Why whitechapel murders attracted attention.

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Katharine Brown.

10D

 Why did the Whitechapel Murders attract so much attention in 1888?

In 1888, Whitechapel became a crime scene of the Jack the Ripper murders. There were five violent murders, where five prostitutes aged from 25 to 47 were brutally slaughtered where the murderer named ‘Jack the Ripper’ got away with these murders.  These murders attracted the attention of the public and the press. The reasons for why the ripper murders attracted so much attention are listed below.

   

Whitechapel held more than 200 lodging houses, which could sleep almost 9000 people. Whitechapel was overcrowded and most of the people who lived there were poor. The Metropolitan Police Force estimated that there were 1200 prostitutes in Whitechapel and many more women who took clients from time to time to supplement their weekly earnings. Middle class men entered Whitechapel because of the high percentage of prostitution and were in search of prostitutes. Unemployment was high and there were a lot of pickpockets and riots. Most crimes that happened were all petty crimes therefore the police hadn’t had to deal with such serious crimes until Jack the Ripper. Communication was so basic in those times but news of Jack the Ripper spread world-wide.  

 

 Jack the Ripper became the first serial killer to be known about throughout the whole Britain, this is one reason it attracted so much attention. The police had no idea they were dealing with a serial killer, and would not have known what a serial killer was. Nobody in Whitechapel, or in Britain as a whole, had any idea of what they were dealing with when Polly Nicholls was murdered, the first victim of the Ripper murders.

   

Before the victims of Jack there were earlier attacks on Emma Smith and the murder of Martha Tabram, this led many people to believe that somebody to do with prostitutes was to blame. It appeared that there was a killer on the loose preying on prostitutes. In fact the two crimes were not connected, Emma Smith was simply robbed and Martha Tabram had been the victim of a much more serious and vicious crime. This meant Whitechapel was on edge, throughout the month of august 1888.

In the 1880s many Jews fled from pogroms in Russia and settled in the East End, the Jewish population grew. Many Poles were expelled from Prussia and came to live in the East End as well. The inhabitants of Whitechapel, and of other areas, were at first very suspicious of these newcomer. It was thought that the murderer was from outside of Whitechapel. This also attracted a lot of attention.

Murders were rare in Britain and usually the victim and the killer knew each other. The ripper murders were so violent and cold blooded. The bodies were cut open, throats cut and organs removed.  No one had ever seen or heard about such violent and gruesome attacks so everyone wanted to know more. All the victims were prostitutes; the public became interested by this because maybe there was a motive behind it and reasons for why they were all prostitutes. Prostitutes were scared for their own safety therefore they would have paid a lot of attention to whether Jack the Ripper was caught or not so they could get back to business. The interest grew from the public with each attack this was because of the regular killings and the failure of the police catching him. The wealthy had a lot of sympathy for the poor along with being prostitutes, the richer thought they suffered enough alone with being poor, so this would have made them want to find whether the ripper had been caught.

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Polly Nicholls was the first victim of the five murders. Murdered on the 31.8.1888, her throat was cut from ear to ear and there were several deep cuts to the abdomen. Polly's body was found at 4.00 am by Charles Cross while walking through Buck’s Row in Whitechapel. Doctor Rees Llewellyn arrived at the scene and said that she had not been dead for no longer than thirty minutes. News of Polly Nicholls murder spread quickly through Whitechapel.  When searching her clothes they found a comb, a broken mirror and a handkerchief. No clues where left behind to o ...

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