Millers Court - the demolition picture

[Celesta]

Sara,

The Goad map is in post # 17. It shows the different rooms. It might help. You may have already been staring at it!

Best,

Cel

[Stephen Thomas]

I'm sure that when Prater talked about "lodging-house", she was talking about the house in which she herself lodged, viz., 26 Dorset Street - hence my point about her circuitous language a couple of days ago. "Outside my window", or "in the court" would have been the natural thing to say, if hers was indeed the room traditionally associated with her - instead, she uses the phrase "at the back of the lodging-house".

Hi Sam

I have to disagree with you for a change on this one. As we all know, lodging houses were specific operations letting beds on a nightly basis with dormitories and cubicles and communal kitchens and we know that there was one slightly to the west of Millers Court. Mrs Prater says (1) that the windows at the back of this lodging house overlooked Millers Court and (2) that from Millers Court sounds could be heard from it. That's my interpretation anyway.

[Sam Flynn]

I'm sure this came up in my read only years and then somebody turned up some pretty good evidence or record that the room directly above was unoccupied. I'm rubbish though ,I can't remember the poster or find the source.Think Glenn Anderson may have been involved..Sam, don't you recall that?

I can only say that I "discovered" this for myself, WK, and I remember opening a thread about it perhaps a year to 18 months ago. This was after I'd noticed the "Prater lived in the first floor front room" and "above the shed" details in (NB) separate editions of the Daily Telegraph. Until that point, I wasn't aware that anyone else had raised the potential significance of those two nuggets of info, and I was quite excited about it at the time. Still am

[Roy Corduroy]

That's interesting, Sam. The room directly above Mary Kelly's room being the one with the window shaded blue by Chris Scott to start the thread. Occupied, or no?

From post # 47

At the top of the stairs was a small landing, to the left of which was the room directly above Kelly's room, the scene of a family murder some years later but in 1888 according to a press report occupied by a couple who slept soundly through the night of the murder. To the right at the top of the stairs was a room used as a store room that led to the stairwell to the upper floors of the house and the room at the front of the house overlooking Dorset Street that Mrs Prater on two occasions said she occupied.

What was the 1888 press report saying that room was occupied by the sleeping couple? Is the occupancy/not of that room a matter of dueling press reports?

Roy

[Sam Flynn]

Definition of a "Lodging-house"

As we all know, lodging houses were specific operations letting beds on a nightly basis with dormitories and cubicles...

They were "registered" or "common" lodging-houses, strictly speaking, Stephen. I don't think there was anything that precluded a "terraced" or a (semi)detached dwelling that let cheap rooms out to tenants being called a "lodging house" in its own right.

In fact, when John McCarthy is called to give evidence at the Kelly inquest, he introduces himself as "A grocer and lodging-house keeper at 27 Dorset Street". Of course, McCarthy had other slum-rents in his portfolio - among them houses in Great Pearl Street, where Sarah Lewis lived. Whether they were "lodging houses" in the Crossingham's or Buller's sense is another matter. Some of them could have been re-purposed "domestic" dwellings for all I know - a bit like Miller's Court, say.

We also have this from the Echo of November 9th: "It appears that the poor girl [Kelly] had rented one room at the house for about fifteen months. The premises were not used strictly as a lodging-house, for it was unregistered". Note "not used strictly" as a lodging-house; doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been thus classified in an unofficial or colloquial sense.

Indeed, there is little room for speculation, for in her book "Where Shall We Live?" (London, 1910), Mary Higgs has this to say:

We must ask ourselves more precisely what a common lodging-house is. We find that there are three classes of lodging-house:

(a) "furnished rooms";
(b) unregistered lodging-houses, often called "weekly " or "seamen's " lodging-houses;
(c) registered or "common" lodging-houses.

It would appear that, as "furnished rooms" - however spartan - Miller's Court would come under category (a). Further support of this may be obtained from Mary Higgs' definition of what a "furnished room" type of lodging-house entailed:

Apartments, furnished by the owner or lessee of a house, and sublet, monthly, weekly, or even nightly, to (generally) the poorest and (oftentimes) the lowest class of persons. Such furnished rooms may be obtained for about one shilling per night or less, even sixpence a night being not uncommon in some large towns [this is in 1910].

No questions are asked the tenants, provided the rent be punctually prepaid. This is oftentimes extortionate, considering the quantity and conditions of the so-called "furniture." These rooms do not come under common lodging-house law, and we may therefore dismiss them. But it must be said that the "furnished rooms" form a very serious problem from the point of view of the public health because of frequent and serious overcrowding. Still more from the point of view of public morality, for they are oftentimes put to the worst of uses.

[Sam Flynn]

What was the 1888 press report saying that room was occupied by the sleeping couple?

Hi Roy,

From the Telegraph of 10th November 1888 which, incidentally, is where I first noticed the "Prater Placement" issue:

"All the inmates [of Miller's Court] were able satisfactorily to account for their whereabouts. Not one of them had heard any sound to point to the hour when the woman must have been attacked by her assailant. The walls are of thin match lining, which makes this circumstance the more unaccountable, and the couple in the room overhead had slept soundly without being awakened by scuffling in the room beneath them."

That report also contains an extremely detailed description of the layout of Miller's Court, and is the first to mention that Prater occupied the first-floor front room. Such is the level of detail provided by this journalist, that I'm inclined to trust him more than most other reports I've read. It strikes me that he really did his homework.

[Chris Scott]

Re: the room over Kelly's being occupied by a couple.
Don't forget that Prater said:
I was waiting for a man I lived with, he did not come.
We do not know, as far as I am aware, who this man was but this could explain the room being referred to as occupied by a couple

[Chris Scott]

Hi Gareth
Thanks for the reference to that passage in the Telegraph which I think worth posting here

Entrance to her apartment was obtained by means of an arched passage, opposite a large lodging-house, and between Nos. 26, and 28, Dorset-street, ending in a cul de sac known as Miller's-court. In this court there are six houses let out in tenements, chiefly to women, the rooms being numbered. On the right-hand side of the passage there are two doors. The first of these leads to the upper floors of the house in which Kelly was living. It has seven rooms, the first-floor front, facing Dorset-street, being over a shed or warehouse used for the storage of costers' barrows. A second door opens inwards, direct from the passage, into Kelly's apartment, which is about 15ft. square, and is placed at the rear corner of the building. It has two windows, one small, looking into a yard, which is fitted with a pump. The opposite side of the yard is formed by the side wall of houses, which have whitewashed frontages, and are provided with green shutters. From some of these premises, on the left-hand side of the court, it is possible to secure a view, in a diagonal direction, of the larger window, and also the doorway belonging to the room tenanted by the deceased. In this room there was a bed placed behind the door, and parallel with the window. The rest of the furniture consisted of a table and two chairs.

And the section relating to Prater:
Elizabeth Prater, the occupant of the first floor front room, was one of those who saw the body through the window. She affirms that she spoke to the deceased on Thursday. She knew that Kelly had been living with a man, and that they had quarrelled about ten days since. It was a common thing for the women living in these tenements to bring men home with them. They could do so as they pleased. She had heard nothing during the night, and was out betimes in the morning, and her attention was not attracted to any circumstances of an unusual character. Kelly was, she admitted, one of her own class, and she made no secret of her way of gaining a livelihood.

[Sam Flynn]

Re: the room over Kelly's being occupied by a couple.
Don't forget that Prater said:
I was waiting for a man I lived with, he did not come.
We do not know, as far as I am aware, who this man was but this could explain the room being referred to as occupied by a couple

Hi Chris,

That's somewhat negated by the fact that the same newspaper report that mentions the oblivious sleeping couple also gives Elizabeth Prater a namecheck, and places her in the first-floor front of the building.

[Chris Scott]

Hi Chris,

That's somewhat negated by the fact that the same newspaper report that mentions the oblivious sleeping couple also gives Elizabeth Prater a namecheck, and places her in the first-floor front of the building.

Very fair point

[Sam Flynn]

And the section relating to Prater:
She had heard nothing during the night, and was out betimes in the morning, and her attention was not attracted to any circumstances of an unusual character.

Interestingly, Chris, I don't think any paper reports Prater - or anyone else - as having heard the scream of "Oh Murder" until after the inquest. I wonder why?

(Sorry - this is way off topic now... but getting more interesting!)

[perrymason]

Since the recent interpretation on layout and locations has been wholly dependant on the single source in The Telegraph's coverage....from the Inquest....

"As I was turning round I heard a suppressed cry of "Oh - murder!" in a faint voice. It seemed to proceed from the court. "

Ill be interested to see how that claim is discounted while maintaining that the article is still "the" authorative piece....although the fact that the line is followed by "over Marys room", and has already been tossed aside as incorrect,....despite 8 other sources that agree with only that point, perhaps this will be easier for some to discard that I would imagine.

Best regards

[Simon Wood]

Hi Sam,

For a long time now, and in the face of insurmountable odds, you've staunchly argued your corner about the location of Elizabeth Prater's room at 26 Dorset Street. You are without doubt Kiplingesque—"If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you . . . etc etc."

I have no axe to grind on the subject, but I do have a question.

What's your point?

Regards,

Simon

[Sam Flynn]

I have no axe to grind on the subject, but I do have a question.

What's your point?

Hi Simon,

My point is that I firmly believe that we've been wrong about the location of Prater's room for 120 years, and that the evidence has been staring us in the face all along. It's just a question of accuracy, and getting another piece of this fragmented and fragmentary jigsaw to fit in arguably its proper place.

[Sam Flynn]

Since the recent interpretation on layout and locations has been wholly dependant on the single source in The Telegraph's coverage....from the Inquest....

Incorrect. Two sources, on separate days - one of which gives us the most detailed account of the layout Miller's Court of any contemporary source of which I'm aware. Don't knock it.

Ill be interested to see how that claim is discounted while maintaining that the article is still "the" authorative piece...

Nobody's making a claim for authoritativeness - I wouldn't even afford some official records that accolade. It's about making sense of all available sources.

despite 8 other sources that agree with only that point, perhaps this will be easier for some to discard that I would imagine.

It's not just about the two reports in the Telegraph - it's about making sense of precisely what Prater said apropos the noise, the "back of the lodging-house where the windows look into the Miller's Court". It's right to weigh that up against other sources, but one must be very, very aware that these are often pithy, decontextualised and frankly cloned accounts. It's like Chinese Whispers at times. Even the official records aren't perfect, because scratchy-nibbed court clerks make errors too - "Great Powell Street", anyone?

Again, and for the "final-plus-one'th" time: "I live at Number 20 Room, Miller's Court... above the shed"... What on earth caused the reporter to make that detail up? There is no feasible answer, other than "He didn't make it up - that's precisely what he heard Prater say".