A Petticoat Parley: Women in Ripperology

[drstrange169]

>>Does Kate Eddowes need to have been a writer of ballads to deserve our sympathy?<<

Good post Gary, I agree whole heartedly.

[MrBarnett]

Where did Lesley Garratt get this idea from?

“Despite seemingly having nothing in common with her character, during intensive research Lesley discovered that in fact Catherine was a gifted songwriter who loved to sing her heart out at ribald taverns - and her favourite singing was operatic in style.”

[MrBarnett]

Does Kate Eddowes need to have been a writer of ballads to deserve our sympathy?

She drank to excess, she stole from her employers, she ran away from her anti-Irish Wolverhampton family with an Irishman and took to a tramping lifestyle. As a result of her poor life choices her kids gained experience of the workhouse and prison. Despite their being so poor that John Kelly had to pawn his boots to pay for food, she managed to get roaring drunk and was anxious to be released from a relatively comfortable - certainly safer - cell in Bishopsgate nick to return to the area where she had been arrested for drunkenness. There’s some confusion over whether she did actually spend a night away from Kelly in the Mile End casual ward. If she did, then she was kicked out early for some reason. Sugar-coating all of this and turning her into a sweet-voiced talented musical composer on no factual basis is to do her a disservice in my book. Even though she caused all sorts of grief for her family, she did not deserve to die in the way she did.

The impression you get from The Five is that Kate was an exceptional, talented woman who consequently deserves more of our sympathy than if she had been a lesser mortal. Starting from a contemporary comment that Tom Conway hawked pamphlets of some kind, HR creates a fantasy where he and Kate are co-writers of ballads and drops a rather unsubtle hint that Kate was the lyricist behind the Charles Robinson gallows ballad. She tells us the ballad is:

‘... believed to be linked to the pens of Thomas Conway and Kate Eddowes.’

And in support of that she says:

‘The perspective of the ballad is interesting. While many authors would probably have written a dramatic account of the killing, or shaped the events into a tale of murderous love, the lyrics instead paint Robinson as a remorseful figure, worthy of pity.’

That Conway ever wrote ballads is doubtful. HR takes it a step further by suggesting that Kate was the author of the Robinson ballad. The tone is just too personal and remorseful she suggests. The fact is that the tone and many of the actual words were traditional. Was HR unaware of this? Let’s be charitable and say she probably was. Her being a poor historian/researcher is better than the alternative - an author who knowingly misleads her readership. But however it arose, the fantasy is out there disguised as fact:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.e...ey-garrett/amp

Kate deserves better. If you go along with HR’s thinking, the real flesh and blood Catherine Eddowes wasn’t an interesting enough individual to deserve to be written about.

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/the-...d-a-warning-be

[Losmandris]

Oh and just on this. I have no doubt that a certain person is popping onto this site to keep up to date with all that is being said about her and the book.

So with that in mind, I just wanted to say hi! Nothing personal just please play nice and give respect where respect is due!

[Losmandris]

No, this is totally pertinent to the subject. Instead of welcoming conversation from other feminists within and outside of the field, HR is trying to silence them and other critics so that her theories are the only ones that count. She has been hustling like crazy ever since this book came out, and I’m sure she knows that she could stand to make a lot of money from this. So she’s trying to make herself the High Priestess of Ripperology—not only for the money, but for the ego trip. But she’s really the Phyllis Schlafly of Ripperology.

Of course, these are only my perceptions and opinions based on what I have seen of her behavior.

I suspect you are right. She will probably completely disappear the second the cracks start to appear. Just like any good seller of snake oil!

[Losmandris]

I recall that one of her book signings was in a ‘romance’ book shop in LA. Behind the counter was a life-sized carving of a bare-chested native American man. Sexist? Racist? No, good publicity for the book which had been advertised as being about ‘Jack tbe Ripper’s Women’.

Unbelievable!

[Linotte]

Of course, this is all a distraction from a discussion of her feminist integrity. Sorry.

No, this is totally pertinent to the subject. Instead of welcoming conversation from other feminists within and outside of the field, HR is trying to silence them and other critics so that her theories are the only ones that count. She has been hustling like crazy ever since this book came out, and I’m sure she knows that she could stand to make a lot of money from this. So she’s trying to make herself the High Priestess of Ripperology—not only for the money, but for the ego trip. But she’s really the Phyllis Schlafly of Ripperology.

Of course, these are only my perceptions and opinions based on what I have seen of her behavior.

[MrBarnett]

I think this was the LA book store in which it was deemed appropriate to promote The Five.

‘Ripped Bodice’? What does that suggest - consensual sex?

And how does this privileged environment gel with the harsh realities of the Victorian East End?

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.racked.com/platform/amp/2016/4/11/11345866/romance-novel-bookstore-the-ripped-bodice-california

[MrBarnett]

No as far as her loyal followers are concerned. They are just lapping it up. Because A 'its a good story' and B it fits in with their white middle class modern perspectives.

I recall that one of her book signings was in a ‘romance’ book shop in LA. Behind the counter was a life-sized carving of a bare-chested native American man. Sexist? Racist? No, good publicity for the book which had been advertised as being about ‘Jack tbe Ripper’s Women’.

[Losmandris]

There are numerous examples of this kind of thing which in my opinion damage the author’s credibility. Those who raised them were immediately blocked on Twitter, leaving only Trevor with his jokes about lawnmowers and dildos to represent Ripperology.

No as far as her loyal followers are concerned. They are just lapping it up. Because A 'its a good story' and B it fits in with their white middle class modern perspectives.

[MrBarnett]

Of course, this is all a distraction from a discussion of her feminist integrity. Sorry.

[MrBarnett]

She claimed Charles Dickens was a shoe black…

So she seems to be a little bit shaky about what was probably London’s most significant historical event (the fire) and about the life of its most famous author.

An ‘historian’? Really?

[MrBarnett]

As the saying goes 'What are a few facts to get in the way of a good story?'

There are numerous examples of this kind of thing which in my opinion damage the author’s credibility. Those who raised them were immediately blocked on Twitter, leaving only Trevor with his jokes about lawnmowers and dildos to represent Ripperology.

[Losmandris]

Facts are distorted or omitted to support the narrative. One classic example is this (from JTRForums):


Hallie tells us:

“An 1844 inquiry undertaken into the state of housing in populous London districts found that buildings situated in enclosed courts and narrow alleys, like the one in which the Walkers lived, ‘were some of the ‘worst conditioned ... badly ventilated and filthy ... in the entire neighbourhood.’ Most families shared one room, the average size of which ‘measured from 8 to 10 feet, by 8 feet, and from 6 to 8 feet from floor to ceiling.’ (5) Into these compact rooms were pushed entire families. Dawes Court, which had once been a large timber-framed and plaster house had been subdivided into three separate dwellings, before being apportioned once more into individually rented rooms, inhabited by no fewer than forty-five individuals.

(5) First Report of the Commissioners for Inquiring Into the State of Large Towns and Populous Districts, vol. 1 (London, 1844), pp. 111-13”


If you look at the source cited, you’ll see that HR’s methodology of leaving out the inconvenient bits is employed yet again. The report actually says, ‘Each room measure[sic] from 8 to 10 feet by 8, and from 6 to 8 feet from the floor to the ceiling, in the neighbourhood of Field Lane.

Field Lane was on the other side of Holborn, in an area that had not been consumed by fire in 1666 and therefore contained many pre-fire timber-framed and plastered houses.

Hallie presumably couldn’t find a source which supported her claim that Polly had been born in a ‘cramped old room’, so she used a quote about rooms in another area of London and left out the street name.

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/vict...53-dawes-court

As the saying goes 'What are a few facts to get in the way of a good story?'

[MrBarnett]

She is just making things up to fit the story. With all the added fiction I am sure it is pretty convincing to the lay person. As you mention her academic credentials do not apply her but again they are just enough to convince her followers she is an expert. Other academics in the field should know better. However I am sure they are scared of the backlash that would inevitably come if they challenged her. Therefore they are willing to let it go. Its not like she is challenging some great historical event (though I am sure a lot of here would disagree maybe?).

Facts are distorted or omitted to support the narrative. One classic example is this (from JTRForums):


Hallie tells us:

“An 1844 inquiry undertaken into the state of housing in populous London districts found that buildings situated in enclosed courts and narrow alleys, like the one in which the Walkers lived, ‘were some of the ‘worst conditioned ... badly ventilated and filthy ... in the entire neighbourhood.’ Most families shared one room, the average size of which ‘measured from 8 to 10 feet, by 8 feet, and from 6 to 8 feet from floor to ceiling.’ (5) Into these compact rooms were pushed entire families. Dawes Court, which had once been a large timber-framed and plaster house had been subdivided into three separate dwellings, before being apportioned once more into individually rented rooms, inhabited by no fewer than forty-five individuals.

(5) First Report of the Commissioners for Inquiring Into the State of Large Towns and Populous Districts, vol. 1 (London, 1844), pp. 111-13”


If you look at the source cited, you’ll see that HR’s methodology of leaving out the inconvenient bits is employed yet again. The report actually says, ‘Each room measure[sic] from 8 to 10 feet by 8, and from 6 to 8 feet from the floor to the ceiling, in the neighbourhood of Field Lane.

Field Lane was on the other side of Holborn, in an area that had not been consumed by fire in 1666 and therefore contained many pre-fire timber-framed and plastered houses.

Hallie presumably couldn’t find a source which supported her claim that Polly had been born in a ‘cramped old room’, so she used a quote about rooms in another area of London and left out the street name.

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/victoriana/1888/places-aa/31853-dawes-court