Why Did MJK Leave the Brothel?

[Archaic]

Maybe being able to say "I was in West End brothel" was also Mary's code for "I am highly skilled in my chosen profession"... if you know what I mean.

Regards, Archaic

It may be worth considering, while pondering Mary Jane Kelly's past, that in Ripperologist 71 (September 2005) Andy Aliffe has an article about Sadie Orchard. Sadie was born in Kansas but moved to the Old West to have a long and legendary career as a madame and, later, philanthropist. The important part of her story, though, is that she created her own history in which she had come from London's East End and had been a prostitute there. She was quite successful in this imposture and it wasn't until late in her life, when Sadie's sisters came to visit, that the truth of her life became known.

All this occurred about the same time Mary Jane was living in Whitechapel and i8llustrates how easy it was in an era without bureaucratic claims on one's life for someone with a glib tongue and fertile imagination to assume wholly different identities.

Don.

I think Don that this age truly offered people an opportunity for re-inventing themselves. There was no standardized documentation universally required when traveling within the country or abroad, my bet is that a name and a good story would get you on a Census form back then. Look how easily Tumblety becomes Frank Townsend for example.

Best regards Don.

[Supe]

It may be worth considering, while pondering Mary Jane Kelly's past, that in Ripperologist 71 (September 2005) Andy Aliffe has an article about Sadie Orchard. Sadie was born in Kansas but moved to the Old West to have a long and legendary career as a madame and, later, philanthropist. The important part of her story, though, is that she created her own history in which she had come from London's East End and had been a prostitute there. She was quite successful in this imposture and it wasn't until late in her life, when Sadie's sisters came to visit, that the truth of her life became known.

All this occurred about the same time Mary Jane was living in Whitechapel and i8llustrates how easy it was in an era without bureaucratic claims on one's life for someone with a glib tongue and fertile imagination to assume wholly different identities.

Don.

[Chava]

So sad and so true. I wonder what happened to Mary Ann Cox? Was she the Mary Ann Cox who died age 35 in Whitechapel in June 1894? Or the Mary Ann Cox who died in March 1904 in Hackney? She was 36. We'll never know, but I bet poor Mary Ann died young. Somehow I don't see her living a long, healthy life. And that would have been Kelly's life if she'd survived. It's unlikely a toff would have come to rescue her out of the sewer, and given her drinking habits, it's unlikely she would have been rescue-able

Hello All

I would agree that MJK could have made it all up for status - it may not seem very palatable to us, but competition must have been high in her profession - I don't know this for a fact, but putting together the high population and nature of that population in Whitechapel at the time, it seems it must have been the case. I would think anything that gave her that bit of glamour would have been a bonus - If she was clever enough to think up stories, and those stories were considered credible, then all well and good for her, in the context of her life.

Or it could all, or in part be true. How can we know? We can suspect her of being capable of spinning a bit of glamour, imo though.

Jane x

Hi Jane,

I think both could be possible, a story that imparts some class and panache to her professional past, or true tales of a life that she will never have again, and by telling them the brief "romantic" notions she may have had about fancy dresses and bathed men as a lifestyle, she can relive them a bit.

Marys projected path based on her situation when she dies is almost as grim as her death is. Her future was likely like many of the other women we read about....I can see a future with a much less marketable middle aged Mary Kelly going out into the rain numerous times to find one client,....just like Mary Ann Cox. She was perhaps 26....and we know that Liz Stride was a registered prostitute at 25 or 26 in Goteborg,(Gothenburg),....and Liz wasn't past some stories to make her past life seem worthy of compassion and sympathy. Did her children really drown? Not according to the ships records.

Maybe Marys stories were based on truth, but enhanced to make them "Glory Days" as compared with the other women in her situation.

Best regards.

[Jane Welland]

Survival of the Fittest?

Hello All

I would agree that MJK could have made it all up for status - it may not seem very palatable to us, but competition must have been high in her profession - I don't know this for a fact, but putting together the high population and nature of that population in Whitechapel at the time, it seems it must have been the case. I would think anything that gave her that bit of glamour would have been a bonus - If she was clever enough to think up stories, and those stories were considered credible, then all well and good for her, in the context of her life.

Or it could all, or in part be true. How can we know? We can suspect her of being capable of spinning a bit of glamour, imo though.

Jane x

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

I think, that MJK's being a what-do-we-know-for-fact? person in this puzzle, shows her being a witty story-teller.

So, there might be two options to look at her story;

1. She had heard the stories about the fate of the other unfortunates and picked any suitable one for her own purposes...

2. She really told about the real events of her life, but told them enough out of key(this is a Finnish metaphor for these "life-stories"! )!

All the best
Jukka

[Archaic]

If the West End brothel story both came from Mary and is a complete lie, I think it's quite interesting that she would use it.

Mary might have chosen instead to have built upon the bit of status she purportedly enjoyed among her neighbors for being somewhat more 'educated', 'attractive' & 'respectable' than the average Whitechapel Unfortunate.

For instance, "I went to work as a Nanny for a gentleman's family but he did me wrong and made me what I am today."

Best regards, Archaic

[Chava]

A West End Brothel would be a nice tale to spin the punters. Gives her a bit of class. Maybe allows her to charge a little more than the others.

I imagine she tailored her story to fit the occasion. Some more sentimental types would have heard the widowed-at-16 story. Some upwardly mobile tricks would have gotten the high-class bordello-and-trip-to-France story. And if asked for her whole history she tied both stories together in a neat little bow with her cousin-who-helped-her-go-bad story.

I don't believe a word of any of it!

[Mr.Hyde]

Mr.Hyde

Do we have any proof that Mary Jane ever actually had an STD?

Do we have any proof that Mary Jane ever actually lived and worked in a brothel, West End or otherwise?

Do we have any proof that Mary Jane ever actually travelled south of the Thames, let alone to France?

I'm not sure that it isn't a slippery slope to tread, speculating on the "whys" of things that may have been nothing more than a load of codswallop stories Mary Jane told to make herself feel better, or to make her friends think she was of a better sort or had known better days -- or which her friends told after her death, to make her sound better.

We just don't know where these stories came from, or how much was truth and how much was fiction. Faced with that, it can be fun to speculate, but that's all it can be with so many "unknowns" and "unknowables": speculation.

Reckon you are on the right track.Never really left the area.STDs-probably yes.

[jason_c]

I'm guessing a lot of you don't know much about brothels. Sometimes the women end up owing the owners money. They get charged for their room and board, for their clothes, for the customer's drinks, anything the owner can think up. They have to pay tips to the bouncer and the piano player. Usually the women start out in debt, often because the owner pays their passage from a foreign country. She probably could make more out on the streets, and at least she could come and go as she pleased and turn down clients. It's not always like this, but I doubt if MJK was a high-class worker.

Or she was kicked out because she was an alcoholic.

[Christine]

I'm guessing a lot of you don't know much about brothels. Sometimes the women end up owing the owners money. They get charged for their room and board, for their clothes, for the customer's drinks, anything the owner can think up. They have to pay tips to the bouncer and the piano player. Usually the women start out in debt, often because the owner pays their passage from a foreign country. She probably could make more out on the streets, and at least she could come and go as she pleased and turn down clients. It's not always like this, but I doubt if MJK was a high-class worker.

Of course, it would be nice to confirm that Mary Jane had actually been in a West End brothel and actually been to France before expending a whole of theorizing energy on the topic. But then that is Ripperology as she is played.

Don.

And thats just one of the "nice to confirm" issues that makes up a lot of this history Don, ....at least we don't disagree with the value of the ammunition we are given.

Best regards Don

[Supe]

Of course, it would be nice to confirm that Mary Jane had actually been in a West End brothel and actually been to France before expending a whole of theorizing energy on the topic. But then that is Ripperology as she is played.

Don.

[Sam Flynn]

Perhaps they ran out of broth?