13 Miller's Court AFTER 1888.

[TrapDoorSpider]

Does anyone know for certain what happened to MJK's room in the years following her murder?

I seem to recall some writer visiting Miller's Court in the 1930s, just before it was demolished, and noting that #13 looked as though it had never been occupied again, which may of course have been an exaggeration. And I don't imagine John McCarthy would have kept a rent-producing property empty out of ethical/sentimental reasons. I suppose he just scrubbed away all the blood, fixed that pesky door look, and rented #13 out again.

But I've never really read anything about it. Has anyone?

[Chris Scott]

Certainly Kelly's old room was occupied by the time of the 1891 census:
13 Millers Court
Head: Thomas Kelly aged 35 born Spitalfields - Waterside labourer
Wife: Ann Kelly born Ireland
Head: Elizabeth Harper (Widow) aged 39 born Wapping - Needlewoman
Brother: James Harper aged 42 born Finsbury - Firewood bundle maker
Head: Mary A Clark (Widow) aged 49 born Lancashire - Laundress
Son: Charles Clark aged 13 born Hornsey

However the whole listing for Millers Court suggests that either the listing is not totally accurate or that the rooms had been renumbered since Kelly's death.
The premises listed for Millers Court in 1891 and the number of residents per address is as follows:
No 2 - 9 residents
No 3 - 3 residents
No 5 - 11 residents
No 6 - 3 residents
No 7 - 2 residents
No 8 - 2 residents
No 11 - 1 resident
No 12 - 4 residents
No 13 - 6 residents
It will be noted that certain addresses are missing:
Nos 1, 4, 9, 10, 14 upwards.
It stretches credulity that 6 persons of three different families could have been living in Kelly's old room. I would suggest that maybe the first listed (Thomas Kelly and his wife) were living at No 13 and the others actually belonged to other numbered rooms. But this is only speculation.

One possibility is that some of the rooms which had been included in the numbering of Millers Court would have been, for census purposes, listed with 26 Dorset Street, the rear of which they formed.
However, in 1891 only two residents for No 26 were listed, Henry Owen, a dock labourer and his wife.

[sdreid]

I believe the female Canadian reporter who checked out Miller's around the turn of the century mentioned a woman living in Kelly's room. Sorry that my memory is not more specific.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Chris,

However, in 1891 only two residents for No 26 were listed, Henry Owen, a dock labourer and his wife.

That must surely be the same "Harry Owen" with whom Julia Venturney was living in 1888.

[Chris Scott]

Hi Sam
I speculated on the old boards about this Harry (Henry) Owen
His wife is listed with a virtually illegible name - Lother or Lothea (see below)
Venturney would have been 50 at the time of this census
Chris

[Mike Covell]

Hi Sam
I speculated on the old boards about this Harry (Henry) Owen
His wife is listed with a virtually illegible name - Lother or Lothea (see below)
Venturney would have been 50 at the time of this census
Chris

The name is not "Lottee" is it?

The real name is usually spelt different but what are the odd's they had little or no education and wrote the name as it sounded?

[Chava]

Yes, Kit Blake Watkins, who was a female reporter for the Toronto Mail, did a piece. She said the woman she met who lived in Kelly's room was called 'Lottie'. And I do think that's what Owen's wife's name looks like...

Here's the piece in question:

Elizabeth then took Kit across the court to meet the current occupant of Mary Kelly's still blood stained room of number 13, a lady who went by the name of "Lottie".

"I was her friend" said Lottie, speaking with difficulty because of a broken and battered nose given to her by a kick from her husband's heavy boot. "I was living further up the court then. She (Mary Kelly) says `I'm afraid to go out alone at night because of a dream I had that a man was murdering me. Maybe I'll be next. They say Jack's been busy in this quarter'. She said it with such a laugh ma'am that it just made me creep. And been sure enough ma'am she was the next to go. I heard her through the night singin' - she had a nice voice - "The violets grow on your mothers grave" - but that's all we 'urd". Lottie seemed to have no repugnance in sleeping in the room with its now blood blackened walls.

[Celesta]

Hi Chris,That must surely be the same "Harry Owen" with whom Julia Venturney was living in 1888.

Sam, is this the same guy who charged people to see the murder site? Or did that come later? Post 1888?

T'anks,

Celesta

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Celesta

Sam, is this the same guy who charged people to see the murder site?

I rather hope that such morbid entrepreneurship would have been confined to the Hanbury Street murder scene, where it is known that the neighbours charged sight-seers a small fee to gawp at the spot where Annie Chapman's body once lay.

[Chris Scott]

Worth look at Andy Aliffe's article at

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rip-kit.html

which includes:
"From there Kit walked to Dorset Street and number 13 Millers Court, which was "reached by a narrow passage under an arch reeking with fifth and crowded with women and children".

Still residing there was Elizabeth Prater, who lived above Mary Kelly on the night of her murder, but was now living opposite. She told Kit how she had been woken by her kitten "Diddles" at about 4am and had heard a faint cry of "oh murder" from somewhere near by.

Elizabeth then took Kit across the court to meet the current occupant of Mary Kelly's still blood stained room of number 13, a lady who went by the name of "Lottie".

"I was her friend" said Lottie, speaking with difficulty because of a broken and battered nose given to her by a kick from her husband's heavy boot. "I was living further up the court then. She (Mary Kelly) says `I'm afraid to go out alone at night because of a dream I had that a man was murdering me. Maybe I'll be next. They say Jack's been busy in this quarter'. She said it with such a laugh ma'am that it just made me creep. And been sure enough ma'am she was the next to go. I heard her through the night singin' - she had a nice voice - "The violets grow on your mothers grave" - but that's all we 'urd". Lottie seemed to have no repugnance in sleeping in the room with its now blood blackened walls.

Kit continues:- "Other women began to gather presently and grew voluble over the hideous details, like birds of prey. They had hard faces with an evil look on them - the demands for money, for beer, the curses, the profane language, jests about the awful fiend who did his deadly work here, the miserable shrewd faced children listening eagerly: it was horrible beyond expression".

[George Hutchinson]

I too had heard of the tenant showing the room to ghouls shortly afterwards. Not confused with the AC event and I don't know if money changed hands. I had heard about artefacts that had supposedly been in the room when MJK was there still being present. I don't know the source of this, though, and it could be another Ripper myth.

Then there is the person interviewed by Dan Farson for the TV programme we'll never find who said their mother lived in the room afterwards.

I fancy - conjecturily - that the murder may have had something to do with the renumbering, in much the same way that it had to do with Bucks Row becoming Durward Street. Obviously, Chris, you're right. No way could six people be in a room that small. That's not overcrowding - it's an impossibility!

PHILIP

[Christine]

Wasn't one wall of No. 13 a partition anyhow? Was there a door in it, or does it just look like a door?

[jason_c]

If only people had been more ghoulish we may have had greater access to original Ripper items than we do today.

[Chris Scott]

Hi Christine
A panelled door can certainly be seen in the partition wall in the well known Kelly photograph
I have read somewhere - and I can't for the life of me remember where - that Kelly's room was originally the back kitchen of 26 Dorset Street
Chris

[steje73]

How soon after the murder would he have been allowed to clean it all up to re-rent it out? I would imagine that he'd have been keen to do it pretty sharpish.