I have just emerged from Tower Hill station into the gloom of a February evening. At the station entrance a crowd bunches around a man on a stool, hanging on his every word. I approach a woman hovering at the fringe. “What’s happening?” The man on the stool glares straight at me. “We’re here to follow the bloody footsteps of Jack the Ripper. Care to join us?”
Between August and November 1888, five brutal murders disturbed the Whitechapel area. The victims, who were prostitutes, were horribly mutilated. The killer, dubbed Jack the Ripper, was never found. A media sensation at the time, the killings continue to fascinate. Novelists and historians have come up with over 100 possible suspects, including the artist Walter Sickert and Queen Victoria's son the Duke of Clarence. Every night, numerous Jack the Ripper walking tours tread the murderer’s slashing ground, trying to unlock the truth behind the crimes. The one I have joined is led by Donald Rumbelow, ex-police officer, crime historian and a leading authority on Jack the Ripper, who has been doing guided tours with London Walks for 16 years.
Rumbelow leaps off his little plastic stool and picks up his wheely shopping trolley, the kind favoured by old women. “It’s not full of body parts – I’ve got copies of my book in it.” Thirty people follow behind: a young couple on a birthday treat, teachers on half-term holiday, Americans, Poles, an unruly group of children.
Our first halt is under a fragment of the ancient wall encircling the square mile. Here Rumbelow describes the victims. “They were not glamorous, as shown in Johnny Depp’s From Hell. Most were women in their forties, living on the streets. Their faces were puffy from gin. These women cost two pence, less than the price of half a pound of cheese. The first victim, Mary Ann Nichols, had five front teeth missing, yet was convinced her new hat would attract enough money for a bed for the night.”
From there we plunge into the heart of the City of London, stopping at St Botolph’s of Aldgate, a brick church tipped with a spire. Now overshadowed by the Gherkin, the church, in the 19th century, was a prostitute’s roundabout. Rumbelow comments: “If they stood still, prostitutes could be accused of soliciting, so they walked round the church until a customer approached and led them down a dark alley. Catherine Eddowes, the fourth victim, was imitating a fire engine here on the night she died.” This raises a laugh; stilled when Donald leads us down our own dark alley into Mitre Square, where Eddowes was found.
The square is dark, scarcely illuminated by a fitful streetlamp, although only the cobbles are original. As the guide begins, in his measured yet dramatic way, to describe Eddowes’s death, I imagine the returning salesman who bumps his cart into something soft, huddled in the entrance of his yard. By a flickering candle he sees the body of a woman with her face slashed, her throat cut down to her spine, her internal organs thrown over her shoulder.
Tatiana, part of the young couple, grabs my arm: “I have to walk through Whitechapel at 6am, tomorrow; I’ll be terrified.”
Crossing Middlesex Street, we reach the East End, where three of the women were killed. Here some of the houses, made from yellowish brick, four stories high, date from 1666.
Ann Chapman, the second victim, was murdered among these terraces. Standing in the middle of Spitalfield’s Market, where she met the Ripper, I glimpse a shortish man in a wide-brimmed black hat and long black overcoat, carrying a brown bag. He matches the description of the murderer Rumbelow has given us. I experience a genuine frisson of fear.
Just as Rumbelow is about to describe Ann Chapman’s death, the children begin giggling. One of the teachers suddenly explodes: “Could someone control these kids? I’ve been looking forward to this tour for months.” Donald looked bemused, “Where was I?” he says. Then thick black eyebrows unfurrow and he repeats the last two minutes of his account, verbatim, as if someone had rewound him, and pressed play. The atmosphere changes, details become less vivid. His description of Chapman’s death: “She was ripped from vagina to breast bone, her insides were thrown over her shoulder,” becomes formulaic. I notice my wet feet and the fact that I am freezing.
Even the last death, that of Mary Kelly, who was murdered and mutilated in her bed in Dorset Row, “the worst street in London,” fails to shock. Perhaps because there is nothing to see but for a multi-story car park.
Next to us, in another tour, a figure posturing in a long ragged coat and flat cap wields a photograph of Mary Kelly’s mutilated body. Rumbelow describes them as: “Charlatans, who ignore the real history of East London life.” Their tour may be less historically accurate, but it certainly seems more fun.
Fact box: Jack the Ripper’s Victims
Victim 1. Mary Ann Nichols, 45. Killed August 31 on Buck’s Row. Disembowelled.
Victim 2. Anne Chapman, 45. Killed September 8 on Hanbury Street. Uterus removed
Victim 3. Elizabeth Stride, 44. Killed September 30, in Duffield's Yard, Berner Street. Throat cut.
Victim 4. Catherine Eddowes, 46. Killed September 30 in Mitre Square. Uterus and left kidney removed, cheeks torn.
Victim 4. Catherine Eddowes, 46. Killed September 30 in Mitre Square. Uterus and left kidney removed, cheeks torn.
Victim 5. Mary Kelly, 25. Killed November 9 on Dorset Street. Entire body mutilated;
heart removed.
heart removed.
