East End 1888

East End I888 documents in minute detail the social, political, and economic life in the notorious slums of East London during the reign of Queen Victoria. The setting for Jack the Ripper's atrocities, East End was synonymous with crime, filth, disease, and the dregs of humanity. W. J. Fishman focuses on a single year, one century ago and one century after the storming of the Bastille. Poignant accounts of homeless families choosing starvation rather than submitting to the inhumanity and separation of the workhouse are contrasted with lively reports of entertainment in music halls and "penny gaffs" or freak shows, where Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man, was discovered. Providing numerous excerpts from contemporary newspapers, police records, workhouse journals, novels, medical reports, church sermons, and political debates, Fishman illuminates a slice of life in Victorian England. Author note: William J. Fishman is Professor of Political Studies at Queen Mary College, University of London.

'East End 1888' reveals genuine Victorian values - poverty, crime, disease and the workhouse, softened by the clubs, pubs and communal life that made life possible for the working poor.

In 1888, Whitechapel - at the heart of the inner East End - was the most (in)famous place in the country, widely imagined as a site of the blackest and deepest horror. Its streets and alleys were seen as violent and dangerous, overflowing with poverty and depravity. This book aims to uncover the reality of East End life. Sections look at slum housing, immigration, attitudes to women, poverty, violence and crime. The book examines how the brutal killings were reported and how the police tried to identify the murderer. A final section shows how Jack the Ripper has shaped our vision of London, and influenced our popular culture. Jack the Ripper and the East End coincides with an exhibition organised by the Museum of London at their Museum in Docklands. Key surviving documents from the National Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives will be on display - in addition to material from the collections of the Museum of London such as photographs of the Whitechapel Mission. The illustrations for the book will include rare and unpublished photographs, sections of the 'master' Booth Map of Poverty, detectives' reports and original letters. The introduction will be written by Peter Ackroyd, who is the acknowledged expert on London, its darker aspects and how its history has seeped into its very stones. Leading historians and curators will provide additional insights. This is a book which will be valued for years to come for its enduring and important portrait of the Victorian East End.

Before Jack the Ripper, there was Whitechapel. Located in the East End of London. The East End was London’s dark, dirty secret that people knew about, but was never discuss. Whitechapel was the home for the slums, the poor, filthy conditions, and disease. The life expectancy was 30. One square mile for 180,000 residents. Within this dangerous square mile were 5 women that walked these dark streets without hesitation for their safety. Take a journey with a young woman from Bath England to these very slums. Where vice and murder is an everyday occurrence. Travel with her to the 10 Bells Pub, the Britannia, Christ First Church, the London, and the Turkish Baths on Commercial St. Where on these dangerous streets she makes friends with these 5 women who history will remember as the Jack the Ripper victims. Polly, Annie, Lizabeth, Catherine, and Mary Jane Kelly who befriends Velvet as she rents a room at Miller’s Ct #22. While in Whitechapel she will have an encounter with Edmund Reid from H Division, who months later will be in charge of the Ripper case. Driven by torment, and guilt while staying in Whitechapel. And why the incident is always calling her.

The Streets of East Londonis an illustrated guide to the most vibrant area of London. For 25 years this has been a classic text, and steady seller in many London shops. Suitable for tourists, historians, and anyone interested in the history of London.The Streets of East Londontalks about the East End, from the Huguenots of the seventeenth century to the Bangladeshis of today. William (Bill) Fishman talks about the area’s poverty and attempts to relieve it, the successive waves of immigration, crime (including Jack the Ripper and the Krays), the radical movement, and ends with suggested walking tours.The Streets of East Londonis crammed with historic photographs, and more recent images by Nicholas Breach.

In 1888 Jack the Ripper made the headlines with a series of horrific murders that remain unsolved to this day. But most killers are not shadowy figures stalking the streets with a lust for blood. Many are ordinary citizens driven to the ultimate crime by circumstance, a fit of anger or a desire for revenge. Their crimes, overshadowed by the few, sensational cases, are ignored, forgotten or written off. This book examines all the known murders in London in 1888 to build a picture of society. Who were the victims? How did they live, and how did they die? Why did a husband batter his wife to death after she failed to get him a cup of tea? How many died under the wheels of a horse-driven cab? Just how dangerous was London in 1888?

East End Jewish Radicals is essential reading for anyone interested in Victorian and Edwardian London or the history of the Jewish community in Lond, labour history and the history of immigration to this country.

Stewart Evans is a policeman whose hobby is collecting true crime ephemera. When a second hand bookseller rang to ask him if he would be interested in a collection of letters from the Special Branch, he had no idea of the sensational revelation they would contain. One of these letters supplied an astonishing piece of infomation not contained in the decimated Scotland Yard files. The police had actually arrested and charged an American with the Ripper murders, but he escaped and disappeared in America. The Ripper murders ceased. The book reveals for the first time the identity of Jack the Ripper.