Jack the Ripper - The Murders

Victim # 1 - Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols

Polly Nichols (nee Walker) was an old looking woman at the time of her murder. She was only 42 but her hard drinking and years of living in poverty plus the prostitution she took to simply to earn a pittance for her lodgings and, of course, her heavy drinking had taken it's toll. From the photo of her in her coffin; to me she looks 65 - 70 .She was certainly not an attractive woman, being only 5ft 2inches tall with a dumpy figure and missing 5 of her front teeth. She probably only charged a few pence for her services - which would have been on the street or in an alleyway. Her awful way of life, though, no excuse for her terrible murder.

Polly had been married for 22 years at the time of her murder but separated from her husband, William, 7 or 8 years prior. She had 5 children with the ages ranging from 21 down to the youngest 8. The separation from William had been caused due to him running off with the midwife who attended Polly on the birth of her last child. William cared for his & Polly's 4 older children and the youngest lived with Polly's Father - Edward Walker. Four years previously she had abandoned her youngest child in the care of her Father and adopted a hard drinking itinerant life style firstly in the Lambeth/Walworth area (south of the River Thames) and subsequently in the Whitechapel and Spitafields areas. Her family had not seen her for 2 years but her Father had received an occassional letter.

It is known Polly had lived in a common lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street for some 6 weeks in the period July and early August. It is believed that Polly, like many "East Enders" had gone to Kent for about 3 weeks in August to work at hop picking. Something of a working holiday.

Her (Thrawl St) Landlady testified at the inquest she had seen Polly an hour or so prior to the murder in nearby (to Bucks Row) Osborne Street. Polly was clearly very much the worse for drink. She was not seen alive again.

Bucks Row with the left picture showing the murder spot. The right picture shows the building next to the houses being a development sometime afterward.

The large building is the "Board School" often referred to. The building is still there in 2009.(In the 1700s' Bucks Row was named Ducking Pond Row)

PC John Neil who was carrying out his usual patrol of the area when he came across Polly's body at 3:45am. What Neil was unaware of at the time was a few minutes earlier,Charles Cross a horse & cart driver (known as a Carman) discovered Polly's body lying in Buck's Row. Cross was on his way to work. Immediately after another Driver, Robert Paul, came up out of the gloom to join Neil. They were not 100% sure she was dead and they hurried off and found PC Mizen in Hanbury Street. By the time these three returned PC Neil had discovered Polly and he had alerted another patrolling Constable; PC Thain.

Neil examined the body laying on her back, clothing disarranged, in the entranceway of the stable yard. Seeing blood oozing from a throat wound with her eyes fixed open she was clearly dead, although still warm. PC Thain went off and fetched a Doctor (Dr Llewellyn) who ordered her body to be taken to the rudimentary mortuary more commonly called a deadhouse. This building or shed was in Pavilion Yard accessed from next to the Old Montague Street workhouse - just 300 yards away to the west, on the other side of Valance Road.

Author's Note: I attended the Davenant Foundation Grammar School which was situated between Old Montague Street & Whitechapel Road, bordering into Davenant Street to the west. I recall (in 1956) our Biology Teacher telling us new boys the Biology Laboratory/Classroom was on the site of the Mortuary Shed in what was Pavilion Yard (i 1888) where the first Jack the Ripper Victim was taken. That site was re-developed in the 1890's to allow expansion of the school. The Pavilion theatre fronted Whitechapel Road & it is seen in one of the photos shown on the "Whitechapel" page in this article. An un-related point of interest is the playground which formed part of the expansion covered a large (Black) Plague Pit. In about 1959 the truck taking fuel to the school boiler house took a short cut across the playground & literally sank into the Plague Pit when the surface gave way. Great excitement as our Biology Teacher lifted out some old bones.

Polly's Injuries.

Upon delivery of her body to Old Montague Street a Policeman, Inspector Spratling, came to view the victim with a view to writing down her description. Examining Polly's clothing he discovered she had been dis-embowelled. The wound was not previously been seen by Dr Henry Llewellyn on his cursory examination in the poor light of pre-dawn Bucs Row; nor by the mortuary attendants who moved the body.

Polly's face showed signs of bruising on her cheeks, likely from her face being gripped. Her throat had suffered two deep cuts which came close to severing her head. The spinal vertebrae was not severed. A third large incision (8 inches) had cut the arteries and veins on both sides of her neck. Her abdomen was opened from the sternum downwards to the pelvis. There were several cuts across the stomach. This wounding obviously caused the dis-embowelling. Stabbing has taken place to her vaginal area.

An inquest was commenced on on Saturday 1st September, continued on 3rd September and concluded after hearings on the 17th & 22nd at the Whitechapel Working Lad's Institute. This rather imposing building adjoined Whitechapel Station to the east. This building still exists virtually unchanged, except for the usage. Shortly afterwards a second inquest into the Whitechapel Murders began - that of Annie Chapman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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