Room 13 Miller's Court

[Stephen Thomas]

Hi Nemo

Sorry I didn't answer your post fully.

The stairwell would be just like in 29 Hanbury Street.

[Stephen Thomas]

Hi Nemo

'Back extension' is an architect/builder term to describe a smaller and lighter structure at the back of a house with presumably less solid foundations. It doesn't mean 'something added later'.

[Nemo]

Thanks Stephen - that makes sense

...Though would that not indicate a 2 room space being used as the shed on the ground floor - with the stairs at the rear corner of the house (before the 2 storey rear extension was added on to No.26?

Are the stairs in their original location, pre-extension?

[Sam Flynn]

Does this mean that the entire Catherine Pickett episode is an invention, or does it just mean the quote was fabricated?

I've looked - unsuccessfully - for a contemporary source for the "My Dave..." quote outside Barlow & Watt, Rob. There were two (syndicated?) references to a flower-girl named "Catherine Pickell" who lived in Miller's Court going to Kelly's room to borrow a shawl at 0730 on the morning of her death, and getting no reply (Morning Advertiser and the London Evening News, both of Dec 12th 1888), but that's all I've found so far.

[robhouse]

Does this mean that the entire Catherine Pickett episode is an invention, or does it just mean the quote was fabricated?

Rob H

[Stephen Thomas]

Can I ask why you are sure there are 3 rooms on the first floor (UK) and 2 each on the others?

Hi Nemo

The main body of #26, given the known dimensions of it, and allowing for a stairwell, would originally have had 2 rooms per floor. It's possible to have 3 separate rooms on the very top floor but this seems not to have been the case. The 'extra' room on the first floor (UK) is the so-called Prater's room above Kelly's and that is the upper floor of a 2 storey back extension and not part of the main body of the house.

[Nemo]

Thanks for that Stephen

Can I ask why you are sure there are 3 rooms on the first floor (UK) and 2 each on the others?

[Stephen Thomas]

The Daily Telegraph
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1888
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.

Hi Nemo

Yes, that's 3 rooms on the first floor (2nd floor US) including the room above Kelly's in the back extension, and 2 rooms each on the top 2 floors. There's no attic, it's a mansard roof with proper rooms inside.

Hi Rob

The Catherine Pickett 'my old man Dave' quote is from the Barlow and Watts TV series, spoken by an actress and maybe but not necessarily invented by a scriptwriter on the show.

[Sam Flynn]

Thanks Nemo, there is a lot in that Nov 10 Daily Telegraph report...

... including our only contemporary description of the layout of the entirety of Miller's Court, as far as I can recall. It's an interesting source, all round.

[robhouse]

Thanks Nemo, there is a lot in that Nov 10 Daily Telegraph report...

RH

[Nemo]

Here it is Rob

The Daily Telegraph
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1888

Detectives searched all the adjacent houses for suspicious characters, but without result. All the inmates 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.

Also, from the same report...

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.

[robhouse]

Actually, it sounds like Pickett was in the room across the court from Kelly... apparently #12 Miller's Ct.

http://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4926/19145.html

[Nemo]

Hi

I seem to remember a couple who heard nothing living above Kelly

I will try to find the reference

Of Course it may be the same couple who did not hear anything after 1.30am

[robhouse]

I am not sure if maybe this is the couple you are referring to:

“12:30 AM: Catherine Pickett, a flower-seller who lives near Kelly, is disturbed by Kelly's singing. Picket's husband stops her from going down stairs to complain. "You leave the poor woman alone." he says.” "If it hadn't been for my Dave - that's my old man you must know - I should have come out of my room and caught the whitelivered villain! But Dave says to me , you just leave the woman alone so I stopped where I was - worst luck for the poor dear soul! - and goes to bed..."[1]

[robhouse]

There was a mention of a couple living somewhere above Kelly, and a wife who wanted to go down and complain about her singing. But she was not at the inquest and her address is not given. It only says she wanted to go "downstairs" to complain. Dont have the source at the moment.

Rob H