Press Reports Of Fay's "Murder"

[Uncle Jack]

I've been trying to find some of the press reports that speak of the so-called Fairy Fay murder that took place during Christmas week of 1887 but cannot seem to find anything. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

All the best,

Adam

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

There are no press reports of "Fairy Fay's" murder because she didn't exist.

At the time of the Whitechapel murders a nameless victim was described as being murdered around Christmas, 1887. The nature of the wounds inflicted in this supposed murder closely matched those of Emma Elizabeth Smith's, who was attacked in April, 1888. In 1950 this nameless victim was named "Fairy Fay" by journalist Terence Robertson in a series of articles that appeared in Reynold's News. Stewart Evans has shown, very convincingly I think, that the "murder" of the nameless victim was in fact a garbling of an attack on Margaret Hames which occurred around Christmas, 1887. As Hames was a witness at the Smith inquest and as she had described the Christmas attack on her "by men under circumstances of a similar nature," it is likely that this was the genesis of the whole nameless victim story.

Wolf.

[Uncle Jack]

Hi Wolf, thanks for replying. I completely understand that Fay never existed but I was just reading her page in the victims section which mentioned reports of the Christmas 1887 murder and referred specifically to the Western Mail.

QUOTE - there are several newspaper reports which refer to women being killed in Christmas week of 1887 near Osborne and Wentworth Streets in Whitechapel (see Western Mail, Cardiff, November 10, 1888).

Even though I don't believe in Fairy Fay or the 1887 murder I wanted to read these articles purely out of interest and can't seem to locate the Western Mail article anywhere.

The best Wolf,

Adam

[Uncle Jack]

The above quote has now seemed to have vanished from Fay's victims page.

[Chris Scott]

Hi Adam
The Fairy Fay story is not a simple one. There were no contemporary reports (i.e. around Christmas 1887) of an unnamed woman being murdered and mutilated in Whitechapel. But quite early into the main series of Whitechapel murders (certainly by late September 1888) papers had started printing lists of previous murders attributed to the same hand. It was in these lists that there started to appear the alleged case of a woman murdered in late 1887. The accounts vary but there are some fairly consistent features:
1) The woman was said to be unidentified
2) The murder allegedly occurred on the corner of Osborn and Wentworth Streets
3) Some accounts speak of an object being inserted into the woman's body
4) The incident allegedly elicited little or no notice in the press at the time

As Wolf said, I personally think all indications are that this is a garbled version of the murder of Emma Smith in April 1888.
The alleged date of the 1887 murder varies considerably. Most accounts say it happened in Christmas Week, some are more specific and say Boxing Day, but I have seen accounts that place it in October 1887 and even August 1887.
It is also interesting that some listings of previous murders include BOTH the alleged 1887 murder and the murder of Emma Smith.

The actual name Fairy Fay is a much later accretion to the story and is entirely invented.
Chris

[Monty]

Sung to me by a well known Ripperologist whose name shall remain with me.

Oh, I went down South for to see my Sal
singing Polly wolly doodle all the day
my Sal, she am a spunky gal
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Fare thee well, fare thee well,
fare thee well my fairy Fay for
I'm off to Lou'siana for to see my Susyanna
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Oh, my Sal, she is a maiden fair
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
with curly eyes and laughing hair
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Fare thee well, fare thee well,
fare thee well my fairy Fay
for I'm off to Lou'siana for to see my Susyanna
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Oh I like watermelon and I have for years
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
I eat watermelon because it gets upon my ears
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Fare thee well, fare thee well,
fare thee well my fairy Fay
for I'm off to Lou'siana for to see my Susyanna
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Oh, a grasshopper sittin' on a railroad track
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
a pickin' his teeth with a carpet tack
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Fare thee well, fare thee well,
fare thee well my fairy Fay
I'm going to Lou'siana for to see my Susyanna
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Behind the barn, down on my knees
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
I thought I heard a chicken sneeze
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Oh he sneezed so hard with the whooping cough
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
he sneezed his head and his tail right off
sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Fare thee well, fare thee well,
fare thee well my fairy Fay
for I'm off to Lou'siana for to see my Susyanna
sing Polly Wolly Doodle
sing Polly Wolly Doodle
sing Polly Wolly Doodle all the day

This, I believe, is the base for the name of Fairy Fay.

Popular, Ive been told, from the late 19th Century to the 1960s. Then again I could be wrong as Im too young to recall it. However it would tie in with the date of the Reynolds Report.

Cheers
Monty

[caz]

I suppose further confusion might have been caused in the wake of Martha Tabram's murder if someone had made reference to "the previous Bank Holiday" atrocity (meaning the murder of Emma Smith), and this was taken to mean Boxing Day - and given credence by the real Christmas time attack on Margaret Hames.

Love,

Caz (whose mum used to call her Fairy Fay)
X

[The Good Michael]

It sucks that I know that song. Someone shoot me.

Distraught Mike

[Chris Scott]

My grandmother (born 1893) used to use the name "Fairy Fay" for any woman (usually a young(ish) woman) who was delicate, slim, very feminine looking.
She used a variety of names like this for generic types. The only other one I can remember is the name she would use for a woman who was "no better than she should be," i.e. a woman who was fast or forward. Such a woman would be described as a "right Mary Ann."
Also interesting to note that the name "Fairy Fay" is a double name in that "fay" (also spelt fey) means fairylike, or otherworldy.

[caz]

Hi Chris,

My mum was born in 1917 (when your grandmother was in her twenties) and I got the impression that she used the name Fairy Fay in a similar way. I was very young when she gave me the nickname and I was always tiny for my age as a child, like she was. I'm currently using a photo of my mum for my profile pic.

I had no idea until about ten years ago that the ripper case began with its very own mythical Fairy Fay, and ended with Carrotty Nell, who died on my birthday.

Love,

Caz
X

[sdreid]

Thought I'd make mention of the Fairy Fay date quasquicentennial coming up this week on the 26th whether it's totally apocryphal, a mis-dated account of Emma Smith's murder, an exaggerated report of the Margaret Hames attack or Trevor Bond's Susannah Scanes.

[Joshua Rogan]

I was just reading a press article on the Pinchin Street Torso (Times (London) Wednesday, 11 September 1889), and found that this gave a list of the alleged Ripper victims;

1. Dec. 1887 - Unknown woman found murdered near Osborne and Wentworth streets Whitechapel.
2. Aug. 7th, 1888 - Martha Turner found stabbed in 39 places on a landing of the model dwellings in George yard buildings, Whitechapel.
3. Aug. 31st, 1888 - Mary Ann Nicholls, murdered and mutilated in Baker's (sic) row, Whitechapel.
4. Sept. 8th, 1888 - Mary Ann Chapman, murdered and mutilated in Hanbury street, Whitechapel.
5. Sept. 30th, 1888 - Elizabeth Stride, found with her throat cut in Berner street, St. George's.
6. Sept. 30th, 1888 - Mrs. May Eddowes, murdered and mutilated in Mitre square, Aldgate.
7. Nov. 9th, 1888 - Mary Jane Kelly, murdered and mutilated in Dorset street, Spitalfields.
8. July 17th, 1889 - Alice M'Kenzie, murdered and mutilated in Castle alley, Whitechapel.
9. The woman whose mutilated body was found yesterday morning.

Was the state of journalism really so bad, less than two years after the start of the Whitechapel Murders, that they could forget one supposed victim and remember another that didn't exist?

[Joshua Rogan]

The Pall Mall Gazette 10th Nov has a list of previous victims;

"No. 1 - Impaled with and Iron Stake
The first of the so-called Whitechapel murders took place at Christmas, when an unknown woman was found murdered near Osborne-street, Whitechapel. How she came by her death no one could say, but a certain grim horror distinguished it from ordinary murders by the fact that an iron stake was thrust into her person. It is necessary to mention this, because in the lists that appear in the morning papers she is confused with the victim of Easter Tuesday, Emma Smith, whose death was not caused by an iron stake, but by repeated outrage of the worst kind."

[Natasha]

South Wales Daily News
22nd November 1888


THE NINE PREVIOUS VICTIMS. The following is a complete list of the nine victims who have already fallen a prey to the murderer popularly known as the Whitechapel monster." No. 1. Last Christmas week a woman named Smith, found in a model dwelling murdered, and with an iron spike thrust through her abdomen. No. 2. On April 3, 1888, Emma Elizabeth Smith, a woman of tbe town, was murdered in Whitechapel. No. 3. August 7, the body of Martha Tabram, a hawker, was found on the first-floor landing of the George-yard Buildings, Commercial- street, Spitalfields. The bead was nearly severed trom the body, and there were 32 stab-wounds besides the usual mutilation. The murder was committed between midnight and dawn. No. 4. Mary Ann Nichols, aged forty-two, a woman of the lowest class, was killed and mutilated like the rest. Her body was found in the street in Buck's-row, Whitechapel, in the early morning of Friday, August 31. She had evidently been killed somewhere else and her body earned where it was found, for little blood was discovered where the body lay. No 5. Just a week after the killing of the woman Nichols, Annie Chapman, aged 45, another fallen woman, was similarly murdered and mutilated. Her body was discovered in the back yard of 29, Hanbury-street, 100 yards from the place where the Nichols woman's remains were found. She must have been butchered after 5 a.m., for she was drinking with a man, probably her murderer, at that hour in a public-house near by. On the wall near her body was written in chalk-" Five fifteen more, then I give myself up." No. 6Another Whitechapel woman, Elizabeth Stride, nicknamed "Hippy Lip Annie," 40 years old, was murdered in Berners-street, on Sunday, September 30th, at about one a.m. Her throat was cut, but there was no slashing of the remains. The body was warm when found, and the murderer had been apparently frighteued away. No. 7. Fifteen minutes after the discovery of the butchery of "Hippy Lip Annie," the mutilated body of another victim, a degraded woman of the Whitechapel district, named Catherine Eddowes, was found in the south- west corner of Mitre-square. No. 8. On October 2 the highly decomposed remains of a woman, shockingly mutilated and giving evidence of having been killed by the Whiteciiapel muiderer, was found on the site of the new London police offices, on the Thames Embankment. [This place is near Charing-cross, three miles west of the Whitechapel district.] No. 9. The last murder, on November 9th, took place in a house in a little lane called Dorset- street, near Commercial-street, Spitalfields. The name of the shockingly mutilated victim was Marie Jeannette K-lly. She was a native of Limerick, and had lived at Carmarthen and at Cardiff.

[TheTypeWriter]

I found an article in the newspaper archives that mentioned the woman who has become known as fairy fay, I thought it was a mistake and they had meant Emma Smith but then it said "not to be mistaken with Emma Smith", in the article fairy fay was listed as the first Whitechapel murder victim. It was written in November 1888 I believe and there was mention of "an iron stake in her person" I believe, but I have searched my screenshots and can't find it so I will have to look it up again.