2nd Sep 1888 - A Series of Murders & Meeting Annie Chapman
8.41pm
Good evening from Whitechapel. It's Sunday night, September 2nd 1888 and the only talk this weekend has been of the murder.
On Thursday night in a thunder storm beneath a red sky lit by a dock fire, Polly Nichols went out looking for business. knifed, her throat and body ripped in a shocking manner. Her body was found - still warm - in Buck's Row. Here is a fairly accurate image of the scene.
It's not even 4 weeks since Martha Tabram was found, stabbed 39 times on stairs at George's Yard. Most people are immediately concluding the same mad-man has killed again. The papers are certainly making this assumption. Here you can see that the the murder sites are a merely 12 minutes apart on foot. Both victims were stabbed repeatedly and manically in a manner which was opportunistic and brutal. Friday's was worse though.
But this could in fact be the 3rd attack. A little over 5 months before Martha was killed, another woman was attacked nearby. Annie Millwood was knifed by a stranger in the lower body and legs but escaped with her life, so this attack got no publicity. But to look at this map of the 3 victims, it seems improbably to have 3 knife-maniacs on the loose so close.
Tonight, Sep 2nd 1888, the recent murders are on many people's lips around town, especially in crowded and seedy public houses.
This is the Britannia Public House where we find several people you should meet.
Drinking in the Britannia tonight are Annie Chapman, her lover Edward Stanley, Eliza Cooper and Harry the Hawker.
Edward Stanley is a bricklayer's mate, known as the Pensioner, as is living at 1 Osborn Place, Whitechapel. Stanley looks after Annie Chapman, and often pays for her bed at Crossingham's Lodging House at 35 Dorset Street, Spitalfields. However Stanley also pays for the bed of the afforementioned Eliza Cooper. The two girls therefore are wary of each other. Stanley claims that he is a member of the military - but this is a lie. He returned to Whitechapel yesterday having been away. His nickname comes from his claiming to be an ex-soldier drawing a pension. He sometimes adopts a gentlemanly appearance.
Annie Chapman herself is 5 feet tall, 47 years old, pallid with blue eyes, dark brown wavy hair and excellent teeth. Here is a photo of Annie taken 19 years ago with her late husand, John. Annie's coughs can be heard frequently in the pub due to her suffering tuberculosis. She does not look a well woman.
Harry the Hawker is drunk and rummages his hand around in his pockets for money. Eliza Cooper watches him. Harry puts down a two shilling piece on the table and Eliza choses her moment before palming it in favour of a penny. Annie Chapman sees this and tells Harry of the theft. Eliza leaps to her feet and challenges Annie. The two exchange insults. A fight breaks out and the girls and the man whose affections they compete over does his best to calm things down. Eliza punches Annie in the face, hitting her hard in the left eye, and then again in the chest, leaving a bad bruise. It is not the last time the two girls will come to blows in the following days. Annie's life is not a happy one.
Around the time she had her photograph taken she lived at 29 Montpelier Place, Brompton. Her late husband had been a coachman. They separated a few years ago as they both took to quite heavy drinking which put great strain on the relationahip. Annie's husband earned enough to send her 10 shillings per week by Post Office order until he died on Christmas day 2 years ago. After his death she suffered depression and gave up crochet work and flower-selling and turned to prostitution for money.
Edward Stanley, with whom she now frequents, generally tries to stop her taking other men back to the lodging house. With her face & her pride hurting, we'll leave the Britannia Pub and catch poor Annie another day. Goodnight from Whitechapel.