Elizabeth Prater

[perrymason]

Thanks Deb...thats one possible answer down.

In that photograph Marys door is almost in the archway, and in the sketch, more like what I was thinking with those rough numbers Stewart. Were photographs able to capture depth's accurately? Surely her rooms interior dimensions are just scaled versions of her exterior dimensions. So shouldn't that wall with her door on it be roughly 10-12 feet long...or was her partition wall further into the main structure?.

Im basing my guesses on the assumption that the doorway now blocked by what appears to be an old door for the Dorset Street frontage...there is what appears to be faded 2 and 6 on that wall section...entered a hallway that accessed the stairs Mrs Prater uses, or perhaps a kitchen if turning left down the hall?

Im really just asking not suggesting.

My Best Regards.

[sdreid]

Speaking of depth, that is the photo that looks suspiciously like half of a stereoscope pair to me.

Wouldn't next door be #28 or did they number differently back then?

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Various measurements have been given for Room 13, but the most consistently mentioned is 12 ft [door to fireplace] x 10 ft [broken window to partition wall].

If true, Room 13 extended about 6.0 - 6.5 feet into the arched entrance.

Here's a few measurements which might help—

From the Whitechapel Board of Works Annual Report for 1878, concerning the Quarter ending 28th September.

"[Millers] court contains six houses, and is about 50 feet long, 5 feet 6 inches wide at the north end, and 7 feet 10 inches wide at the south end, and is approached by a covered entrance 26 feet 4 inches long and 2 feet 10 inches wide. At the north end of the court there are three public privies, and at the south end there is a public dust-bin, both of which are within a few feet of the school-room in question."

Regards,

Simon

[perrymason]

Sorry about all the questions, but....Im sure something like this has probably been vetted here a few times or more, but If the room that Elizabeth Prater hears "oh-murder" from only faces Dorset Street...and we do know someone in the immediate area uttered it, because it is also heard down the courtyard at the Keyler's by Sarah, as "if at the door"...then isn't the logical location for the origin to have been at the entrance to the courtyard, or in front of it?

Best regards.

[Stewart P Evans]

Original Negative

Speaking of depth, that is the photo that looks suspiciously like half of a stereoscope pair to me.
Wouldn't next door be #28 or did they number differently back then?

I don't think so, it's an original print taken from the glass plate negative. The numbering in Dorset Street ran numerically in order, 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. from the west end of the south side to the east end (Commercial Street) then back along the north side, east to west. Therefore 26 Dorset Street was flanked on one side (the east) by no. 25 and the other by no. 27 (McCarthy's shop and dwelling).

[Cap'n Jack]

Tom, of course I read the thread, and I don't believe it to be off topic to point out the time keeping problems of the LVP when we are discussing conflicting witness testimony in a murder case.
I should say, rather, that it was vital to do so.
If they can't tell the time they could have been eating your cream cheese on the moon.

[George Hutchinson]

Stan - being a stereoview collector of stereocards, vistascreens and viewmasters (I love 3D photography!) I can see where you're coming from. However, some of the mortuary shots have a similar curved cropping. I do know that putting this kind of chamfer on old photos - certainly as far as CDVs are concerned - usually dates them to post-1870.

Whoever it was who did those incredible and mind-boggling 3D images of the mortuary shots a few years back, I don't know HOW you turned a 2D shot into a 3D one, but BOY would we like to see more!

PHILIP

[perrymason]

Thanks for the numbers Simon, that means that Marys head is well inside the archway, so to speak, when she is found...Id imagined that her head would be approximately at that space between door and archway...which as I said in the photo looks like a very short distance.

Thanks again Simon.

[Stewart P Evans]

Lodging House

Sorry about all the questions, but....Im sure something like this has probably been vetted here a few times or more, but If the room that Elizabeth Prater hears "oh-murder" from only faces Dorset Street...and we do know someone in the immediate area uttered it, because it is also heard down the courtyard at the Keyler's by Sarah, as "if at the door"...then isn't the logical location for the origin to have been at the entrance to the courtyard, or in front of it?
Best regards.

I think that the following wording from Prater's statement clearly indicates the location of the lodging house and the cry -

"I did not take much notice of the cries as I frequently heard such cries from the back of the lodging-house where the windows look into Millers Court."

This should, conclusively, dispose of any idea that the lodging house referred to by Prater was Crossingham's opposite the front of 26 Dorset Street.

Are we ready to put this one to bed yet?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Stewart,

Sorry to labour the point, but do we know for certain that there was a lodging house in Brushfield Street whose back windows looked into Millers Court?

Regards,

Simon

[Fiona]

Help!

This is a very interesting thread but I'm completely confused!

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but if Prater lived on the floor above Kelly, then there must have been four rooms to each floor of the house in which she resided (the number of houses in the court proper being a maximum of six, with one room on the ground floor and one above). Dorset Street was 400 feet long (source: contemporary accounts at the time of its construction) and each side originally comprised 20 houses, which means the average width of one house was 20 feet although an 17th century account of the street states that some of the houses were only 16 feet wide.

Contemporary photographs and reports suggest that number 26 Dorset Street was built in the mid to late 1700s and it is likely that it was built over the footprint of one of the original houses (which were built in the 1670s) -this is and always has been common practice, particularly in cities where space is at a premium.

Therefore surely it is sensible to assume that number 26 Dorset Street was approximately 16 - 20 feet wide.

Newspaper reports at the time of her murder state that Kelly's room was about ten feet square, which suggests that her room only took up half of the ground floor width of the building.

If this is the case, then what was next door to Kelly's room? Stewart's photograph and other illustrations suggest that her room took up the entire back portion of 26 Dorset St but if this is the case, her room should be up to double the width reported. If the reporters were mistaken and her room did indeed take up the entire back portion of the building, then how on earth can Prater's room be number 20 (which suggests there were a least four rooms on the ground floor)?

If anyone can elucidate on the internal layout of number 26 Dorset Street, I'd be eternally grateful as I just can't work out how the building was divided up in 1888. To muddy the waters further, newspaper reports suggest that Jack McCarthy used the front of the ground floor as a shed for costermongers' barrows. Surely the shed would not have been numbered as part of Millers Ct? Or would it?

Yours,
Confused.

P.S. Following comments on the 13 Miller's Ct thread about the odd layout of the windows in Kelly's room, I suspect that the window on the right was originally a back door (look at the picture of the back yard of 29 Hanbury St - which was built at around the same time - to see a similar configuration). Although why anyone would want to move the door to the adjoining wall is yet another mystery!

[Tom_Wescott]

Are we ready to put this one to bed yet?

You'll have to get it drunk first, and that's where AP comes in.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[perrymason]

Stewart, thanks for the post again, it would seem by that quote that the lodging house she referred to was her own....and her own "window(s)"...her single window being one of others that looked into the court.

I think that quote is clear. Ive suspected as much, and I think this evidence is potentially more important than some might think. It begins discussion on the tone or urgency of that voice, or call, its volume...and what that might suggest.

Best regards.

[Jake L]

Hi all,
Prater lived above Kelly, but whether directly on top is likely to remain an open question. It all boils down to "loose language". "Above" could mean "directly above" or merely "upstairs".

As much as I always tend to look at the simplest explanation, Prater's mention of seeing the LodHo lights in the street is worth thinking about. The thing is that the plans do not show any lodging houses to the North. Of course, it is possible that, again, words were used loosely and Prater referred to, say, the dwellings at the back of No 25 Dorset Street.

However, these most probably were not visible to the room above #13 owing to the tall wall separating the properties.

On the other hand, if we were to place her in the *front* room at #26, it would be obvious that she could see the lights in the street. The "noises" could well be heard from the back of nr 30, whereas the lights could be seen from across the street - the angle seems much too tight for no 30. ("A" indicates the window)



This is the Goad plan draft from March 1890. It may be helpful as regards the interior - at least the major structures are marked there.

Prater's front room could have been "the" room above Kelly's if, for example, she was the only tenant on the floor at the time. Be that as it may, it seems that the room configurations at #26 indeed changed over the years. The reference to nr 19 *might* stem from this. In the Ronan reports the numbering again seems different:

Police-constable HARRY WOODLEY, H Division. I made this plan of the first floor front room, No. 12, Miller's Court, Spitalfields (produced). It is correct. No. 12 is the room—not the house. No. 11 is the ground floor. I have shown the furniture in the room as it was at 4.45 a.m. on July 2. The room is 12 ft. by 12 ft. 2 in. The mantelpiece is about 8 ft. The first floor is the top. There is no gas there....The mantelpiece is opposite the bed. There tone dirty blinds. I do not know about the lamps in Duval street.

Detective-inspector WENSLEY, H Division. Soon after two am. On July 2 I went to the top room, 12, Miller's Court, where I saw the body of deceased....

Note that PC woodley had no idea as to the streetlights when he was making a plan of no 12 room - called "the front room" !!!

Confusing eh?

[Sam Flynn]

I think that the following wording from Prater's statement clearly indicates the location of the lodging house and the cry - "I did not take much notice of the cries as I frequently heard such cries from the back of the lodging-house where the windows look into Millers Court."

This should, conclusively, dispose of any idea that the lodging house referred to by Prater was Crossingham's opposite the front of 26 Dorset Street.

Hi Stewart,

Indeed, however the Goad map for Dorset Street circa 1888 shows that Crossingham's was a substantial building which extended continuously into White's row:



The above extract taken from the new book Jack the Ripper & The East End, which I received only yesterday. You'll all note that Crossingham's is shaped like a chunky inverted "L", with the widest chunk in Dorset Street, and the rest in White's Row. Question is, which portion of the "inverted L" constituted the "back of the lodging-house" in this case? For that matter, was the main entrance in White's Row? It's clear that the White's Row end of the "L" was known as "Crossingham's", as demonstrated by Elizabeth Ryder's testimony at the inquest of "Clay Pipe Alice":



(From the Times, July 18th, 1889.)

All that aside, whether the main entrance was in White's Row or Dorset Street or not may be immaterial in any case. There was assuredly an entrance on the Dorset Street side - but was it opposite Miller's Court, or was it off to the side? In which case, wouldn't somebody living between #26 and #27, confronted by a vista of brickwork studded with windows, not see it as the "back of the lodging house" anyway?