The fire in the grate...

[Suzi]

GREAT pics Janey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! soooooperb!!!! I think the upper(!) one was more likely although the Huguenot /Weavers one from the C18 is a wonderful piece! £1550 ffs!........

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM......... that I think is the better grate...........although the flashy one looks fun it was taken from a posh house and.......... now up for sale I imagine the top one was the sort of thing that Mary had with maybe (posh) a kettle attachment on the front of the grate......my Gran had one of those!!!!!

Suz xxxxxx

[Chava]

Thanks, Jane! That's exactly what I was talking about. No way Kelly does washing in that tiny little room on that tiny little grate...

And the old clothes business was basically 100% Jewish. I doubt any work would have been contracted out to someone who wasn't family, and certainly not to a bunch of chancy tarts! I remember my mother telling me how she and her sisters managed to keep the wolf from the door after their immigrant and completely impoverished parents both died young and penniless in the late teens and early twenties of the last century. (When she and her sisters were also in their late teens.) They organized a family sweatshop and made pinafores to be sold in the markets by their brothers. I asked if they had any employees. She looked at me as if I was mad. No employees, she said. No overheads. Just the five of them sewing their hearts out in the living room...

[CitizenX]

If the Reynolds News sketch of the room is correct and drawn from life..

Then the type of grate is clearly visible...

and

The clothes are hanging from the chair on the right, not neatly folded..

kevin

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Jane,

Lovely pictures, and very informative!
Thanks.

All the best

[Jane Coram]

Oh I am so sorry Michael, you are going to hate me.

You're talking to an old scrubber here, so I can tell you that Mary couldn't have been doing much washing in her room, well her smalls maybe, but little else.

It is true that a large number of girls and women worked as laundresses in and around the area of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, because of the large second hand clothing trade that went on there, around Petticoat Lane. The clothes would be bought often filthy and in no fit state to resell, and the shop and stall keepers would have them laundered to resell for a higher price, so there were a lot of laundry shops in the area. I can see where you're coming from with the idea. A fair number prostitutes did do a bit of laundry on the side, or probably more accurately did a bit on the side on top of their laundry But really most prozzies just said they were laundresses because it was better than saying prozzie!

The fire places that have been put up already would be the sort that she had in her room and no way could you get enough in any pot that could go on that fire to get enough hot water to do a days washing.

The water would have to heated up in a purpose built vessel that was called a 'copper' even though it was actually made of zinc. (see pic below) or on a kitchen range made of cast iron that could take a big enough pot and get it hot enough.

Most of the linen had to be pounded with a peg dolly in a wash tub, (see pic below) then rinsed and put through a mangle to get the excess water out, then hung on a line to dry. It was back breaking work. Cotton would have to be boiled and a Reckitt's blue bag (dye) added to give an illusion of extra whiteness. There was no washing powder, only soda crystals or bars of carbolic soap. Great for the hands. Lol. You also needed at least two tubs, one for washing and one for rinsing, as shown in the picture below.

Ironing was done with a solid cast iron iron, (see pic) literally and heated up on the kitchen range. Again, there were no facilities in Mary's room to do the ironing and doing the laundry without ironing it to return to the customer would be unacceptable anyway. And we're not done yet.

Apart from not having a copper, a large enough tub, or ironing faclites, Mary
would also have needed a wringer (mangle) shown below and somewhere to hang the washing that was safe and secure. If she had hung it out to dry in the pump yard of Miller's Court she would have had to have kept a keen eye on it or it would have been nicked! Lol.

So all in all, the chances of the clothes that Maria left being actually intended for laundering by Mary or Maria is very slim. Best guess they were either nicked or gained some other rather dubious way and were intended for the pawn shop to get Mary some rent or gin money.

Sorry Michael, but I can't see Mary up to her arms in soap suds. You hate me now don't you?

Hugs

Jane

xxx

Those are some interesting hearths Suzi....I think you were probably right that it might have been a nicer one at some point earlier in the rooms past, as it was a parlour or sitting room before being made a self contained single room. Ill bet that if there was a nicer grate then, it may have been removed before letting the room out if it had value.

During Marys tenure, I could see a stone hearth, perhaps with a pot on swing arm, that can be used for indoor cooking...with a small grate to support logs, to burn better.

Chava, on the issue of laundry...taking in laundry is something that Maria has done previously, and may have done while staying with Mary, and certainly kept affordable by the pump out the window, and her tin bath...right outside her door a courtyard to run a line across. Many courts like Millers looked like spider webs with lines crossing and criss crossing during the day.

I think given the amount of time we are to believe Mary and Maria spent in each others company...her entire last afternoon they were in or around her room, I think the likely alternative to them doing something like laundry is possible, but not suggested by any data.

Cheers all.

[Chava]

Yeah, like I said. No one's gonna be washing clothes in water boiled in a grate like that. That is for making tea and toasting bread and maybe face-washing water if you're pernickety about looking clean!

[Suzi]

A more likely candidate for the Millers Ct grate (IMHO)

[Suzi]

Hi all-

Just found this picture of a very likely looking Victorian Grate taken from an C18th Weaver House in Spitalfields,interestingly. (Also interestingly it's for sale from a dealer at a mere £1,550 !!)



Maybe a tad too ornate........the one above is probably more like it!

Suz x

[Chava]

But do we know that Kelly washed clothes in her room? I have to say I think this is unlikely. The grate that held that fire would have been suitable for boiling a small kettle for a cup of tea, but wouldn't have been nearly sufficient to boil water for a clothes wash. In those days, great coppers were lit and clothing was boiled with washing soda to get clean and then blued to look white. I think women did this in communal wash-houses attached to public baths. There was certainly a wash house in Goulston St. They could hang the washing to dry when they got home.

As for the issue of the 'folded clothes' I take everyone's point that they were unlikely to be folded neatly. Given the amount of clothes a woman wore then, they were unlikely to be found entirely on the chair! So I assume that the clothes in question were underclothes, petticoats etc. A floor-length winter woman's skirt wouldn't have been easily tossed onto a chair!

Hi Paul,

Im sorry I'm brief tonight...probably the only one..lol...anyway, 15 hour work day...so check The Daily News, United Kingdom, for Oct 2nd. And yes, the Aldgate PO.

Theres a thread that seems to connect some disparate parties in the Kelly investigation, and I believe its due to the convergence of Fenian and Ripper Investigations....maybe not for the first time .

Cheers Paul...ok, poke me with a fork...

[paul emmett]

Hi, Michael.

Hey, thanks for sharing. I know we both look closely at some of the Eddowes things like the MJK connections, Eddowes's absences and her knowing who JTR is. Is the bank robbery another one? Someone on another thread was trying to figure out why Eddowes gravitated to Aldgate the hours before she died. Was the P.O. in Aldgate/Mitre Square? That was the only robbery that I could find anything on, and I couldn't find much. Where should I look?

Also, wasn't it Drew that said MJK's turf was Aldgate?

Oh yeah, the fire. I think JTR wanted to destroy all the clothes in #13 except MJK's.

Hi Paul,

Thanks for indulging me....its one of my pet unproven or as yet unsubstantiated ideas. I know thats contrary to the growing belief that they all are......but hey, you dont ask, you dont know.

Abberline and the others may well have been sieving for remains of the heart, discovered missing during Fridays Volte Face with Marys remains. Or a million other things. Im trying to find something that ties all the little parts...the dignitaries, the Irish aspect, the possibility that her killing wasnt by Jack, and therefore for some other unknown reason...the Fenian Fighters, including Pearce, who overlooks the murder site of a victim who identified herself Mary Kelly the night she dies.

I believe one thing is for certain...what they sieved for Saturday morning must have been minute enough to have been missed during the sifting already done...I mean, ash is ash right? They find fabric...velvet...and a hat rim...so why come back the next morning?. Any trace of biological material would have certainly been detected in earlier sieves.

Its just a big mess of connect the dots..involving someone close to Mary, Fenians, and some speculative link with the Post Office Robbery....primarily due to that odd visitor, and a suspected Fenian link with the Post Office Robbery. The currency plates is just my idea, but it is my understanding that they were occasionally sent around the country by mail, perhaps Regions were to pay their own printing costs..I dont know. And that Fall, likely the biggest plan the Fenians had put together was in full swing. Money would have been the link between Fenian Europe and London,....or since we believe we know of an American Fenian supporter, perhaps one that funnels and hides large sums, one who claims a medical degree with none, maybe the money is being mobilized from around the globe to finish the job and knock off Balfour....and start the revolution finally to break free of English rule. Big stakes....a nation trying to be born.

Would those people kill others who are in the way, or that could tumble their plans?

Sorry...there I go again....its romantic, and very loose, but for some reason I think the answer includes some of what was happening in that specific location at that time. A Very Dangerous time..to be a local cop, to be an unfortunate, to be a revolutionary, or to be lost in a new world.

Anyway....thanks...its nice to be able to at least voice something sometimes just trying to fit pieces together, not agreeing with or to denounce someone else's opinions.

Appreciate the patience.
Cheers.

[paul emmett]

Paul, I think something was thought to be burned in that fireplace that might leave minute traces, but enough to be recognizable. The ashes were sieved Friday afternoon. They were sieved again Saturday morning, by no less than Abberline, Reid, and others.

Hi, Michael. Your points are intriuging. I don't know enough about the P.O. robbery to even comment. But I will take care of that. I've always been struck by the distinguished visitors to Millers Court, and I do think that something was up.

Regarding the clothes, THE TIMES quote on another thread today said they looked what? as if they'd just been taken off and put down. Not folded neatly--but not so far from it.

In your above quote "was thought" does imply not confirmed, right?

On the issue of the clothing, I think a reasonable explanation for Maria's clients clothing being there, and that clothes had been described as being folded, is that they were freshly washed that afternoon. Maria is known to have spent the entire afternoon with Mary Jane in her room. There is a tin bath visible under Mary's bed, and a pump outside her window...and since Maria was living there until just a few days earlier, she may have washed taken in laundry there before. She gave Mary a few coins for some reason that day.

I think that also explains a low fire all afternoon, in order to continually heat water. Not bright, but hot. Maybe hot enough to melt the solder off the spout connecting it to the kettle. It was likely left to die when Mary goes out, and she may have stoked it when she returns.

Paul, I think something was thought to be burned in that fireplace that might leave minute traces, but enough to be recognizable. The ashes were sieved Friday afternoon. They were sieved again Saturday morning, by no less than Abberline, Reid, and others. This group of officers, which included Thicke, Godley, and our man Pearce...the same officer who overlooked Kates murder scene,...though not all there Saturday morning, were run by Abberline as a Task force within the Task force, and did tons of interviews apparently. But considering the expertise that got Abberline promoted downtown in the first place, arresting high profile Fenians in Whitechapel, ..I wonder if their mission wasnt a dual one. Or if Anderson's trip was for rest.

My own personal theory, based mostly on hunches, is that there were traces of evidence that connected someone in Marys life to the Robbery of the Post Office the night of the Double Event. I believe it may be counterfeit money, made with currency plates which may have been stolen from the Post Office. Or perhaps a letter. I think it may have been orchestrated by Fenians, who needed money that Fall while financing an assassination attempt on Lord Balfour, which was foiled by arrests in France I believe. I think Marys circle involved Fenians.

The next week, on Monday or Tuesday morning, more than three government officials were known to have visited the court, members of the Royal Irish Constabulary....Members of Parliament, and a Senior Post Office official. Since Parliament had only re-convened a day or two before Marys death, after 6-8 weeks in recess, odd taking a morning off for a murder scene tour. And the other parties presence is odd too...certainly attendance by such luminaries didnt happen at earlier murder sites.

I think Mary Jane knew someone intimately who was an active Fenian and when investigators searched her room that day they were investigating her murder and a possible connection to the Robbery or the Fenian link.

Heres a twist on the night that might fit that scenario.......we know Mary got loaded, and we know forensically that she ate...we assume Blotchy or someone picked up the tab. What if she paid herself....with money that she wasnt supposed to show anyone?. And the absolute worst guy to find that kind of thing out, ...does.

Just a what if. Dont anyone go postal on me It would certainly fit the "known man" theorizing as well.

Best regards.