History Sources Question : Murder in the East End
History Sources Question : Murder in the East End
Question 1. Study Source A
What can you learn from source A about the murder of Polly Nicholls?
There is not much that we can infer from source A. It tells us that Polly Nicholls was a prostitute and that her murder was not the first killing of a prostitute in the East End. We also find out that she was very poor as stated in the extract, 'poorest of the poor'.
Source A also informs us of the scale of the shock throughout London after the murder of Polly Nicholls and also Martha Tabram. This widespread shock tells us that these murders were probably the first of their kind in city like London.
In source A, surprise is expressed because the murders seemed very irrational because there was no apparent motive especially one connected to money ('in the shape of plunder').
Although there are things that we can learn from source A of the murder of Polly Nicholls, it does have its limitations. It is part of a newspaper article taken from the East End Observer, this means that it would have been sensationalised in order to sell, so the journalists would have written material that would appeal to the consumer public.
Question 2. Study sources A, B and C
Does the evidence of source C support the evidence of source A and B about the Ripper murders? Explain your answers.
Source C bears a greater resemblance to source B than it does to source A. This is because sources B and C are both official reports, C being written by the Coroner and B by Dr. Frederick Blackwell, their purpose is simply to state the facts of the murders. Source A, however is part of a newspaper article and this means that its motive is completely different. It has been written to sell and it has been sensationalised in order to appeal to the buying public.
Also, the authors of sources B and C had seen the bodies of the victims, whereas the reporter that wrote source A had probably not seen the body of Polly Nicholls (or Martha Tabram).
Although source C bears is most similar to B, there are some differences between C and B. The author of source B refers to the apparent skill of the murderer. Whereas I know that the author of source C, Dr Blackwell, had said that the murderer had no real skill. Although one could speculate that this was to keep doctors from coming under suspicion.
Even though source C is less similar to source A it still does support it a bit; the two sources are written of the same murders.
Question 3. Study Sources D and E
How useful are Sources D and E in helping you to understand why the Ripper was able to avoid capture?
Sources D and E are quite useful in helping us to understand why the Ripper was able to avoid being caught. Even so, they do have their limitations.
Source D shows the quality of some of the evidence that police received. ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
Even though source C is less similar to source A it still does support it a bit; the two sources are written of the same murders.
Question 3. Study Sources D and E
How useful are Sources D and E in helping you to understand why the Ripper was able to avoid capture?
Sources D and E are quite useful in helping us to understand why the Ripper was able to avoid being caught. Even so, they do have their limitations.
Source D shows the quality of some of the evidence that police received. It is an eyewitness account from a woman called Elizabeth Long, describing the man that she had seen talking to Annie Chapman before she was killed. Longs account is very vague, using obscure phrases like 'I cannot be sure', 'as far as I could tell' and 'as well as I could make out'.
The police were very dependent on eyewitness accounts because of their lack of technology. Accounts like source A made it very difficult for the police to piece together an accurate picture of the Ripper. They received thousands of accounts, like that of Elizabeth Long, many of which contradicted each other. This would definitely have made it easier for the Ripper to elude them.
Even though Source D is useful, there are limitations to its utility, it is only one account out of thousands and it may not be that the majority of the accounts were like this, a lot of them could have been a lot more specific and helpful to the police.
Source E is part of an article published in a local newspaper, immediately we have a limitation, it is only part of an article, therefore it may have been taken out of context. Also, the fact that it has been written for a newspaper means that it has been sensationalised in order to sell to the public.
In spite of this, it is still useful in the way that it shows us that the press was very critical of the police and the press' opinion, of course, got through to the public and stirred them up. The police needed to the public to give them eyewitness accounts and if the public had lost faith in the police force then it was unlikely that they would submit information to them.
Source E also briefly describes the nature of Whitechapel, the 'narrow, dark and crooked lanes'. This is the maze in which the police had to search out the Ripper. It would have proved very difficult to catch a criminal who operated in narrow, dark alleys of 19th century Whitechapel.
Question 4. Study Sources F and G.
Use sources F and G and your own knowledge, to explain how the police tried to catch the Ripper.
The police, at the time of the Ripper murders, lacked even basic forensic knowledge. This meant that they relied heavily on other methods to try and catch the Ripper. The only way that they could catch the killer and convict him was to have an eyewitness, in particular a police eyewitness.
Source F is a police leaflet that was published after the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Kate Eddowes, asking for any information regarding suspicious persons. Whitechapel in the late 19th century had a very transient population, there were many foreign immigrants coming in from all over the place and then leaving again, this meant that the police relied on locals to give them information on the people that passed through.
Source G is part of the letter from the Home Secretary to the Mile End Vigilance Committee explaining why the police were not offering rewards for information on the Ripper. Many did not understand why the police were not offering a reward and so the letter was sent out to justify the actions of the police. By not offering a reward, the police were reducing the amount of false or irrelevant information that they would receive, making their job easier.
The police tried many ways to try and increase their chances of catching the Ripper; for example there was the invention on the 'Sneaker'. This was just a rubber sole attached to the bottoms of their noisy work-boots to try and reduce to noise, making it easier for them to sneak up on the Ripper.
They also increased the manpower on the streets with up to 15,000 more officers being put onto the 'beat'.
Question 5. Study all the Sources
'The police were to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper'
Use all the sources and your own knowledge to explain whether you agree with this view.
At the time of the Ripper murders the police were heavily criticised for not capturing the murderer, public faith in them declined dramatically. The people then did not know what we know now about police methods, and there have been many advances in policing since the late 19th century, and many now hold a different view to the public of the time.
The police that were responsible for the investigation into the Ripper murders did many things to try and increase their chances of finding the murderer. They had doctors carry out thorough autopsies on each of the victims to try and establish connections between each killing, reports were produced, like those of the Coroner in source B and Frederick Blackwell in source C.
They also took photos of the crime scene to enable them to study it for as long as they wanted afterwards, photos such as the one shown in source J.
15,000 officers were put onto the streets after the beginning of the Ripper murders and the officers invented the 'Sneaker' to cut out the noise of their heavy policemens boots, so as not to scare off the killer if they ever got close.
Another thing that the police did to try and catch the Ripper was hand out leaflets, like that in source F and carry out an extensive door-to-door investigation to try and obtain information from people living in the Whitechapel and they did make use of the material that they collected as they interrogated over 80 suspects.
Asides from the things that they did to try and catch the Ripper, there were things that were beyond their control that made it difficult for them to catch him.
Whitechapel consisted of dark and dank, narrow alleyways and back streets and shady corners as described in source E and shown in source I. This was the sort of environment in which the police had to search out the killer, this would prove difficult for a modern police force let alone one with limited technology and scant night-lighting.
The police had limited technology, which affected them especially in the forensics department as they could not determine the killers blood from the victims or pick up things like hairs or bits of skin from the killer. Source H gives us some insight into their lack of technology, they could not find the slightest clue in the mess that the Ripper left. If the same scene was being investigated by modern police, they would probably find many things left behind by the Ripper.
Whitechapel had a very transient population, there were many foreigners coming in and out making hard to keep track of the people staying in the area who were potential suspects.
They received thousands of eye-witness accounts, which they were dependent on. But many contradicted each other or were very vague like the account in source D.
In the majority of murder cases, the victim was killed by someone that he or she knew. The women murdered in the Ripper murders were prostitutes, and prostitutes led irregular lives, having many casual contacts. This meant that it was near impossible for the police to investigate everyone that the prostitutes knew.
The public put great pressure on the police forcing them to look for foreign stereotypes, which may have put them off the scent of the real culprit.
Even though there were many factors going against the police force and even though there were things that they did to increase their chances of catching the Ripper, they are partly responsible for not catching the Ripper as they did not as thorough a job as they could have.
First of all, they failed to make proper use of the crime scenes, even though they took pictures, they moved the body and other things first meaning that even the pictures were not an accurate account.
The heads of the two police forces, City of London and Metropolitan, did not particularly like each other and this meant that the two police forces did not share information, which may have helped the other side. This is demonstrated in source F, anyone with information is directed to contact the nearest Metropolitan police station rather than any of the two.
The police also did not offer a reward for information, which would have encouraged people to come to the police although it may be argued that offering a reward would do more harm than good, as mentioned in source G.
In many ways the force also neglected the area of Whitechapel before the murders began to get serious, they did not concentrate sufficient resources in the area killings, if they had there the Ripper may never have gotten the chance to murder his victims.
With everything considered I think that the police were only partially at fault. Even though they did not carry out the most thorough investigation that they could have or do enough to prevent the murders, there were many things going against them especially that it was the first investigation of its kind as there had never been sexually-motivated serial killings in a modern city prior to the Ripper murders and so they were not quite sure of how to handle it.
