Elizabeth Prater

[Stewart P Evans]

Thank You

Elizabeth Prater in her Inquest statement said "I frequently hear such cries from the back of the lodging house where the windows look into Millers Court". I don't think there's much doubt that Prater was referring to 30 Dorset Street, a four storied building building overlooking the two storied dwellings of Millers Court. Prater didn't say she saw the lodging house from her room but the lights shone on the court.
Sam, there's a Crossingham Lodging House at 8 Whites Row, South side and I think that is the one being reffered to in The Times report.
Rob

Rob,
Thank you very much for that, dare I say, common sense. But if people wish to make their own interpretations, hey that's fine, and I shall be accused of all sorts of things if I push this any further.

[Tom_Wescott]

Stewart,

Fear not. I went through this with Sam some time back on the Diemschitz/Diemschutz issue. He refused to listen to reason, but after some months went by, he was able to see the error of his ways and apologized for his obstinance. I'm sure he'll come around here as well.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Rob Clack]

Elizabeth Prater in her Inquest statement said "I frequently hear such cries from the back of the lodging house where the windows look into Millers Court". I don't think there's much doubt that Prater was referring to 30 Dorset Street, a four storied building building overlooking the two storied dwellings of Millers Court. Prater didn't say she saw the lodging house from her room but the lights shone on the court.

Sam, there's a Crossingham Lodging House at 8 Whites Row, South side and I think that is the one being reffered to in The Times report.

Rob

[Stewart P Evans]

I Tell You What

Jake,
Our posts crossed, but happily there's not too much overlap in what we said!
PS: I don't want any jokes about "Goading", OK? This is a civilised discussion.

I tell you what Gareth, you and Jake believe just whatever you like. For me the words "...the back of the lodging house where the windows look into Millers Court" sound pretty plain to me.

I do not need the Goad plan pointing out to me, I have had a copy of that since 1994 when Jon Ogan obtained a set during our research. I have also had a copy of the new book for two weeks and am aware of that rendering also. I think I'll stay with the likes of Phil Sugden and the authors of the A-Z who all seem to make the same interpretation that I do.

I think one of the others pointed out that the rear of the lodging house at 30 Dorset Street, just two doors away from Miller's court, would be visible from Prater's room above Kelly's, especially a light shining there. This is a long building which stretches almost as far back as the whole of Miller's Court.

It is one of those cases where there is an impasse and you are not going to change my mind, I simply think that you are wrong, no matter how you argue the semantics of it all. Of course, if you produce rock solid evidence rather than speculation, then that's a different matter.

[Sam Flynn]

Goadonya, Sam, goadonya!

Hadn't thought of that one!

10/10

[Jake L]

Sam,

I too hear the voice of Goad, brother.

I'm beginning to think that they used "front room" not in the traditional sense, but rather meaning "the room that comes first once you go up the stairs". This would have been the room directly above nr 13, methinks.

But that doesn't really explain the lights. There must have been gaps in the wainscotting (<- desperate theorising)

[Tom_Wescott]

Goadonya, Sam, goadonya!

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Pursuant to Jake's and Sam's posts, exactly whom other than Elizabeth and Mary do we know was registered there? Was that floor.. at that time, hers alone? Maybe connected rooms with doors one could leave open if the room was unrented? The plot thickens....

Best regards.

[Sam Flynn]

Jake,

Our posts crossed, but happily there's not too much overlap in what we said!

PS: I don't want any jokes about "Goading", OK? This is a civilised discussion.

[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?

[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?

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.

[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

[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!

[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