Any info on these women please?

[Joshua Rogan]

Thanks Joshua. I think there's a version that has McCarthy saying something similar about her age in an interview too. I don't remember seeing the additional details in that version before so thanks for that.

The same report says;
"The landlord of this and neighboring rooms is a John McCarthy, who keeps a little shop in Dorset street, on the side of the passage. About a year ago he rented it to a woman who looked about thirty."
Could that be what you're thinking of? It's hard to know whether that came from McCarthy himself, or just the reporter slipping in a bit of info he learned from the later chat with Mary. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he did say it elsewhere though. I will have a trawl and see if I can find it.
By the way, has it been established who the Mary in the interview was? I thought it might have been Mary Ann Cox, but the report states she lived directly opposite Mary Jane, so that points to either Julia Vanturney at #1 or whoever lived at #11. For some reason I can't remember I've got Mary Cluley scrawled upside down on my notes, but can't remember why....

[Joshua Rogan]

There was no German connection for Julia Cooke as far as I know - her dad was from Kensington and mother from Wiltshire. Anthony Ventorini was Italian.

Thanks. That seems to make a mishearing of char-woman a lot more likely.

[Joshua Rogan]

Thanks Josh. Chris got the right Prater family but the wrong generation. It does make more sense that Elizabeth was a young woman doesn't it? When we consider reports that Prater was waiting for her 'young man' at the entrance to the court and similar. It also adds to the question of how much McCarthy knew or was involved in the goings on at Miller's Court. Although Prater could have been waiting for her 'young man' in the sense it was a partner, it could be that she was waiting at the entrance for a client. Maybe she had pre-arranged a meeting or had it been set up by someone else? I assumed that MJK, Cox and Prater went out on to the streets to solicit and would do the deed on the streets or bring back clients who were willing to pay for that comfort but perhaps they stood at the entrance?

I feel sure McCarthy would have known how some of the residents of his court earned their rent money, but whether that means he played an active part in it is another matter.
I believe was raining at least part of the night so perhaps that played a part in where any trade took place - I can picture the ladies huddling in the archway ready to try their luck with passers by, though it's interesting to note that neither Prater nor Cox seem to have any luck that night.
Regarding Prater's "young man"...her original statement doesn't mention him at all, the inquest report says "I was waiting for a man I lived with". Most of the papers that covered the inquest don't mention any man, but the Daily News mentions her waiting for "a young man". The Morning Advertiser 13th Nov seems most interesting, it reports her as saying;
"I stood at the corner of the court waiting for a young man, if the truth was known. No one came up to me. I never saw my young man. I went into my room and lay down. I went into M'Carthy's shop. I told him to say to my young man that I had gone to my room."
Which definitely sounds like it was a specific young man she was waiting for, not just any young man who happened to walk past.

[Joshua Rogan]

Thanks MS.
I also wondered if Maxwell mixed up the two women but as Prater appeared at the inquest and so did Maxwell she probably would have realised her mistake. There is a lot of similarity between the two women though in terms of some of the details of their histories that I found interesting as well as a similarity in looks that could have been just a coincidence caused by the illustrator. I also think it shows that other young women were in exactly the same position as MJK in the same area.

Mmm, good point about the inquest.
There were several other rooms in No.26 aside from Mary Jane's and Liz's, so it might not necessarily have been Prater who was the lookalike - we know from the Syracuse Herald article that there was at least one young redhead frequenting the court.

Then again, the Weekly Herald 16th Nov reports;

"A woman, some twenty-six years of age, named Mary Jane Kelly, it appears, has lived for the past three or four months in a front room on the second floor of a house up an alley known as Cartin's-court. This poor woman was in service a considerable time ago, but since she came to reside in Dorset Street, she had been generally recognised by her neighbours as a person who, like so many unfortunate members of her sex in the eastern end of the town, managed to live a wretched existence by the practice of immortality (sic) under the most degrading conditions."

Apart from the name, doesn't that sound a lot like it could be Prater?

[Debra A]

The same report says;
"The landlord of this and neighboring rooms is a John McCarthy, who keeps a little shop in Dorset street, on the side of the passage. About a year ago he rented it to a woman who looked about thirty."
Could that be what you're thinking of? It's hard to know whether that came from McCarthy himself, or just the reporter slipping in a bit of info he learned from the later chat with Mary. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he did say it elsewhere though. I will have a trawl and see if I can find it.
By the way, has it been established who the Mary in the interview was? I thought it might have been Mary Ann Cox, but the report states she lived directly opposite Mary Jane, so that points to either Julia Vanturney at #1 or whoever lived at #11. For some reason I can't remember I've got Mary Cluley scrawled upside down on my notes, but can't remember why....

Yes, I think that might be what I was remembering, Josh. I agree that it was the reporters words, probably taken from his earlier interview with 'Mary'. I don't think Mary has ever been identified. Does the name Mary Cluley come from the Whitechapel Infirmary records that Chris Scott once posted? He gave a list of Infirmary patients who lived at Millers Court c 1888/9. One other being 'Gavan' which someone has recently queried as being linked to Annie Govan, a woman who supposedly lived in the court. Henry Hanslope was also on that list, a very interesting character who lived in the last house coming around the court and had a view of Mary's window. There's a thread about him somewhere. He was a distant cousin of Phoebe Hanslope Hogg, the woman murdered by Mary Pearcey.

[Debra A]

I feel sure McCarthy would have known how some of the residents of his court earned their rent money, but whether that means he played an active part in it is another matter.
I believe was raining at least part of the night so perhaps that played a part in where any trade took place - I can picture the ladies huddling in the archway ready to try their luck with passers by, though it's interesting to note that neither Prater nor Cox seem to have any luck that night.
Regarding Prater's "young man"...her original statement doesn't mention him at all, the inquest report says "I was waiting for a man I lived with". Most of the papers that covered the inquest don't mention any man, but the Daily News mentions her waiting for "a young man". The Morning Advertiser 13th Nov seems most interesting, it reports her as saying;
"I stood at the corner of the court waiting for a young man, if the truth was known. No one came up to me. I never saw my young man. I went into my room and lay down. I went into M'Carthy's shop. I told him to say to my young man that I had gone to my room."
Which definitely sounds like it was a specific young man she was waiting for, not just any young man who happened to walk past.

There is also one odd news account that said Prater was waiting for a soldier.
The mention of her reporting in at the shop to tell her 'young man' that she had gone to her room was what made me originally wonder a few years back if these were actually arranged visits set up by someone connected to McCarthy.It's obvious Prater didn't want that particular young man to enter her room at all because she had barricaded herself in.