Was Annie Austin a Ripper Victim?

[Scott Nelson]

John McCarthy (b. Dieppe, France) is listed as a "Grocer" at 27 Dorset St. in the 1891 census. So is a younger brother, Daniel McCarthy, also at #27. They owned the business, but not the premises (John was likely the principal business owner). A third McCarthy at #27, also named John, was a "General Shop Keeper", born in Spitalfields. He was probably the one who ran the business, and likely collected the rents. Miller's Court was not a group of lodging houses like the well-to-do John McCarthy owned elsewhere in Dorset St. Miller's Court consisted of tenement housing (apartment rooms). This shop keeper John, I contend, was Mary Kelly's landlord and the one who appeared at her inquest, not the entrepreneurial fight-promoter and charity man and lodging house owner.

So there were a couple of business owners at #27, John McCarthy and Daniel, and a shop keeper/landlord named John McCarthy (who had a wife named Mary, and a son, George).

The shop keeper McCarthy ran the grocers from the ground floor of #27, a three-floor building, and probably lived above it. Rented rooms were behind the grocers shop in the court. The second and third floors wouldn't have had more than one or two rooms each. Where did the other McCarthys live?

This is three years after the Kelly murder, so may not reflect the census information in 1891. So why is the business owner, John McCarthy, his wife Elizabeth and their four (recorded at the time) children listed as residing at #27? Information was likely given to the enumerator by one of the other McCarthys that this McCarthy was the principal business owner, so the enumerator recorded the family as resident there.

Question: If someone as well-off as the John McCarthy who owned several lodging houses, and likely owned other businesses as well, could afford to live anywhere but on Dorest Street with his family, would he?

[MrBarnett]

"Unfortunates" like the victims moved from doss house to doss house, quite frequently. And each doss house could sleep a lot of people at a time (far more than they were SUPPOSED to).

So the odds of each woman having slept in one of the pictured doss houses AT SOME TIME in their often many years on the streets, would surely not be all that high.

Hi Az,

You are right. There were a handful of really dodgy streets in Spitalfields where the destitute congregated. Dorset Street was obviously one, Flower and Dean Street, Thrawl Street and George Street were similar and many of the WM victims had connections to those streets too.

Gary

[Azarna]

So we're supposed to believe a serial killer who murdered five women in the Whitechapel area with a random selection of victims, managed to select four women who lived close enough to one another, for their lodgings to be captured in a single photograph. Quite the coincidence. Almost unbelievable.

"Unfortunates" like the victims moved from doss house to doss house, quite frequently. And each doss house could sleep a lot of people at a time (far more than they were SUPPOSED to).

So the odds of each woman having slept in one of the pictured doss houses AT SOME TIME in their often many years on the streets, would surely not be all that high.

[MrBarnett]

Rob Clack found this. It contains the photos the sketches in the previous article were presumably taken from.

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/victoriana/the-east-end-of-london/25673-wickedest-street-in-london-1901-rob-clack#post386442

[MrBarnett]

Curtis Brown also seemed to confuse Miller’s Court and Little Paternoster Row. I suspect his Bridget McCarthy may have been Annie McCarthy. She was probably the Mrs McCarthy who evicted Austin from no. 37.

[MrBarnett]

You may notice that Curtis Brown’s policeman described Billy as the most notorious character in Dorset Street.

In his autobiography, Ben Leeson said pretty much the same thing.

If the people at 35, Dorset Street were covering for a ‘well-known local character’, no one fitted that description better than Billy.

[MrBarnett]

Curtis Brown got a number of things wrong in his article, some of which info came from a policeman. Such sources are extremely interesting but as I say they need to be treated with caution.

Incidentally, the policeman made a similar mistake to Arthur Harding in attributing the killing of Fishy Jack Meady and Black Jack (not Alf) Stevens to one man. The policeman thought Billy had killed them both and Harding thought ‘Scabby’ (Louis Lewinsky) had done so.

The truth is that Billy killed Black Jack and Scabby killed Fishy Jack. By some miracle they were both acquitted of the crimes.


https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/brow...-583#highlight

[MrBarnett]

It was the Austin murder that lead Fred Mackensie to describe Dorset Street as ‘the worst street in London’. And on the back of that, in August, 1901, the American journalist Curtis Brown paid a visit to Dorset Street and encountered someone he called Billy Myers.


A Choice Specimen.

Most conspicuous of any of the crowd was a man of about thirty, attired in the ordinary coster garb, cap on head and dirty neckcloth taking the place of collar and cravat. He seemed even tougher than the others. Just behind his left ear stretched a long, still bleeding gash. He growled assent to a request that he allow his picture to be taken - for a consideration - and it was noticeable that during the operation not one of the hundred or more bystanders made any attempt to interfere. When the click of the shutter told him that he had been "taken" he raised his cap with a sneering half smile and disappeared in the depths of "Blood Alley" where he had his local habitation.

The police constable had stood few paces away, watching the last performance with an odd look of interest, and when the "subject" had gone away he whispered, "You're in luck. You've photographed the most notorious character in Dorset Street. That was Billy Myers, who has been tried for murder twice, and convicted of at least a dozen lesser crimes. He was accused of killing "Black Alf" in the hopfields of Kent two years ago, and before that of the murder of "Fishy Jack" right here in Dorset Street. The men were stabbed in the abdomen, and Myers was acquitted in each instance on account of a lack of conclusive evidence. I don't believe he has ever been photographed of his own free will before."
For some mysterious reason, known only to the wise city fathers, the region round about Dorset Street has fewer police than some of the districts of equal size in the fashionable West End. As a result the records for the district show more bobbies killed or wounded here than anywhere else in the City. All the little crooked alleys leading off the street make it easier for the criminals to escape, too. Constable Thompson, who was murdered by a Dorset Street tough only a few days ago, actually saw the Ripper coming from one his crimes but the creature darted into an alley and was swallowed up before the officer could overtake or get near enough to make sure of his identity.

Curtis Brown.

The full article with some great images can be found here:

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/vict...lackest-london

[MrBarnett]

No, the context of the notebook is clear on this. It doesn’t even mention Mary Kelly’s murder.
McCarthy is notorious because his doubles are really brothels (in either Duckworth’s or Sergeant French’s opinion) and his common lodging houses are full of prostitutes, bullies, ponces and thieves.

There’s a note later in the notebook when discussing Gerhinger and Great Pearl Street where Duckworth notes something along the lines of ‘as McCarthy controls Dorset Street, Gehringer controls the area in Great Pearl Street’. I’ll dig out the reference later with a longer reply on this notebook and McCarthy, and the point about doubles and brothels raised here.

This notebook is a significant primary source with regards to the area, imho.

You may find this helpful. It shows where Millers Court was (on the N side of the street) and demonstrates that McCarthy ran a few lodging houses in Dorset Street, but by no means the majority of them.

In one of the Booth notebooks it was said that McCarthy owned all the properties in Little Paternoster Row. He didn’t. Yes, they are primary, sources, but they should be treated with caution.

Doubles were described as ‘brothels’ because couples could get a bed there with no questions asked, but they weren’t solely utilised by prostitutes and their customers.

[seanr]

McCarthy’s ‘notoriety’ can be traced to a single event - the murder of his tenant, Mary Kelly.

No, the context of the notebook is clear on this. It doesn’t even mention Mary Kelly’s murder.
McCarthy is notorious because his doubles are really brothels (in either Duckworth’s or Sergeant French’s opinion) and his common lodging houses are full of prostitutes, bullies, ponces and thieves.

There’s a note later in the notebook when discussing Gerhinger and Great Pearl Street where Duckworth notes something along the lines of ‘as McCarthy controls Dorset Street, Gehringer controls the area in Great Pearl Street’. I’ll dig out the reference later with a longer reply on this notebook and McCarthy, and the point about doubles and brothels raised here.

This notebook is a significant primary source with regards to the area, imho.

[MrBarnett]

I'm confused, you seem to protect McCarthy yet allude that Maher was his flunky.

He was Ann McCarthy’s minder. Of course McCarthy, Crossingham etc needed a few hard men on the payroll to keep order on their premises, but that doesn’t make them bullies or gangsters.

[seanr]

38, Dorset Street was next door to 37, on the same side of the street as the entrance to Miller’s Court. Is that what you mean?

No, on one side we 38, 37, 36 and 35. On the opposite side of the street would be the entrance to Miller’s Court.

[The Macdonald Triad]

I have to say this is one of the better illustrations when comparing it to an original. They even have the gaslights in the right place.

[The Macdonald Triad]

McCarthy’s ‘notoriety’ can be traced to a single event - the murder of his tenant, Mary Kelly.

I'm confused, you seem to protect McCarthy yet allude that Maher was his flunky.

[MrBarnett]

But McCarthy didn’t own the majority of the common lodging houses on Dorset Street and in any case a bully wasn’t a lodging house keeper.

And doubles weren’t brothels, but they were places where unmarried couples could get a bed for a night and some of those couples would have been ‘unfortunates’ and their customers.

McCarthy’s ‘notoriety’ can be traced to a single event - the murder of his tenant, Mary Kelly.