in Goulston Street was the same... but the two pieces matched perfectly when placed together... the patch, and its connection being the clincher.

The patch seemed to be removed in its entirity, but the stitching was still noticable on the other side and would not have been part of the way the apron was first assembled.

I'm of the opinion that the killer cut the apron vertically, allowing the tension of the 'strings' to work against the hand holding the loose end to enable the knife to make a swift cut. ( Try cutting any fabric with a knife without it being held taunt at some point)...Then he just cut the string attachment to the part he was holding right where it joined the apron on that side and made off with it... both strings, along with the bow knot still being around the body. With her clothes pushed up and cut- and the rest of the mess - this was not likely noticed until the body arrived at the morgue to be undressed. They were making notes of the mutilations at the scene.

[Jane Coram]

Hi Hunter,

That sounds as if it makes a lot of sense to me. You're quite right about the tension. There was a discussion on another board some years ago, about how the apron might have been cut, and someone did some experiments, and made exactly that point - that the apron was cut, but it was aided by pulling against the fabric as well to give it some resistance. They posted up sections of cut and torn fabric to show the difference in the edges. It convinced me.


Hugs

Janie

xxxxx

[Errata]

Hunter:

Totally makes sense. I am one of those people who is sort of keenly attuned to the subconscious use of language. THE corner with the string attached. As opposed to A corner with a string attached. I have found that people usually say what they mean. Which isn't necessarily true in the grand spectrum of things. And if there is a dichotomy between the two, circumstance always fills in the holes.

At the time i made the previous post, I assumed the dichotomy was between the two accounts. That either one was true and one was false, or that something changed between two accounts. But since clearly the apron could not have been cut horizontally at the scene, and then vertically at the morgue, I assumed that either the Coroner was using weird language (this is the kind of thing you see in non native speakers) or the apron was not in fact attached to the body.

But circumstance wins out again, because I just totally realized what it had to be. Eddowes was wearing as many as 10 drawstrings around her waist. Which were soaked in blood. There is no way, even if they wanted to, that the morgue attendants would be undoing all those knots. Even if they didn't cut her clothes completely off, they had to cut the drawstrings. And since the apron had visible boundaries, and they wouldn't want to saw through more canvas or linen than they had to, they probably made the cut right at the join of apron and string on one side. Which means that when the Coroner examined that apron, only one corner would have strings attached. So he would have said what he saw. THE corner with the strings attached. But he was not saying that the other corner was missing. So both statements could be true, because the Coroner's description was incidental to the Rippers cut.

If that made any sense at all.

[protohistorian]

Jane, are you going to make a nice graphic for this discussion so the visually inclined can follow along? Dave

[Hunter]

Just to add one more thing in considering Errata's last post... Dr. Brown and Inspector Collard were present when the body was undressed. This was standard procedure given the problem Phillips had with what happened to Annie Chapman at that shed they called a morgue. Collard made inventory of all of Kate's clothing and posessions at that time. They would not have allowed the attendants to cut anything because Brown needed to reconstruct what the killer did. Indeed, if you read Collard's report, the cuts are noted in the inventory of each item. Unlike Chapman's case, careful procedure was followed at Golden Lane.

I have no way of proving this, but I believe Kates apron was a simple one that tied aroud the waist, with no bib...that in reference to Brown mentioning the one corner with the string attached... the other corner being cut by the killer to extract the piece he took.

[Jane Coram]

Hi,

Two quick things. I've been given a lead as to what Kate's apron might have been like and I'm following it up. If I can I'll do a drawing from it of what it might have looked like. It's on the cover of a book, but she's sort of hitching it up a bit by the looks of it, so it's hard to tell how long it is exactly. I'll just get back to the source and clarify it. It does seem as if it was the one that Hunter just mentioned that tied around the waist, but I can't quite make out how long it was from the image.

The other thought I had, which might be complete madness, is this:

I've always had it in my head that her killer cut the apron after he'd performed the mutilations as an after thought, but is that necessarily correct?
The apron pockets were tied tight around her waist, but we can see from the postmortem shots that the wound went right up her torso to her breast bone.
He could not have performed that cut without cutting through the waistband of the apron and the pockets. I can't help but think he'd already cut through the apron vertically, as a matter of expediency and just whipped a chunk off at the end.

It would explain why there was not as much blood on the remaining part of the apron as there should have been.

Okay, if that's a daft thought, you can throw bricks at me.

I'll get back about the sketch.

Much love

Janie

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